Fictitious

Sigh my juniors are treating me as a source of free tuition (( (What does one do when one has a student who calls out ‘Teacher’ every other minute?)

Now as you know I hate blowing my own trumpet, but – I really wish I’d had a teacher like me! You know, it actually is really hard running your own module – logistics is the least of my problems, really – and I’m relieved that I’ve managed to churn out the DELUGE of requisite materials without incident. AND found time to provide free 24-hour consultation on Facebook. AND pestered students to come for consultation-remedial lessons outside the staffroom. (Life is so hard when one is inherently inertial, isn’t it! Oh fictitious force, how I do despise you.)

Honestly, though, considering the rate at which my students are asking me questions, I’m envious that they get so much personal attention and hardly ever have to spend days tangled in intellectual knots with no external source of help to turn to. You know, back in my day, we used to have to sort out our own problems =P

A public announcement

The title of this post is one of the chapter titles of the book I’m reading, Midnight’s Children. It is well-plotted with a unique voice, although the narrator tends (very irritatingly at times) towards verbosity and is excessively fond of long sentences such as this that, even worse, very often take the form of questions, such that one tends to forget the beginning of the sentence by the time he reaches the end, as you just have.

As of the most recent update to the NUS joint admissions portal, M11602 is home to the following luminaries:

8 doctors
2 lawyers
1 dentist
2 foreign-educated dilettantes xD
(out of 23 students)

More results to come when the NSFs get out of NS!

Because great minds think eccentric

An Institvte that believes in zoomorphism…

This is MIT's mascot, imaginatively named TIM (you have to spell it in uppercase so it's the mirror image of MIT).
.
Well, that does it. I'm going to name my future pet duck KEUQ.

… models its promotional videos after Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory… (I LOVE THE MUSIC FOR THIS ONE! This is boring at first, but it gets really wacky after the first 30s.)

… and (saving the best for last) whose Dean of Admissions reacts to an insult from Stephen Colbert (a talkshow host) with a spoof video whose scripting puts the original to shame?

I can tell we’re gonna be great friends! :D:D Eggeggeggcited for August! Tune in for my chronicles of my exploits in the Tech! And photos, because I am nothing if not a great uploader of photos.

A peek into the mind of a serial latecomer

Blogging now to procrastinate making a very important decision (that is due by tomorrow! Argh I foresee I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight)

What goes through the mind of a serial latecomer, and why is she always late? As a world-renowned expert on this subject, I shall attempt to answer these questions in my post.

Let us examine what I was thinking as I went about my daily activities before a 11.30am appointment at Woodleigh MRT station with Jibbs, Whaipeng and Cleo.

Wake up: 9.00am

The plan (all words in italics are my thoughts on that fateful morning)
Noting that Woodleigh MRT is but 8mins away from my neighbourhood MRT station, I shall cater half an hour for travel (including the 15 min needed to walk to the MRT station). So I’ll leave home at 11am. But wait – I also need to change + pack my bag – so I should cater 15min for that – so I should cease all activity at 10.45am. OK good plan. 

(While solving WoPhO problems…)

Yay! Solved part 1! (Checks time – it’s 10.30am, 15 min to the moratorium) Hooray, I have just enough time to take a stab at Part 2 – onwards!

(Attempts to solve Part 2)

Wow Part 2 is quite easy, all I need to do is sub in values! (3 min later) Ok solved, now on to Part 3! Let me first draw a free-body diagram – arghh, I see I shall have to resolve the forces in order to get the expression for centripetal force. This can get messy, so I’ll do it later. Time check! (10.42am) Ok might as well start changing now – better to be early than late, right? I’m going to be at least 3 min early, I am. *puffs up metaphorical chest with pride, because being early is what REAL MEN do yaa-daa-ladida*

(Runs upstairs to change) (Spends an impossibly long time looking for certain articles of clothing) (Runs down) (Realises that a change of clothes is needed for German class) (Runs up again, taking another interminable period of time to look for said clothes)

Time check: 11.08am! Wha what the heck where did my 3 minute advantage go?! This is ridiculous, and someone will be receiving a lawyer’s letter from me when I lodge a complaint with the Consumers’ Association of Singapore about the Surreptitious and Unlawful Escape of Time.
But that’ll hopefully still be fine because by my expert calculation, I will take 10min to walk to the station, and assuming that the train waiting time adheres to the statistical mean of 4 min, I will be there just in time! 

(Boards train at 11.22, train pulls up at Potong Pasir station at 11.32) YAY I MADE IT IN TIME! (Takes escalator) Wait why is there no one here? (Checks SMSes) Oh crap she said Woodleigh station – how on earth did I manage to read Potong Pasir? (Takes train back)

(Steps out into Woodleigh station at 11.39am to smug expressions that just brim with the unspoken: ‘A latecomer never changes her spots’)

I don’t see anything wrong with the above logic, do you?

I am now a plunger

I have taken the plunge. I am now an official M– student wahoo!

A year ago, I was so eager to transit to a whole new environment that I was counting down the months till graduation. Familial ties, friendships, nostalgia for my comfort zone – all these seemed plebian in comparison to the whole Big Adventure beyond prom. 

But as the timer ticks down to my actual departure, I’ve lost my grand macro-perspective. Slowly, I’ve shrunk into a fly thrashing about in a tangle of all that I love about the sunny island. In fact, today I experienced some pangs of homesickness. 

The stimulus? This Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/IQUITClub

In case you’ve been living under a rock, there’s recently been this ad entitled ‘Help David Quit Smoking’. I think it’s a brilliant idea because it so adroitly manipulates social and advertising media – this David’s got a Facebook page with 14000 fans (the link above), and his face and name are plastered on bus-stops across the island – all of which raise the stakes and put even more pressure on him to quit. If he does successfully quit smoking, then HPB has a ready-made success story that they can share with aspiring quitters in future. If he doesn’t, which is unlikely, then the campaign will still have impacted the many people who banded together to support him, and hopefully make his next attempt to quit easier. 

So I visited his Facebook page and was heartened to see that so many aspiring quitters – and even non-smokers – were leaving messages of encouragement on his Wall. I know this doesn’t really sound significant, but after the Sun Xu and Zheng Huiting incidents I’d lost some faith in Singaporeans.

(IMO it was unwarranted for the nation to pounce upon two silly kids who simply lacked the PR skills to realise the folly of making politically incorrect statements in public. Goodness WHY should it be assumed that their stupidity is representative of the groups to which they belong? Again – there are plenty of foreign scholars who appreciate Singapore, and most local youth have the sense to eschew levity when faced with the death of a Singaporean son. It’s laughable that the personal opinions of two little gits, carelessly uttered, have incited a great hullaballoo on the national stage. Just unfriending them would have been enough.)

Back to the point: it’s so good to know that Singaporeans do more than just condemn The Other. Sometimes I need reminders that this is the sort of community I’ll be leaving behind, and not a petty almost jingoistic group of vultures ready to rip apart the judgment-impaired.  

—-

Let me now play amateur shrink on myself. 
 
We went to Cleo’s house on Sunday. My main discovery: I am ATROCIOUS at games that require one to think of words that fit an action or drawing. However, I am fine at making links between words, so if you ask me to think of words that fit a description, I can do it with relative ease. (Which explains why I am still quite good at Contact.) 

This is telling. I’ve not been interacting much with people since school ended, and even less with those of the same age. This might explain why I am not accustomed to watching common human responses to external circumstances. For instance, one of the words that we had to guess was ‘abandon’ – Desmond was acting it out – and I simply could not associate the mimed *action* of abandonment with the word ‘abandon’. However, if I had been given verbal, instead of physical, clues to the word – for instance, if you had said ‘SPCA animals’ – I wager I would have had an easier time. 

What are the factors that shape YOUR psyche? 
—
Now, because every post must end off with a nice photo, let me show you something I’ll be seeing come June:

The magnificent sights on the OSLO-BERGEN RAILWAY!
 

Mulling over memories

We had a 602 gathering with Ms Dass on Saturday! Ordinarily I wouldn’t mention this, but this one really brought on waves of nostalgia. 

(And that’s the thing about transitions: no matter how much we resolve to enshrine the past in memory, once we settle into our new ways of life we adopt a new equilibrium that fills us up, becomes the new ‘now’ and almost entirely supplants the minutiae of the past. It’s disconcerting how readily we let the events of the present debase cherished memories - until something like this occurs to jog them.
What to do – except let events remain in the past, but follow their protagonists into the present.)

 All the same, I don’t want to look back after 10 years and find myself unable to remember anything about my high school life. So here’s a list of things I miss about school:

- Dear, segregated, political 602.

There’s the Bryce clique, the happy clique, our clique, the guys’ bloc, and several nonsectarian renegade agents. With so many factions, it may be surprising that harmony presided in 602 (for the most part). (It should suffice to note that cross-border cooperation is often necessary to counter unpredictable, non-state actors.) Petty grievances (‘WHY ACE SO BORING’), fondness for our very frank and funny mentor, wisecracks about teachers (‘HAO KANG CHEONG’), love for bubble tea, FYP (‘Feel Your Pain’)-induced stress and grade anxiety united us all. Our class spirit may pale in comparison to, say, 606′s, but the demarcation lines were never set in stone. There was a huge amount of - often very friendly -communication between the factions.

Speaking of stress, I miss the

- Insane workload

There is a limit to how much you can descend into blobbiness. Nowadays, there is little cause for stress in my life - but the evolutionary remnants that are my stress circuits seem to have missed the stop sign.  Although I’ve already taken steps to prevent my brain from atrophying, a part of my brain that strangely, speaks in my mother’s voice, keeps on urging me to do more! I’m really upset this is why I have never been able to carry to fruition my grand plans of lolling around and stuffing myself with potato chips.

Anyway, yes, I am going to stick my head out and admit that I miss the insane workload because it kept my mental reflexes limber. Just as we willingly subject ourself to the torture of exercise because it keeps us in good health, my brain somehow knows when it’s being fed junk – and often launches a revolt!

- The company

I’ve already acclimatized to being around people much older than I, and I love teaching my juniors – but really, nothing can replace the breezy comfort of talking to peers who already know my concerns and can empathise with them. I realised that in the time I spent sequestered away, silence has been descending on me.

There are so many things that can be filed into this category, so I’m just going to list them out:
- Complaining with Seo Youn about the 4 hons workload (“I can’t believe the rest of them are complaining about their 4 tests next week, when WE HAVE 5 TESTS AND A PROJECT”)
- Routinely embarrassing myself by practising  my Korean in front of Seo Youn (I told her ‘Bogoshipda’ once when she was right in front of me)
- Laughing at EAT DA POO POO and overwrought Bollywood dances as we sat around round tables in the canteen
- Complaining about canteen food and joking that it was a very good weight-control measure thought up by the school
- Imitating Barbarella and Lulu
- Complaining about Separation Science, Statistics and meaningless Chem Prac reports – Oh Sorry, was it only I who did that?
- Looking on wide-eyed while Desmond, Cheryl and Cleo discussed their plans for marriage
- Complaining with Cheryl about our respective parents
- Calling Cleo an Or Jiao
- Offloading my nightmares about being rejected by every overseas university I applied to
-  Stopping by at Gong Cha at Vivocity with the NEL gang
- Long train rides home that were time-contracted because of the wonderful company of the NEL gang
- RIG@NUSH and the really quirky characters I met there
- Finding ways to be cheapskate (I don’t really miss resource room food because I still adhere to that time-honoured tradition, but I miss the company)
- Making fun of Johnny (‘Later the computer got virus’) , Mr Wang HB and Dr Li Wei (‘Cheer configuration’) with the trolls
- Basking in the fount of unproductivity known as the library - because Ryan would keep on distracting me with funny memes. Really, though. The library was always the last place I would go to get work done.
- Thinking of ways to play pranks on the members of tmp
- Gathering gravitons
- Waving my arms frantically in an up-down configuration with Ryan and Viet Anh, for no reason in particular
- Sesquipedalianism
- Recording Keren’s Kerfuffles
- Math O on Saturdays with Jia Yi and sometimes Jiahui, when we’d share answers on Friday for the Saturday problem sets

(I will edit this when I think of more things)

Proceeding without definite aim

What do you call a Jer Lin eating wanton noodles?

A wanton wanton consumer.

Student surprises

So I added a couple of my students on RenRen (Chinese Facebook)(Yes, surprisingly I am capable of creating an account on such a website) and found that they had been gossiping about my module behind my back!!

This made my day

Translation (italics are my own)

学术状态帝 (on its webpage): How do you fit a 11m wooden pole into a 10m long room? Answer: Run with the pole into the room at 0.46c? ………………………………….. You must be crazy. Why don’t you just hold the pole diagonally and enter the room?

Whereupon my students started sharing it. One of them wrote “I have caught the Phys O contagion…”

[By the way, this works because the pole will length-contract from the frame of the room, and will therefore be able to fit into the room momentarily. Of course, at some point the pole will crash into the walls of the room... but at least you have the satisfaction of saying that you managed to fit the pole in for one nanosecond.]

(I don’t need to translate this, do I?)

Such gems!

I felt an upwelling of what I can only term – job satisfaction. Despite knowing that their teacher is but their senior with no formal pedagogical training, my students are taking my module seriously. It’s become so much a part of their life that they’ve slipped naturally into all the idiosyncrasies of the Phys O student – discussing Phys O online, poking fun at themselves for their perceived ineptitude, donning the geek suits that make them stand out from miles away.

In short, my students have caught the contagion. WAHOO!

(I sound like a sop, but-) It’s immensely rewarding to know that I am significantly to blame for this. I can finally comprehend why people give up lucrative careers to become teachers. There is nothing quite like the feeling that your students’ glories are yours too.

—-
Let us end off with a random photo from my phone:

There is always hope

More acceptance letters…

More acceptance decisions out today! Instead of announcing which other universities have graciously accepted me (and putting undue stress on those who are still waiting for results), I’ll post pictures of them instead!

If you’re keen to find out which unis these are, you can google search by image (I know you cunning people would think of hovering your mouse over the photos to see if you can glean some clue from their titles, so I’ve deliberately titled them in an ambiguous manner.) … or you could just ask me.

Also, because I’ve just learnt to count in German, I will be taking the opportunity to practice it.

Der erste!
Warning: Medieval architecture ahead. HARDCORE.

So much rustic splendour in one campus! EYE AM IMPRESSED.

Der zweite!

This college is one of the two on the West Coast that I applied to. I’m told its students never tire of the sweeping views of San Francisco bay. Although the architecture is less gothic than der erste‘s (and I LOVE GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE), this campus does possess some very characteristic features, such as in the second photo below!

Dead giveaway for everyone else who has been bombarded with college advertising collateral

Propaganda poster-worthy!

Der dritte!

This campus is in the same state as Wall Street – yet it is sequestered from the hustle and bustle of the city and boasts some lovely views!

The building on the left is a library. Zooming into it and entering through its heavy, adorned glass doors, we see…

A scene straight out of Hogwarts!

One last one…

I kid you not. The college is situated next to a lake! A FREAKING LAKE! With gorges and a museum of art designed by the I.M.Pei, the same architect who designed the entrance to the Louvre!

As I am writing this, the welcome pack from this college has just been delivered. I’m really touched – they actually timed their delivery of the welcome pack to coincide with the Ivy-wide unveiling of online decisions today (whereas most other schools would have mailed out the pack only today, resulting in our only receiving them about a week later). Yikes I sense a guilt trip on the horizon.
—
When I was in Year 3 and visited NUS for the Amazing Race, I thought it was the coolest thing ever because it had multiple libraries, and a McDonald’s, and a tulip-lined path from the Engineering canteen to the central library. Unfortunately, the campus (or at least, the parts I usually visit) has barely changed since then Sometimes I wish NUS would, you know, make the effort to spruce up its campus… I mean, just look at the competition!
—
Okay two more last photos from another college that sent its acceptances two weeks ago! Let’s just say that sweeping, classic architecture is honestly not this college’s strong suit – but it tries to make up for it with super quirky buildings. Encapsulates the whole atmosphere of the place, really.

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE STACKS OF TOILET ROLLS, RIGHT?! Haha!

Potassium in yer porkers

I never thought the day would come, but my mother is actually better than me at Chemistry now.

For her daily HEALTH WARNING (it has to be spelt in capital letters so as to convey the solemnity of these occasions) she told me 

DON’T EAT SAUSAGES. POTASSIUM NITRATE IS BAD FOR YOU.

Impressive, don’t you think? And here I was thinking of potassium nitrate as nothing more than a friendly white powder widely available in Chem labs and particularly handy if you want to create a diversion by way of smoke bombs. (Unfortunately, I know the previous sentence to be true from personal experience.) 

Moving on to the main point of this post! I have realised that many of my friends have a very distinctive blogging style. I’ve attempted to characterise these below, but in a bid to protect their reputations from my awful satire, I’ve referred to them by blog url and not name. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to have been mentioned here is welcome to retaliate!

(The following is purely a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, events or pets is entirely coincidental.)

whimsicality
Commonly used phrases: FML, T_T 
Common topics: University acceptances, the trials of being a learner driver, her internships, travel, food, meetings with friends 
Imaginary snippet from blog: Today I stuffed myself on the delicious chocolate fondue at Le Posh Restaurant. O tastebuds why do you love lipids so T_T Tomorrow I shall run 5km on the treadmill while atoning for my sins #healthnut93

greatermind
Commonly used phrases: Hebe, Ella, S.H.E, Sammi, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and some hieroglyphics which apparently mean, er… translate server error.
Common topics:  Mandopop and Cantopop, sometimes basketball
Imaginary snippet from blog: By calling into YES933 radio station and answering a very easy question, I won two tickets to Hebe’s fan meeting! Yay! I bought the movie poster for (translate server error) and I am going to ask her to autograph it! Support S.H.E!

famitoshi
Commonly used phrases: boliao, lol, la, $, RAWR, BLEHHH, >< 
Common topics: Teaching internship, DVC, tuition
Imaginary snippet from blog: Today xxx treated me to cheese fries, but they cost $4, aiyo what a ripoff. But they tasted good la. Then after lunch my stdt asked me how to do a qn, forgot at first but in the end i managed to solve it yay. RAWR.

—-
So if I haven’t featured you here, you should be ashamed because that means you haven’t been blogging enough! 

I realised that it is extremely difficult to imitate the way someone else writes. Moral of the day: SUPPORT NOOSE SCREENWRITERS