Bad Press

I did receive bad press about the last post saying that Zi Shen looks like Pei Shi. Don't ask me anything about it. Ask Ryan Wan, he suggested it first, I 人云亦云 only. Perhaps everyone needs a picture of Pei Shi first, which I currently don't have.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of writing a large blog post. Should be quite interesting for all ACSians. haha.

Leave everyone with a long joke:

A: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life; is this true?
Doctor : Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it... don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap.

A: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables?Doctor : You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

A: Should I reduce my alcohol intake?
Doctor :No, not at all. Wine is made from fruit. Brandy is distilled wine, that means they take the water out of the fruity bit so you get even more of the goodness that way. Beer is also made out of grain. Bottoms up!

A: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio?
Doctor : Well, if you have a body and you have fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

A: What are some of the advantages of participating in a regular exercise program?
Doctor :Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good!

A: Aren't fried foods bad for you?
Doctor :YOU'RE NOT LISTENING!!! .... Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

A: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle?
Doctor : Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

A: Is chocolate bad for me?
Doctor :Are you crazy? HELLO. Cocoa beans! Another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around!

A: Is swimming good for your figure?
Doctor :If swimming is good for your figure, explain whales to me.

A: Is getting in-shape important for my lifestyle?
Doctor :Hey! 'Round' is a shape!Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets.And remember: "Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride" Like Eng Loong... haha
AND......For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health.

It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.
1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION:Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

update update!

Here I am, responding to my dead blog.

The past few weeks were quite hectic, containing one new matter that could destroy time to do any proper schoolwork in the holidays.

Overview:
1. Lots of Band
2. Tune-in 2
3. Band Chalet
4. NRP Presentation
5. Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF)
6. 4A1 Class Party (1 of 2) (1st one for Zi Shen as he's leaving for army)

1. and 2. Band. At Tune-in 2, there were so little Secondary 4s as compared to yesteryears. Our dear ACJC Band is so dead. Zhi Wen said yesterday that appeals amounted to 10 as compared to the usual 20. So sad. I swear I must do something. *secret for now*

Band practices are becoming a normal part of life again after promos (this statement is a bit wols). After a year in band, the band pieces I have now are becoming much much much easier to learn; a testament to the amount of improvement to my clarinet skill since coming from my dreamtime Barker band days which hindered my improvement. Dr Lee's selection of pieces are nice: Rhapsody of the Theme of Paganini, Armenian Dances (Part 1), Charming Asia and lots more. Ever since switching to E-flat Clarinet, I've been getting some solos and duets with the piccolo. It's quite a challenge as the E-flat Clarinet is such a small instrument so it's hard to press the keys.

3. Band Chalet. It was fun. I shan't go into the details here. To summarize: BBQ, soccer, frisbee, red house, night cycling to esplanade and bedok resevoir (I didn't do this), pool, watching YEL and kenneth get high and making confessions, disgusting at YEL's puke at the sink, cleaning the chalet with the responsible Sathis, card games, long conversations in the room at night over ghost stories and the likes, stoning in the morning and afternoon, going orchard to meet kenneth, eating at seligie beancurd and banquet across the road thereafter, daytona, being amazed at Zhan Wei's skills at time crisis, YEL forever trying to bring Sarah closer to me kind of actions, the list goes on...
Check out Shaun Tay's or YEL's blog for more opinions on the chalet.

4. NRP Presentation. I didn't quite like it though. Let me describe the two assessors. One is an Indian (I'm not racist, I got Indian friends too you know!) who got damn bored during my poster presentation (he kept looking elsewhere and closing his eyes) and retardedly asked dumb questions cos he probably never listened to my presentation. He kept saying he got no time to assess my other project mates and like an idiot, quickly left, leaving my 2 other project mates without a 2nd assessor. This caused a lot of problems as I had to contact the student help desk and get another assessor for my mates.

The other assessor was a Chinese (I'm not racist, I'm a Chinese too!) who asked the worst kind of questions one would expect. He asked me could I assume this and that crap... So, never had I faced such a tough time in answering questions. My two other project mates were seriously owned by him. This arrogant guy kept disagreeing with their projects. He kept saying "This cannot work in Singapore" and "No... No..." , shaking his head. I ask you, have you ever met a pessimistic assessor with so much subjective things to say about other's projects? And of course, they were also owned my his questions. I must say we hated him, so much that I talked with Hongtao (the 29 year-old phd student who guided us in the project) literally and figuratively behind the guy's back when he was assessing Evelyn, my project mate.

5. SSEF. Oh cool. This is called self-torture. I actually proposed to Edmund, my project mate that we 3 people should merge our projects and sign up for SSEF. This means that we have to get a lot more experimental data at a different and much bigger location. In case you don't know what I am talking about, part of my project is to take the signal strength from many access points in the wireless network at many loacations within a place. This is horribly tedious work if you ask me. No more holidays. D:

6. 4A1 Class Party. This occurred yesterday. It was fun, like all the previous 4A1 parties this year (This was the 3rd one). Before I went to Jon Ngiam's huge house from band, Ryan Wan said that Zi Shen looks like the Sec 4 Pei Shi who DSA-ed through ACJC band. So when I reached there, I saw Zi Shen and seriously, I thought that Zi Shen and Pei Shi were separated at birth. He really resembled the girl which the band went ga-ga about. I had to take photos of Zi Shen, so I went on to do it. The photos will be uploaded soon on a photosharing website. Anyway, the purpose of the 4A1 party was to give Zi Shen a party before he leaves for army soon, so in a way, it's like taking a "before army" photo of Zi Shen haha.

So, we ate KFC and pizza. Everyone was in a good mood. We played pool, monopoly, piano-ed a bit. Btw, I played Brahm's Intermezzo No. 2, Op. 118. Woohoo, I already can perform it. Yeah, it's the piece I took from Youtube in an earlier post on this blog.

Oh, there's another class party on 12th December, to celebrate Bryan Chen's return to Singapore. Too bad, I won't be there as I'm going to Vietnam for OCIP from 7 Dec to 16 Dec. Anyway, the way Mrs Soong described the itinerary sounded like it is going to be exciting and full of surprises. Yeah, I looking forward to it! :D Nvm that JC band fest takes place during this time.

Thinking of class parties, I feel that my present class ACJC SA1 '07/'08, is seriously lacking in this department. Man, I feel like I shall be the one to bring them all together this holiday for some fellowship as no one has ever done that since the PAE days. Time to take action! But, too bad, I'm almost out of time to do anything this holidays.

Hey, SA1ers, if anyone of you reads this, will you be the one who will organise a class party? I shall see.

Update:
Click below to see my friend who looks like Pei Shi
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21432555@N05/

A brief overview of the NRP research paper

Woohoo! Gone are the days of endless toil and pain. But the days when I will pon band still remains. That's sad.

Yes, I've submitted the bloody research paper for project EEE11. And they say out there that the school of EEE is the most difficult if you went to NTU. An achievement? Maybe not. A lifetime achievement? Yes, through and through.

Imagine having to toil through endless calculations that any sane person would not do. I swear the computer saved my ass because there was this calculation in my results that required 315 calculations and it's a function that includes a summation of a series.

But still, the computer never saved exactly spared me from endless calculations. Sorry, I'm not a programming expert. So I had to calculate 250 times of the pythagora's theorem in a Cartesian coodinate system. If I actually went into the actual details, there's much more than this. In fact, for one, I actually had to manually record all the calcualtions on paper. That's tough enough. There are other tough stuff too, but I shall not mention for the sake of brevity.

Ok, all of these calculations for what? Be shocked. Because WTF, it's just 5 probability density function graphs.

Next, I referred to at least 10 other research papers for my literature review. That is tough because I had to write up a related work section using the sources and everyone knows that research papers are too cheem to even read and understand.

BLah... for brevity's sake. Who is brevity? Does he deserve a sake? (sorry lame and not funny)

Okay. 3555 words in a 6 page research paper, using extremely cheem language, with a reference section in APA citation style (this is tedious to type you know!). You will instantly know that this is indeed a lifetime achievement because I don't believe that I will write another of this in this topic of indoor wireless positioning system forever! haha.

Next Saturday I shall have to present a poster and an oral presentation at NRP Symposium 2007, wish me luck! If all goes well, I could probably get a Gold or even more. I haven't started on any of them yet. So, I shall need to mention some sacrifices: Pon band on Friday. Time that could be spent mugging with the holiday homework. Time for socialising. Time for blogging here. Time for facebooking.

But nevermind all those, as the rewards are great.

Violation of rule number 7

Today, I shall violate rule number 7 of Ian's rules for blogging.

The red book called the RIGHT WORD sucks and 1100 words is 1000000 times better. Get it? No, I haven't started on it yet.

I just can't stand ponning so much band...

This will be short one.

I'm currently in the middle of chionging my Nanyang Research Programme project, so I'm busy for whole days in a row. It's been a almost a week (since Monday) since I started chionging and I must say this sucks. It's not even exam time but I'm like super busy and having an eternal migrane. Take last night, when I was thinking so much that I couldn't sleep till after 3am. Today I actually spent a whole day at the NTU Positioning and Wireless Technology Centre from 10am to 11pm, almost dead already. Staring at the glaring screen and looking at tiny numbers is a sure formula for an eternal migrane. Oh well, I shall have to hand up the research paper by Monday midnight, before Tuesday comes around.

I can't stand the idea of ponning so much band. Last Saturday I couldn't attend band because it was the music theory exam day. Today, I had to be at NTU to do this tedious shit. Next Saturday, I shall have to present an oral presentation and a poster at NTU. If I want to complete the poster in time, I shall have to pon band on a weekday. So there's Tuesday, Thursday (Tune-in 2) and Friday for band next week. Ok, I shall forgo Friday. There's really no choice because my project is seriously a solo project that should be done by at least a group because it's really so tedious.

I am hating this time of my life. "Holidays" indeed.

Ian's rules for blogging

I observe blogs quite often. I can't stand it when blogs are so ______ (could be any reason). So, I have formulated some rules for blogging.

1. Please write in proper English, or at least make an effort. I can't stand it when people write in SMS English or Singlish, super broken up English or English interspersed with ... and more ... .

2. Pictures must be followed with relevant captions that are explanatory and should not be random pictures that do not show the point the blogger is trying to make.

3. If you want to write personal stories of your day/experiences, the rule is to only write interesting events. As for other matters, do not bother mentioning as people do not want to read them. You should write "boring" events in your personal diary at home.

4. If you want to put song lyrics in your blog, please embed a Youtube video of the artist singing that song. Do not assume everyone wants to read the lyrics or everyone knows the song.

5. If you are feeling emo somehow, you may rant on your blog. But please write something optimistic at the end of the blog entry.

6. When you visit someone's else blog and you know the person, please make it a point to tag or comment. It makes their day and they will be motivated to continue writing more blog entries.

7. Please do not write one word/one sentence entries and expect the whole world to understand what in the world you are saying. The purpose of the blog is to share your views and you should elaborate properly!

8. Please do not write one topic or experience and jump suddenly to another unrelated event. Please write coherently. If you wish to express a new idea/experience, start another paragraph.

9. Please do not clump everything together in a single paragraph because it looks disorderly and it puts off people from reading.

10. Please do not use blog skins that make people put in effort to find the button that leads to your post. People want to see your posts, not the blank page of pictures!

When I got the time, I will think of more complains and new rules!

You may wish to forget the above and just remember this: Blogs should be completely readable by anyone and should be self-explanatory.
Just ask yourself, if you were to be some other random person reading your own blog, would you understand what you are writing?

If you think these rules are too troublesome, continue to write in your own way lah. Your blog is your blog, so put whatever you want on it.

The state of ACJC food

I love talking about food. Too bad, ACJC does not provide good food. It is my honour as an unofficial food critic to complain like a STOMPer and not go to STOMP because it sucks anyway. Before I start, I must follow a rating system, ok, it's easy to follow: it's the 1 to 5 out of 5 rating system.

Let's start from the drinks stall. Nice snacks like toasted bread although sometimes it's sold out. Haribo is good. The popular but super diluted Milo bottle is a rip-off at $1, why not buy a Milo 80cents transparent cup version which contains more Milo at a less diluted state. Ice coffee bottle is good strong coffee which is enough to keep you awake in class or exam. Ice teh is a little dilute but good enough. Ribena is a bit dilute. Best thing about this stall is that you can buy relatively cheap 500ml bottles of drinks like coke, sprite, H2O, 100 plus, etc... yes, at $1 only.
Verdict: 3.5/5

Next up, the snack stall. Waffles are the best thing, suit yourself, buy any flavour you prefer. Potato wedges are sinful but delicious, but always buy them when they are hot, otherwise they suck. Sandwiches are alright only. Chicken chip is so-so. I like the fishballs. Paus are delicious if you don't want to eat anything else. I still don't get why people continue to eat the big Japanese sugar biscuit when you can get sick of it after eating like half of it. Basically, in this stall, everything is edible and good.
Verdict: 4/5

Next, the sandwich stall, which the owners got sick of selling noodles and switched to sandwiches instead. I thought that the fried dumplings of the noodles stall was nice though. Basically, this sandwich stall is inexperienced and I think they have diversified too much to selling all kinds of crap. I ate from here only twice. Ok, give them just a pass as find the food a little less than average.
Verdict: 2.5/5

Next, the taste of the orient stall or economy rice. The bottom line is, the new owners suck. First, they give too little and they actually count the portion they give, so they are not generous enough. Secondly, variety sucks because some food many people can't live without are missing from the menu. Thirdly, I don't like the new guy's face lol, dunno why. But the auntie with the cash is polite haha, a rare one.
Verdict: 1.5/5 so get out of here please!

Next, the fruit stall. This rocks the most, especially when you specifically ask them to not add water to dilute your juice and everything will taste nice if you don't mind paying just a bit more. For cut fruit, pineapples are surprisingly good. But their sugarcane juice may sometimes taste weird though haha. Overall, this fruit stall is good, and they sell way cheaper than their hawker centre counterparts.
Verdict: 4.5/5

Next, the malay food stall, makan bagus. I like this stall but as usual, it's an old malay woman serving the food and the queue will be very slow haha. Beef rendang is above average. Fried chicken drumstick is nice, especially with the chilli sauce. I cannot take the sambal stingray, too hot, cos the last time I experienced 10 full minutes of freaking hot hot hottness in my mouth that I almost died, and the water cooler was futile. Beef noodles are good and is cheap as dirt. Ai ya good stall! Bagus!
Verdict: 3.5/5

Next, the indian food stall. Ok la. Their fried rice is good but wait long long long long. Their roti prata is horrible, not cripsy at all. Papadam is zomg good. Friendly people. I likes.
Verdict: 3.5/5

Next, the Yong Tau Foo stall. Everytime I eat this, I will fear that I will get stomachache, like poor Jasmine who was hospitalised. Manfred says Tuesday are Yong Tau Foo day, supposedly the food is the most fresh on that day or it's early break, so fresh Yong Tau Foo cos its early in the morning! If you look carefully in the soup, you could possibly find an insect lol.
Verdict: 2.5/5 they are lucky that they are not out of the canteen due to hygiene problems

Next, the pig and chick stall. Why is this so popular? Because it is fast and reasonably priced unless you buy lotsa additional stuff, and its the only proper thing that you can eat in ACJC. The rice is tasteless and never ever buy the char siew. Porridge is good. And always, always, spam your food with free fried onions and black soya sauce to make your food tasty. However, if you look at the chicken macaroni soup, you will always see many insect parts or whole insects in it, makes you wonder if insects form part of the ingredients to make this dish haha.
Verdict: 3/5 Boo for finding foreign matter in soup and tasteless rice!

Next, the Western food stall. Forget this stall. They make me wonder how they make ends meet. Overpriced, untasty, unappetizing, a stall doomed for failure... need I say more? But still make edible food though.
Verdict: 1.5/5

Finally, the heritage cafe... hmm... we call it cafe anyway. Infamous for long waiting times, bad service and overpriced stuff haha. Only thing good here is the torikatsu burger, a sinful and expensive but super delicious. I would come here only to buy the cold 1.5 litre 100 plus and take some cups and enjoy with my friends after some sort of physical stuff.
Verdict: 2/5

Indeed, ACJC has a food crisis. Somebody should step in to remedy this problem and tame the tastebuds of ACSians who think that bad food is normal in school. My solution: if you have the time and money, always go out of school to eat. Go to dover market and eat lemon chicken rice, ban mian, char kway teow, fried hokkien mee and drink $1 bubble tea. Go to holland village and enjoy burger king, subway, the hawker food there, crystal jade, and other nice stuff. Go to Ghim Moh market and eat the super famous and freaking nice char kway teow. Anymore suggestions, anyone?

Brahms Intermezzo op. 118 no. 2

Brahms' Intermezzo Op. 118, No. 2. It's so beautiful. Listening it to can be moving. You should listen too. :D

I just started on it last Saturday. My right hand part is good liao. Left hand part needs a lot of work, especially when Brahms' pieces usually require a rich bass sound. My version sounds like shit lol. Even after I get the notes in some weeks' time, I still need to work on the expression, the feel, the musicality. It can be hard to reach the level of playing on this Youtube video by Citlalli Guevara.

theory music exam!

Currently, I'm studying for my grade 6 music theory exam which happens tomorrow. I think memorising foreign terms is the toughest part! Let's quote Chiaki's line from Nodame Cantabile: "forte! forte! con fuoco!" lolx! But European terms are sure much more interesting than English. They sound more appassionato, sound more nuovo, there's assai molto affettuoso and they are filled mit feurig.

okays. I gotta go study more. here's what to expect next... the situation of food in acjc, my nrp project, pw op?, other more interesting stuff if i got inspiration somehow... byes.