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.
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.-
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