24th Birthday report

I'm going to acknowledge those who did wish me a Happy birthday or some other similar greeting this year again. :3 This time my phone wasn't as busy as last year.

Parents and my brother's family;
Benjamin, from WDL;
Hanming, Junquan from SAJC (I appreciate the thought of wanting to hang out but this week is just meh);
Sarah Teo from NUS VCF;

Elena, Nicholas, Suzanne, Christina, Linfeng, Alvin, Samuel, Marcus Wong and Guorong.

Elena and Samuel treated me lunch, which was followed by a meeting later. Thank you so much. ^^

And last but not least my bro Silverfox. :)

Thanks all once again.

Quick update

I'm now in the midst of my ICT. This is my second one and it's a high key. It has been rather busy and hectic thus far.

Every day ends no later than 9pm during the training and I miss my sleep too, although I don't really feel it until the weekend because there's just so much to do.

As you probably might have heard, something unfortunate happened on Wednesday night. On the the day of his in-process, Kenny Tay on that same evening took the night off to get his civilian clothes. He met with an accident on the way home and was killed while on his motorbike. Nobody knew what exactly happened and only speculations has arisen from the whole ordeal.
On the Sunday after the death, I was tasked to be one of the participants to give a 3 shot gun salute to send him off in a military funeral. I was dressed in No. 1, the smartest uniform in the army and my weekend was partially burnt to train for and conduct the whole procession.

Some after thoughts: I would consider Kenny to be one of the closer ones I've interacted in the army. In fact, me and 3 other closer ones didn't want to look into the coffin as the rest proceeded around it. Honestly, I was numb at the wake and may attribute it to the hectic-ness by the training in camp. The news didn't really sink in and I suppose there's no point to think about it now that he's already been cremated. All the while after hearing the news, I asked for God for covering over the family and the entire battalion commanders for comfort, protection and peace. And I thank God for fulfilling that request.

Well, with all that's said and done, I suppose the last thing I wanna say is: See you in heaven, Kenny. You will be missed by those close to you in this lifetime~

Life after graduation

As from my previous entry, I have graduated earlier than I would have wanted to. My graduation ceremony was on the 4^th July. The graduation attire was so uncomfortable. As such, I only had one picture of me and my parents in that gown, and then immediately took it off afterwards.

Aside from graduation, I’ve been rather busy ever since receiving my grades. Apart from the administration of applying for the graduation ceremony, I kick started off certain things such as committee planning for two retreats, cleaning up my toys, catching up with people on the Net, postponing overseas trips to meet friends, trying to get myself a proper break… all in the midst of my parents subtly telling me to get my resume done and get a job.

As for now, I got my resume done, after much delay, most of my toys have finally been packed away, the graduation stuff is over and done with, been to on average one meeting every week in regards to the retreat stuff. Lastly, I’m currently making preparations to go back to the army for 2 weeks starting Monday.

And yeah, I’ll be away from the internetz for 2 weeks. I’ll be fine, nothing too dangerous, it’s not like I’m going on a peacekeeping mission or something… although the vehicles I’m using looks a lot like Devastator/Brawl~… Nah :p. Anyway, don’t miss me too much while I’m away. Take care all.

Results - Irony

Okay, so I received my results... Turns out I couldn't qualify for honours. I really wanted to do the 4th year, as I'd have 1 less year of working. Seems like God has other plans for me.

The irony in all of it:
1) Remember my last post where I said I was going to be screwed because I didn't finish half of the paper? Well... I got an A- for that, which is like the best grade I've ever had in my 3 years of study.

2) Instead of that subject, I worried so much for, I got screwed by 2 C+, which is the worst grades I've ever received in my 3 years of studies. Figures, huh? And what's the best part is that the papers for both that modules were on the same day.

For the curious ppl, a little fyi...
To qualify for honours year, there must be a minimum of 3.5 (equivalent to an average B)
My result: 3.48 (equivalent to also an average B + 1 out of the 30 modules having a B-)

Right now, due to hindsight, I'm at a loss of what to do. Little to no job experience, little to no clue on resume writing, no clue of the current job market, no clue on what to do next.
It's almost like inviting for the world to come screw me :S.

Rhetorical questions and other emo-ish banter

Ever had parents giving you $8K in preparation for you to do honours, and then watch that chance just slip through your hands after sitting for a final exam paper?

Just like that, my lecturer decided to screw all 6 of us during the final. Literally, a slaughterfest. For one, I don't think he actually did try out his own paper that he set. Too much math and calculations for so little marks. It didn't matter how well one was prepared for the paper, everyone was just stunned at what we were expected to accomplish within 2 hours.

"For such as small class, there's no need for a grade curve," everyone said. So what happens if all 6 fail the finals? Is there no reprieve?

I dunnoe... maybe something might happen that will pull up my grade for that module. Maybe, the lecturer would do something about everyone's grades.

I hope to do my honours year. Or maybe God has a different plan for me. Whatever it is, things don't look certain when I've barely completed half the paper.

It's amazing how uncertainty can kill the holiday mood too. Maybe, I should prepare to return the 8K to my parents, and start sending out resumes during the next upcoming job fair. Maybe.....

6th semester in NUS

Advanced Experiments in Inorganic and Organic Chemistry
Quantum Chemistry and Molecular Thermodynamics
Instrumental Analysis II
Mechanical Properties of Materials
Ceramic Materials

These are the modules I’m taking this semester. The first 3 are Chemistry modules and the last 2 are material science ones.

The first module is similar to what I had last semester. The only difference is that I get to synthesise stuff in the lab but otherwise, the same requirements as the module last semester. A little side note, in one experiment, I got to make a variant of the stuff that supposedly makes up our red blood cells (for the chemically inclined people, I got to make a porphyrin, the stuff that surrounds the iron(II) centre). Science fiction has it that werewolves and vampires are that way because of a change in structure in that porphyrin molecule.

Quantum chem… I bet it’ll put off a whole lot of people from that title of that module. (Btw, there are only 6 of us taking this module out of a possible 150 or so ppl in my cohort). I’m grateful that my lecturer is able to break it down for us in a simple manner. I don’t know… he seems kind of flustered each time he lectures us too. Another science fiction thingy from this module here: I learnt how the whole theory of multiple universes (Sliders is a good TV show to illustrate this) was generated from ideas of quantum theory.

For the material modules, they provide a much better learning environment, rather than chemistry. And a point of note, I don’t know of any lecturers in this department that are out to screw students either. In the earlier part of this semester, I had to do the lab experiments required for this module, and that took a huge proportion of time in my schedule. But, now, that time is all freed up to slack more. *rant* if not for a certain lecturer in IA2 who had to drop a last minute bomb on us about submitting a project like out of the blue~… grr. */rant*

Part 3 - 2006 reflections and the new year ahead

I know this is very very late, but here goes anyway. I’ll start off by listing some small yet significant things that happened in 2006.

- 1st job experience in a private organisation,

- Having the house (and my room too) repainted and getting more toy storage space,

- The opportunity to sample self-composed music
from this fella

In the area of university and studies, I’m glad to have had the opportunity to have studied a bit of Japanese, albeit it being a time consuming subject, and sociology. Also, I’m on track studying a little bit more about my interest, namely polymers, through modules either in chemistry or material science. I intend to further my knowledge about polymers by taking more of these types of modules that will somehow tip the balance towards getting employed in a polymer related industry. At this point in time, doing a masters in polymer chemistry looks very appealing after thinking about it for half a semester, and now I have a good reason to study and not just blindly studying whatever comes my way. Also, last semester I tried an old method to study for my finals, and it seems to be paying off again after seeing how my grades are the best out of all the semesters I had so far.

Another area I saw a huge improvement in is in the area of decision making. Previously, I used to be a wishy-washy person, living a carefree life and stuff. There were certain stuff that I stubbornly did not want to change at all. But, a bit of that has changed. I’ve improved a bit, though there are certain issues that have yet to resurface and have not yet been resolved. I do want to continue to improve on it though. I guess that all part of growing up I guess.

In my previous post, I mentioned something about a bomb just waiting to go off. Well, I’ll explain it here. During my pre-Net days, I used to be very active in church, holding quite a few responsibilities too. Then in 2000, I hung up everything and ‘ran away’ to another church and lied low for 6 years. During that time, at the back of my mind, I knew that God would ‘haunt’ (pardon the failure for a better word) me for it, hence the bomb waiting to go off. Now, God decided that I’ve been stuck at this crossroads for long enough and wanted me to move on. I understand the commitments, the responsibility and most dreadfully, the cost. I’ve already made up my mind already, so there’s pretty much no turning back. I’ve also pretty much seen the end… how I’ll get there is another issue altogether. So now I’ll just have to listen for his direction and I’m pretty much prepared for how God wants to place me in.

Sometime after Christmas 2006, I received news that a very good online pal had passed away. It was Jon Denning aka Pongo(136). Pongo was _the_ authority to look up if ever anyone had a question in regards to any inflatable toy. He also had acquired quite a bit of toys over the years too. In a way, he inspired me to start my own wealth of “inflatable knowledge” starting with the modern (post-2003?) toys. But overall, he was a very person to chat with. Never did sense a bit of pride in his tone.

The news came all too suddenly. One of our friends grew concerned that Pongo hadn’t appeared online for about 3 months already, and decided to snail mail to check how he was doing. It turned out however that Pongo’s brother sent the reply and said he had passed away about a month earlier during a heart operation. The feeling was awkward, at first. This was the first time my fears was founded, which is the only time you know something bad happened to anyone would be that they didn’t appeared online for a long time. This is a sad but inescapable truth. Another thing was how, in a sense, unprepared I was for this piece of news. I knew all along that Pongo had a congenital heart condition through casual chats that I used to have with him. But, he seemed to belittle it, shrugging it off as it’d became pretty much normal to him. He always seemed fine after taking his medication or the regular hospital checkups. But looking back, I realised that each time I talked with him, his health seemed to be deteriorating, albeit not at a drastic rate. Pongo always had a cheerful disposition around his convos.

When the news sunk in, I still felt numb. I just talked with other friends who knew him well. Like just... be there. I suppose it helped both the party over the other side and myself deal with the loss.

Ultimately, I suppose the people that made 2006 for me were my online friends. And I’d like to state for the record that I enjoyed each and every bit of your company. You guys are the best.

Part 2 - After semester thoughts testimony

http://smyle83.blogspot.com/2006/10/mid-5th-semester-thoughts.html

I just got back my results for it not too long ago on Boxing Day. I got 4 ‘B+’s, and 1 ‘B’.

Am I grateful? Hell yeah. First things first. Thank You God for giving me these grades! I’ve been meaning to pull my CAP (GPA equivalent) back up to 3.5 minimum. And it was done. Truly, He is in control of all things and I’ve been blessed. I can’t be anymore happier that that. Period. I’m on track to a 2nd lower class honours again. :D Thank God for do-able final exam papers too.

With the results, 2 records hold. 1) My grades are still either a B+, B or a B- for the 5th consecutive semester. No ‘C’s, no ‘A’s either; 2) My CAP increased for the first time… finally after dropping for 3 consecutive times.

The Experimental module – This was a bit of an enigma. I’m grateful that I didn’t get anything lower than a B+, since all my lab reports, which accounted for 60% of the final grade, seemed to show that I was heading in that direction. I thought I aced the exam, rather I thought the exam was fairly do-able. However, I’ve got a friend who took this module with me. He said that he got fair grades for his lab reports and got an A+ in the end. Either he’s BS-ing me, or the results are rigged >_> <_<

Organometallics – Granted I was average, if not lower than, compared to the rest of the cohort during my mid-semester tests, getting B+ was actually a bonus in itself. The module turned out to be pretty much straight forward.

Organic Synthesis… - I thought I had screwed up this paper. I had left too many questions unanswered on my answer script to my liking. Honestly, I only had myself to blame since I didn’t practise enough for this paper. Concepts were simple, yet it’s one of those modules that will screw you over if one lacked practice. Very good lecturer too and friendly.

Structure of Materials – Bad n00b lecturer, didn’t think he completed the syllabus, little to test about. The exam was a comprehension paper. Most of the people that came out of the exam weren’t sure what they had written down in their scripts. My theory was since everyone didn’t know what they were doing, but I had somewhat of an idea, I’d probably get a B+. Wrong… end result B. I need to re-work that theory.

Thremodynamics – On one hand, I had a lot of background in the things that were covered, nothing too much to learn. On the other hand, a lot of math I had to pick up from scratch. Both balanced out and the end result was a B+. Not forgetting to mention that it was a module to score, or at least the lecturer made it that way. Excellent lecturer too.

I also tried a new revision method this time round. It was a more organized revision, re-writing down the key concepts for each module once again and it seems to be working, or at least it’s helping me improve my grades. I must remember to keep this up, to be responsible for the things I study.

(to be continued…)

part 1 - What I’ve been up to last month

After the exams were over on the 1st December (5 papers in 4 days mind you), it was the weekend. Weekends are always busy for me, no matter what. I had 1 day of just staying at home doing nothing, then the rest of the week I had to attend either meetings or meet up with Alex, a good friend I haven’t seen in ages, and the cell group. In the midst of doing that, I was preparing my stuff to go back into the army for 5 days reservist training the week after. Over the weekend, one of my leaders dropped a timer on a bomb that was waiting to blow. I’ll explain the bomb in the other part of this 2 part mini-series.

On the second week of December, I lugged what felt like 30-40kg of stuff into a secluded part of Singapore. To cover my back, I won’t go into detail so much what I did back in camp. Basically, I caught up with my old mates during my previous 2.5 year stint, and met some new people who’ve been inserted into the unit. I found out my new vocation too. Luckily for me, during my 5-day in camp training, I didn’t once get too dirty by going out into the field because they had a different programme lined up for me. Overall, I thought it was fun, meeting everyone once again with the exception of this one person I felt bashing his face in for pestering me continuously. I was like “Get the *bleep* away from me!”, but of course that wouldn’t be nice, though I did shove my finger in front of his face on the very first day of the training *blush*. Not my fault, this guy was really just pushing his luck.

After the training ended, I decided to have one day of rest before heading for another camp XP. This youth camp was over the weekend (Friday to Monday) and officially started on the very last day of the army training, but I only went on the second day afternoon. Yes, I was insane and will never ever do it again. I was so tired on Saturday night that I had an early night. Nevertheless, the camp itself was fun and fruitful. I suppose I needed the time away from home and other distractions to just interact with others, which I don’t get to do very often either. Also, I thought more about the bomb that was going to explode >_>. After the camp was over, I spent the day checking through my flooded email and other stuff I regularly checked.

The next day was spent at home resting and recovering from all the activity. On Wednesday, I went to the new location where the Intex distributors were housed for their clearance sale. It was disappointing for the most part but I still picked up a miniature whale, a globe beach ball and another sea lion. I got to see the catalog for next year too… nothing too impressive though. The rest of the week was spent online catching up with chats, especially with those from UK, who are so hard to catch during the normal semester period due to time differences. The chats were very fruitful. Then next thing I knew, it was Christmas.

On Christmas day itself, I woke up late. And I decided not to go for Christmas service too. Reason being parents had invited guests to come over for visitation, so decided to stay back and help parents out with the food, furniture and other small tasks. However, during the actual visitation, I closed myself up inside the room and continued chatting >_> figures…

On Boxing Day, I went out with NCH to go see Eragon, the movie and at the same time send a leopard off to Reinhardt. The movie wasn’t too impressive but it was good to see NCH again. My results were released on Boxing Day too. After that, the initial plans were to go to Batam, Indonesia for a short holiday. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it had been very wet the past few days, and our holiday destination was flooded. So on Wednesday, I went to watch Night and the Museum with Mum. The show was a blast by the way, a highly recommended watch, followed by dinner later on in the evening. On Thursday, I went to see Charlotte’s Web with Dad (Nickelodeon movies will forever suck :P) Friday the 29th was spent at home figuring out my next semester’s modules… Which would leave the weekend again and then 2007 arrives :/

(to be continued…)

Warning: 3 part mini series ahead

Yeah.. like what the title said.