-=Luke281913=-

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:25:00 +0000

Life is like a roller coaster, it has its ups and downs. But it's your choice to scream or enjoy the ride.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 10:38:00 +0000

I have been planning to write again for a while, but I wonder how each attempt keeps turning into a draft.

It is now nearing the end of the exam week and I have one more paper left.
This semester has been the toughest semester for me academically. It has felt like nothing that I had previously felt. My aims for time management was completed shattered, and I clocked 3 hrs a night of sleep in the final week struggling to meet all my deadlines. This was something I promised myself not to do again when I was in Year 1 Sem 1. But I suppose it didn't work out.

Other than my academic pursuits, my entire semester has been a rush of feelings and emotions. I had never expected that 3 months of my time could change my life and alter reality as much as the last 3 months did.

I have found what I was looking for. The lost feeling, the emotions that were locked away. I have found it all.
I never thought that there would be a day that I could say this, to proudly claim that all has not been lost for myself.

When I threw the key away 4 years ago, I knew in my heart that the only person who could open the lock again would be the person I would spend my entire life looking for. And I was right.

Fate has played a strange role in my life path this semester.

I have seemingly lost a close friend, a friendship which i strongly believed last semester that could not be broken. But its fragility was demonstrated so quickly. One incident, and the bond felt so empty. So lost. I believe that I have done my part to salvage the friendship, though it has been pointed out to me that I could have done more.
But really, it only takes a few days of unresolved conflict to destroy a relationship. By the time it reached 3 weeks, my heart was already empty. The feeling was alien to me, and nothing could make me believe in the friendship again. Unfortunately, the complete breakdown a few weeks later served to prove me that the relationship had been lost. I really regret it. But I cannot find that same bond back again. Oh well. Such is the strange role that fate plays.

I haven't decided if I should accept it and move on. I am pretty sure that I can still salvage it. But is it worth it? Will anything ever be the same again?

On the bright side of things, I am a much happier person this semester.

The strange coincidence of coincidences. The long journey that we have gone through. The joy, the sorrow, the laughters, the tears. Its a tumultuous 3 months but we have finally converged at the same point in our crossroads in life.

There is no other. Je t'aimerai jusqu'à la fin des temps

Blogged from my mobile. I am awesome (:

Deja Vu

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 04:35:00 +0000

Deja Vu. l'histoire se répète.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:56:00 +0000

Hi my dear friends, I will be leaving sg for china in 9 hours' time. Will be out of contact for the next 21 days. Cya all and i will be back on the 22nd. enjoy your holidays pple! and take care!!!!

U ARE CAught

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 03:03:00 +0000

U ARE CAught!

U - Unary Operators ( ++ , -- , + , - , ! )
A - Arithmetic Operators ( * , / , % ) ~ ( + , - )
R - Relational Operators ( <= , => , < , > )
E - Equality Operators ( == , != )
C - Conditional Operators ( & ) ~ ( | ) ~ ( && ) ~ ( || )
A - Assignment Operators ( = , += , -= , *= , /= )

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 17:32:00 +0000

Everyone needs some motivation to carry on in life. This is a side-note to myself.

Maybe I need to get a whiteboard to hang up in my room to motivate myself like Jim Barton did ;)

IS200

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 04:15:00 +0000

To be honest, I fear a lot for a lot of people in this module: IS200

However, repeated conversations over this topic has done nothing to alleviate my fear. On the other hand, it has brought my acceptance to the fact that if one cannot pass IS200, once cannot move on to future programming modules, because one would only suffer even more in future.

Such is the cruelty of IS200.

The final paper will decide the fates of a lot of people this year: whether they pass or fail IS200.

How will the standard of the paper be then? Given the attitude that we have carried forward from our junior colleges and our polytechnics, we will assume that:

1. Since the previous lab test yielded horrible results, the instructors will go easy on us for the final exam paper since they will want decent pass rates.
2. If everyone does badly for the paper in general, everyone's results will be moderated upwards to reflect the relative standard of the students.

The above are myths. Why so?

We are now schooling in a university. A university has no need to meet a minimum pass rate for its modules. A university is only concerned with the quality of the students that graduates from it.
Essentially, there is nothing to suggest that the final exam will be any less harder than what it was for the recent lab test. In fact, one can expect the final exam to be even harder than that.

Fact: WYSIWYG - What You Score Is What You Get. From my current understanding, IS200 is a non-moderation module. What You Score Is What You Get.

I might seem very mean by writing all these, but the truth is that I am writing this because I care. Let me tell you a story:

5 years ago, my secondary school just finished its preliminary examinations. Because I do not want this post to appear on a google search, I will not name the school in this post. However, you can see the name of the school on the right where I stated my secondary school.

The prelim results were terrible. Students were flunking their exams so badly it seemed like the 'O' levels would be a disaster. Guess what the principal did? He moderated all our results upwards so we would all be able to get into the JC of our choice for the Preliminary Admission Exercise.

Wow. One barely had to study, and when our prelim results slip came out, the results were amazingly good. Personally, I scored a B4/C5 for both my English papers and my results turned out to be an A2. Talk about amazing moderation. It created a false sense of optimal results throughout the school. Students slacked. They already secured a position in the JC of their choice, so why bother to study so hard?

After the 'O' levels, everyone went to the JC of their choice, where they happily spent their first three months. Then, the results were released, and reality struck home.

The average score for my secondary school in that year was around 14~16 points. I cannot remember the exact score, but that was the extent of how badly we did that year. It was the worst year in my school's history. Most of the students from my secondary school were kicked out from the junior colleges they had spent the first three months in. They would cry, but nothing could be done to help them. Such is the illusion of safety.

This is the same as what is happening in IS200 now. If you tell people that the final exam will be okay, if you tell people that we will not fail IS200, then you will be repeating what happened to my school 5 years ago.

Shatter your illusion of safety. IS200 is a module that requires much consistency and effort. Also, it is not true that not everyone can do well in this module. The amount of effort that is placed into this module matters, and the method that is being employed to study this module matters much too.

Last year's sample final paper had this question: To write out a Pascal's triangle generator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_triangle

//Enter the number of rows in the Pascal's Triangle: 3
// 1
// 1 1
//1 2 1

Expect to handle problems like these on a written paper for this final exam, and you will be able to handle this exam well.
The above can be written based on what we have learnt thus far. Feel free to give it a try.

Remember this: If you cannot handle the Individual Project, you cannot handle the Final Exam.

Re-visit your foundations and climb back up to the top again. Check that you know your foundations well. A strong foundation is extremely important for IS200. Don't rush your progress if you are not sure.
Like I told my buddy before, a strong foundation matters much more than knowing a lot. Consistency matters much more than skill in the long run.

If you finished reading till this line, congrats. You should know what to do next. GO CONQUER IS200! Jiayou!

A nap

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 17:42:00 +0000

I had a dream today.

I usually stop myself from taking naps even though I am feeling very tired. Naps never last one hour like they are supposed to. Usually, when I fall asleep, I end up sleeping for 3 hours or so. So I usually stopped myself from taking naps because 3 hours was just too much time to spend sleeping.

But I fell asleep today while waiting for my laptop to start up. And yes I slept for 3 hours. Got woken up by an sms in fact.

My dream.

In my dream, I saw a lot of things rush past me. My thoughts on relationships, schoolwork, my worries, my concerns. It was like a video playing back parts of my recent life back to me.

I teared in my dream when I saw my friends feeling disappointed and sad over their results. I worried for them; I worried for myself.
I saw my love for others, in particularly my friends. I could feel the concern I had. I was happy, content in many ways.
I saw my relationships. Not so much of a BGR relationship when I dreamt it, but I saw the people I were truly concerned for.
I saw my own results. With my current scores, they were worrying. I remembered nothing more.

One way to interpret this: Stressed. But I wonder how so? I don't deny that I am constantly worrying, more about others than myself. I sometimes let the feeling of being worn out take me, so that I will feel more alive. I don't understand how it helps though.

But after my dream, I thought I had a clearer picture of myself. My persistent thoughts and everything. Perhaps I can cope better with this?

I heard something optimistic from my LTB mate yesterday. Apparently, GPA wasn't capped at 4.0. It was possible to get 4.3 for your GPA, if you got A+ for every subject. It was a kindle of hope to me. This meant that I would be able to pull my grades up if I push on to secure a good grade for IS200. Alas. I hope that I don't need too much recovery power from IS200 to save all my other subjects. I can do this. Ugh!

PDIII

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 04:22:00 +0000

I am gonna make new frens :D

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 08:36:00 +0000

I need someone who will ask me 'When' instead of 'Why' when I suggest something crazy.

Life

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 03:05:00 +0000

I might not think like this a few days from now. But I suddenly feel so sick of this thing called Life.

LIKE THIS

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 15:55:00 +0000

PRESS LIKE! THANKS! DONT ASK QUESTIONS =P

So Parkingson said

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:22:00 +0000

I was reading a book in the library today. It wasn't cos I was being uber hardworking. It was cos I was self-studying my PhD in stoning(It only took me 3 weeks in SMU to earn my degree) while waiting for my LTB group meeting at 6.

The book was titled 'Adventures of an IT Leader' by dunno who and there was this particular quote from the book that really had a great impact on me today.

It was called the Parkingson's Law. And Parkingson's Law states that

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Give this sentence a thought and decide what it means to you. Explanation of the law is below this line:

What this quote means is that if we were given a deadline of 3 days for a particular task, we would take 3 days to finish it. If we were given a deadline of 3 weeks for another task, we would take 3 weeks to finish it.

It was a stark reminder to me on time management. How true this law is! And how procastination has affected my life so! I hope this law can help serve as a constant reminder to everyone on spending time wisely. I really hope so.

And I realised that no matter how hard I tried, I still ended up tearing myself apart. How can I live with this? Why must this be a part of me? The castle...

Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 06:59:00 +0000

Woo! I think I am addicted to fun! =D

I Will Never Let You Go

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 07:58:00 +0000

Been a while since I last took out this photo.

Its a photo I snapped at home back in the JC days. The 'cast' was set up.

And its titled:

I Will Never Let You Go.

Analytical Skills

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:41:00 +0000

I thought analytical skills was an easy module at first. After all, what could be difficult about identifying the nature of a statement? But I was sooooo wrong.

Trying to break down 25 statements has been taking up the last 2 hours+ of my time just trying to see the difference between an argument and a non-argument. The line is so thin in some cases. Argh.

Lessons in SMU

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 03:37:00 +0000

After 1 week of lessons at SMU, I pretty much figured how life is going to be for the next 15 weeks. Thankfully, I expected it to be like this, just that I did not expect myself to get turned off by it so quickly. Lol.

Let's all be smuggers (:

Need a new stress output. I should resume evening jogs.. If I am even near home in the evening to begin with. Ahaha.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 05:41:00 +0000

I am shutting that song up.. LOL. no more blog songs.

STAT101

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:55:00 +0000

wtf...

Java Tic Tac Toe

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:27:00 +0000

Wrote Tic-Tac-Toe with Java Swing. So proud of myself (:

Back to school - SMU

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:59:00 +0000

Yesterday marked the first day of school for a very long time. I didn't have any expectations, nor any dismay at going back to school. It has been a long time after all. School was fine with me.

Didn't do much except find out that my textbooks have price tags of $40~$50. Ouch.

But that wasn't the point in doing an entry today after so long.

I had a Creative Thinking class today. Yep. If you are wondering, CT is indeed a graded module in SMU. How do they teach people to be creative? I don't know either, but this will be an interesting module.

Our first 'task' in class was to write down what we liked most and what we wanted to be in the future. Kinda sounds like what the teacher might ask us to write down in primary school huh?
Noone wrote that they wanted to be a superhero like Batman though. Aw.

I thought about what I liked most. And I gotta admit it took me some time before I settled on 3 things I decidely liked most.

1. Overcoming challenges
2. Friendships/Connections between people
3. Adrenaline rushs

At least that's what I wrote down on the piece of paper before the end of the lesson.

For what I wanted to be, I wrote that I wanted to be able to visit all the places around the world that I wish to travel to in this lifetime. Long journey ahead huh. I think so. Don't ask me to list the places I wish to visit though. I will keep on going till I am out of places. Not that I have the resources to do that at the moment. I believe I will one day, and the day will come.

So my homework for CT was to create a name plate. A bold, attractive name plate. Hm. I gotta think about this one. Feels very IKEA-ish. But no way I am going to visit IKEA to do this. Lol.

So that's that for my fresh university experience. Will write again if I feel like it ^^.

Oh yea. Someone who once contacted me regarding MLM before is trying to contact me again recently. I ignored 3 sms-es already. Wonder if I should get back to him. To be honest, I was ok with him till he tried to recruit me into MLM. That totally turned me off. Argh. He's a nice person. But I really hope his recent attempts to contact me is not MLM-related. Sigh. Can't decide if I should get back into contact. Maybe I could flip a coin. And no I won't write a java program to decide if I should -_-

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 May 2010 03:33:00 +0000

REFUND OF AMOUNT OWED TO MINDEF

1. We were informed by your SSC that you have an outstanding amount of payable to MINDEF.

2. Based on our recordings, you have incurred an outstanding amount of $96.31. The detailed breakdown is as follows:

Overpayment of Salary
Combat Allowance - 11 Jan to 08 Feb 2010 $96.31

3. Please refund the amount of $96.31 by 21 May 2010.

4. Please note that late payment interest of 5% per annum will be accrued on the outstanding balance until the amount is repaid in full.

WAH LAU. THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!!!!! ORD ALR STILL WAN TO KOPE MONEY FROM ME! I didn't charge them interest when they paid my my salary 4 months late! What is this!!!!

March

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 15:50:00 +0000

It has been 43 days since my ORD. Not much has happened since then, but I have found a job since. I started working on the 22nd Feb, slightly less than 2 weeks after my ORD.

My job is basically ad-hoc work and some simple administrative tasks. I work 8~5 in an office at Raffles Place. Some people will have heard of the company name PwC, but most won't know of it unless they have done some interaction in the Business or Accountanct field.

Well, other than that, I haven't been doing much, except perhaps watch a lot of dramas lately.

I managed to finish 4 drama series in 1 month. That's about 1 drama a week, lol.
My first one was It Started With a Kiss(惡作劇之吻), which I found pretty okay, though it may be because I haven't been watching dramas for a very long time. The last drama I completed was One Litre of Tears, and before that it was Goong. 3.5 stars out of 5.

Then I moved on to Hi My Sweetheart(海派甜心), which I found rather boring. After you watch one idol drama, you begin to find the next idol drama extremely predicatable in terms of storyline and action. The ending was also extremely bland and uninteresting. The climax was repetitive and predictable. I find this show rather overrated. 2 out of 5.

My 3rd drama was Atashinchi no Danshi(アタシんちの男子) , a Japanese drama which emphasized strongly on family values. It was a satisfying drama to watch. The castle featured in the centre of the plot is very interesting indeed. I wonder if a castle like this exists for real in today's times. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

My 4th and most recent drama, which I just completed 15 minutes ago as of this writing, is You're Beautiful (미남이시네요). It is by far the best drama of the lot. The songs were really damn good. I think that was the part lacking in all the other dramas, especially the Taiwan dramas. Anyone should totally catch this. 5 out of 5 stars.

So.. tell me Ken ken. How did you find your way to this blog? I was initially surprised when you asked me if I was hiding a blog back in January. The main reason was because my blog address was splashed on my facebook profile since I created my facebook account long ago. It was like.. just there, but I guess you weren't looking hard enough. Lol.

I have been searching for something since I left NS. It is a very elusive feeling, one that I forced out long ago. I wonder, if at some point of time I have locked it away for too long, that it may never return again. That key. I wonder where it is.

I will add the translation for the new song when I am free.

Veni, Vedi, Vici, Viord

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:05:00 +0000

Veni, Vedi, Vici, Viord.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 18:28:00 +0000

O sometimes I really hate myself so much. So so much.
Sorry seems to be the hardest word.