Muddy

My plan after the exam. Last paper is on Wednesday.

Who wouldn’t want to have days free of work, school, meetings and the likes? To some, it is paradise. To others, it simply means days of extra naps. But I have learned that human is not as simple as that. We’re never really satisfied even if we claim we are. It is no doubt a fact that when one is working, he misses his days being a student, and when one is studying, he just wants to work. But of course this is not always true for all. I have but a few nerd friends who love studying and can’t get enough of it. God bless them for having the brain. That is why professions like researchers exist to feed these hungry people with infinite knowledge.

All I know is I am not these people. I would like to stop studying at one point in my life and pursue my career. Of course, I am contradicting myself here because once I settle myself on a certain profession, the first thing I’ll be doing is study. So we’re back to square one. The moral of the story is the day we stop studying is the day we give up one our work and find no pleasure in it. So whatever you are doing, do it with joy and give yourself some challenges. You might find you’d actually enjoy what you’re doing.

I bought this 3 in 1 coffee at Giant because it is cheap and I just wanted to try this brand. And I regretted it the instant I pour hot water over it in my cup. I don’t even have to describe the horror of it because you can pretty much tell just by looking at it. It smells like burnt coffee to me, even though I don’t know how burnt coffee smells like but I’m pretty sure that I just found out. First of all, there is residue that settles at the bottom, and then the color changes from grayish brown to this muddy dark brown. People, stick to your usual brand the next time you go out to buy a 3 in 1 pack, okay? Lesson learned the hard way. FYI, I’m still drinking it because it’s such a waste. Eek.

Deja Vu

I don’t know if this is common or not but I have never had a déjà vu experience before. I’ve heard of people around me experiencing it all the time and I thought, “What exactly is this feeling?” They have described déjà vu to me, which is a feeling that you have experienced a situation before even though you haven’t. Déjà vu is French literally translated as “already seen”. I have read articles on this phenomenon and trust me, I have pried my brain to remember myself in any situation that qualifies as a déjà vu experience. I have found none. The closest situation I could find is when I have this uncanny feeling that I have seen a certain place before, but it was in my dream. So that disqualifies it. And because I’ve not had one, I am very curious about this feeling. Is it a good feeling? Is it bad? Do you like having a déjà vu experience? How often do you have it? I already feel less human thinking about it!

Well, on a brighter note, I will have my stress free days in a week time. But I hope not for long. This is one of those holiday breaks that can take weeks, months or even years. My friend and I have agreed that seeing ourselves in a few months time is like seeing through a blind man’s eyes. Or for my case, seeing without my glasses (I’m that short sighted – literally, of course). In any case that I land myself a job by the next two weeks, I’ll buy everyone a round of nonalcoholic drinks. And if I’m jobless, I’ll haunt you with lame twits and blog entries and fill up your Facebook page with Farmville updates.

Okay, I actually despise all games with names ending with “ville”, especially from the Facebook franchise.

Closing on April

There are so many things I wanna do now but can’t because of the exam. Exams are like this. They cut you away from the world and force you to sit down and use your brain. They make you drink lots and lots of coffee (or Red Bull if that’s your thing). They give headaches and make you crave for food all the time. It’s either that or they make you forget to eat for hours at ends. Bottom line is, if we were to have exams all year round, we would die of malnutrition or obesity, over use our brain and burn our eyes, and what’s the effect of having too much coffee? Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating but it really makes me feel that way sometimes. But this is better than not having anything to do, right? (Like what I’ll be going through for God knows how long after the exam)

The very very last class (taken during the revision week)

This picture is actually spoiled due to overexposure when I use the timer. So I tried to recover it by adjusting the exposure level and contrast. The original picture looks like this…Yikes!

Facing the Audience

I’m really not confident when it comes to speaking in front of a crowd. I think the main reason is because I don’t speak English fluently, or rather, smoothly. And that proved to be the case with my presentation earlier today. I woke up earlier than usual. Got ready, had coffee and then I headed downstairs to Nina’s room. We wanted to grab some food before going into the class but since it’s the revision week, it’s hard to find food early in the morning so in we went with empty stomachs. But I guess the nerves drowned the hunger as we enter the classroom.

I have to say some of my friends have improved tremendously from the last time I saw them present. But I can’t judge that base on their talk because I was barely listening since I got the last slot and was pretty nervous. But I did catch some bits and pieces of their talks and saw how well some of them handled the questions raised by the lecturers. Well done, fellas. Everyone did quite well. Although I did not see anyone attempting the dubious that’s-a-very-good-question-I’ll-think-about-it technique as taught by someone we know.

Finally, after hours of Mathematics talks, formulas, equations, impossibilities, inventories, theorems, PDEs, graphs, and some coffee breaks, I was finally up. Surprisingly, the nerves had died down by then. I was close to Shangri-La (by that I mean calmness). I delivered my talk with some broken sentences, a bit of stutter and plentiful of self-doubt and contradictions to the words I utter. I was expecting skeptics from the crowd but fortunately, since I was the last presenter, they obviously got tired of sitting and listening so I only got two questions from the audience. And before I knew it, the coordinator was announcing the end of the presentation and everybody were clapping their hands. In my head, I was thinking, “That’s it? I’m done?” For a moment there, I couldn’t believe it, but there you go!

Happy Revision Week!

And I promise to upload all the photos to Facebook when I have a better internet connection, guys.

Final week of the Semester

The very last class…

I had imagined my very last class to be a little bit different than this. I didn’t imagine having paper boats and stars in it!

Two days earlier…

I thought I might as well add these photos here for you to have something to look at rather than staring at my pointless sentences.

Oh, and you know what’s the best thing about being a Maths student here?!!

This…

Best of luck if you're taking your exams this May like me!

Pancakes

[source]

I'm craving for pancakes now. I don't know why you don't like the maple syrup as the topping but that's just crazy talk. It's the best sweetness you can ever experience in your mouth. And my mission is to make pancakes after the exam, henceforth called Ligne Maginot. I'm gonna crush you and get over the other side!

I attended a seminar and the first speaker's talk was pretty interesting, except he kept getting interrupted by the audience. I hope I don't get interrupted when I present this coming Monday. It makes us forget what we wanted to say in the first place and that is pretty bad especially for inexperienced speaker like me. Please DON'T make my life difficult by challenging me with questions I can't answer. I don't know how to deal with it!

Oh and damn the connection is fast in the library. You don't have to wait for the page to load. The page wait for you to adjust your eyes on it!

And somebody got stuck in the lift this morning. I wonder how that feels. Are you crazy, woman?! I DON'T want to know how that feel!!!

Restless

What do you think of Idol so far? Two were eliminated yesterday: Andrew Garcia and Katie Stevens. Well, better them than Big Mike, right? Don't get me wrong, I totally liked Garcia before he joined Idol, when he used to upload You Tube videos with his cover renditions. Maybe he's more of a You Tube guy than a stage guy. Imagine David Choi performing on Idol. Surely Simon would have lots to criticize about (starting from his 'dead' look!) These You Tube celebs, their comfort zones are their rooms and behind the camera. That's where they belong. But apparently, Garcia can't upload any more videos due to his contract. That's just too bad.

Check out these channels:

- davidchoimusic

- bendeignan

- singindork888

- ShawnLee90

- kinagrannis

Just when I thought I'm sticking to my schedule, I spent my study time napping. And with exam around the corner, time is precious. Maybe I should attend that motivational talk I read about somewhere (possibly from my uni's email) I can't just focus on the exam now because my project is still not done. This is a living nightmare! And I'm suddenly craving for food. Oh, wait a minute, the last time I ate was more than 12 hours ago. And since it's still 'dawn', the canteen's not open and I've no real food in my room now.

Movie to look forward to right after the exam: Robin Hood directed by Ridley Scott starring Russell Crowe

Time is Set

Earlier today, I got the time arrangement for the presentation and of all the time slot, I was given the last slot - again! I hope that by 11.30am, everyone just want to freaking get out of the class and have lunch. That way, they won't ask too many questions. Hell if they're drained, and I get lucky enough, I might get away with just one or two questions. So I'm destine to wrap up the day, huh? I'll have to think about what I'm gonna say. I hope it all goes well.

Today for dinner, we have a special treat. Mum prepared butter crab. Well, frankly speaking, it's not the crab I was looking forward to. It's the fried chicken that she made as side dish. I'm just not a crab person!

I am going to watch this right after I press the "Publish Post" button on this page. Watching Psych is slower than my usual How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory simply because it runs for roughly an hour. But that's the beauty of mystery series with cases. You just need the time to solve the puzzle. It ain't easy with all those psychic stuff going on.

My bro was quite excited cos dad decided to buy some fish at the fish market in Jerudong. Why excited? Cos he's never been there before. LOL. The place smell of fish with rubbish everywhere, and he says it's a beautiful place. Wtf?

My bro was sitting beside me just now. Since I don't know what else to write here, here's my bro's midnight snack. That's the chicken I was talking about, by the way.

Did you watch this week's American Idol? Michael Lynche got the save and next week is going to be exciting to watch. First, Adam Lambert will be the mentor and then, two contestants are gonna be eliminated. It's definitely a must-watch week!