Month: July 2003

Watched the Hulk today, which was an awful show. I haven’t been so bored by a movie before. The action was pathetic, even for an Ang Lee. It was technically rather pleasing, though. Many cheesy 80s cartoon camera effects, like the good old Batman days when the screen would spiral into nothing, or frames would pop up, move about and disappear. But technically pleasing don’t make a movie. Ang Lee not entirely to blame, I suppose. He did the best he could with the plot he had.

Seet was pissed off after the movie. Sigh. This all male group has little enough support about it as it is, worse that we’re the caustic bastards that we are. Been pissing off a lot of people lately, and I think I’ve been lying to yself all this time. I DON’T like it more when people are angry and inform me about it. Makes me feel worse, actually. It was an observer bias based on the fact that I hardly ever make anyone angry with me who has had the gall to say it in my face. Sigh. I may be an insensitive, untactful person but I don’t have the nonchalance for it. It’s too easy to make me feel bad.

Speaking of observer biases, read something really innocent yet stunningly deep in my stat physics book today. A simple sentence, stating that the measurements we make are finite, yet cartesian space corresponds to a continuum (ie. no discrete breaks), therefore if we try to place a finite posibility of an object occupying a certain space, since there are an infinity of locations we could measure, all probabilities are zero and the object couldn’t possibly exist anywhere. Something liket he one about the racer who tries to move to the end point, but there are an infinity of mid-way points in between, thus he can never reach the end.

Finally, the stupid magazine is finished and I can take a small break. Still have to finish up 3 banners, a poster and several flyer designs, though. This job is more of a package deal than I thought it would be. My intentions to push it off to one person might not work out well, considering how much work has to be done.

Been sick the last 2 days, though you wouldn’t know it to look at me. Or at least, I don’t think you would have, but the first thing everyone’s been saying to me is ‘Are you all right?’, so I suppose I might be wrong. Been running about doing stuff, printing posters and flyers and banners and trying to make time for the people I haven’t seen in a while.

University Top Brass has required all undergraduates to take a module in Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Evidently, coming from higher education, we university people have a civic responsibility to know more about a disease which none of us suffer from (at least, as far as administration is willing to admit) than the common man on the street. Trust an institution run by a bunch of scholars to think knowledge was important.

Moving out, moving out! Next Thursday is D-day. Gonna be draggin most of my stuff over to the new room. Think I’ll live light. Will probably come home on the weekends to sleep on couch. Ah, the couch, how I’ll miss it… all those nights spent with my brother’s girlfriend in my bed… and me not in it… Yep, that couch and I have spent some long, bitter nights together. And the stupid bitch wonders why I don’t like her.

Decided to take 6 modules… again. Against all advice and odds, I think I can make it this time. Gonna whack those grades and get back my A’s this sem. Even if the modules are all super difficult and I’ve never heard of Laurent series’ before. Still, I have my confidence, I have my pride, and most of all, I have my blind hope. And it’s carried me through twenty-one years of my life.

Goodness. Flicked on the telly to find an episode of the wierdest thing – ‘The Bionic Woman’. It looked like an 80s flick about a woman wiht mechanical implants who could… bake pies real fast! I watched her finish the first one then I had to stop before the pathos of my existence got to me. Enjoying myself instead singing Faye Wong songs in my phony falsetto. Ah, I do love my Faye Wong…

I’m in a chirpy mood, aren’t I?

I am so disappointed in myself. I have, over the period of 2 days, been late, confused, rude, mean, unfriendly, curt, unprofessional, unkind and altogether an awful person to live with. But not enough. Meaning I met up with Nick, Seet and Take again. We’ve become a regular little poker gang, except we always do the wierdest things. Our little bachelor’s club won’t last long, though, the way it’s going.

Alchohol sucks. I itch. And this time I didn’t even get much of a buzz.

Cut out of duty for the rest of the week. Decided it was pointless anyway since there’s no one to serve and I need to run about the next couple of days. I must have looked really stressed or something the past few days. Some girls cheered me on for no reason today. Won’t comment on how that made me feel. I just feel tired and aimless the past few days. there’s nothing to do, I don’t have the energy to pick up anything new and all I seem to be doing is stressing myself out about stuff that would have gone okay if I had done a little more. Stress? Nah. I never get stressed. I just regret my past actions to the point of choking cute little children.

I am so pathetic. Listening to Bonnie Tyler sing sad chick songs. Oh, now there is only love in the dark…

NAAAARRRGGGHHH!!! I am so bored! I caught myself surfing through people’s homepages and reading psychological test results! What have I become! I must end this! Sleep! Sleep!

Await my room inspections with trepidation. Am going to move out! And this time its for good – I can feel it. Even my mother can feel it. Now she keeps asking me when I’ll do it. And I thought I was the one excited. Never thought I would end up outed by my own mother. God, I hate the way she tries so hard to like the stupid girlfriends.

The house is getting a little too small for 5 family members and my brother’s girlfriends. Especially when the concentration of girlfriends is in my room. Much discomfort for all when one of them comes over. Can’t say I bother to find out their names.

They all look the same to me. Or maybe he just hasn’t switched as often as he used to, I don’t know.
In any case, I’m desperate. Sharing an apartment was too difficult to organise, and I think I would have hated it anyway. And it defeated the purpose, sharing. The point of this whole expedition of mine was to stop sharing. Don’t feel like doing that again for a while.

Notice I have not mentioned the banner in the last 2 paragraphs? Mwahaha, that’s right! It’s finally done! The crappy, single piece of canvas is finally painted and ready to hang. Tried to last Saturday but the poles we intended to do it with were too thick. My fault, really. Should have thought about that before hauling the guys down to help me put it up. Somewhat guilty.

Schools’s coming in again, and I’m getting nervous. After my last 7 module attempt my confidence is shattered. It’s depressing that I haven’t gotten a C yet and I already have an F. Damn. Thinking of taking 6 again this semester, but heaven knows I’m not exactly star student material. I don’t know why everyone else thinks I am. I hate studying. Learning, now that’s one thing, but studying involves other people, and I hate other people.

Haven’t gone out in forever, unless you count new university lunch spots. Am getting depressed easily due to the stress of having so many commitments and things to do. Oh, how hateful. Time to work again…

Horribly depressed. What passes for the rainy season on our sunny little island has arrived, and the sun is going out again. I hate the monsoon.

Screamed at a friend today, because I got annoyed with how she kept planning her life so she wouldn’t be as affected by her weight. Sigh. But realise I have the same problem, except maybe I have it worse than she does. Been planning my life around my little inadequecy for so long I probably wouldn’t know what to do without it. It never really hit me just how much I was going around the problem, subconciously. Apologised to said friend later – don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with working around your inability. Perhaps just my subconcious screaming at me to face my fears?

Nah.

The banner is somewhere half-way complete. I am most sick of it. It’s taking over my life, that 5 by 4 metre piece of black cloth. Somehow that thing managed to insinuate itself into my life and grab a big bunch of my responsibility. Losing sleep thinking of how it’s still undone. Weather doesn’t help. Sometimes I can’t even paint because it’s pouring out in the open and I have to resort to some petty little adjustments indoors, where space is a commodity bought by moving small objects around.
I need to get out more. This life is killing me. Man, and I thought losing my virginity in college would be easy. I can’t even lose my inhibitions.

Went for a BBQ yesterday with the rest of the CBLC gang, plus some freshmen. It rained intermittently throughout the day – the kind of rain that gets your hopes up by letting up for a while, then sends a torrent down to wet your blanket (haha). I skated with John nontheless, have realised I go very slowly. My technique is all wrong. Sigh. The result of not taking any lessons. Got very wet, though it wasn’t as bad as the guys who went kayaking. Their obsession with water sports is inexplicable. It must be the primal soup instinct calling.

Compiling the pictures for the FOC, doing up this gallery thingy for easy viewing. Not that I think many people will bother using it, but it’s gratifying to realise I’ve learnt something new in the past months. In truth, I think university life has seen an explosion in my learning capability. Retention and memory have had no choice but to go up, and it’s affected my non-academic life too. Now actually able to remember what I had for lunch the day before.

Downloading Will and Grace, again at Ron’s recommendation. Friends-like, as I should have known. Also trying to get Six Feet Under – ah the wonders of peer-to-peer file transfers, with censorship as flimsy a barrier as silk gauze. Although I have to admit American culture is rather starting to grate on my more sensitive Asian moral values. Not so much the fact that I MIND watching nearly naked people fondling each other, but I can feel my morals going ‘Loose bitches!’ and the rest of me just recoils with horror at how old-fashioned and stiff I am. Dear Lord, I’m as goos as a grandmother.

There is still so much to do, so little time to do it, and so many things I haven’t been able to try.Oh, how I do so hate myself. What I’ve become, what I don’t dare to do, what I want to do, what I can’t do… Nothing works out the way I want anymore. Perhaps because now there are more people involved and I have too many considerations.
I haven’t read anything recently! *sob*

Today has to be the wierdest day of my online life. I logged on, turned on ICQ, and found… no one else was online. It’s like entering the dead zone…

Turns out I did CompLink wrong all along, and I can’t get it to bleed properly anymore. Passed the thing to the printer and asked him to trim it slightly smaller than A4 for me, hopefully all goes well and it doesn’t turn out too crappy. Indesign’s built in PDF converter sucks. Sigh. Thankfully the guy liasing with me for printing is quite nice and lives close to my place, so he doesn’t mind me switching printing versions so often. I’m actually kinda sad that this issue will turn out the way it will – don’t think I did a very good job. I didn’t ask for any opinions at all on this one, other than Leo, but he didn’t give me much advice anyway. No compliments so far, beyond the ‘I like the colours’ comment, which is rather useless – CompLink isn’t a flower. Banner should be painted tomorrow, am very nervous about how it’ll turn out, since it’s the first time I’m painting one of those damned things. Always see people doing it, but never really pictured myself in there getting myself all mucky and paint filled.

Have decided to change the website design again. Hate this one. So dull and dreary. Have been suggested to me to put up pics of all my friends and give short introductions about them. Hmmm. Will probably end up making some more than a little pissed if I do, but what the hey, its not like there’s much else I can post anyway.

Met up with some old Army friends. Was saddened again because some of them couldn’t remember my name. Only my position in the Army. Was I that pathetic a personality? Perhaps. I had so much fun doing my job there was very little of me in that office, I suppose. Was informed of the many misdeeds of some of the guys I used to know, including one who got into a gang fight and sent someone into ICU (Intensive Care Unit), and another one who went AWOL (Absent Without Official Leave). Strange as it seems, I’d rather be back there with them than where I am now. It was more fun back there, even with all the strange people around. They wereDIFFERENT. I was different, without even trying. Here in university I’m just another undergrad, fighting to survive the daily grind. Talked with Ronnie about how much more he liked the Hokkien beng and poly grads. I don’t think it’s just admiration for them. I think I like myself more too when I’m around them.

Gary sent me an email about Slashdotters debating the stupidity of people. Am rather saddened by the whole thing, since some of the arguments used are my personal philosophy. And IT LOOKS SO STUPID WHEN SOMEONE ELSE SAYS IT. Sigh. Am about giving up with all the judgmental nonsense. If there’s anything quantum mechanics teaches you, its that people are lousy judges. A God might help, but I guess he’s too busy evolving worms to give us some morals.

‘… convinced as they are that persuasion (or rhetoric) is indeed the bottom-line of enquiry, and that truth-talk or kindred high-toned appeals to fact, evidence, theory or principle are just so many ploys for enlisting assent among members of the relevant peer-group community.’ Against Relativism, Christopher Norris

The above passage can be rephrased thus: ‘We prove things so that we can show off to others.’ I’m returning the book tomorrow. It’s way too much for me. Ridiculous that my engineering friends have to take Communications Skills modules and people like Professor Norris can get away with this kind of language. In case you’re interested, though, the book is about relativism, and the author is a strong opponent against it.Meaning that he does not believe our scientific values are products of short-term social consensus, nor that scientists are merely egotistical bastards out to prove that they’re right (although I have to admit it looks that way most of the time). Will endeavour to finish the chapter on Quantum Mechanics before I return it. Rather a waste to have so many big words slip like this.

Been listening to a lot of Dave Matthews Band recently, recommended by Ronnie, of all people. His taste in artistes seems to tend towards technically proficient performers with nothing much special about them. Jewel, the Corrs, Dave Matthews – all excellent singers – but with nothing particularly zangy about them. They’re SINGERS who are just that – SINGERS. No side industry of movies, comedy or facial products. Is that a good thing? I don’t know. Now Bjork, that’s a singer with some wierd personality.

Holidays are slipping away. Zann keeps a countdown of the days till the term starts. She seems excited about it, although I have a rather mixed bag of emotions regarding it. I view new terms as full of possibility, full of potential – to fail. Sigh. I’d better buck up this semester.

Mwahahahaha! Back from Freshman Camp! What an awful turn of events that led me to one… Haven’t done this kind of thing in a long time. Actually returned yesterday, but was too tired to dinish an entire entry before I went to bed. Was rather boring, unfortunately, considering I’ve gone through it twice already. On the other hand, it was an incredibly humbling experience, being an OGL. My quietness and reticence has never been such an obstacle. Many many thanks to Qiaozhu for helping me out, wouldn’t have survived without her!

Humiliated much during the camp. Suddenly the butt of a lot of jokes. Suddenly contributed a lot of jokes. Pushed into an impromptu skit with Huishan, which ended up as a whole lot of nonsense. Despite the fact that my group was very quiet and hardly cheered, my voice is really hoarse now (more so than usual). Sigh. I know I’m supposed to project a more serious image, too. Probably not helping things by behaving like a clown…

Installed a new wireless hub today – the router was working up. Works okay, though the real crunch only comes when it’s been on for more than 3 days without a rest. No internal fan, and it’s shiny and silver, not the best combination for heat radiation, too.

Reading has slowed down a lot recently. Couldn’t finish the book on thermodynamics because I couldn’t bring myself to imagine a 6N dimensional phase space. Maths lacking in too many areas. Am very sick of being so pathetic. Must work harder next semester or will be lost.
sleepy now. Will finish this another day.