3 March 2014
This week, compared to other people, I’m very free, meaning that I got no quizzes on this week, what’s better, my core classes are in e-learning week, meaning that there are no physical lectures and tutorials.
On Monday, after the CZ1007 lab, I went out NTU to pay my US visa application fee. It’s quite troublesome because the fee can only be paid in Standard Chartered bank and the branch at Jurong Point is just an “Express Banking Center” and there are no counter services here. So I went far to Clementi Mall. Actually Standard Chartered also got a branch at Jem, but Jem itself is quite far from Jurong East MRT station (need to take shuttle bus); compare Clementi Mall which is just next to Clementi MRT Station, and the Clementi MRT station is just one station after Jurong East. I arrived there around 11.30 am and after a short queue, the fees were paid. Thinking that it’s rare that I visit that place, I remembered my mom saying that once in a while, take a meal outside NTU. Hence, I went to the foodcourt, had a meal which I can’t found in NTU: Pepper Lunch. After the early lunch, I felt so full and slowly went back to NTU after shopped at Fairprice at Clementi Mall.
Arrived at my room, I went to take a nap until my phone vibrates because Ivan is calling. Well I remembered that he needed someone to help Chun Hee moving the boards, which NTUBS borrowed from SPMS, from Hall 7 (Benny’s room) back to SPMS. Since I was available, I agreed and then at 4 pm, I met Chun Hee, You Sin, and Benny; and we started moving. Although they were heavy, we managed to returned it quickly and it was just 4.30 pm and I got class at that time.
After the class and a quick dinner, I started to went back to my hall, but in the way, I suddenly remembered that I got a Business Finance meeting! I then rushed back, but it was still an hour later that the meeting started (as I’m too early to arrive, as always; it’s better to be too early than too late). The meeting was about finalizing slides and practicing the presentation. Not a long one, and just around 8, the meeting ended.
I went back to my room and somehow started to read Detective Conan manga using my old nice tool (a static webpage, coded in Javascript, for navigating around mangas that I’ve downloaded; this “tool” has been recoded and restyled many times, and the current Javascript code is already been around for 3-4 years) and decided to recode it using object-oriented approach. Shortly, it was done, but the user interface was still very minimal, but already usable.
On Tuesday, there was a physical lecture of CZ1008. The morning before I went there, I continued styling the tool. Next after the class and lunch at McD, I and Zillion went to SCE Student Lounge to watch 2 episodes of Mr. Bean before going to CZ1008 lab and subsequently, Business Finance lecture ended the day. At the night, NTUBS Resource Team had its fourth meeting (or the second meeting at this semester), and it has been the most time-consuming one. We discussed about many things, ranging from Dhamma Quizzes, NTUBS library, NTUBS library website, until the Free Distribution books.
On Wednesday, I did some work on CNS Logistic stuffs before going to school. After took my lunch, I went to the library, waiting the time to pass by while remembering that I forgot to recharge my Surface, and at that moment, the battery was almost enough to last until the end of CM8001 lecture. I then minimize my usage but then in the library I got nothing to do, and then I picked up a book, titled “Nothingness: the science of empty space” and started to read it. It was a science book and I hardly read through a page or two but then after a while, I’m interested in the book and actually checked out the book. Hope that I can finished the book, at least the introduction and the conclusion chapter (currently I’m not even finished reading the intro chapter). After the CM8001 lecture which was uncrowded but quite interesting: it talked about water. The lecture concluded early and next was Business Finance tutorial in which my group was presenting! Suddenly got very nervous. With just 24 slides, we were confident that our presentation will be just a short one, but then the tutor shoots us with many questions in the middle, but we managed to successfully answered them all. He was like amazed on how Joel presented the answer very mathematically. At my part, I actually got the answer correct but with wrong reason. I was like, “oh no! How come this could happen?”, but kept on going after apologizing for the wrong parts. After my part of just 7 slides, I passed to my group mate, Adelline, and I was very relieved that my part was over. Although I was not as nervous as when I were to do speech back in last semester, when it was over, I felt very relieved.
After the tutorial, I rushed to Ivan’s room as NTUBS will have a Dhamma class that evening. Zillion, Rizky, I, and Chun Wah moved the required stuffs there quickly and set up the place. After having dinner, I & Zillion went back to the venue and the talk started when Ven Chuan Guan came. This day he talked about the third and the fourth noble truth.
On Thursday, I can say that it was holiday as there were no class until 1630. The whole day was spent on continuing my manga reading tool, and I moved on to having an idea to recode Raun in a more object-oriented style. But before that, I incorporated Web Notification API to the tool. The API gives the opportunity for websites to display notification natively in the browser, currently supported by Firefox and Chrome. At 1630, I went to South Spine to have a project meeting on EE8087 just outside the lecture venue: the lecture was getting more and more boring (and the problems are somehow unrealistic and overly simplified to incorporates the lecture materials). Nevertheless the meeting discussed about the game that we are going to discuss: Poker. It was a hard one, but preliminary search shows that there were already many detailed mathematics calculations done on the game.
On Friday, after committing at GitHub, I went to lecture of CZ1008. The 2nd part of the course about statistics have started. After a quick-lunch, I worked at CITS at LWN Library. It was normal: some computers were newly found broken, some computers remain broken, and some others seemed fine but the maintenance sign were still there. After doing my CZ1007 tutorial 7 (which I normally did there), Gerald, the CITS-SA supervisor, came to visit me, installed Lync on the SA computer and we managed to had a video call (through my Surface and his phone). Hmmm, he explained that Lync was basically an instant messenger, with video call and screen sharing capability. But then I wonder why Microsoft didn’t just combined it into Skype. After a while, he left and then I started to continue my reading on Nothingness. Just right before 5, Filbert came for the next slot and then I rushed to Nanyang House, helping Ivan moving stuffs to his room before going to TR102 with the other stuffs which were already there. The journey was not that tiring, considering we took bus. After setting up things and Venerable came, the class started again. This day the topic was more open as the topics on Four Noble Truths were already covered on the previous 2 classes. After the class, we moved back stuffs to Ivan’s room again, and then went to Hall 4 to celebrate Alwyn’s birthday which falls on the next day.
On Saturday, I did my normal routines: laundry, room-cleaning, lunch, and relaxing. I also started to do my CZ1007 Assignment, which contains 10 problems, and due in 3 weeks. After completing 4 problems, I found that it was more troublesome in input-output rather than implementing the functions required. At 4, I, Jeff, HH, and Riko started the journey to ICN 2014. Joining Dhika (and the others) at Boon Lay, we waited for the others to start the journey together. We arrived at Dhoby Ghaut MRT station at around 6 and had a quick dinner at a European restaurant called “Ambush” which “ambushed” our wallets. After that we rushed to School of the Arts, the venue for ICN 2014: Angkara. It was my first time watching a live performance of a musical. The show itself was amazing. Although the story was based on history (which I already knew), the show went very nice. The show ended at 11 and at this point, when we took the train back to Boon Lay, there were no more direct bus to NTU, we took bus to the bus stop near NTU and then walked in through Yunnan Garden.
On Sunday, I woke up early to join the CNS team to survey Pulau Ubin. After the sleepy journey there, the survey was quickly done. Hence we went to survey another venue which is beside Downtown East. This accommodation place is quite nice and was just beside Pasir Ris Park, which was indeed very large in size. Even before we finished looked around, we need to leave already. Boarding train at Pasir Ris MRT station, I alight at Tanjong Pagar, because this night I will attend NTU CAC Choir Concert. Arrived at Tanjong Pagar around 5.30pm, I walked straight to Maxwell Hawker Center, which when NTUBS Committee Day 2013 we had lunch there. After the dinner, I went to Singapore Conference Hall and watched the performance of NTU Choir. The performance was great, although there were a lot of small noises around the audiences. The best part was when they sang “Viva la Vida”. :)
Next week is recess week. But many of the days are packed with plans already. The first one will be attending my US Visa application interview on Monday morning at US Embassy at Singapore. :)
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