Nice, cool post-rain weather has activated my blogging reflex, after close to 2 weeks of silence. there's no really good reason for not blogging...mostly it's been because the mood just wasn't there, and sometimes, because i was too busy to blog. maybe school's taking more out of me than i'd thought.

about school...i've met all my lecturers and tutors already. the only ones i haven't introduced are japanese ones. for japanese, i've got a main lecturer and 3 tutors. in general, they're all nice people, though they speak too quickly sometimes. the lessons have been really enjoyable so far, despite being kind of content-heavy. guess interest does help, though interest alone cannot replace adequate preparation.

my timetable's solid already, and after about a week of full-blown lessons, i'm starting to feel grateful for the supposedly-long breaks. they give me more time to rest and prepare for later lessons. if i'd maintained last semester's 10:00am to 6:00pm timetable, you probably wouldn't be reading this post, because i might have died from stress, exhaustion, or frustration already.

...frustration?

it may look a little out of place, but spending time in is school really becoming an increasingly frustrating experience. don't get me wrong, i like hanging out with the usual group of friends. it's the damned travelling that bugs me. now that u-town is up, lectures end half an hour early instead of 15 minutes like previous semesters. while the loss of a mid-lecture break is annoying as well, it's nothing compared to all the squeezing on the bus. i swear, the crowd never seems to go away! and that's just within school. don't even get me started on the morning crowd at buona vista MRT station. for some reason, the morning crowd has doubled (or even tripled) from previous semesters. like i've said at least 5 times, and thought about at least 30 times more, october 8 cannot come soon enough.

there was one positive travelling experience i absolutely have to mention. yesterday, i was on the BTC shuttle bus, on the way home after classes. the bus driver was friendly and polite, which was a really nice change. but that's not the good bit. you see, my last class ended at 6:00pm, which is also when most people get off work. 6:00pm is a pretty bad time to be on the AYE (or almost any expressway, actually) since traffic conditions can get horrendous. instead of joining the queue leading into the expressway, this driver went by an alternate route, which may have been longer in distance, but ended up taking a shorter time. super impressive. in my 2-and-a-bit years in NUS, he's the first driver i've seen to do this. i'm seriously contemplating writing a letter of commendation for him...only thing is, i forgot his name. hopefully, we meet again on another bus, i recognize him, and take his name down.

year 3 has been ok so far. based on the past 3 weeks' experience, the timetable's manageable, and the workload should keep me busy without shorting me out too badly. one change i noticed, though, is that i'm working harder sooner into the semester. normally, i'd still be slacking 3 weeks in, and only start really focusing about 2 weeks later. that's not to say that i'm not slacking now, but slacking less than usual. maybe it's because the friends i hang out with are going to the library to sleep/study between lectures and sometimes even after school. inevitably, i end up tagging along too. guess peer pressure works, after all. ok, it's not really pressure, since i'm free to go off if i want to...but you get the idea. it's doing me good anyway, since i use the time to prepare for upcoming lessons.

quick bit about the presidential elections...they're today. or at least they were, since the polls are closed now. unlike the general election, i didn't really know which candidate to vote for. however, i did know which 2 i definitely didn't want in office, so that kind of helped. lastest news is that the fight's been narrowed down to 2 candidates...one of whom i would not mind winning, and one of whom i'm dead set against. here's hoping things go well.

seems like i can't shake off my cooking urges, even during term time. i've been having this crazy compulsion to do another soup/stew, and go for attempt #3 at making homemade pasta. guess that will happen over the public holiday. looks like most of my free wednesdays will become cooking days, too. oh well. so be it, then.

before i end this update, i just want to blog about judo. more specifically, my judo. most of my friends who don't know their seoinages from their sweeps think that my black belt is a big deal. unfortunately, they're only half-right. black belts are a big deal. mine isn't. to be honest, i sometimes feel like i'm not quite ready for black yet. sure, my technical knowledge may be good, my kata is more or less acceptable, but my sparring isn't worth scratch. winning over juniors doesn't count, since i'm obliged to go easy. but put me in an all-out competition match with someone who has similar experience, and i know that i wouldn't come out on top for sure. i'm not blaming anyone, but it seems to me like after such a long time of relaxed sparring with juniors, i've forgotten how to go all out and spar seriously. maybe a 20-year meditation trip up to some remote mountain would help me see the light. or a hard smack. yes...that might be easier.


it's getting late, and i probably should be heading to bed. the weather is nice and cool, which means i should fall asleep pretty easily. right now, the votes are being recounted, and i don't think i'm bothered enough to stay up for the result. let's hope tomorrow brings good news.

-random thought of the day: Need more interesting blogging topics.-

Facebook is about to go down for the semester in something like 3 hours. hopefully, that helps me get back into school mode, because i'm still having trouble shaking off the last remnants of summer. my deactivation is actually late this semester, as i've had a week 2 days one day of classes so far last week. the first 3 days were taken up by national day and the associated holidays, while friday was a free day since lab hasn't started yet.

in that one day of school, i've already met 3 lecturers, 2 chem and 1 econs. the instrumental analysis lecturer isn't bad, just that his lectures are too early. his notes are mildly funny, which i suppose helps. organic synthesis is a little scary, as the lecturer's expectations are kind of high. but i think i'll be ok. after all, i intend to specialize in the field, so i'll work something out somehow. as for econs, it could be because the content sounds familiar, or because it's such a big class, but i totally zoned out during lecture. could be because the notes are ridiculously long too, but that's somewhat expected for an arts subject. i believe the lecturer's trying to engage us as much as she can, but it's somehow not working out. thank goodness for my JC econs foundation.

last post, i mentioned that i would blog about the "bad" thing here. umm...no. sorry to say this, but not yet. i'll push it back a few posts because i want to start the academic year on a good note. so, nothing negative at the moment. i'll get to it soon, though...like within the next week or two.

right now, school is first and foremost in my mind, so i'll talk about that for a while more. schedule-wise, i think my timetable looks kind of messed up...but given the various timings of the classes, i think i did the best i could. looking at the nice empty spots on my timetable, i have mixed feelings. i feel happy because i have all that free time to study and spend my time productively, but at the same time, there's an even higher chance that i just goof off. bleh. boils down to my self-restraint.

since i don't think i can focus much longer, i'll just leave some thought fragments that i may or may not expand on in future. they are: excited for japanese, cadet judo championships, my judo future, money matters, "bad" things, and possibly some other things, if they come to me. for now, i'm going to get ready for a long day tomorrow.

-random thought of the day: 8:00am lecture tomorrow. Sian.-

I have good news and bad news...which one do you want first?

ok...so they're not really good news and bad news. more like good and bad things that have happened in the past 2 days. then again, i can't really say "bad", because although one of the things was a little on the negative side, there was no ill intention. on to the good news!

hearing good news first makes receiving the bad news later easier, so that's what i'll start with. yes, i'm aware that i gave you a choice at the start of the post. if you're dying to see the bad stuff first, skip ahead a few paragraphs.

like i'm written about many times in the past, i generally do not associate national days with "good". that changed this year, however, as i spent most of last night/early this morning in the company of several good friends. similar to last year, my friends is flying off (to america this time instead of germany), so we had a sort of mini-party thing to meet up before he left. practically everyone there (except me) plays street fighter 4, so that's how they spent most of the time. i tried my hand at a couple of versus matches, and lost horribly (as expected). seems like i'm not cut out for competitive arcade gaming. aside from that, we had drinks and drinking games, so i wasn't left idle (or fully sober) all that much.

there were a few meaningful conversations too, with one of the other friends at the function. even though we were classmates in sec 1 and sec 2, we were never really close. that's why it's doubly surprising that we can relate to each other so well. i suppose it's because we have an interest in martial arts, amongst some other things, in common...so that helps to bridge any gaps. since we were classmates for 2 years, it was only natural that our shared experience came up as a topic of conversation. he mentioned that he felt kind of bad for me that some of our classmates weren't exactly nice to me (i definitely wasn't mr. popular back then), to which i replied that i'd gotten over it. i suppose it's mostly true...at least i believe it is. i may not be best of friends with all of my lower secondary classmates, but at least i can have a decent conversation with most of them if necessary. that, along with some other topics which we discussed at length, gave me some serious food for thought.

now, for the bad things. first off, my SIM card died on me yesterday. waking up to that is not pleasant, let me assure you...especially if you have big plans for the day and need to remain contactable, like i did. now, i've been guilty of purposely leaving my phone at home when i go out, so i know how to be uncontactable if i want to. this time, i didn't have a say in the matter, so it was kind of frustrating. ended up having to go to nex to try and solve the problem, since the starhub shop in bishan is all but useless unless you're a new customer. long story short, i got the SIM card replaced, and everything worked again. thank goodness it wasn't a phone problem...that would have been most troublesome. since both my dad and i were there, i decided to get some paperwork done, and transferred my phone line to my name. figured that it would be more convenient, since i'd be able to pay my own bills on time, and see exactly how much money goes into my telecommunication needs, and where exactly the money goes.

incidentally, i discovered that my dad went to recontract my phone line without telling me. now, my phone plan expires sometime in november 2012. do you know what that means? i can't sign a new plan until august 2012, earliest. well, i can, but i'd have to pay a $200 cancellation fee. in turn, that means that my plans to get a new phone sometime this year or early next year basically crashed and burned. so annoying. i'm not so annoyed that the line was recontracted, but more annoyed that it was done without informing me, or asking for my opinion. on the other hand, it might be good to wait for a bit until prices drop, or until an even newer model comes out. no point worrying about the future; we'll see what to do when apple announces the dates.

as i found out yesterday, the words "we have to talk" and its infinite variations still strikes significant fear in me, especially if that's all i'm told. i realize i don't really like living in negative anticipation. so, i think i'll try being on the giving side for once. you'll find out what the talk was about in the next post!

-random thought of the day: School starts in less than 30 hours!-

"T20" is a word (phrase?) that usually gets a smile out of me, provided it's said by the right people...like my JC classmates. that's because it was my JC class, where i spent 1.75 years with 25 interesting people. maybe i'm having selective memory loss, but most (practically all) of the memories i have about my class are nice/good/fond ones. or at least there are no seriously bad memories. and despite knowing my secondary school classmates earlier, i feel that i'm closer to some of my JC classmates instead.

yesterday made me super happy, because it was the first time since graduation that a large-scale class gathering was organized. we've had smaller meetings over the years, mostly within our smaller groups of closer friends, but nothing like what happened yesterday. 12 out of 26 people showed up, which is kind of...average. i was hoping for more, but oh well. out of the 11 other people who came, there were 6 of them whom i haven't seen since results day in 2007. we had dinner at crystal jade in bugis, followed by drinks at a nearby bar. i was pleasantly surprised to find that maintaining conversations with most of them was as easy as before. it was definitely nice to see close to half the class again, and i hope the next time something like this happens will be way sooner than 4 years.

as we were catching up yesterday, the topic of work came up. since the girls didn't have to sell 2 years of their lives to the government, they've graduated and are either employed or looking for jobs. it seems surreal, somehow. thanks to something someone said at dinner, i actually had a mental image/reminiscence thing, remembering how everyone looked in their school uniforms. seriously...i occasionally have trouble believing that we're practically adults now. luckily, i still have up to 2 years of school and hopefully a year of JET program to shield me from the working world. so i figure i shouldn't worry too much yet.

instead, i should focus my energy on more immediate concerns, like timetable woes. actually...i don't have any at the moment. my timetable seemed to magically fall into place once the modules were secured. all that's left to do is to settle my 5 tutorials. nothing i can do right now, though, since tutorial balloting only begins on thursday.

from the looks of it, if everything goes according to plan, my days will be quite nicely-paced. no more consecutive classes for 8 hours like last semester. monday has 2 core module lectures, and possibly the chem tutorials. i have econs in the morning on tuesday, and japanese in the evening. i'm planning on slotting 1 or 2 japanese tutorials in between those lectures.

oh...wait a minute. i've just been glancing at the tutorial slots for japanese. they don't have a tuesday tutorial slot for the second tutorial! that means i can't put the it on tuesday, which also means that my perfect plans are screwed. what i can do now is either put tutorial 2 on a wednesday, and sacrifice my free day, or put tutorial 2 on a thursday. while the latter choice sounds more appealing, it leads to another problem. you see, if tutorial 2 goes on a thursday, that means tutorial 3 must go on a friday...after lab. lab ending times are kind of bipolar...i've finished lab as early as 1:00pm, and as late as 5:30pm. the friday tutorial is supposed to start at 5:00pm, which means i have to be on a bus out of science by 4:40pm LATEST. yet, it's the best option right now. major thumb-sucking ensues.

since tutorial 2 can't go on tuesday, i can put tutorial 1 there instead, so that most of my tuesday is devoted to japanese. current arrangement: tutorial 1 on tuesday, tutorial 2 on thursday, and tutorial 3 on friday. even with this arrangement, the concern highlighted a little earlier about lab is still valid. looks like i'll have to work extra-fast and extra-accurate for lab. lucky i'm doing physical and analytical this semester. i just can't imagine finishing an organic synthesis early.

with that change, monday's starting to look a little too free. guess that's where the chem tutorials will end up going...provided the professors open slots there. though i'm more stressed out then i was before thinking about this whole tutorial business, the bright side is that it's over and done with, so i can choose the slots i want without headache on balloting day. and to make things even better, my free day isn't compromised! it'll probably be spent doing lab reports, though, but we'll see.

even though i know the first day of school is about 5 days away, my holiday mood shows no sign of letting up. probably because i have more plans to get drunk (or plans to get more drunk) over national day. well...enjoy while we can, yes? once school starts, i don't foresee another drunk episode until around...september, when the judo junior goes back to the UK. ok, so there's not much impact in that statement, but you get the idea.

there's been 2 new tuition assignments! well, one new and one not-so-new. not-so-new is CJC boy who was formerly SJI boy. i guess he paused for nationals or something, but he wants tuition again. i just hope i don't have to do too much damage control. the other kid is also a CJC boy, and was also from SJI, but he's in J2 this year. after our first session today, i am pretty neutral. he seems able to understand what i'm saying, but i worry for his retention. well, my effort will mirror the kids'. everything should work out.

-random thought of the day: Dreamt about that person last night. Bad subconscious.-

Life without choices sucks. naturally, this leads to the conclusion that the more choices, the better. counter-intuitively, that isn't exactly true. having too many choices can be as bad as, if not worse than, having no choice at all. guess it's a variation of the law of diminishing returns.

the reason i'm talking about choices is because of module bidding and timetable planning. my experience in previous semesters is that the major headache comes from deciding which modules to take. this time, though, i decided on my modules pretty easily (with one exception). what's killing me is choosing which lecture groups to bid for, and arranging my tutorials in the leftover slots. the only thing that could be worse than doing that is making these decisions with incomplete information, which is something i'm sort of having to do now. granted that bidding isn't over, so i may be a little kancheong, but the core modules' tutorial times are usually announced after bidding, leaving us to do a fair bit of guesswork regardless.

incidentally, the last module i'm thinking of doing is principles of economics. decided against financial accounting, because (1) the reviews says it's heavy and (2) it's surprisingly popular in bidding, possibly due to the small class size. giving up that module is fine with me, since i didn't really have much interest in it anyway. the frustrating thing is that the elective modules that i DO have an interest in all clash horribly with my cores. to rub it in, some of these nice interesting modules are only offered in semester 1. now that my third year in school is about to begin, the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter. that means that i may not be able to take all the interesting modules that i want, considering the constraints. i do intend to go for honours, but i somehow don't foresee enough time to take as many electives as i'd like (if any electives at all). sian.

background information: right now, i have a full-day lab session, 5 tutorials (2 chem, 3 japanese), and 3 lectures (1 japanese, 2 econs) to arrange. the constraint is that labs can only be on either tuesday or friday. the japanese lecture has to be on tuesday, either from 4:00pm to 6:00pm, or from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. the econs lectures are arranged in a group, so it's either tuesday morning and thursday night, or wednesday noon and friday night. thankfully, japanese tutorials have so many timeslots that i'm sure i'll be able to fit one of each category into my schedule easily. and of course, i'm still in the dark about chem tutorials, so i'll leave that aside for now.

here's the issue. there's still another factor, called coaching. it's scheduled for fridays, but i don't know how often. putting econs lecture on wednesday/friday is still possible, because it's too late in the day to affect anything else. but if lab were to go on friday, there definitely wouldn't be time for coaching at all this semester. and yet, having lab on friday might work out better, because i can put econs on tuesday/thursday. this gives me more time to re-run through the content for the japanese lecture later in the day. in addition, the chances for a free day are higher this way. problem is, no coaching = no money. but then again, i'm already waiting for a year's worth of salary. the best way to settle this would probably be to give my boss a call, and find out exactly how many dates we're scheduled for, and whether my assistance will be significantly missed.

now you see what some NUS kids (or maybe it's just me) go through during bidding period. despite how bad it sounds, i'm still grateful that this is all i'm doing, unlike the SMU kids, who actually have spreadsheets forecasting bid points for their modules. there's always a mountain higher, and a valley deeper...or something to that effect.

according to the lunar calendar, the seventh month has started. that's supposedly the time when the netherworld gates open, and all sorts of things are free to roam the world for a month. that doesn't really bother me as much, because i believe that if i leave them alone, they'll leave me alone too. what does annoy me is all the burning! almost all the families living around me are burning offerings to their ancestors. as a result, the ambient temperature's become higher than normal, making falling asleep a little more difficult. my main concern, however, is that all that smoke may trigger respiratory-related illnesses. here's hoping against that.

bidding has reminded me that school is starting soon...in NINE DAYS, to be exact! horrors. my summer is practically over. better shake off the rust and lethargy, and get back into fighting form for another semester. just have to satisfy my last few cooking urges (no major projects, just some normal stuff), and meet my JC friends in what i hope is the most successful class gathering ever.

-random thought of the day: Must get Japanese!-