Let me do an express post in 5 min.. Hmm, not possible. Nvm, I'll read less tonight then and do speed reading tmr.
2 dance performances in a row. Watched I mean. 1st was cos Adeline was performing. She's really good, so are some of the ballet girls. 2nd was Peru Negro, folk music of the blacks. They should have told me that knowing Spanish is a prerequisite for the concert, they talked in Spanish, sang in Spanish.. I just thought listening to Spanish songs felt like listening to Malay. Sometimes I'll be switching through the radio channels and land on a spanish channel, and it'll feel like I'm in Malaysia or sth and landed on a Malay channel. Are the tunes similar? Or is it just the language?
Anyway, Peru Negro. Somehow it didn't feel high class. I know it's supposed to be folk and as traditional as possible, but so was Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, and those are so elegant. So is any chinese orchestra. Is it the skin colour that's making the difference, the performance skills? Or are we just more acceptive of European culture? The content was well, very traditional, courting dances, religious dances, and competition between the sexes. Oh they wore masks during the religious dance, and it looked very similar to the Javanese or is it Balinese religious masks.. why am I making so many connections to SEA? I can't remember what I felt about Chinese dances, so I don't know what is it that's making these dances seem less worthy of the place than it should. Mummy always say that there are some things that just won't be fit for high class places, like erm, char kway teow and hokkien mee. They'll always remain as hawker centre food while Cantonese dishes can enter elegant restaurants. Dim sum used to be roadside food and look how popular they are now in restaurants. I don't know if I agree with her. We did go to a proper restaurant in NYC to eat prata and ice kachang..
Growing fat rapidly, getting cut by numerous things including a paper, a file, a plastic container, a wooden table. How is that possible I don't know. But I have enough cuts on my hands. And I'm not suicidal.
Disproportionally spent time. Spent 2 days studying for Biochem midterm, result was a lot better than what I expected, I like the way they give credit for my rubbish. Spent forever on a Hum essay, and probably wouldn't do half as well as I did for my biochem. Choi, that would be a C again. Cannot cannot.
I need more credits.. This enrollment thing is too sad.
Monday, 27 February 2006
Saturday, 25 February 2006
Thursday, 23 February 2006
美国人做事就是不一样。One of my suitemates, A, was in the shower just now and another suitemate B went to the toilet and turned off the light. Whether she did it on purpose is not clear, we'll just assume that she's blur and somehow didn't hear the water running. So poor A has to shower in the darkness until someone else went into the toilet and found her in the dark. What would you do if you were A? I would, firstly, yell at B when she turned off the light. Then if B doesn't hear me, then too bad for me, and I'll just let the matter rest. Well after A got out of the shower, she went to B's room and said
"I know you're trying to save electricity, but can you please leave the light on next time someone's in the shower?"
Touche! 1 for A and none for B. The whole suite doesn't like B anyway.
Had a lecture by this professor in the Chem dept. His research is really amazing, not his results or the things that he's working on, but where his work brings him. He's studying the environment, global warming, ozone hole and stuff. Anyway, he built a rocket and launched it to collect a tube of air from the edge of the atmosphere, a hundred km above the surface of earth. Then he went to Antartica, to the geographic South pole, and collected slabs of ice from there. He also went to the tropical rainforests of South America to collect.. hmm.. I forgot what he was collecting. To top that off, he has a piece of a meteorite from Mars. And he's in the midst of writing a proposal to NASA to let him build a rocket to go to Mars to collect something from Mars. Amazing right? I forgot his name though haha. But can google it out some time.
Some things to ponder over:
"The dreadful but quiet war of organic beings, going [on] in peaceful woods & smiling fields" ~Darwin, on struggle for existence
Layered explanation
Observation: A pot of water is boiling
Explanation:
Layer 1- Molecules gained kinetic energy from heat from fire
Layer 2- I turned the fire on
Layer 3- I wanted some tea
Observation: Emergence of complex structures in organisms, such as brain or well-adapted features
Explanation:
Layer 1- Organisms need it
Layer 2- Evolution by mutations followed by natural selection
Layer 3- Divine meant for it to be this way, ie intelligent design
Moral of story: Evolution and Intelligent design are not mutually exclusive, they're just looking at things from different levels. An integrating view will be that the divine gives self-creating capabilities to the world.
The above are not my views. My stand still hasn't changed.
If every time something happens, entropy has to increase, why did organisation happen at all? Why did atoms become molecules, why did molecules assemble themselves into cells, why did cells gather to become organisms? Did entropy increase?
If you eat 1kg worth of food and go weigh yourself, do you weigh 1kg more? Assuming you didn't poop, where did the mass go to? The only explanation I can think of is that CO2 is heavier than O2 and you lose mass as you breathe.
Loads of questions, no answers.
"I know you're trying to save electricity, but can you please leave the light on next time someone's in the shower?"
Touche! 1 for A and none for B. The whole suite doesn't like B anyway.
Had a lecture by this professor in the Chem dept. His research is really amazing, not his results or the things that he's working on, but where his work brings him. He's studying the environment, global warming, ozone hole and stuff. Anyway, he built a rocket and launched it to collect a tube of air from the edge of the atmosphere, a hundred km above the surface of earth. Then he went to Antartica, to the geographic South pole, and collected slabs of ice from there. He also went to the tropical rainforests of South America to collect.. hmm.. I forgot what he was collecting. To top that off, he has a piece of a meteorite from Mars. And he's in the midst of writing a proposal to NASA to let him build a rocket to go to Mars to collect something from Mars. Amazing right? I forgot his name though haha. But can google it out some time.
Some things to ponder over:
"The dreadful but quiet war of organic beings, going [on] in peaceful woods & smiling fields" ~Darwin, on struggle for existence
Layered explanation
Observation: A pot of water is boiling
Explanation:
Layer 1- Molecules gained kinetic energy from heat from fire
Layer 2- I turned the fire on
Layer 3- I wanted some tea
Observation: Emergence of complex structures in organisms, such as brain or well-adapted features
Explanation:
Layer 1- Organisms need it
Layer 2- Evolution by mutations followed by natural selection
Layer 3- Divine meant for it to be this way, ie intelligent design
Moral of story: Evolution and Intelligent design are not mutually exclusive, they're just looking at things from different levels. An integrating view will be that the divine gives self-creating capabilities to the world.
The above are not my views. My stand still hasn't changed.
If every time something happens, entropy has to increase, why did organisation happen at all? Why did atoms become molecules, why did molecules assemble themselves into cells, why did cells gather to become organisms? Did entropy increase?
If you eat 1kg worth of food and go weigh yourself, do you weigh 1kg more? Assuming you didn't poop, where did the mass go to? The only explanation I can think of is that CO2 is heavier than O2 and you lose mass as you breathe.
Loads of questions, no answers.
Monday, 20 February 2006
Sun halo: A ring around the sun/ moon brings rain or snow. When the sun/ moon has a halo or ring around it, this is due to cirrus clouds in the higher altitudes. Cirrus and cirrostratus clouds typically proceed low pressure systems bearing moisture. These clouds also contain ice crystals which refract the light giving the impression of a ring. Expect a drastic change in the weather within 12 - 24 hours of a sun halo.
http://www.stalkingthewild.com/stw/weather.html
I saw a sun halo the other day and guess what? It rained that night. It's the first time I saw a sun halo and the only reason why I saw it was because we were staring at the sun during sungazing class. But apparently halos are pretty common.
What I want to catch before I go back to Singapore. Perfect sunsets are very common here.. Hope this can be seen.
Green flashes and green rays are rare optical phenomena that occur shortly after sunset or before sunrise, when a green spot is visible for a short period of time above the sun, or a green ray shoots up from the sunset point. It is usually observed from a low altitude where there is an unobstructed view of the horizon, such as on the ocean. Its explanation lies in refraction of light (as in a prism) in the atmosphere and is enhanced by atmospheric layering. Whilst we would expect to see a blue light, the blue is dispersed (this is why the sky is blue) and only the green light remains visible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_flash
Friday, 17 February 2006
Frustrating. Had the most frustrating 25min ever when we're at different frequencies and just not doing anything productive, i couldn't get my question right, my queries couldn't get answered cos of that. This is just not the way I work, I think slooow, I need time to concentrate and think. Makes me seriously wonder if I should just take Caciola next quarter.
Open up girl. You can't be helped unless you let others help you. deja vu, I think I wrote this some time before. Markom was talking about studying for Ochem today and upper div bio classes and I was thinking how comparatively, ochem and biochem are the easiest subjs I'm taking now. Just mug and ace, especially since what to mug is clearer than it can ever be.
Inspiration. My aunt is getting very very inspired by her lunch partner. "Studying is the easiest thing on earth." I've heard that fr alfie before and now it comes up again.
I'm blogging in a really disorganised, haphazard, incomplete, mysterious way. Can't be helped, cos that's how my thoughts are.
Vday. Soiree. This violin girl that's really really good, played Vivaldi's winter and summer, accompanied by Janos and Paivikki and others.. The rest are ok. Vocalists' voices didn't really blend, each had very good voices but well, didn't really blend. After vday got this unexpected reception, champagne and chocolates, wow. Cool. Huge chocolate dipped strawberries. Wish you were here siew, be my date to the concert.
Open up girl. You can't be helped unless you let others help you. deja vu, I think I wrote this some time before. Markom was talking about studying for Ochem today and upper div bio classes and I was thinking how comparatively, ochem and biochem are the easiest subjs I'm taking now. Just mug and ace, especially since what to mug is clearer than it can ever be.
Inspiration. My aunt is getting very very inspired by her lunch partner. "Studying is the easiest thing on earth." I've heard that fr alfie before and now it comes up again.
I'm blogging in a really disorganised, haphazard, incomplete, mysterious way. Can't be helped, cos that's how my thoughts are.
Vday. Soiree. This violin girl that's really really good, played Vivaldi's winter and summer, accompanied by Janos and Paivikki and others.. The rest are ok. Vocalists' voices didn't really blend, each had very good voices but well, didn't really blend. After vday got this unexpected reception, champagne and chocolates, wow. Cool. Huge chocolate dipped strawberries. Wish you were here siew, be my date to the concert.
Thursday, 16 February 2006
Wednesday, 15 February 2006
太厉害了，C+ for my essay. Will the next few be like that too? What if I'm so slow and I won't get what I'm supposed to do till forever? What if it's sth that i just won't get? This is one of those times that I long for a 2-yr syllabus where everything's determined by 1 final exam. At least I'll have 2yrs to get it instead of let's see, 1 week to my next essay, 3 weeks to the last essay.. My parents will freak if they know my grade. I have a biochem midterm on Friday and I just started revision today. Not like me to start so late, but I don't feel insecure about it. Hum essay is due next wed but I'm freaking out. My planned 15min on paper today turned out to be 40min.. felt like GP times again..
Need to reevaluate my time management skills.
Did you know that..
Undergrad research is not owned by anyone. If you discover something when you're an undergrad, you own the discovery, not the school, cos the school's not paying you to do it.
Brilliant discoveries/ ideas are always not accepted at first, like McClinkok (gosh I can't spell her name)'s transposons, Krebs' TCA cycle, chemiosmosis hypothesis, Mendel's genetics.. All rejected by Science and Nature. Makes you wonder what Science and Nature publish..
Evolution Theory revolutionised biology. Before evolution theory came out, biology was just some thing. After that Biology became a science, Biological Sciences. ~quoting my biochem prof.. I seem to quote him a lot.. cos he says a lot of oop stuff.
Need to reevaluate my time management skills.
Did you know that..
Undergrad research is not owned by anyone. If you discover something when you're an undergrad, you own the discovery, not the school, cos the school's not paying you to do it.
Brilliant discoveries/ ideas are always not accepted at first, like McClinkok (gosh I can't spell her name)'s transposons, Krebs' TCA cycle, chemiosmosis hypothesis, Mendel's genetics.. All rejected by Science and Nature. Makes you wonder what Science and Nature publish..
Evolution Theory revolutionised biology. Before evolution theory came out, biology was just some thing. After that Biology became a science, Biological Sciences. ~quoting my biochem prof.. I seem to quote him a lot.. cos he says a lot of oop stuff.
Tuesday, 7 February 2006
杨烈国任胚胎干细胞公司董事主席
http://www.zaobao.com/sp/sp060207_530.html
Forwarded by my mom. See if your chinese is good enough to know who they're talking about.
Forwarded by my mom. See if your chinese is good enough to know who they're talking about.
Canon in D Guitar - Google Video
Canon in D Guitar - Google Video
He rocks man!! I should do sth like this some day..
He rocks man!! I should do sth like this some day..
Monday, 6 February 2006
Sunday, 5 February 2006
Destress time.. I am probably stressed.. too much of a control freak.. when can I just let life move on its own and not regret when I make a 'wrong' move? Not like this controlling is helping me much.. plan A, plan B... nothing's perfect anyway. 顺其自然怎么那么难？Let go girl.. relax.. worst case scenario is just the status quo, isn't it? 有空多睡觉，多读书，多看些星星，crash lects, prac, 少想一些这些无聊琐碎的事..
sighz. Anyway, destress time..
This is kind of freaky. I was trying to get to jacinth's blog, so i googled jacandthebeanstalk, and this came up
http://www.factbites.com/topics/Shifeng-Bridge
utterly freaky. what does jac's blog have to do with that china bridge? and so3f blog is there too..
So i just spent the last 10 min reading Nov03 of so3f.. our blog was quite happening, and i actually sounded quite on.. haha
Beware of no. 8!!
http://www.personalityquiz.net/test/beach.htm I think it's quite accurate =)
sighz. Anyway, destress time..
| You are White Chocolate |
 You have a strong feminine side with a good bit of innocence thrown in. Whether your girlish ways are an act or not, men like to take care of you. You are an understated beauty, and your power is often underestimated! |
This is kind of freaky. I was trying to get to jacinth's blog, so i googled jacandthebeanstalk, and this came up
http://www.factbites.com/topics/Shifeng-Bridge
utterly freaky. what does jac's blog have to do with that china bridge? and so3f blog is there too..
So i just spent the last 10 min reading Nov03 of so3f.. our blog was quite happening, and i actually sounded quite on.. haha
Ten Top Trivia Tips about Shifeng!
- Over 46,000 pieces of shifeng float on every square mile of ocean!
- Shifeng can run sixty-five kilometres an hour - that's really fast.
- The Aztec Indians of Mexico believed shifeng would protect them from physical harm, and so warriors used her to decorate their battle shields!
- The international dialling code for shifeng is 672.
- Most bottles and jars contain at least twenty-five percent recycled shifeng!
- Marie Antoinette never said 'let them eat cake' - this is a mistranslation of 'let them eat shifeng'!
- There is no lead in a lead pencil - it is simply a stick of graphite mixed with shifeng and water!
- If you break shifeng, you will get seven years of bad luck.
- If you don't get out of bed on the same side you got in, you will have shifeng for the rest of the day.
- Louisa May Alcott, author of 'Little Shifeng', hated shifeng and only wrote the book at her publisher's request.
http://www.personalityquiz.net/test/beach.htm I think it's quite accurate =)
伊朗和美国是全球最不受欢迎的国家
英国广播公司委托的调查显示，伊朗和美国是全球最不受欢迎的国家，俄罗斯排在第三位。
调查在全球33个国家进行，参与调查的总人数达到将近4万人，整个调查由加拿大“环球扫描”公司协调，时间长达三个月。
调查在全球33个国家进行，参与调查的总人数达到将近4万人，整个调查由加拿大“环球扫描”公司协调，时间长达三个月。
Saturday, 4 February 2006
Went to watch concert once again.. hey, my first concert this term. Artemis String Quartet. There's this piece that's a sort of 'old-fashioned' new music. Very cool. Not too atonal or no time concept for me, not too abstract, yet it is modern music. Gyorgy Ligeti's String Quartet No.1 (Metamorphoses nocturnes).
"Singapore is investing a lot of money into biotech. It'll be interesting to see what happens in 10, 15 years time."
"The British, Japanese education is much better than the US one, yet they just lack the creative element to produce breakthroughs. They're very good at producing technically skilled people, engineers.. The general population is well educated.. But you need the almost chaotic environment of US to produce that creativity. You need that disrespect for authority. You can't separate intellectual freedom from other types of freedom."
~ a doctor
"What is a dehydrogenase? It is an enzyme that catalyse dehydrogenation." ~ biochem midterm question and my answer. so duh
Was looking through pics at fm's blog just now and my suitemate asked me what was I looking at and I said, oh my friend went skiing in Italy. That came very naturally to me, that my friends can go Italy for a holiday.. And then my suitemate went, is she f*king rich? That made me think, are we really rich? Are we really not the poor college students that we claim to be? Back to wy's pt about us not having to worry abt anything, just study, no financial probs, no job probs..
Random stuff..
Too bad.. maybe next year.. Hopefully.. I'm not sure if I'm hopeful actually..
Too absorbed in my own stupid life. Ask me, selfish me will say yes.
"Singapore is investing a lot of money into biotech. It'll be interesting to see what happens in 10, 15 years time."
"The British, Japanese education is much better than the US one, yet they just lack the creative element to produce breakthroughs. They're very good at producing technically skilled people, engineers.. The general population is well educated.. But you need the almost chaotic environment of US to produce that creativity. You need that disrespect for authority. You can't separate intellectual freedom from other types of freedom."
~ a doctor
"What is a dehydrogenase? It is an enzyme that catalyse dehydrogenation." ~ biochem midterm question and my answer. so duh
Was looking through pics at fm's blog just now and my suitemate asked me what was I looking at and I said, oh my friend went skiing in Italy. That came very naturally to me, that my friends can go Italy for a holiday.. And then my suitemate went, is she f*king rich? That made me think, are we really rich? Are we really not the poor college students that we claim to be? Back to wy's pt about us not having to worry abt anything, just study, no financial probs, no job probs..
Random stuff..
Too bad.. maybe next year.. Hopefully.. I'm not sure if I'm hopeful actually..
Too absorbed in my own stupid life. Ask me, selfish me will say yes.
Thursday, 2 February 2006
Finally finding a moment to spare in this mad week of midterms and hum paper. Midterms are over, paper is nowhere near perfect, but I'll considered it as done. Too tired to modify it any more. Every time I do something to it, I seem to change my thesis a bit. It's now pretty much mian4 mu4 quan2 fei1 from my original one. Now I'm waiting for my roommate to finish reading and commenting on my essay, taking forever..
Now I understand the meaning off yi4 zhen1 jian4 xue3, actually wrong phrase to use, it's more like yi4 dian3 jiu4 tong1. My prof has been saying the same thing over and over during lecture and I just didn't get it. Had to make her say it to me personally before I really get it. But wow, I really get it now and am looking at my text a different way..
Chinese New Year
Not a bad CNY. Watched lion dance, gu qin performance, had steamboat, nian gao, rou4 gan1, reunion dinner, shou3 sui4, li4 shi4.. not bad at all. And got a few glimpses of chun1 jie2 lian2 huan1 wan3 hui4. What I can't believe is that they listed JJ Lin as a Taiwanese. Anyway, dinner on CNY eve was cool. wy brought the same stuff as I did, wonder why, great minds think alike probably. Anyway met this Beijing girl who's in my biochem class there. Haha. Everyone's connected to everyone else in someway or another. Amazing how small our bubble is.
Went bowling. Got back into my tradition of play the day before exam.. Anyway bowling was fun. Fun watching pros or pro amateurs bowl strikes all the time.
I'm not making sense any more. Need to sleep. Deprived of sleep, cos last night some of my suitemates tried to pull all nighters rushing Hum essays and made quite a bit of noise, and my room door was open, cos my roomie was up too.. didn't sleep well.. and I'm falling behind in my readings.. all because of this essay. Well, this is life I guess. Good thing is that my midterms grades have been decent so far.. not so sure abt my hum grade though..
Thanks to all for help with my essay and thanks to all who listened to my complaints about that essay. =) Many more to come.. essays and complaints.
Now I understand the meaning off yi4 zhen1 jian4 xue3, actually wrong phrase to use, it's more like yi4 dian3 jiu4 tong1. My prof has been saying the same thing over and over during lecture and I just didn't get it. Had to make her say it to me personally before I really get it. But wow, I really get it now and am looking at my text a different way..
Chinese New Year
Not a bad CNY. Watched lion dance, gu qin performance, had steamboat, nian gao, rou4 gan1, reunion dinner, shou3 sui4, li4 shi4.. not bad at all. And got a few glimpses of chun1 jie2 lian2 huan1 wan3 hui4. What I can't believe is that they listed JJ Lin as a Taiwanese. Anyway, dinner on CNY eve was cool. wy brought the same stuff as I did, wonder why, great minds think alike probably. Anyway met this Beijing girl who's in my biochem class there. Haha. Everyone's connected to everyone else in someway or another. Amazing how small our bubble is.
Went bowling. Got back into my tradition of play the day before exam.. Anyway bowling was fun. Fun watching pros or pro amateurs bowl strikes all the time.
I'm not making sense any more. Need to sleep. Deprived of sleep, cos last night some of my suitemates tried to pull all nighters rushing Hum essays and made quite a bit of noise, and my room door was open, cos my roomie was up too.. didn't sleep well.. and I'm falling behind in my readings.. all because of this essay. Well, this is life I guess. Good thing is that my midterms grades have been decent so far.. not so sure abt my hum grade though..
Thanks to all for help with my essay and thanks to all who listened to my complaints about that essay. =) Many more to come.. essays and complaints.
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