Didn't do much this entire past week. my mentor told me to take a break after my latest reaction failed (again), so i skipped out in a few days of lab. my latest conclusion about the experiment is that contrary to what i'd previously thought, reaction time doesn't seem to have that great an effect on the obtained product. my next shot is at temperature. i'm probably heating it too high, so the molecules form undesired products due to excess energy. to investigate that theory, i'm going to repeat the experiment, using a different solvent with a lower boiling point.

other than that, i had quite a restful week. wasn't in school all that much, except to appeal for the medicinal chem module. the nice honours lady says that professors usually allow students into their level 4 modules, so i'm remaining pretty optimistic that i'll get it. besides, the appeal list only had like 3 names on it total, which means that unless there is overwhelming demand from CORS, getting in should not be an issue. despite a slack week, i still don't feel ready to tackle school head-on, though. nevertheless, there are activities lined up already, starting with TA training tomorrow, and honours orientation the week after. lucky it's not that intensive yet. gives me time to slowly build momentum.

true to my wishes, the 2 kids did cancel tuition...for the third week in a row. i am SO tempted to just drop them. so i spent a nice, relaxing weekend at home, only going out to watch batman yesterday (movie review will come later). wish all my weekends could be like the past 3...hanging out with friends, not being worried by deadlines, grades, or anything of that nature.

oh. i mentioned it last time, but i thought i'd briefly say it again. my dad sold the car. don't know how much he got out of it, but it seems like (95% chance) i won't be getting a car of my own yet. well...not surprising, but still kind of a bummer. oh well. have to learn to be content with what i have. besides, train concession will ultimately be cheaper than petrol. wonder what model of car will come next? from the time i was born until now, we've had 4 cars in total. a dark blue mitsubishi, a red nissan, another mitsubishi (chamapgne-coloured this time), and finally the most recent blue toyota. if i had to guess, i'd say it's another japanese car, probably a mistubishi or toyota. as for colour...maybe blue again? or some relatively dark colour, at any rate. wonder how it'll be like to drive?

reading back a couple of posts, i found some blogging prompts that i conveniently forgot about. in rough chronological order, i have to blog about the tuition centre, my schedule, intermediate 3, and asparagus. first of all, the tuition centre. a couple of weeks ago, my friend's parents linked me up to one of their friends, who runs a pretty successful tuition centre. after a couple of phone calls with him, we've both agreed that i'm not suited for the job he's offering. that's because he he's looking for someone who wants to make a career out of tuition, not a weekend warrior like me. i understand his rationale, because he's willing to invest a lot in his employees. so, i guess that's the end of that, unless all my other plans don't work out.

schedule issues and intermediate 3 are kind of linked. right now, i have to juggle the standard NUS workload, plus additional TA responsibilities, outside japanese, and tuition. seems ok now, but i guess that's because i may be misestimating the time i have to spend in the lab, or the other modules' workload. well, worst come to worst, i suppose i can stop japanese mid-way. would be a waste of the fees, but no choice if it really comes down to that. makes me think i shouldn't have paid for intermediate 3 so soon. but when faced with the pressure of limited vacancies, my decision-making capabilities can be warped.

asparagus is kind of minor, actually. i've been watching jamie oliver, and now have this mad urge to make asparagus soup (along with chocolate mousse, pasta, and a whole lot of other stuff). and with me having to be in school most days over the next 2 weeks, it doesn't seem likely that i'll get any major cooking projects done. guess i'll play it by ear, then.

now for the movie review. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.

still with me? ok. in general, the movie itself was good. great action sequences, impressive technology (i particularly liked the batpod's rolling-wheel thing), and a well thought-out storyline. i like how the characters are human, like, they can actually die from gunshots and stuff that would kill normal people. however, i was midly disappointed by some of the character portrayals. bane is supposed to be a drug addict, not someone who has to continuously take painkillers. though...come to think of it, they are similar. i was pretty annoyed with not spotting one of the major plot twists. anyone who has read the comics knows that ra's al ghul has a daughter. guess i was too caught up in the atmosphere to remember that. while i know that gotham city doesn't exist, it's a bit scary, to think that the situation in some parts of the world is only slightly better. despite how we say the government is messed up (and i don't deny that), i'm also grateful that singapore is a very safe place to live in. and can someone rehabilitate a broken back in 5 months? i'm no doctor, but it sounds highly improbable. overall, it's a great watch, and if you have the money, i think it's worth watching more than once.

SPOILERS OVER

next week looks pretty busy. TA training will occupy most of my time in the weekdays. intermediate 3 is starting, and i apparently have a drinking night scheduled with my JC classmates, though i don't remember committing to it. in addition, there's refereeing on this sunday. think it'll be my last (or second-last) event of the year. hope all goes well.

-random thought of the day: Why do people still want to live in Gotham?-

Received an interesting SMS from my dad earlier today while i was in lab. seems that he found a buyer for the car, and will be handing it over this coming thursday. this leaves us car-less for a few days, at least over the weekend as a minimum. how lucky my professor cancelled group seminar this saturday! makes me almost tempted to cancel tuition as well, and just spend the entire weekend rotting at home. i would, too, but i can't give the money up. sometimes, sacrifices have to be made.

after doing some research on sgcarmart, i've found that the car would have sold for anywhere between $50000 to $90000. let's say we get $75000 out of it. what are the odds that my dad gets himself a car for $50000, and uses the remaining $25000 or so to get me a second-hand car? i honestly do not know. but if there is a prospect of me having a car, i'd be happy to contribute towards it as well. for the millionth time, i know that having a car of my own is a want, and not a need. and if it does come through, i'm incredibly lucky/privileged. still doesn't stop me from hoping.

been in a pretty odd mood since this evening. the best way i can describe it is a little melancholy, coupled with contemplative/reflective. might be due to fatigue, or losing hope in my synthesis. turns out that i read one of the reagents wrongly, and i used something else by mistake. but it's still reasonably close...just one extra oxygen atom's difference. i believe that the reaction should still proceed, though it might take longer, or give reduced yields. fingers crossed for when i check on it tomorrow.

you know, i've been thinking of making a drastic diet change, to something close to a pescetarian diet. by the way, pescetarian just means vegetarian, plus fish and seafood. based on geographical location, it probably won't be too difficult for me to find fish at mealtimes. of course, i'm not cutting myself off completely from other meats...that'd be unthinkable. right now, my tentative plan is to have a "meat ration", like how many servings of other meats i'm allowed per week or something like that. will probably have to give it a bit more thought before implementing something this major.

guess that's it for this relatively shorter update. it's a nice cool night, which i both love and hate. love because it's great for sleeping, hate because it's great for sleeping with someone else. annoying.

-random thought of the day: Still feeling weird.-

Love is...

...only a feeling, as the song goes. sounds so simple, but it's way more complicated. love exists in many different forms, but i figure as long as we can clearly differentiate between what we feel for friends, significant others, and whatever other categories of people that may exist, things will be all right. problem is that sometimes, it isn't easy for me. like, sure, i know who my friends and close friends are, but a question i often find myself asking is "それだけ (sore dake)?", which is one of my previous japanese tutor's favourite questions, and means "is that all? (literally, "that only?")". there is potential for more, but at the same time, the possibility that things will become irreparably damaged also cannot be ignored. i don't know. it's just messed up.

so. while still on not-happy stuff, my reactions haven't been working. kind of disheartening/demoralizing, especially since they're not that complex. feels like i've been wasting my time in the lab. the only comfort i get is that i've discovered one more way NOT to synthesize what i want. at least i've gained some insight, too. my current suspicion is that the mixture is being heated for too long. so, i'll go in tomorrow, heat it for a couple of hours, and hope for the best. at the same time, i've also come across a different procedure to synthesize the compound. going to try both, and hope that at least one succeeds. of course, it would be nice if both worked out, but i'd be satisfied enough if just one worked.

prior to this, the last update was tuesday. since then, i've had the chemical stock-take on wednesday, skipped a day of lab on thursday, had lab on friday, tuition plus meeting with the same 2 JC classmates for another drinking night on saturday, and finally dinner and dessert with the chem kids at bugis a few hours ago. the stock take wasn't really remarkable...just checking off chemicals against a list. never realized we had that many chemicals! as a rough estimate, we had 4 groups of 3 students each. for my group at least, we checked about 300 chemicals (conservative estimate). since all groups got a roughly equal distribution of the workload, that means the entire lab has about 1200 chemicals! guess all those small bottles really do add up. thankfully, we finished in about 5 to 6 hours, and i was able to go back to bishan to meet some judo juniors who were in the area for ice cream. didn't have any as my hands still smelled of chemicals. you know, that might be a good way to diet...having chemicals on my hands to make me nervous about picking food up.

nothing special about thursday and firday, so we'll skip over them. standard group seminar on saturday, followed by tuition with TKGS girl, since the group of 2 cancelled on me AGAIN. have half a mind to just drop them; also gets a load off my shoulders. will see how it goes. good news is that TKGS girl is starting to get mole concept. seems to me that her biggest problem is that she confuses herself. anyway, the original plan was to get batman begins and the dark knight DVDs to watch in preparation for the new batman movie. incidentally, i will kill whoever spoils it for me. in the end, that plan fell through, because of my lack of foresight (someone else had already rented the DVD). in the end, we still went over, but ended up watching hello ghost, which is this korean comedy movie about a guy who has 4 ghosts following him after a failed suicide attempt. pretty good show, with a surprising twist at the end. also watched sherlock, which is a TV series based on sherlock holmes. quite a good show, actually. i liked the way sherlock holmes was portrayed. too bad there have only been 2 seasons of 3 episodes each produced so far.

i remember deciding to sleep at about 3:00am, then waking up about 7 hours later. went for lunch at nex's mad jack's. had the oxtail, which was nice and gelatinous. returned to my friend's place and slacked around for a bit before meeting the chem kids at bugis for dinner at this place called saveur. now, i don't speak french, but i'm guessing that it translates into "savour" or (less likely) "saviour". the food was good! i had the barramundi (a type of fish), and sampled some of my friends' chicken, duck, and beef. all tasted good! wish the serving size was a little bigger, though. for my fish, the fish was cooked well, and the diced potatoes on the the side were great, too. just wish that they got the skin a little crispier, and gave more french beans, which were dressed in some nice vinegar thing. desserts were good as well. felt ambivalent about the panna cotta, but i liked the citrus sorbet/jelly combination and loved the hazelnut/chocolate mousse. i've had 2 encounters with chocolate mousse in the past fortnight alone, and i'm really really tempted to try making it for myself. only major problem is that i don't have a power beater/mixer for the egg whites. suppose i could always do it by hand...maybe sometime before school starts.

speaking of which, school is reopening in another 3 weeks! have to settle my module stuff this thursday. you know, i really want to take the last week (or at least 3 days) off from lab. i just don't feel like i've spent my summer well...and by "well", i mean slacking and recovering from the academic year like i normally do. well...depending on how my reactions go, that might work out in my favour. though my mentor is working towards publishing a paper, so things may change. at any rate, i believe things will work out. as the blue lantern ring says, "all will be well".

-random thought of the day: Wonder if I got a TA spot?-

In order to break my recent streak of wednesday posts, i'm blogging one day before. have to mix it up sometimes, right? aside from some interesting stuff, the basic routine hasn't changed much. lab, home, lab, home, etc. my reaction doesn't seem to be working that well...and i can't figure out why. the best guess i have is that they're being heated for too long. but the reference paper heated their set-up for a similar period, and they got good results! at least the NMR still shows some signature peaks, so i'm hoping that it's just impure, and not a totally different compound.

can't believe that summer's almost over! still remember wondering what to do with all my time after the exams. guess going back to school for most of the break does make time go by faster. honestly, i can't remember what happened from around the middle to the end of june. and i don't feel very rested despite a pretty relaxed summer. kind of scary to imagine what it'll be like when school starts, especially since i can't take days off as and when i please, and my schedule will be much heavier than it currently is.

moving away from work, i met up with a couple of JC classmates for dinner at novena on thursday. ended up eating at the food court in novena square, followed by dessert at the nearby udders. these same 2 friends called me again the next day for a drinking session, but i'll come to that in due time.

didn't go to lab on friday, but went for SJI/CJC training instead. i'm quite sad to say this, but i find myself going back more for SJI than CJC now. the SJI juniors seem more...appreciative, i guess. that's not to say the the CJC kids are ungrateful, but i think their limited experience doesn't allow them to see our intentions. another senior heard someone (a girl, i think) whisper, "why he (the senior) so anal one?". this was regarding throwing positions, by the way. in case any J1s are reading this, we're anal about throwing positions because if you do it wrongly, your throw will never work! if you somehow manage to throw your partner, it's more likely due to brute force. and if you happen to have a heavy partner, you run the risk of straining something while trying to lift them. on the other hand, i've seen all the SJI kids since they were sec 1, so i guess they understand our intentions better. one of the sec 1 kids said he understood stuff quicker when i explained it to him one-on-one. i'm taking that as a compliment to my teaching ability. makes going back worthwhile.

so after training, i went along to serene centre with a couple of juniors for dinner, and another junior came along as the first 2 were leaving. ended up playing listener/counsellor for a while. i find that it's good to have someone to talk to. other people can provide a fresh point of view, or point out stuff, like how you're in denial, or acting irrationally, or stuff like that. still looking for the ideal person to talk to, though. hope they come along soon.

like i mentioned earlier, those 2 friends called me for drinks. it was totally spontaneous, too! one of them had an empty house, because the rest of his family was overseas. got the call at 10:45 or so, left for home at 11:10, reached back home at 11:30, showered by 11:45, and was there at about 12:00. between the 3 of us, we finished half a bottle of gentleman jack, and they took on some jack daniels too. didn't like the latter, so i stuck with the gentleman jack (like a sir!). watched both kill bill movies, had a webcam chat with some people my friend met on exchange (where i got to try my japanese out). i fell asleep between 5:00 to 6:00am, woke up at 9:00am, showered, and went for group seminar, followed by tuition. i'm actually surprised i didn't fall asleep in the middle of any of those things. must learn to summon my energy reserves like that more often.

other than that, nothing else significant happened...nothing that i can remember at this time anyway. oh. just had the japanese mid-term test barely 4 hours ago. compared to NUS, it was easy. shouldn't fail, but don't think i'll get full marks either.

tomorrow, i've to be in school at around 9:00am(!) for a chemical stock-take in my lab. since it's getting late, i'll leave myself with some blogging prompts. they are: schedule worries, intermediate 3 for japanese, asparagus, and whatever else comes to mind next time.

-random thought of the day: Cool weather!-

I seem to be having quite a bit of kou fu (mouth fortune) this week. been eating quite well for the past few dinners, and there's more dinners with friends in the upcoming few days. the purposes for each of the dinners are all completely unrelated, by the way. just a series of nice coincidences.

the first nice dinner was yesterday, after the chem majors' commencement. let's digress for a bit. the people who entered NUS together with me, and who are not doing honours, all graduated yesterday. out of the chem kids group, only one of us graduated, since the rest of us are either doing honours or extending a semester. while i didn't attend the ceremony, i went down after to offer congratulations. in a rare fit of insanity, i also took a few photos with some graduates whom i know. feel quite sad to see some of them go, as i wish i could have got to know them better. at least i have the numbers of those i really want to keep in touch with.

back to explaining dinner. since it was a happy day, i uncharacteristically skipped out on japanese class for dinner with some of the chem kids. the graduate had dinner plans with his family, so we went for dinner without him. quite an ironic twist. anyway, we had dinner at holland village, at this place called "everything with fries". had the salmon, which was cooked really well. fries could have used a bit more vinegar, though. all in all, it was nice, but a little too overpriced. consider this: the dish cost $19, so that's around $21 with tax and service charge. now, if i were to get the ingredients from NTUC, and scale them to appropriate portion size, it would cost me about $7.50, which is less than half the price. add on the utilities like gas and electricity, i'd say maximum $12 as total cost. either i'm underestimating their overheads, or they're making an insane profit. still, i can't really complain, since the overall experience was positive.

today's dinner is courtesy of my judo friend/senior, who wanted to thank me for helping him out during his grading last month. he just came back from london about a week ago, where his team didn't qualify for olympic rowing. he bought me a bag of limited edition 2012 olympic m&m's, which i am kind of reluctant to eat. the art on the packaging is so nice! don't want to spoil it by opening the bag, anyway, we went to this brazillian churrasci...churrasco...grill place in toa payoh. i must admit, it was a good find. wide variety (i stopped counting after the tenth item), nice sides/desserts, and attentive, friendly service staff. they earned bonus points with me by showing tom and jerry on their TV screens, too! honestly, i think it could give carnivore a run for its money. my only criticisms are that the potato salad was a bit of a letdown, the chocolate mousse was too sweet/rich, and i would have liked to see some fish on the menu. but considering the buffet was priced at about $24 per person after tax and service charge, it was most definitely value-for-money. better yet, my friend had some voucher thing, so the entire meal cost $6.37 for the both of us. how's that for savings!?

during the dinner, our conversation covered a wide variety of topics. unfortunately, i learnt that he had not completely passed the grading, as his kime no kata (the most difficult one) did not meet expectations. i'm not entirely surprised, since his original partner didn't show up, and he had to find substitutes at the very last minute. nage no kata is the very first thing black-belt aspirants have to know, so naturally he scored very well for it. what surprised me was that his katame no kata (the one i partnered him for) scored almost as well as the nage no kata! for a pair who had never practised together prior to the actual grading day, that's quite an achievement. i'm just grateful he did well for the component in which i was involved. makes me feel like i deserved the meal...all $3.185 of my share (i'm joking; price doesn't really matter).

since we were already talking about grading, i told him that i was thinking of grading again next year, and asked him if he would be willing to teach my partner and i the full nage no kata for second dan. not only did he agree, it seems like he's supportive of us going for grading, too! of all the people in the judo world i know, he is one of the few people whose support means the most to me. after discussing it with my partner on facebook, it seems that the plan for second dan in 2013 is a go. assuming the grading is in june next year, we have close to a full year to prepare. seems like a lot of time, but with honours work, tuition, japanese, and my partner's job and other commitments, things may not come together that easily. well...at least the first stage of the plan is individual practice/training, so schedule conflicts won't affect us that much.

another topic that came up was about coaching style. honestly, i've never given much thought to my judo coaching style...most probably because i'm still considered a senior, and not a coach. but i think i should think about how best to teach some techniques, especially the more unconventional ones, like sacrifice throws. the step-by-step method isn't always the best. NCAP qualification for judo is still quite a ways into the future, though. guess it's just food for thought for now.

my plans got a little messed up today, as i didn't count on a shipment of new lab equipment coming in. the seniors were all involved in dismantling and reassembling various bits of machinery, so lab work was pretty much at a standstill. actually, i could have just stayed home! but since i was already in school, i helped out by testing some new hotplates/stirrers, and unintentionally gave my senior a shock when she touched a hot hotplate. still feeling mildly guilty/bad, even though there was no injury and she was ok about it. lesson learnt: mark dangerous stuff more clearly and put them somewhere separate. one of the hotplates shorted out my fume hood, which was quite distressing. luckily it got fixed in short order. i also have another hotplate, with an attached temperature probe! so cool. means that my productivity should double, i guess.

many things have suddenly appeared on my plate. honours project, regular modules (including japanese; i'm still working on that assumption), tuition, possibly TA-ing for a level 1 lab module, external japanese class, training for grading, and gymming with the chem kids (for physical training as well). doesn't seem like a lot, but believe me, it gets heavy. not to mention the potential of having a japanese class clash with TA-ing. makes me wonder if i should give something up. or maybe i just need to create more time in my days, by going to school earlier, and perhaps staying later(!). suddenly, a car seems much more like a need again. well...maybe my dad will surprise me before school reopens. who knows? still, i'll make cuts if necessary. but for now, seems like year 4 is going to be unbelievably busy.

forecast of future events: dinner with some JC classmates tomorrow, after a full day of lab. if tomorrow's reactions go well, i may be able to totally miss school on friday. that's good, since i have plans for SJI/CJC training. after that, it's the weekend, where the chem kids have plans to try out this french place for sunday dinner. sounds expensive. first thing first though, please let tomorrow go well.

-random thought of the day: Blog about the tuition centre opportunity.-

Out of the 6 semesters i've completed in NUS, i've never faced such a conflict when planning my timetable. the story presented in the last post actually wasn't quite complete...desperation made me consider other alternatives, but each one has their own complications.

background information: in addition to their respective honours projects, chem honours students are required to take 2 cores and an elective module for honours year. for the upcoming semester, there are 4 cores on offer (excluding the applied chem modules). now, choosing 2 modules out of 4 doesn't seem that difficult, right? just wait. out of the 4 "normal" modules, i only fulfill the prerequisites for 3: advanced coordination, organometallics, and advanced analytical. normally, this would be fine and good. sadly, the elective i'm set on taking is japanese 3. the lecture time for japanese 3 (wednesday, 6:00pm - 8:00pm) clashes with coordination. the japanese 3 final clashes with analytical, so taking analytical is immediately ruled out. what are the odds of so many simultaneous clashes!? i couldn't be this (un)lucky even if i tried.

logically, the thing to do would be to give japanese up, since everything seems to clash with it. but due to interest and some other considerations which i'll explain later, that's my absolute last resort. so, ignoring that possibility for the time being, here are some alternatives. the first thing i thought of was skipping japanese lectures and watching the webcasts later. the japanese lecturer killed that idea when he replied my email. apparently, there'll be activities and other stuff going on in lecture, so attendance is a must. the next idea was then to skip the wednesday coordination lecture (there's another lecture on friday) in favour of japanese. the problem with THAT is that i may miss out on the wednesday content (not much of an issue because i have at least 3 friends taking coordination). more importantly, CORS may not let me bid for both modules if/when it detects a timetable clash. this leaves me with one other option, which is to appeal to take the last module (medicinal chem). the reason i can't take that module normally is because i don't have one of the prerequisites (biomolecules). but since last semester's biomolecules was more like sec 4 science (according to friends who took it), i think catching up to the rest of the cohort won't be that difficult. problem is that my appeal is subject to departmental approval, and i don't know how that will work out. figure i'll email the lecturer and see how things go.

now, i suppose i should explain why i'm not doing the logical (and easy) thing by just dropping japanese in favour for another elective. there are 2 main reasons, actually. the first is due to interest. i like japanese, and the fact that i'm doing well enough to pull my CAP up is just a bonus. the grades seem to come naturally with my studying, which oddly enough, doesn't seem to happen with my core modules. anyway, it's also in line to fulfill my live-in-japan dream. the second reason is that i can only take japanese 4 next semester if i take japanese 3 this semester. i want to take japanese 4 before graduating because NUS gives proficiency certificates with the completion of even-numbered japanese modules. they're not recognized for JLPT or things like that, but at least there's something concrete to show i know some japanese. and my friend told me that i can't take elective modules if/when i do postgrad studies, so it seems like japanese 5 and 6 will be out of reach. unless i talk to my professor and plan for it, but i won't worry about that at the moment.

while on the topic of schedule conflicts, i've decided to move my external japanese class to sunday afternoons. though it means giving up an afternoon of rest, it also means that i can go home earlier on tuesday, to get more rest during the week when school is on. or if i really can't help it, i also use tuesday evenings/nights to run reactions. just hope that the sunday vacancies aren't all filled yet.

this past friday, i met the chem kids for board games at the mind cafe in funan. it was a pretty interesting experience, and we had fun playing saboteur, bang! and picteureka (pictureka?). i realize that i'm quite bad at games which require you to guess who your allies/enemies are. for some reason, my guesses are usually off. quite ironic since my instincts are pretty good in real life. unfortunately, one of the chem kids was emo-ing throughout the gaming session. i don't know why he's feeling this way. i mean, school's out, he's secured a professor for honours, so that's most of a student's worries solved. seems that the problem is personal...or at least not school-related. as much as we're friends, i find him to be quite...socially awkward. coming from me (i'm not the best at socializing myself), that must mean something. i guess it's the way he says things. there's a lack of tact, i think. of course, there are times when brutal honesty is accepted, and i appreciate it if it's necessary. but more often than not, things can be said in a nicer manner. wonder what we can do to help him. he seems to not get what we've been trying to tell him. i'm not that close to him either, so the odds that he'll take what i say to heart are even lower. whatever the case, i hope he gets over his problems soon.

another source of headache is tuition. after reviewing HCI boy's mid-year exam, i am pretty amazed. he is WAY too careless! things like dividing instead of multiplying, significant figure errors, improper definitions, all basic mistakes which should not be happening! just don't know if i'm ineffective or if he's just not catching the ball. however, he's still ok when compared to TKGS girl. we revised mole concept yesterday, and i gave her some practice questions after covering each section. even though she heard the process like 30 seconds ago, she still manages to mess it up. i don't know...somehow, i think it's one of the fundamental differences between men and women. men seem to have more common sense...as in, the way they (we) perceive things is more logical. like, i typically teach students the following method to find concentration: for example, find the concentration of 3g of NaCl dissolved in 30mL of water. my method is to reason it out...if 3g is dissolved in 30mL, how much is dissolved in 1L? then convert to moles if necessary. i don't see what's so difficult about that, really. oddly enough, i do remember having some issues with mole concept in sec 3. but at the same time, i remember getting over it in a couple of weeks. guess it's time to break out the homework and chem spelling.

last couple of things i want to blog about...first being something about city harvest church. now, i'm not christian, so i don't know typical church practices so well. but as a rational person, i think this is going too far:

seems a bit overboard for a church to set a minimum for donations, or to even suggest how people can save money for donations. the key word here is "donations", which last time i checked, meant money and/or other stuff given VOLUNTARILY. it would be different if they had said "try to give as much as you can", because that's like encouragement. but suggesting that people donate their year-end bonuses, bond dividends, and worst of all, taking up another part-time job? that's just ridiculous. anyone else thinking that this church is getting too greedy? i really hope nobody was convinced to give more than they could afford.

last thing on my mind now is judo. there has been some debate about the implementation of a new IJF rule, which is that coaches can only give their players instructions during the "matte" period, ie. when the competitors are not actively sparring. personally, i am ambivalent about this rule. i understand the reasons both for and against its implementation. to sum the main reasons up quickly, for: gives players more freedom and independent thought during competitions. against: younger/inexperienced players may need the guidance. besides, with the alumni and various other club members around, the coach can still find some way to get his message across to the other player. actually, when the coach can give instructions is not what i'm concerned about. what worries me more is what the coach can say. if the coaches are purely giving instructions to their players, they can use microphones for all i care. but if the coaches behave unprofessionally, yelling at the referees, making non-constructive comments and the like, i'd rather they be banned from speaking at all. i'd rather not see another national school's incident again, because it reflects badly on everyone involved in the sport.

also, it seems that the NUS coach is indeed upset with me over the aforementioned incident. honestly, i think that i'm a fair referee. i'm not involved in any politics, and my ties to SJI/CJC and NUS do not count when i'm refereeing. like in last year's nationals, i awarded a CJC-RI match in favour of raffles during the referee decision (and i think that junior is still not entirely happy with me, too). while i personally feel that i can referee a match between any 2 schools/clubs, i understand the policy of not having a referee referee or judge a match in which their affiliated club/school members are competing.

but that can only say that my judgements are not politically-motivated. it's no excuse for mistakes that i may make. nobody's perfect, and referees, like other human beings, are subject to fatigue or lapses in concentration which can potentially affect their judgement. that's why a lot is being done to compensate for this...like adequate rest time, providing referee training, and having a jury panel to advise referees during competitions. even then, mistakes do happen, and some of them do slip by. back in JC, i used to be highly critical of referees who gave what i thought were wrong judgements. looks like karma's coming back to bite me now. though of all people, i would have expected the NUS coach to understand the limitations of referees, and not give them a hard time. after all, he was the previous referee director. oh well. so it seems that that's it for me doing judo in NUS...officially, that is. i probably can still go down on thursdays when training is conducted by seniors. that's provided i have time and energy after lab, though.

-random thought of the day: Feeling horribly lethargic.-

Sleeping late and getting up early for the past 2 days has left me feeling pretty tired. yet, i'm persevering to finish this blog post because a lot of stuff has happened over the weekend and the start of this week. in addition, there have been a few things to think about, and i figure that i do my best thinking while blogging. also, a less major reason is i have to unload all the mental baggage and sort out my thoughts. even though it's (very early) wednesday, i'll be writing this post as if it was started on tuesday night. if the sun hasn't risen, and i haven't slept, it's still night as far as i'm concerned.

i'll try to do things in rough chronological order. group seminar, then tuition with the 2 kids on saturday. somehow, i'm getting the impression that the sec 4 kid isn't really interested in tuition. i mean, he understands his stuff, and is perfectly content with doing his homework and asking the occasional question during our sessions. then again, that could be because i tend to focus a bit more on the J1 kid, mainly because i feel that his content is more difficult and that he has a harder time. not saying that i completely ignore the sec 4 kid, of course, just that i pay him less attention. but right now, that seems to work. so until i hear otherwise, i'll stick with it.

after tuition, i went to my friend's place at east coast for a chem kids-cum-VS barbeque. it was fun. managed to exorcise most of my cooking demons by spending a fair bit of time overseeing a pit. for once, the quantity of food was just right! normally, barbeques which i go to have too much or too little food, probably due to the organizers misestimating the turnout and/or the guests' appetites. this time, my friend somehow hit the magic quantity of food, such that all the food was cooked, and nobody felt hungry after the event. of course, copious amounts of drinking was involved. had some beer, some wine, some gin/7-up/lemon mix, about a full (disposable) cup of vodka on the rocks, and around half a similar cup of whiskey. quite grateful that i didn't throw up, unlike 2 of the others who went. i suppose it was because i paced myself and spread out the drinks over the entire night. and thank goodness one of my friends had a car handy, so i was able to get home in relative comfort. word is that another similar event is in the works before school starts, only now there'll be much more drinking. makes my liver feel like dying.

since i was drunk and only slept at about 2:00am, it was only natural that i slept in and woke up at around 11:30am. the residual lethargy meant that i was nearly late for my make-up japanese lesson at 2:00pm. it's amazing how the danger of being late to a japanese class can instill panic in me. guess NUS has taught me well. during the class, there was this other student whom i absolutely could not stand. he was, in a nutshell, obnoxious. making loud jokes, speaking in english, and generally being disruptive. i can totally ignore the fact that he didn't do his homework or prepare for the quiz, since that's purely his own loss if he can't grasp the concepts quickly. i just find it sad that he's wasting money like this. might as well do something good with it, like donate to charity. or better yet, donate to me!

went to the library after japanese to pay my fine for the overdue DVDs. turns out it was $6, and not $10 like i'd thought. saving $4 made me pretty happy. better yet, i found out that their double loan quota thing was still on, and would be on for a while more. so i got 8 or 9 books (can't remember exactly). one of those books was written by stephen gately...yes, the deceased boyzone member. i'll admit that i borrowed it more out of curiousity than anything else. but after reading it, i'm happy i did. despite being found in the children's section, it's actually quite a good read! the title is "the tree of seasons"...see if you can find it at a library near you.

gave tuition yet again on monday, to my friend's cousin...at 8:30am, no less! henceforth, i shall call her "TKGS girl". did acids and bases, as well as ionic equations and simple mole calculations for titration...she had trouble understanding the latter two. you know, i seriously don't get the problem! how much more can i simplify it? get your known quantities, convert to moles, do mole ratio, convert back. and for ionic equations, write the balanced chemical equation, break up the aqueous stuff, cancel common ions, rewrite as ionic equation. that's all there is to these 2 things! i am really at a loss. normally, i teach according to aptitude. the brighter students will get more stuff explained to them, while the weaker ones will probably end up memorizing the steps. now, i don't approve of memorization, but there's only so much i can do when an exam is coming soon, for example. as for this student, i think on a chemical aptitude level from "derivation" (high) to "remember this" (low), she's at a "i'll do the paper for her". thankfully, her cousin is one of my better/closer friends, so i can be brutally honest with him when i vent about it.

spent most of the day in lab, where my large-scale reaction failed. lessons learnt: just because a reaction is well-known, don't assume it's easy. always do a small-scale first, and only scale up if it works. wasn't a completely wasted day, however. my senior found a much more simplified procedure to produce a cousin of my target compound. just hope that it works. otherwise, i'll be severely behind schedule.

remember my friend who's studying in america? well, he's back in singapore for the summer. so we went out for dinner, together with his parents at the upper thomson branch of liquid kitchen. i know it sounds a little weird, to hang out with your friend and his parents. the thing is, his parents are cool! i mean, do you know of any parents who will play cards while drinking (and end up getting drunk) with their kid and their kids' friends? it was nice to hang out again. he's one of about 4 or 5 people i know i can rely on to help me anytime if it's physically possible for him. interestingly, his cats are the only ones that don't run away from me at first sight. still not enough to turn me into a cat person though. something else good came out of the dinner. seems that my friend's parents are friends with a tuition centre owner, who happens to be a cat high old boy. after a phone call, i have a "shortcut" into the centre, provided that my interview is satisfactory, of course. word is that the tutors earn pretty decent amounts, with the highest being a 5-figure sum per month. not that i'll be able to achieve that yet, due to school commitments, but it sure is attractive, no?

by the time i reached home last night, it was 12:30am, and i stayed awake for another 2 hours or so. not too smart when you have to be up at 7:30am. that subsequently led to me being quite out of it during the part-time job today. thankfully, i got better after my brain warmed up. if there's one thing this job has taught me, it's that i don't want a career in publishing. got soaked by the rain while getting lunch, and my shoes are still drying out as i'm writing this. not a pleasant experience.

before japanese class today, i went to enquire about taking intermediate 3. it seems that i miscalculated, because intermediate 3 starts in late july and runs until october! that's like close to the end of the semester. somehow, i don't think that it's a good idea to add to my workload from an external source. my main worry is i end up staying late in lab on tuesdays, which means i'll have to miss class. there is another option, which is to switch to sunday classes over that same interval. am i willing to sacrifice an afternoon of rest for japanese? i don't know. right now, i'm sitting on the matter until next week or so. think the answer might come to me after all the dust has settled.

speaking of clashes, it seems that japanese 3 clashes with one of the core modules which i was planning to take. what are the odds!? both modules have 1 lecture, and of all the times and days, they HAD to both fall on wednesdays 6:00-8:00pm. right now, i've sent an email to the japanese lecturer (who's not the same lecturer i've had last year). hopefully he comes up with something. a probable scenario is that i miss japanese but watch the webcasts, though that means i can't take the lecture quiz as well, losing me a few more marks. the absolute worst case is that i don't take japanese this semester, and start again next year. not something i want to happen. as for the lecturer, i'm kind of sad that our old lecturer isn't following us up, but he's taking this new module called "media japanese" which requires japanese 5 at least. his replacement is also another guy, and from googling his name, i've found out that he's an underwater photographer, and has received positive reviews for his teaching. i'm kind of hoping that he's better than my previous lecturer, who was already really good. in fact, i may find out sooner than expected, because there is a chance that i'll have to go down to school to meet him. fingers crossed.

-random thought of the day: Sleepy.-