Search topic: 'Harry Potter'

You can see the popularity of each topic over the years as measured by the number of web searches. Here the spikes are clearly due to the release of the movies, and the abnormally large spike in 2007 almost certainly owes itself to the almost-simultaneous release of the 5th movie and the 7th book (honestly though, the Order of the Phoenix movie was so nondescript that I’m sure the book had a much more significant contribution).

Ha I also discovered holiday-related trends (search ‘France’ – and notice the spikes during summer) and trends related to the acts of a crackpot regime:

North Korea

What surprises me is that the second-largest number of searches comes from Myanmar, and the third from Cambodia. These numbers belie the extent of internet penetration in these countries – unless the searches originate from government bodies? (Yikes, so are the similarities in government even less of a coincidence than we think?!)

Moving on, I searched Christ’s College online and… hello there! It appears the editors of the  Wikipedia page have forgotten to include ‘George Yong-Boon Yeo’ in the list of famous alumni. As a passionate Aljunied resident, I must take umbrage at this. How remiss, Wikipedia!

Anyway, the prospect of studying overseas made me recall the (probably apocryphal) story of why all of Singapore’s government ministries are air-conditioned: Lee Kuan Yew believed that brains work best at 24 deg C. Now, it is always fun to pin the blame on the humid weather for my occasional lapses in brain performance, and I was looking forward to transiting to a colder environment to, erm, aid brain function. Sadly this paper put all my claims to rout; apparently heat transfer from the environment only penetrates superficial regions of the brain. So the really important internal structures are unaffected, TYVM.

Also! I’ve started marking my first homework set! (Oh I wish it were less painfully obvious when my students copy from each other.) Now that I’m starting to see things from a teacher’s perspective, I find it surprisingly satisfying when my students ask questions.

I’ve observed that girls tend to refrain from asking questions, unlike guys. My own experiences verify what the Dean of Penn State U said in an interview with the Straits Times: Girls and boys have different reactions to failure. Girls believe it’s because they themselves are inadequate, while boys tend to blame others.

Gosh, I can empathize with this. I think what holds many girls back is the nagging suspicion that their own questions are not ‘sophisticated enough’ to be asked in class? Sigh.

This is the only post that I have written on tenterhooks. Okay, possibly not, but all other posts that were conceived in a similar state of anxiety are immaterial for I AM DESPERATELY TRYING TO STAY AFLOAT IN THE C________ POOL. Apparently T______ College is sending out their decisions now – updates are pouring into The Student Room by the minute. Perhaps by the end of this post I will know my fate, but I sincerely hope not because in this time of turmoil I subscribe to the adage that ‘no news is good news’.

COLLEGES I AM A FAT AND JUICY FISH BURSTING WITH NUTRITIOUS OMEGA-3 PLEASE FISH ME OUT.

Now, kids, it’s time for an advertisement!! I have recently been hooked on this iPhone game called ‘Unblock me’. It closely resembles a game called ‘Rush Hour’ – you know the sort with a 6 by 6 grid with vehicles of different lengths arranged parallel to either the x or y axis, and then you have to move them around to get the red car out?

So I have developed a strategy to solve these puzzles. Read on if you like spatial analysis (I do!):

1. Compartmentalize. Realize that at each step, you only have a few possible moves and analyze the outcomes of each. In the diagram above, you can move either that long piece at the top right-hand corner or the two  2-unit ones facing down. Hmm… in this case all three of them are going to have to move downwards in the first few steps, if you want to other horizontal 2-unit pair to move out so that the vertical 2-unit one in the middle gets to move up so it doesn’t block the red one. We have an opening!

2. Visualize what the game board should look like in order for the car to move. Start from the right.  The long piece at the top right hand *has* to move downwards so it eventually occupies the bottom right hand corner, else it will block the exit. Also, that vertical 2-unit piece that is in the middle must move up to occupy the top two rows to make way for the red piece to get past the third column.
While you are playing the game always keep in mind where the pieces *need* to go. It may also be helpful to always remember that each piece can ONLY move along its axis and cannot magically teleport to a different column or row.

3. Pair up. There are three pairs of 2-unit pieces here. Pairs tend to move together because if they are blocking another piece arranged perpendicular to it, there is no point moving one and not the other.

4. I have found myself visualizing the blocks moving in large ‘clumps’ formed by grouping parallel blocks in physical proximity together. This is often ill-advised (except when there is a pair) as each neighboring block has its own set of conditions. Sometimes you may have to move two neighbors in opposite directions.

5. Carry your logical trains of thoughts to their conclusion. Often you derive your next move by starting from the very item that is blocking the path of the red piece at the moment. You start a thought that goes ‘I must move block W away, but to that that I must move block X, which is obstructed by block Y, which is obstructed by…’ at this point, RESIST THE TEMPTATION to give up! Go down the line until you find a block that you can actually move!

Above are the five pillars of my strategy – any suggestions on how to improve it?
—

Having typed out my most lengthy post this year (this sounds like a landmark achievement, does it not, until you realize how many posts I have made this year), let us check back at that wretched pool… nope. No news. Yay?

Never let it be said that I am not philanthropic, for my thigh is now a mottled mess of bites from those lesser cousins of vampires. To the mozzies who have celebrated Christmas in the bar that is my appendages: I hope the antibodies in my blood react adversely with the enzymes lining your spiracles and result in your very timely death. VERMIN, BEGONE!

Me:  I want to go to Hong Kong
Mother: Cannot. Hong Kong has SARS. 

 啼笑皆非 

Fortunately, there exists essay-related comic relief online. Read this essay, written in response to the prompt ‘Write a note to your future roommate’. It’s actually a good essay that distills its author’s quirks very well, even if the grammar isn’t stellar.

-EDIT-
I disagree with the favorable reviews of this essay. Quantity (of examples) is not quality. In fact, reading it wears me out because her examples from the third paragraph onward add no value – they are so numerous as to be distracting. (From this we learn how reliable essayforum.org is.)

Also, the world is wondrous. There is a Korean pop group named ‘Function of x’.

The full poem:
朝辞白帝彩云间，千里江陵一日还。
两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山。

Ok that’s enough preamble. This post begins, rather stereotypically, with a nice photograph.

Lotus lake in Mui Ne, Phan Thiet

So I am back from my hiatus, which you may unfortunately have mistaken for a regular blogging interval (given the frequency at which I post stuff). No, it is decidedly a hiatus. I have been to the land of no-Facebook, Youtube and Google (hence the title of this post), and I am back!

I’m still transferring my photos, so let’s talk about fruits. I find they are the greater evil of the two sources of fibrous fetidity (its lesser twin being vegetables).  Ms Dass tells me that in an argument I should define terms, so for simplicity let us consider fruits that are usually served cooked, vegetables. Hence, long beans and eggplants are vegetables. Tomato is still a fruit. Peas exist woefully in a superposition of states and may either turn out to be vegetably or fruitily polarised — but one cannot predict which it is before they are served.

Vegetables strike me as somewhat harmless packages of nutrients bursting with friendly greenness, so I shall not comment on them. Fruits I find rather disagreeable. Fruits are laden with booby traps. How many times have you sunk your teeth into a grape only to find out, with an earth-shattering crunch, that you’ve bitten into a seed? Or had your orange-eating endeavours hampered because you had to pause to remove the rind from between your teeth? Fruits also have the annoying habit of varying in sweetness. It is quite impossible to tell apart a normal papaya slice from one that smells of decaying flesh – given, of course, that you have a blocked nose.

On the whole I find honeydew quite tolerable, and would like to mention it here as a shining example for all other fruits to aspire to. Honeydew is usually reasonably sweet. Also, when served sliced there are no seeds or nasty bits that suddenly pop out and say ‘GOTCHA!’

Oh, I see that my photos have finished loading. Let’s see…

Try and make out the author's name! Answer at the bottom of this post.

Obligatory photo of mountains looming over a jade-green lake in Fengdu

View of Chang Jiang and Chongqing from E Ling park

Answer to riddle: 毛泽东

Anyway I only have the photos from the last three days of the trip (长江cruise + 重庆), which were not very interesting compared to the breathtaking scenery and minority cultures of 张家界!! My father the usurper has usurped my earlier photos into his computer. I may upload them.

*Is impressed at own ability to navigate a minefield of instructions in a foreign language* Unfortunately my journey to creating an account was fraught with technical problems that had nothing at all to do with my grasp of the language. Really, nothing.

Problem 1: You have to state your 家乡. Curiously enough the drop-down menu lists only Chinese provinces.
Solution: Filled in 福建 厦门市 — my ancestral land. ~~~ For I know I am but a fallen leaf who must return to my roots… *insert jingoistic message here*

Problem 2: You have to state the school you graduated from. There is no escaping this because the drop-down menu lists every single school in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan - and nowhere else (Are there no home-schooled people in China?!). And an annoying red bar pops up when you try to sneak past this roadblock…
Solution: Always acutely aware of the need for foreign talent, I decided that Kunming High School in Shanghai could accommodate a new member. 

Problem 3: Finding out the Chinese names of people in our school. Who would have guessed that Lu Jun’s Chinese name is not 路军, or that Tingyi would have added a ‘小猫’ behind her name?!! Really, you people… some consistency wouldn’t hurt…

After surmounting these not-inconsiderable hurdles, I finally managed to add Anqi!! Yay! 

Okay this post ends rather lamely here but I have a flight to Saigon to catch tomorrow morning so I shall go and sleep! TAM BIET!!

I LOVE THE MIT APPLICATION BLOGS

Every time I read an entry I feel myself nodding, marvelling at the fact that THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO THINK THE SAME WAY I DO! Who exhibit the same patterns of thought and examine their surroundings under a magnifying glass and ponder incessantly and tirelessly and pour it all out in writing <333

Look at this entry about being average. I have that niggling fear in my head all the time. 

Or this entry about being qualified for MIT. Touche. (I love the ending, btw – apart from assuaging some of my fears, it also showed me that compassion is still appreciated, even amongst super-smart individuals whom one perceives to be less in need of human interaction. Stereotypes, gah.) 

Or this entry about children, also by Anna H. 

These blogs make me want to know these people, to talk to them and pick their wonderful minds and discuss Things with them! I love this very human face of what is perceived as an exclusive, elite institution. 

If I get to be in such an environment in Uni – that great looming Unknown – I’ll be happy. 

I think I will be happy when Jan 1 comes. (Or maybe not, maybe there’ll be something even more ominous round the corner *shivers*)

Here are some photos of Convo to prevent me from boring you all with my laments…

Everyone's favourite Math teacher!

My roommate thinks she has very big eyes

Hark! A dementor!!

Don’t you think the title of this post is very funny?