Missed blogging for a week and a day. now that tutorials and year 1 lab have started, i'm finding my schedule becoming more packed. it leaves less time for research, but i think i'll survive. just have to plan my time better, and start going to school earlier.

over the weekend, i went down to turf city for the first time in about 8 months. got a few surprised looks as i walked towards them. guess it's been too long. well, at least they know i'm still alive. and apparently, one of the seniors' children jut graduated from NUS, in my course. seems like someone told them that i was kiasu during lectures, since i apparently approach lecturers a lot. now, it may not have been him, but he's the only one in my lectures who have been to turf city, so he's the most likely possibility. anyway, like seriously!?? i'm kind of annoyed that that spread, because it's not true. i approach a lecturer after lecture once or twice a semester, at most. so i really don't know why or how that impression formed.

the other interesting thing that happened was TA-ing the year 1 lab this past monday. there are...14 students in my group, one of whom didn't come as his ankle was injured. they're ok in general, their skills seem decent, and they got pretty accurate results. there's just one guy who was ridiculously slow! granted that i was careless too, for not spotting his error. now, let me clarify something. normally, i don't check my students' calculations. i check the steps, and if it looks ok, i tell them, "this is right, assuming you pressed your calculator correctly". since i do this for secondary school and JC kids, i naturally expect university kids to be even more capable. to my horror, one of the year 1s made a really fundamental mistake. he multiplied moles by volume to get concentration. the weird coincidence is that his value was close to the acceptable range. so, my natural tendency was to trust his maths, and assume something was wrong with his lab skills. i only spotted the mistake after run #6, when i watched all of his steps and calculations.

what's worse is, he didn't follow my recommendation, and ended up being slow. i'm not egotistical enough to say that my procedure is the best, or dictatorial enough to force everyone to follow what i would do. in fact, i welcome adaptations to my suggestions, or even the students coming up with their own plan, provided that they finish on time. it's so annoying to have slow students! but at least the experiment is spread out over 2 weeks, so they can make up for it next week.

in other lab news, it seems that my reaction can't be done on a large scale. adding on the fact that the product can't be stored for long, it means i'll have to make it as and when i need it. that means more columns and NMRs. sucky, but can't be helped. have to fit all the different syntheses into my timetable somehow.

for japanese, i've met all the tutors. i like how they arranged it this time. each instructor is in charge of a different session, so we don't meet the same tutor more than once a week. i'm grateful that the tutor i had in japanese 2 followed us up to japanese 3. it's easier, i guess, when you're familiar with the teaching style. so far, the tutorials have been really enjoyable. the lecturer's tutorial was a little culture shock, because unlike the normal "learn by example" method, he presented his target grammar patterns in the context of several conversations. it's disorienting, but ultimately nice because we can kind of improvise. interestingly enough, one of the tutors described me as "famous". assuming i heard and understood her correctly, of course. wonder why?

week 3 just ended, and i think i'm kind of falling behind a little. not good for that to happen so early in the semester. since group meeting is cancelled tomorrow, i guess i'd better use the rare free day to catch up on, well, almost everything.

-random thought of the day: Must sleep and wake up earlier.-

Feeling a little down today, and i don't know why. nothing's really gone horribly wrong, yet i can't help but feel as though i messed up something major. i guess it's also partially because my lab senior (the scariest one) kind of reprimanded me over some lab stuff. then again, it wasn't really a reprimand...more like he pointed out some potential issues in my experimental set-up, and told me what not to do in the future. guess it's the way he talks. while he's not condescending or abrasive or anything negative like that, he's very serious, and to-the-point. that makes him sound gruff, though i don't think he means to. i find it hard to get better acquainted with him, and compared to the other lab seniors, there's a greater distance. maybe i need to hang out more often with him in more social settings...though with school ongoing, that may not be easy, or even possible.

another reason why i'm not entirely happy is that my reaction is showing signs of failing. nothing happened even after leaving it for 12 hours. of course, i could be misinterpreting the observations. whatever the case, i'll check on it tomorrow, hopefully with a clearer mind to interpret the results. if things don't go as planned, it's probably because the starting material wasn't pure enough...which means i have to synthesize another lot, which means another long column.

spent a couple of hours configuring the laptop. it's more or less set up to my satisfaction already. managed to install antivirus along with microsoft office, and connecting to the school internet and printers was relatively easy. slight problem is that i can't connect to the school intranet...as in, i can't use my NUS ID to log on to windows. turns out that that function is only supported by windows 7 professional and enterprise, and not by home premium, which is what i'm using. well, no big loss. at least the important stuff works. so far, everything works great, though the provided mouse is kind of small. guess i'll survive using the touchpad, until i see the need to invest in a bigger mouse.

group seminar is cancelled this coming weekend, which means i get saturday free. have to do some reorganization and general housekeeping. also, think i'll drop by turf city. it's been too long since i last made an appearance. if all goes well, nobody will cancel tuition, and it'll still be kind of a productive day. fingers crossed.

-random thought of the day: Wish women were more rational.-

Day 1 of week 2, and i've already skipped school. well, technically it doesn't count as skipping, since i didn't have class scheduled. but i'm supposed to be in the lab when not in class, so...it's kind of a grey area i guess. in my defense, i'm still not at 100%, so i have medical grounds? besides, all i had to do was NMR (to confirm my compound before proceeding to the next reaction), and looking at the booking list, i probably would not have got a slot today.

i didn't waste my day off from school, though. went to funan to settle my laptop issue. but it can be argued that if i'm well enough to go to funan, i should be able to go to school, right? ah whatever. not like i have to explain myself to anyone for missing a day of university, anyway. so, i went to funan and basically walked around...first among the shops, and then up in challenger. while in challenger, i remembered that i wanted an external hard drive as well, so i got a seagate one. 500Gb, $129. average, i guess. was tempted to buy a terabyte-level one, but figured that i don't really need so much space since my desktop already has 2Tb.

as for laptops, i previously used a fujitsu, then toshiba. had an ok-ish experience with the fujitsu (admittedly, it died partly due to my mistreatment), and a pretty good experience with the toshiba (that one died after 4 years or so). so, i did the logical thing...and got a lenovo. ok, so that was rather unexpected. before that, i was considering sony, asus, and fujitsu. sadly, none of them had models which appealed to me. either the interface was not nice, or the specs were a little lacklustre, or they weren't worth the price. at the lenovo store, part of the reason i bought from there was actually due to the salesperson, who was confident about his merchandise and made smart recommendations. i really enjoyed the shopping experience there.

by the way, let me talk about the new laptop a bit. it's got kind of a wider screen, partially because the keyboard is longer due to an attached numpad. you have no idea how happy i was to see that laptop manufacturers finally decided to add a numpad! other features include 1Tb hard disk space, 4Gb RAM (i think...it's either 2 upgraded to 4 or 4 upgraded to 8), great graphics (reputedly, since i haven't seen it much yet), and a backlit keyboard, which is another feature i like. according to the sales guy, there were massive preorders before its launch this past june, and the stock was exhausted days after arrival in singapore. so...i guess i made a good choice? it's charging right now, so i haven't done any customizations or stuff like that. wonder how easy it'll be to connect it to the school network. incidentally, it cost $1499, which i think is...ok-ish, provided it lasts me for the next 5 years or so.

tuition was pushed from saturday to today since i stayed back in lab. TKGS girl is improving...which means she's less lost than before. she's still not at as high a level as i'd like her to be, but she's only sec 3, and the school is teaching slowly. there's still time. i'm quite amused that her cousin (my friend) told me that they're impressed with the results i've produced so far. we probably have different standards. or am i being too much of a perfectionist?

i think i've covered everything, except for some thoughts which i can't phrase properly now, or cannot remember. definitely must start getting up earlier if i want my days to be more productive. or rather, i definitely have to stay awake after getting up early. hope tomorrow's NMR shows that my product is pure, because otherwise, i'd have to either run it through the column again, or synthesize another lot...both of which i'm not particularly keen to do.

-random thought of the day: What kind of genius baker hides a skewer in the middle of a bun!?-

Old habits die hard. 2 (or 3?) weekends of driving the new car, and i'm still looking for the non-existent parking brake pedal. then again, i drove the old car for the weekends of about 2 years and 8 months, which is a long time compared to 2 or 3 weeks. well, it's no major issue. as a bonus, i get comic relief from laughing at myself every time it happens.

today, i broke a record by staying back in lab until 7:30pm or so. it's normal for a weekday, but a first for me on a saturday. at least there was one other honours student working alongside me, so i didn't feel that demoralized. the reason i had to stay bac so long was because the damned product wouldn't come out of the column. it took like 60 test tubes and a couple of litres of solvent to force it out. and to think this is still substrate preparation. thankfully, the real reaction's products can be analyzed by crude NMR. the thing that slightly scares me is that it's only week 1! if this keeps up, i'll be camping overnight in the lab by the time honours year's over.

what makes me staying back so late even more amazing (to me, at least) is that i'm falling sick. apparently, the seventh month's started, and people are burning stuff all over the place. sidetrack: if everyone burns millions of dollars of underworld currency for their ancestors, wouldn't there be really bad inflation down there? anyway, the smoke and/or particles produced from the burning are irritating my respiratory system, resulting in a blocked nose. it's bad because my eyes hurt, and i can't taste a damned thing thanks to the blocked nose. the vitasoy i'm drinking now could be water thickened with corn starch as far as taste is concerned. in fact, i could probably chew on a clove of raw garlic with no ill effect.

believe me, i'm VERY upset by the loss in tasting ability. i realize that if i had to give up one of my senses, sight and taste would be the last 2 choices. first would probably be hearing, then smell. but smell and taste are related, right? bleh. also, the blocked nose seems to get worse at night. i was mostly ok all day in the lab, except for a couple of times when i had to step out and blow my nose. but after being home for an hour or so, i have to resort to mouth-breathing because my nose is THAT blocked. either there's a higher irritant concentration at home as opposed to school (because more people burn stuff in a residential area), or i'm getting addicted to the smell of chemicals and am suffering horrible withdrawal symptoms at home. the latter is meant as a joke, mind you. if it was true, i'd have quit honours immediately.

i'd wanted to go to funan tomorrow to look at laptops, but there are several problems. (1) i'm sick. (2) it's actually a public holiday. so i'm expecting that some places will be closed. should i postpone my trip to tuesday? guess i'll see how i'm feeling tomorrow. thank goodness monday is a public holiday too, so i get another day to try to shake the illness off. best if i'm better by tomorrow, actually, since i have tuition with TKGS girl on monday (pushed back from today), and i also offered to give chem consultation to the CJC judo kids since their prelims are close.

tuesday also happens to be the day when tutorial balloting closes. now that the lecturers for both medicinal and organometallics have said that they're not going to use their tuesday tutorial slots, tuesday is effectively another free day for me (most of which will be spent in lab, but anyway...). this leads to another interesting question...should i have japanese tutorial in the morning, or in the afternoon/evening? both have their advantages and disadvantages. if i take japanese tutorial in the morning (10:00am to 12:00pm), i have the rest of the day to run experiments. the downside is that i may end up running experiments late into the night, which is something i'm trying to avoid. whereas if i take japanese in the afternoon (4:00pm to 6:00pm), i'll have more regular hours (magnetic locks would have activated by the tome i got back to science). problem is, i don't fancy going home during rush hour. also, i have to make sure i finish everything for the day and leave lab by 3:30pm so as not to be late for japanese. these restrictions may actually result in me having to come to school earlier to get everything done before japanese class, hence lengthening my work day anyway. decisions, decisions. i'll sleep on it and decide by monday, i guess.

you know how i know that this illness is worse than usual? i can't even taste concentrated honey water. and it's concentrated to the point where i have undissolved honey/sugar crystals. i could be drinking saturated salt water for all my mouth knows. lucky i made it myself, so i know what went in there. wait a second...my remedy for regular flu doesn't involve honey water! that's for gastric flu. regular flu just involves drinking a lot of water to flush the virus out. man, this bug is messing with my head. ah well. the honey water's already made, so i might as well drink it.

-random thought of the day: Sleeping with a blocked nose sucks.-

Having lectures alongside lab seems ok, if today is any indication. good thing that my lectures are in a solid 6-hour block, so i can focus on academic stuff without switching mindsets back and forth. of course, it's only the first day of lectures, so things may change as the semester progresses.

in the 6-hour block today, i met all 3 of my lecturers. the medicinal chem lecturer seems nice. have i mentioned that he examined me for UROPS last semester? turns out he has a vague impression of me. not bad, considering our only interaction was for about half an hour, 3 months or so ago. seems like the module will be pretty enjoyable.

as for organometallics, i was quite looking forward to meeting the lecturer, because i've heard interesting things about him. upon first impression, he's knowledgeable, but slightly egotistical. don't think he's someone i'd like to work for as my honours supervisor, but being a student in his module should be fun.

japanese was a little bit of a culture shock. after having the same lecturer for a year, adapting to a different lecturer isn't easy...though i must admit it helps that the new lecturer looks a lot like our previous lecturer! just lengthen the hair, remove the goatee, and make minor alterations to the face. it was quite disorienting at first, but that's where the similarities end. the new lecturer speaks with a less strong accent, and uses english more frequently. that's both good and bad, actually. interestingly, while his japanese sounds completely normal, he speaks english with what sounds like an american-australian hybrid accent. after i asked him, he told me that he lived in the UK and US for a while. don't know how an english accent became australian. nevertheless, i think things will be ok.

that's it for school stuff, i think. time for something less positive. while i'm no saint, i consider myself a pretty tolerant person under normal circumstances. i can take ignorance (within reasonable limits), but stupidity is something i tolerate very poorly. i can't stand it when people exhibit lack of common sense, or blame others for things that they could have prevented, criticize something more convenient just because they don't understand how it works, or say things that they don't mean. saying something and being unable to follow through is different from saying something and purposely doing the opposite of what has been said. i just find it sad (and a bit amazing) that people can be so brainless! seriously, i think the sooner i move out, the better. while i don't think a serious conflict will break out anytime soon, i find myself increasingly tempted to do something drastic.

full day of lab tomorrow. just have to do a column, maybe set up the next reaction if there's time, and make some more starting material. praying hard that the product is my desired one, and that it will be isolated in reasonable purity.

-random thought of the day: Mildly frustrated.-

School starts tomorrow. ordinarily, i'd be feeling anything from trepidation, to excitement, to sadness that the holiday's over. this time, however, i feel more sian than anything else. suppose it's because i've been going to school for most of the break, so there's nothing really different to look forward to seeing. either that, or it's because my first official day of class is wednesday, which is quite anticlimactic.

like the bible, i also have signs of the apocalypse. or signs of the impending semester, at any rate. things like my facebook going down (don't delete me; it'll be back up in december!) breaking out all my coloured files for lecture notes, and doing the necessary printing of the aforementioned lecture notes. the organometallics lecturer uploaded all his notes in a monster pdf file (10mb, 347 slides), which i'm reluctant to print all at once. what if he makes changes halfway into the semester? also uploaded was the first set of japanese lecture notes. maybe i'm used to the previous lecturer's style, but i kind of don't really like the new notes' format. guess i'll have a quick chat with the lecturer to see if anything can be done about it.

i try my best to believe that all things, be they good or bad, happen for a reason. like today, after japanese class, when bus 56 drove right past me even though i'd flagged for it. that got me sufficiently annoyed to walk to toa payoh MRT station, which is like 10 minutes away at a fairly relaxed pace. oddly, i found myself getting very worked up about this incident. can you believe that i actually thought of catching a taxi to bishan interchange, intercepting the bus, and yelling at the driver for not stopping? but thankfully, that didn't happen. instead, i took the opportunity to appreciate the sunset while walking, which i haven't done in a while as my evenings are mostly spent in the lab.

56 drops me at a bus stop really close to my house, so i'd just head home normally. since i took the train this time, i went to top up my ez-link card, buy concession in time for school starting, check out the newly-renovated popular, and visit the library to borrow a few books. i think that what i actually did today is so much better/more productive than what i would have done if i had caught the bus. so in a way, missing the bus was a good thing.

while at popular, i was contemplating whether to renew my membership. if memory serves, it's $15 for 3 years, which breaks down to $5 per year. since members get a 10% discount on most stationery and books, i'll have to spend $50 on such items to make the membership work for me. $50 isn't much, but when spending it on such small and relatively cheap items, it's actually quite a lot. like if i were to spend all of it on refills for my preferred pen (pilot G1), i'd need to buy about 50 refills before i'd save $5. typically, one refill lasts me about a semester. can you imagine how much writing i'd have to do to work through 50 refills!? i'm thinking something like hand-writing one thesis per day. crazy. but on the other hand, the discount makes it cheaper than the NUS co-op, which not only gives less discount (5% as opposed to 10%), but also charges a higher base price.

speaking of the NUS co-op, i just remembered that i spent a $10 voucher which i got about a year ago, and was going to expire. spent it on some stationery for lab, as well as some hair ties. i was pleasantly surprised to see that the co-op staff applied the student discount first, before using the voucher to deduct from the balance. i save more this way than if she had used the voucher first, then applied the discount. and blogging about the co-op just reminded me that i wanted to get a squeaky rubber duck from there. kind of odd, but yes. squeaky rubber duck.

think that wraps it up for now. not going to see much change in the daily routine despite school starting. just hope that public transport doesn't get any worse.

-random thought of the day: I want to live alone.-

Believe it or not, today has been the earliest i've left lab in 2 weeks or so, at 7:30pm. granted that i go late as well, but the point is that i have a bit more time (and energy) after reaching home today. that's good, because i've got some blogging to do.

the first half of the week was taken up by honours orientation. monday's orientation/safety talk was informative, but kind of boring. apart from the standard safety stuff, some key things i learnt were the components assessed for honours, their grading breakdown, and various deadlines. interestingly, there is a chain of command-type thing, like in the army. for instance, if you're unhappy with something, the first person to go to is your supervisor. if that doesn't work, there's the honours coordinator. if things are really bad, there may be a possibility to change supervisors...though i doubt that i'll have to go through something like that. if i didn't face problems during UROPS, what are the odds that things will go wrong in honours?

tuesday's talk was much more useful. despite being a pretty regular library user since year 2, i had no idea that NUS actually provided this many resources for us! to think that i thought that i was already maximizing my resource utility by getting papers and reserving books. did you know that you can search published papers for a chemical structure, and choose whether it's a reagent or product? that means you can find out how to make something you need, or see if anyone else has done a similar reaction before. quite useful, and much better than my way of searching by name. also, there's this handy script that logs you on to the NUS proxy, so you don't have to remember the journal you want, log in, and search for it all over again. honours year is going to be much easier with these little tips/tricks.

didn't do much on wednesday, except mess up a reaction by not noticing that we had insufficient supply of one reagent. makes me feel kind of...stupid when that happens. i know i'm still an undergrad, and making mistakes is part and parcel of undergraduate life and research. but you'd think i'd know better after about 4 months of UROPS. bleh. at least my reagents are relatively cheap, and not $400 per gram like some of the stuff my friends use.

i'd planned to go back to school on thursday to check up on a reaction i'd started, but my mentor told me not to do that instead. instead, i went to the NUS graduate's guild house (or something like that) at suntec to meet some of the chem kids for dinner. i was pleasantly surprised to find such a quiet place in the middle of town. granted that it was national day, so the amount of traffic was vastly reduced. the ambience was great, which was partially thanks to the windy, cool weather. managed to catch glimpses of the fireworks too, as a bonus. we shared meaningful conversation amidst many laughs, which i think is good for strengthening friendship. food-wise, the shepherd's pie i had was a little small for its price, upon comparison to the similar-priced stuff my friends got. to accompany the food, we had erdinger dark beer. normally, i find dark beer a little too strong for my taste, but this one was surprisingly easy to drink. it was also my first time trying port wine. basically, it tastes like sweet red wine (or even grape juice), which is more or less what it actually is. seriously considering investing in a bottle or two for destressing purposes.

no, i didn't forget that yesterday was national day. just that there's not much to say about it. as i wrote earlier, i was even considering going back to school. and i would have too, if the magnetic locks weren't restricting my access to the lab. didn't watch the parade, don't feel more patriotic, and it's the first time not a single house in my field of vision is hanging the flag. that's a new record! well...looks like i'm not the only one losing faith in singapore, or at least the people in charge. it was a nice change to spend national day in good company though, as i generally have bad national days. happy to see that that trend is slowly changing over recent years.

school is starting in a couple of days, and i've been thinking of making some purchases. first and most major is a laptop. despite surviving years 1 to 3 without a laptop, that might be difficult in honours year. reason being that i'll need computer access to check reaction conditions, or to find relevant references...not to mention working on my report from school without hogging the shared terminals in the lab and student room. there are various factors to consider, like whether to get from school or not, to wait for IT show or not, and most importantly, what exactly to get.

right now, i'm trying to decide between asus, fujitsu, or other brands. i know asus offers good gaming-capable laptops, but i don't need or want to game during semester time. if i go fujitsu, it'll be tough to stay away from the tablet. though i like the idea of being able to write on a computer, i know that ultimately, i'm more of a pencil-and-paper type of person. it's probably just the novelty factor. as for where to buy, school is good because they offer discounts and bundled software. besides, as a student, i'm entitled to a laptop purchase. might as well, right? problem is, there is only a limited selection of laptop models available at NUS, and the software they provide is not really what i need. having dreamweaver and flash is nice, but not of much use since i don't do animations or websites. the only software i really need is microsoft office, and perhaps dropbox or some similar online storage thing. most importantly, as some of my friends have pointed out, i should get something i like, and feel comfortable using, since i'll be stuck with it for the next...5 years or so? i think i'll go to funan sometime this or next week (maybe sunday?) to see what's available. then, cross-reference with NUS to see if they have it for cheaper.

other purchases which i have in mind are considerably cheaper than a laptop, and are mostly clothes and stationery-related. realized that i have to get myself some stuff for the lab, since i seem to have a lot of difficulty finding a working blue pen. which reminds me now...did i cap the G1 which i left in the lab before going home? here's hoping i did.

my timetable has fallen nicely into place. got all my desired modules, so that's a relief. the current issue is where to slot the japanese tutorials. after last semester's experience, i know not to put them in the middle of the day, as that disrupts the rhythm of working in the lab. so, i've scheduled 2 10:00am, and 1 6:00pm session (pending on balloting, of course). seems like most of wendesday is taken up by classes, which means i probably won't be able to get any significant lab work done then. luckily, my thursday is mostly empty, so i can concentrate on lab work, or even take a day off if the pressure gets to me.

just some contemplating to round up the post. imagine this: someone does you a favour when you specifically told them NOT to do it. would you feel more grateful or irritated? personally, i tend towards the latter. i don't want people going out of their way to do things for me (unless i desperately need help and am proactively asking). though it hasn't happened yet, i'm quite afraid that the people will get offended, saying that i don't appreciate what they do. why should i appreciate it, when i didn't want it? there's a difference between giving someone a pleasant surprise and forcing your kindness onto others. the way i see it, if you do the latter, you shouldn't complain about anything since you did it voluntarily.

there's one more thing i wanted to post about, but it seems to have slipped my mind right now. guess i'll save it until whichever post it is when i remember. not seeing the 2 guys again for tuition tomorrow, since one of them can't make it. that makes me happier than it should. think it's a sign. going to finish animating my slides for tomorrow's presentation(!) before calling it a relatively early night.

-random thought of the day: Feeling more nervous than I should be.-

Judo is, to me, first and foremost a martial art. winning medals at competitions is nice, but i feel that it should NOT be a judo practitioner's main aim. the main purpose of practising judo should be to cultivate oneself, and learn to become a better person. sadly, i find that certain relatively high-ranking judo athletes' behaviour is quite thuggish/uncivilized. like in today's competition, one of the SJI kids made a mistake and restarted the clock early towards the end of a match. to be honest, it was a minor mistake. the clock went from 0.8 to 0.4 seconds, and at that stage, the time lost wouldn't have affected the match outcome anyway. yet, a black belt competitor (from the losing side's club, if memory serves) was outraged enough to use a nasty obscenity in full hearing range of the technical officials. makes me seriously question his black belt-worthiness.

it's not that i'm defending the SJI kid. he made a mistake, but it wasn't serious enough to warrant such a strong reaction. i'm also not saying that the other guy doesn't have the right to express his opinion, but as a black belt, he should at least have the self-control to choose his words more carefully, or the brains to say it out of earshot of the technical officials. if he felt that strongly about it, there are appropriate avenues of redress, though i think the case would be thrown out.

the other thing that annoyed me today was an issue of professionalism. as referees, we are supposed to be neutral. regardless of who is fighting, we aren't supposed to show any emotion as long as the referee badge and tie are on. yet, there was this one referee who acted more like a coach; yelling instructions and encouragement to her club's players. i was visibly displeased by this, and i think she noticed. she says it's hard to control the urge to act like a coach, to which i reply "nonsense". if it isn't easy for you, how about the rest of us? do we not feel similarly when our players are up there? referees should have the professionalism to refrain from displaying excessive emotions. that's not to say we have to be robots. small gestures (nods, smiles) are fine, but yelling and cheering is just...no.

incidents like these are making me question the standard of judo in singapore. granted, these cases are few, but that's all that's needed to destroy the good name that was much more difficult to build up. if i ever get appointed to a high enough position of power in the federation, one of my top priorities will be to sort out all these issues. but that's at least 10 years away from happening.

honours orientation and safety training tomorrow. that's long form for "boring". also signals that school is starting sooner than i'd like. back to the daily grind, i guess.

-random thought of the day: Had to get all this off my chest.-

Perhaps it's a combination of things that happened to me today, but i'm feeling really unhappy now. for starters, i'm scheduled to present my research progress at next week's group seminar. here's the problem: i barely have anything to present! right now, my plan is to say "this is my target compound, and i've found 3 ways to synthesize it. all of them failed. however, my mentor tried it once, and it succeeded." there is absolutely no way i can present my stuff without making myself sound bad. i suppose that i deserve it, because i've been slacking a fair bit. BUT IT'S SUMMER! technically i shouldn't be presenting yet! well...nothing i can do about it. since the die's been cast, i just have to suck it up and get it over with. with any luck, that'll be the last time i present anything until week 10 or so.

right now, i'm so tempted to drop all the tuition kids and focus on other things. today's tuition sessions were...below expectations. the kids seem to have forgot most of the things that we've gone through. and i'm seriously getting tired of the sec 4 kid's behaviour. just hope i have patience to see him through the year.

had fun driving the car today. there are noticeable differences, which will take some adaptation. for one, the car's body is smaller, so it's easier to manoeuvre. the steering feels lighter too, as in the wheel is easier to turn. due to a smaller engine capacity (1.6 now compared to 2.0 previously), i need to step on the accelerator harder to achieve the same level of acceleration. however, the most significant difference for me is the handbrake. the previous car's handbrake was foot-operated, so i was used to setting the handbrake by stepping on a pedal. all 4 times i got into the car today, my left foot instinctively moved to release the pedal, only to find nothing there. mildly amusing, yet slightly exasperating at the same time. one thing i'm having issues adapting to is the reverse sensor. it's sharp and annoying, unlike the previous car's softer beeps. makes me want to reverse as little as possible, and get parking done quickly. there's one significant problem, though. the car appears to be leaking petrol. i was constantly smelling petrol while driving, and i noticed a trail of stuff that seemed to follow the car everywhere. while i don't think it's much of a safety hazard (unless the trail of petrol catches fire), it is still worrying because the tank empties faster than usual. hope something is done about it soon.

just now, my doorbell rang rather insistently. it was a young guy, about 18 to 20 years old, who was selling ice cream to raise money for something or the other. i didn't buy from him for one simple reason: because he rang my doorbell and knocked on my door as if i owed him money. if you're trying to get people to help you out, the least you can do is show them some consideration, instead of annoying them even before saying anything.

tomorrow has refereeing, and i'm quite looking forward to it. before that though, i think i have to sleep off the residual emo.

-random thought of the day: Why have Olympic soccer since there's already the World Cup?-

More olympic news to talk about. seems like singapore has a medal. while i'm happy for the athlete's achievement, i'm not necessarily proud of it. like i said before in 2008, the medal would have more meaning if a born-and-bred singaporean athlete won it. after all, how much loyalty to and understanding of a country can be gained in 5 years, bearing in mind that 21 years were spent growing up and living in another country? honestly, i can't fault certain websites for saying that china had a clean sweep of the medals.

if singapore wants a medal, the government should put more emphasis on sports! make it more viable to be a full-time professional athlete and coach, promote sports more, and stop focusing so much on purely academic achievements. hiring foreign coaches is fine, i think, but the athletes who are out there representing the country should be singaporean. i'm willing to bet that the whole country would be unanimously happy if a singaporean athlete won something. and by "singaporean", i don't mean a 5-year citizen or a PR.

having said that, it would be hypocritical of me to want to squeeze benefits out of this medal. like public holidays, for instance. i do not care whether a public holiday is declared or not. in fact, i think there shouldn't be too big a fuss made of this medal. however, if there is a holiday, i won't complain. if there isn't, fine by me too.

TA training ended today, and seems that everyone made it. so, while my official title is "teaching assistant", i prefer to think of myself as a "trolling advocate". it's actually quite exciting! never thought i'd be on the other side of the system, wearing an orange lab coat. my prediction is that my group will do ok-ish for the physical experiments, but they'll be strong for separation and organic synthesis...provided they pay attention and follow instructions.

last night's sleepover went well. watched the first 2 batman movies, which was a good recap. spotted a few more references, which made me happy. out of the trilogy, i think the dark knight was kind of the odd one out, since there wasn't much reference to it. still, they're a good series of movies. seriously contemplating getting the DVDs if there's a boxset or anything like that.

finally, after 3 weeks, the 2 guys are having tuition. wonder how much they've forgotten. TKGS girl is having tuition too. so much tuition is good for my wallet, not so much for my mental health. but i'll get by. have refereeing on sunday too. oh! tomorrow is the first time i get to try driving the new car. my dad warned me that there was a problem with the transmission, so i have to start accelerating slowly, step off the pedal, and accelerate again. nothing i can't get used to, i think.

-random thought of the day: Interpersonal interactions are complicated.-

True to expectation, no car for me. while i more or less predicted it, it's still mildly annoying. somehow, getting your hopes dashed still hurts, no matter how well-prepared you are. well, on the bright side, my dad gave me a key, which means that i still have car access. i haven't positively identified the car, but based on the key, i know it's a nissan. wonder what driving it will feel like? my guess is that it'll be easier to park, because it should be smaller than the previous car. minor downside is that the locking/unlocking remote isn't built into the keys, so we have to share the sole remote.

most of the week so far has been spent on TA training. the experiments aren't difficult for me now that i'm in year 4, but i expect that the incoming year 1s will have significant problems with the 2 syntheses. between my partner and i, each experiment took about half a day. so, giving them 2 full-day lab sessions for some experiments is actually being very generous. i just hope that i don't get any really blur people in my group.

in lab news, my mentor somehow successfully carried out my failed reaction. we used the same conditions, so i'm having trouble understanding how that is possible. guess that's the difference between an undergrad and a phd student. well, at least i can go to the next step now. hopefully that goes off better.

been catching olympic judo on youtube. i must admit that it's nice to finally catch more than just the highlight reel. at least now i can see how the match progresses, and understand the decisions that the referees make. it's quite...depressing to learn that some of the olympic athletes are younger than me. i watched the matches from 2 perspectives - as a coach, and as a referee. for the matches i saw, i don't think there were any outrageously bad decisions. good thing too, since these are international-level referees. hopefully some of their standard has rubbed off on me, and i'll referee well this coming sunday.

my judo senior SMSed me to say that he's competing this sunday (in the competition for which i'm refereeing), so that should be worth watching. also, he's been appointed as a coach in his club, and he plans on starting this coach mentoring program, which can help me work towards my NCAP technical. sounds good, right? slight issue here is that i can only join his club after honours year, otherwise i'll drown in everything going on.

well, that's about it, i guess. since we were fast with TA training, we got tomorrow off. still will be going to lab, though. at least i can wake up later tomorrow as compared to the past 3 days. also tomorrow evening, a few of us are going over to my friend's place (again) for movies and drinks. it's the last time we can do that this summer, since his parents will be back sometime in the next week. better treasure the opportunity to unwind. school's almost starting, after all.

-random thought of the day: What movies to bring over?-