16 March 2014
This week was a not-so-relaxing-yet-not-that-busy week, packed with 3 quizzes, and some interesting events such as “Celebrate NTU” and “Dharma Circle”. Near end of week, I was offered a project. And at the end of the week, I got a free distribution book which got autographed by its author :)
On Monday, it was just a normal day except that I skipped the 2nd hour of CZ0001 Engineers and Society lecture because I went to met my group mates of EE8087 Living with Mathematics to go to the professor’s office to take the “lucky draw” of which time slot we will present our project. We got the 2nd slot of the first day of presentation. I was okay with every slot; but the professor offered us to have an internal swap to the last slot cause the one who got the last slot also unhappy to get the last slot. After this drawing, I went to the EE8087 (very boring) lecture. I counted that there were less than 10 people attending the lecture. Next when the lecture was over, I went to Canteen A for dinner with my subcoms, which in turn only one replied my message on group chat, and that only one in last-minute cancelled it. :( Finally after I finished, the others came and I accompanied them before going back.
On Tuesday, it was “Celebrate NTU”, where the university held a university-wide party for celebrating its own achievements. I don’t know what, but free dinner is nice. Too bad that I can only start joining the party after 1830, which the last lecture ends. And we were there only for the free dinner, some other foods, and photo-taking. For me, the band playing at the stage was a nice one: I watched their performance of Imagine Dragons – On Top of the World, and Daft Punk – Get Lucky before I decided to go back. Besides that, at 1430-1630 this day, I had a lab quiz, which was easy because it is open book and we may use the computer (which I use to verify my answer).
On Wednesday, I got a quiz of my CM8001 Impact of Chemistry on Society course. To add the nervous feeling although it was a pass-fail course, it was held on Exam Hall C. For me, the questions were varied across these categories: easy, medium, and impossible-to-answer. Those very hard questions asks very detailed things, for example, the UV wavelength required to break O3 into O2 and O. How can one specifically remember it? I felt okay since it was a pass-fail course. After this I went to McD and Old Chang Kee to have some snacks before going to Business Finance tutorial. The tutorial ended early, cause the tutor arranged it to end early.
On Thursday morning, I met the guys from Dashsell offering me to work with them on a planned new feature of Dashsell. After some questions and answers, I accepted the project, not because I was paid (although they offer me paying which I think was too much for something that simple, maybe I undervalued the project value :P ), but because I wanted to experience the work. They predicted that it can be done in one week, but they give me flexibility to finish it in 4 weeks due to the reason that I do not want to skip classes to do this project. It was settled that I will sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (to agree that I won’t leak the source codes, of course lah); and on next Monday night I will meet them to set up the environment. They also somehow require me to work at the office, cause their lack of documentation makes them think that it will be better that if anything unclear arises, I can directly ask them there.
After the classes, I went for McD, intending to have another ice cream, but alas, the ice-cream machine was broken. Hence I went to Old Chang Kee instead. After some times, I went for dinner at Canteen A and then after the others came, one by one, we went to CNS 2014 2nd General Meeting. The meeting started with budget presentation, venue things, and then my part, logistics. I reported, somehow nervously, and very shortly. Next was welfare, and one of the time-consuming part: Publicity & Publication, which they presented the poster and the idea for the camp trailer. After a short break, the meeting continued with Group Leaders and finally Programmers. The meeting was a long and tiring one, but being able to be there is a nice thing.
On Friday, I had an open-book quiz on CZ1008 Engineering Mathematics. The quiz was easy because I used 2 calculators (one is borrowed from Edwin) to make sure that the answers are correct. Some questions can be verified using one normal scientific calculator, some others can be done using scientific calculator with calculus functions, the others can be done using value-testing. As I remembered from the technique of value-testing: choose an irrational number to test, if the answer matched, then the answer is correct; the chance of irrational numbers being the exceptions were low (just a feeling, no statistics to back it up). I chose to test using pi, Euler’s number, and 1/pi.
After a quick-lunch, I went for part-time work. At the start, even before I logged in to the computer, there were already 3 people approached the counter asking for help. But the rest of the work was normal. After the work, I rushed to SSLP to join the discussion with Dhika, Raymond, and Benny about Buddhism and God, which we will present for the circle at the following Sunday. But not long after that, I rushed to Canteen B to join the dinner with Resource team and then went to S3-SR1 to join the Dharma Circle: Dharma in Board Games, conducted by NTUBS Fellowship team. We played “Samurai Sword”, “Monopoly Deal”, and “Saboteur”. For me, the meaning of those games are respectively: lie to maximize benefit; steal everyone’s assets; and be greedy. But that’s very rough and not true. It were truly: identify your real friend and enemy; plan ahead to win in one shot; and cultivate group work.
On Saturday, I did my normal routine of laundry after breakfast and continued with lunch. This breakfast is unusual because I cooked Indomie :) I usually ate bread with Nuttela or Skippy, last semester I ever switched to cereals for some weeks. That day I cooked Indomie simply because I forget to replenish my bread stock. This experience of cooking myself is my first time though. After lunch, I did nothing much on assignments and projects. And after dinner, I watched Frankenweenie, which was quite creepy in some points, and I think the monochrome color scheme made it creepier. But it was a fun movie considering many scene which can be made more horror was not there. The day ended with me doing tutorials.
On Sunday, I woke up very early to go to Buddha Dhamma Manggala Society, which is located between Toa Payoh and Novena MRT station, with Stephen and Long Khor. To our surprise that we arrived that very early too. We met Brother Richmond, who asked our help to bring the free-D book to Burmese temple. We went there and he gave us a short temple tour. After we went back, we had some small talks with him and Bhante Dhammika before the service started. The puja was q
uite different from that of Buddhist Fellowship. Also, the talk by Bhante was about the free distribution book which was released that day. That book, titled “The Words of the Buddha”, contains 365 quotes from Buddhist scriptures. This is the 2nd edition, the first edition was published around 25 years ago. He also talked about the history of Buddhist scriptures too. After the service, we asked him for his autograph on the book. Besides that, Stephen and Luan asked him if he can make a Dhamma talk at CNS. After that, we had lunch together before going back. Going back to my room, I took a nap first before continuing doing my things.
I predicted that next week will be a busy one. I will start working on Dashsell project. I also need to finalize EE8087 Living with Mathematics presentation and project. I also want to start revising for quizzes and exams. I hope that I can survive next week :)