Journal

Vesak 2558 BE

• Journal

13 April 2014

Today is Vesak Day in Singapore. I went to NTUBS Vesak Day Temple Tour, which travels through 4 temples in a day.

On 8.30 am we started to gather at Boon Lay MRT Station where we visited Buddhist Fellowship first. Buddhist Fellowship held a family Vesak carnival (including bathing of baby Prince Siddharta) and we joined them until 10.30 am to start moving to Poh Ming Tse (PMT).

At PMT, we attended the book launching event by Sister Sylvia Bay. After that, there was sharing of merits and bathing of baby Prince Siddharta. Then we had a lunch there first before getting the book that is just launched by Sis Sylvia Bay, titled “Between the Lines: An Analytical Appreciation of the Buddha’s Life”. This book is the first volume of Buddha’s life that told us about the scholarly views on his life, which in reality, was quite boring, have ups and downs, and all other problems a normal monk have. The book is said to clear the distinction between what are myths and factual truths.

We then went to KMSPKS (Kong Meng San Phor Kark See), which is a Mahayana-Chinese temple. At Ven Hong Memorial Hall there, we were greeted by Ven Chuan Guan where he gave us a mini talk about the Vesak celebration at KMSPKS. This year, their theme is gratitude, which are towards: parents, nations, sentient beings, Triple Gem, and the planet. Next, we went around and watched a short movie screening there. Before we left, Bro. Seng Yip (and Bro. Hong Seng) gave us a little temple tour of KMSPKS.

We went to Sri Lankaramaya Temple after that and met Bhante Rathanasara, who gave us a little talk, basically just consisting of questions and answers. He answered some basic questions like: What is Buddhism? [ans: teaching which goals is to reduce evil doings, increase good doings, and purify heart and minds] Why Vesak day is celebrated on different days? [ans: the differences between calendar system used and the uncertainty of when is the exact date] After this, we were done and went to Jurong Point to have dinner first before going back. Overall, it was very nice to have visited Vesak celebrations in 4 temples but it was very tiring especially in transportation.

Happy Vesak Day :)

Exam Week (1)

• Journal

4 May 2014

May the Fourth be with you! (May the Force be with you!) Happy Star Wars day! This week I had 3 exams where the first one was held on Monday; and the other two were held on Wednesday. And like the previous week: I spent most of my time inside my room, “studying” (study, and then get distracted by other things, and then back to study again).

On Monday evening, I had exam on BU8201 Business Finance, which hopefully, I did well. Although my dinner after the exam turned out to be quite bad: I had this “Thunder Tea Rice” at Canteen 1, which tastes very weird. Whereas on Wednesday afternoon, I had exam on CZ1007, Data Structure, which I thought I did well too although it used up almost all of my brain juice. And then I had 2 hours of free time before the next exam, I did not bring my notes so I can’t revise. I just somehow killed time until the next exam on EE8087 Living with Mathematics, which turned out to be satisfactory. Yes, I hope I get that grade (Satisfactory) because I S/U-ed it. This was because, although I was able to answer all of the questions, I did not sure of my correctness and because of the group project which took a large portion of the grading (50%), which I think our group did not do well compared to other groups. After this exam, it was the end of the exam, for that week; and lesson learned: taking 2 exams on the same day will make you very tired.

On Tuesday afternoon, I had to work to cover my friend’s time slot at One Stop @ SAC, which was okay for me, I can work while studying; although most of the time the work-study was interrupted by those asking “where to submit MC” and “how to submit MC”. Hey, this is IT Support Helpdesk, and how do we know such thing?

On Friday afternoon, I worked again at my normal time slot at LWN Library. Although I planned to study during the work, I can’t. Just can’t. I somehow too lazy to study there and decided to play games and read articles. Maybe because my next exam was still quite far (in reality, no).

On Saturday, I had my routine of breakfast-laundry-room cleaning routine done again. That morning, I started and finished the final assignment of Buddhism and Modern Psychology course on Coursera. Well, after lunch, I found some “productivity” tool and I think it was quite effective in boosting up my willingness to study and not getting distracted. Quickly done, at the evening, I started the course CS169.1x Software as a Service on edx, offered by UC Berkeley, which last year I’ve attempted but failed because I stopped in the middle of the course.

I will had my 5th exam tomorrow on CM8001 Impact of Chemistry on Society, which is a Pass-Fail module now. And followed up by CZ0001 Engineers and Society on Wednesday (which I think will be the heaviest, yet hardest, subject of this exam) and CZ1008 Engineering Mathematics on Thursday. Hope that I can do well on those exams! :)

Revision week and exam!

• Journal

27 April 2014

This week is called revision week, no classes, intended for revising studies for the upcoming exams. Friday marks the start of the final examination of my semester 2.

On Monday, I went to find Dr. Jason Teo to ask for tutorial solutions of CZ1006, which exam was held that Friday. After that, I went to south spine to submit my group’s project report on EE8087 Living with Mathematics. Quickly after that, I went to Business Library to find a book referred by ANU, it was “The Evolution of God” by Robert Wright. Walao, it was a thick one; but I borrow it anyway, for reading after exam. Going back to my room, I started my revision (forgot which one). At the night, I got a pull request (at GitHub, krinkle/intuition) approved, yay! This is the second time I submitted a pull request and got approved.

On Tuesday till Thursday, most of my time were spent on revising exams. I even did not step out of Hall 11, specifically I went out only because I went to Canteen 11 for lunch and dinner. Many times I got distracted on many things, such as Facebook, MouseHunt, installing Ubuntu, reading Hacker News (https://news.ycombinator.com/), and the list goes on. But, my exam preparation seems fine and still on track.

On Friday, my first exam (it was on CZ1006 Computer Organization and Architecture) started on 1430 and I and my friends gathered for lunch at Canteen 1 first before going to the exam venue, on Exam Hall F at SRC. I was quite scared after blanking some parts of the first 2 questions, which also was time-consuming. Hopefully question 3 and 4 was manageable although I also got some parts which I’m unsure (but lower marks than those in front); and at the second attempt of doing the blank parts, luckily I can filled them up. After exam, as usual, there was some discussions about the exam questions, and I think that I got some parts wrong, but it’s okay :) At night, after some attempts on installing and fixing things, finally I can dual-boot my laptop on Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. During the night, I also started to revise on CZ0001 (although it was still quite far from complete).

On Saturday, I was told to quickly buy tickets of 2NE1 concert at 10:00am online, but I managed to do laundry first and I still got some time before 1000. With my experience in STARS “wars”, I managed to buy the tickets at 10:01am. :) The concert itself will be held on the night of 28 June 2014 (which on the day and afternoon, I will join Awaken Challenge 2014) :P The rest of Saturday was not so productive in terms of exam preparations as I got distracted on the newly installed OS. After reading about Groovebasin on Wednesday, I spend some hours on compiling the source codes (and the source codes of its dependencies, which also depends on some other programs which all are only available as source codes) and successfully set up a local copy of Groovebasin, which basically is a music player that can be controlled through a web application, and the music plays on the Terminal, and can be streamed on browsers. This day, I managed to finish only one PYP which was on BU8201. At the night, I was again distracted by TOKI Open Contest April 2014 which was very fun! There are 6 problems, initially, and increased to 7, just around 15 minutes before the end of the contest. The contest featured me on #1 spot of the scoreboard at some points (I rarely be in #1 spot :P) in the contest before being caught up and “defeated” by others.

On Sunday, basically I got focused on revising and discussing Business Finance the whole day. It was such a productive and distraction-free day. Yay! :) By the way, this day is my sister’s birthday. Happy birthday Sophie :)

Next week, I will have 3 exams. One on Monday evening (BU8201) and two on Wednesday afternoon (CZ1007) till evening (EE8087). I wish I could do well on all the exams :)

 

Week 12, Semester 2

• Journal

13 April 2014

This week was filled with a lot of playing games and doing nothing related to academic things. The last exam welfare package were given this week and I had 3 NTUBS photoshoot session in 2 days at the end of the week. …

Week 12, Semester 2Read More »

Week 11, Semester 2

• Journal

6 April 2014

This week I focused on BU8201 Business Finance quiz, which turned out to be good, and then welcome April by the annual and universal April Fool event. The rest of the week can be said to be the unproductive one, where many time was killed by playing games, browsing around the web, etc. …

Week 11, Semester 2Read More »