I am still awake at this hour again. I should be going to bed soon since I have finished writing code for my Mini-Project 2. =) Hooray! (Actually I should have finished last Sunday! =() Oh, that only leaves me to do all the three reports and one term paper when I awake. I actually need to improve my code on A.I. because I think it isn't smart enough but I guess I should only go to that only when I finish all the reports and term paper. I can't believe February is coming to an end.
So glad I started to go back to gym again, and somehow, I didn't feel the pain on my back when I was playing ball just now. I am thinking running around the campus actually did help to alleviate the pain. Or was it the gym sessions that strengtened my back? For once in a very long while, I was able to play at full speed. I think the feel of rising above the rest to catch a rebound, though isn't actually much, is something to feel good about. Thanks to my teammates, we were winning like mad, muahahahahah! =) So I have decided from now on, I'll run right after a gym session. It's also because I think my muscles have gotten too big from all the gym and extra meat at meals. I feel myself being heavier too. I don't want to get bulky, it'll be hard to move around.
One of the weird things that happened recently since I started doing gym is that I can feel my heart beat. I can feel the blood rushing to my head at every heart beat. It was as if my heart was trying to pump too much blood into a container than can't hold them all. I can feel my veins expand. Especially when I am sleeping, because I am lying on those veins at the side of my head. I am a little scared, because what if a capillary burst in my brain? We might have to say bye bye to Wai Hong. Then again, I saw one of the posters at the gym which shows a muscular guy saying he likes to be able to feel his heart beat. I suppose that's a good thing.
Been listening to the ending songs of Doraemon movies recently. I had always loved those movies, because it always makes me think. It's a shame I only own three volumes of Doraemon long stories. I have also learnt the hard way not to bring your favourite comic book to primary school and share it with your friends. My favourite Doraemon book came back without the colour cover (I don't know why, the book cover is colourless, and a cover that is coloured wrap over the book. Maybe they were trying to save cost and it might be more expensive to print the cover with colour.) and torn in some pages. I was home during Chinese New Year and my parent suggested throwing away those old Doraemon books to save some space in the very small house. Of course, I wanted to say no, but I didn't have to take action because my sister said no faster than I could say it. After all, they are in a cabinet in her room.
I have quite a collection of the standard Doraemon comics. I have volumes 13-43 mainly because I started buying Doraemon at that time and age. Most people only sell the latest volume so it was hard to find those volumes I missed. Luckily, in Petaling Street in KL, there was an Indian vendor that keeps those old volumes. Even so, I only managed to get a few volumes between 1-11. If you can have one of Doraemon's gadgets, what would you want to have? I think I want to have the time machine. I think with it, all truth will unfold.
I felt that the long stories were always meaningful. The author can be quite a philosopher. (That reminds me that I have to do my term paper, sigh.) In some cases, there are 'gods' that people were worshipping which turned out to be a human, maybe even a robot. Sometimes I think that a human, or a group of humans, could have very well been the architect of the world. See, we are unfolding more and more clues everyday in the human DNA. I heard scientists recently found which genes regulates serotonin, and the more of that makes a particular person 'happy'. Sometimes, I wonder too, because there seem to be some people with endless amount of self-confidence who kept on trying despite repeated failures. Then there are those that are almost happy all the time, no matter what bad things could have happened. Imagine what would happen to the society if people found that love is just another chemical reaction. (Oh, great! One of the most commonly asked question on Google will finally have an answer.)
See, knowing how the genetic material leads to a life-form probably created life. Therefore, if the technology is advanced enough, we can create life, and new life-forms that we never have seen before. We might well have been created by another life-form, many years ago. Then the question becomes, who created this life-form before human? Some of the Doraemon movies involve stories about animal and robots civilizations. I am thinking that it is all possible. (Maybe I just have a good imagination.) I think even animals are constantly improving themselves, and give them another few billion years, they might be able to speak our language and build buildings.
How about robots? I think that's entirely possible. I was reading one of those crude comparisons between CPUs and the human brain. (Yes, it's the aima textbook. Shhh.) Just think of our brain like another computer hardware for a second. Human brains are 10^11 neurons with cycle time of 10^-3 seconds. (That's 1KHz I think.) Nowadays CPUs on the high end exceeds 2Ghz and some of them are quad-cores. That would suggest that our brain are around 2 million times slower than the latest CPUs but it's ok. We make up for it by having all our neurons and synapses active at the same time. In fact, I think we can consider ourselves 10^11 cores. However, I am imagining one day computers might have that amount of cores.
Of course, we still don't understand the science of conciousness yet, but I think one day it will be possible. Maybe not in our lifetimes but still, possible. How do we know we're awake and alive and like some say, we have a soul? We know the chemical composition of the human body, but why if we mix the same composition, we don't get a human? I quote from the book which in turn might have quoted it from somewhere else, "The truly amazing conclusion is that a collection of simple cells can lead to thought, action, and consciousness or, in other words, that brains cause minds (Searle, 1992)." If these mysteries are solved, computers might know how to think like us. After all, they are capable of having a network of neurons of their own.
Here are some of my current favourites. I guess emo is the new word for thinking too much. Just imagine, after watching an emo (or maybe a sad) Doraemon movie, an emo song starts to play...
I like that song you sing, that peaceful song.
Even if you're not good at it, will you sing it for me?
Those stars in the sky, each one of them, have beautiful names.
We gave them names, because we're human.
You cry, because you're human.
You're weak, because you're human.
Sounds really familiar.=)
I think this story is very touching. I had the book for this and I heard this 2006 movie is a remake of the first ever Doraemon movie.
Nothing lasted for long when I was a child.
What I was looking for was right in front of me.
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, no matter how many setbacks there are.
Be by my side, be by my side, be by my side, the one and only you.
Because you're irreplaceable.
Believe it, believe it, believe it.
This message from you, no matter how far apart, it'll reach me.
I'll be there for you.
I wonder if eternity exists
When I think about the future, I get scared but
Because this dream will always always continue.
Let's hold hands.
Somewhere out there, there's a Nobita in need of a Doraemon.
I had a dream last night, and I always forget big part of my dream by the time I wake up, I should record it down before I totally forgot about it. Hmmm, where do I start. I thought dreams were either sweet or a nightmare, where you get scared, but I think I was wrong. In my dream, I was surfing on Facebook and went across profile of someone who passed away, by the name of Marco. (Of course, he’s fictional and doesn’t really exist, but when I was in the dream, it seemed real.) He was the friend of some of my friends, and I don’t have him added on my friends list.
Then there was some fillers in between, of which I totally cannot remember by now. Someone should attach electrodes to my brain when I am dreaming and record it down. Ok, scene change to an outdoor crematorium. The individual ‘lockers’ to store ashes were really small (like around 20cm x 20cm), and there are only five of them per vertical column. It’s lifted slightly above ground, and so it’s almost just above my waist at the highest point. There are white papers all over, neatly stuck to most of the front panels, like post-its and they all have like personal messages on them. So I was a kaypoh pig in my dream, and I was reading all of them. The horizontal extension, is however, long, like 400m so I had a long night trying to read them all. Somehow, I started reading somewhere in the middle, like at the 150m mark.
The place was crowded, and full of people, as if it was a festival. It’s not crowded to the extent there’s no place to move. It’s crowded in a sense that you’ll never see this much people at a crematorium. It was at night, but the whole place was brightly lit. At the back of us is an amusement park, and it’s like Genting Highlands, very foggy. However, since the place was brightly lit, I still have a good view of the whole place. People were actually smiling, like how people enjoy a festival, and there weren’t a lot of people crying. People who were crying get hugs and nice pats from those that didn’t cry.
At around the 200m mark, I found the one that belonged to Marco. It doesn’t have white paper attached to it, but there are people coming with flowers. I decide to stand around there for a while. Visitors to the place always come alone and with flowers, and they never bump into each other. So after one person left, another person come with flowers, say a few words, and leave and the next person arrive. None of them whom I knew though.
After observing the pattern, I decided it’s a little boring over there, and I don’t want to disturb people observing a moment of silence. I continued reading the white papers, all the way till the 400m mark. At the end it’s junction in which you must turn right, and it’s a brightly lit eating place, like a hawker centre, with wide selection of food. Being the kaypoh pig that I am, I decided to read them all, so I walked back to the 0m mark and started reading again. Now this place is a little different. The height extends to slightly taller than me. I don’t know how many of them vertically, but there are definitely more than five. It’s only that way for like, the first 10m of the whole thing.
Somewhere between 2m – 3m mark, I read the following paper:- The first line read ‘Moo!’, and I forgot the second line. I remember it’s something fun to do by the beach but I can’t remember what. The third line read, ‘Pool’, fourth line, ‘Volleyball’ and the last line, ‘I am waiting 4 u’. Other than the first line, the rest of the lines are written in all capital letters. The black marker used to write this is a little too thick for the job. I am sure you could imagine. Suddenly a huge wave of sadness came down upon me even though I don’t know this person at all. I couldn’t contain it and I cried in my dream. I suppose it meant, I am waiting for you, to come back and play with me.
Will you play with me?
Been extremely busy these few days, and a very horrible person. I think I am sooo dead, since I have 3 project deadlines, and one term paper to submit on 2nd of March. Two of the projects require presentations and hence preparations. I still have no idea on how to do my Artificial Intelligence project, but I guess I am a gamer at heart, so I am going to find a way to get high score for sure. =) (I appreciate help from intelligent people too!) And yes, it’s due on 2nd of March and it carries a big portion of my final grade’s marks. Somebody save me.
I got a little more hardworking at the gym than I should too, and have been doing too little running. I was trying out the double the meat thing, but it also increased the daily costs for meals and I think, my weight. The last week I was doing too much running, I got my weight down 3 kilograms down to 69, but the last two times I was in the gym I measured 71.8 and 71.4. On a brighter note, I can do leg curls with the whole stack of weight! *flex* =) I immediately felt like my upper body was lighter after doing that. I found out that my primary school friend, (also childhood friend because we spend 7 years being in the same class) also visit the same gym on a regular basis. Only thing different was, we’re no longer small kids. I suppose people change too, after we lost contact for around 7 years before meeting each other back when we were year ones again.
We were exploring the Minimax algorithm for tic-tac-toe, and I think one of the favourite past-time when we were primary school kids were playing tic-tac-toe while waiting for parents to come and pick us up. I think by primary 3 we were all experts, all games will result in a draw. I think we all have found the algorithm for playing best tic-tac-toe, so the latest tutorial was quite fun.
Ooh, Valentine’s day, I think I had the most perfect plan for the day, but I was too tired from the week, so I woke up late. Oh well, it isn’t that bad after all. I ended up spending the whole weekend not worrying about school work at all. I’ll probably regret it later, but it’s all fun while it lasted. I guess enjoying life isn’t such a bad thing after all. After all, life is short, and Valentine’s only come once a year. Well, there’s a dreamer side to me, there’s also a practical side of me I guess. I think it isn’t practical for you to give flowers, especially so on Valentine’s day. My argument? Flowers generally don’t look good a day after, and have to be thrown away two or three days after. I think it’s a waste of money, and I think I won’t give flowers unless I absolutely can’t think of what to give.
In addition to that, Valentine’s day is just another excuse for entrepreneurship types to squeeze more money out of you. I think there are no difference whether it’s Valentine’s day or not. Flowers could always be given on another day, and they should not be given just because everyone is giving them. One of my friend was selling bouquet of 99 roses for SGD250… Guess which major he’s from? Shhh, he’s from economics. There are people who don’t have enough money to get by the next few days. Spare a thought for those people, and having money is a privilege, not a right. For that, we should try to spend wisely. However, on the other side of the spectrum, there are people who are too overly wise with their money. (I’ve met some misers too. They just can’t spend money and indulge.) At this point, I also don’t want to go into a debate on what is worth your money or not. I guess everyone is different, and if they think buying flowers is not a waste of money, that’s fine. =) Everyone’s well and happy. After all, like some people say, winning her heart = priceless.
Hey, I was blog surfing just now, and I managed to find a girl who thinks that buying flowers is unwise use of money. =p See, I am not alone. Eek, more coincidences, I had to click on ‘University’ to find that she’s also taking Reason and Persuasion. Eep, and I think I know who she is. She was sitting all the way in front, not far from me a Kheng. Kheng didn’t attend the lecture the week before, and the week before, and there was a former ACJC girl sitting all the way in front. We bumped into her outside LT11 and he said hi, so I assumed he knew her. I told him that she’s in the same lecture as us but he didn’t believe me. I guess she didn’t come for lecture in the end, so I guess she wasn’t in our lecture. Just as I stumbled upon the blog, I think there’s too much coincidence. I found that the former ACJC girl is her sister, and then I checked her name on the yearbook. Then I found that both of them are in my lecture. Haha. Oops, I have lots to do and I shouldn’t be doing this la.
I did buy some chocolates though. =) I was kind of missing Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. =) They were sold out on Valentine’s day at Candy Empire. Luckily Cocoa Tree still have some stocks. I have reasons to think that Valentine’s day is actually evil besides people were just trying to squeeze more money out of you, making you pay higher prices for things, making you endure long queues at cinemas, making you make impulse purchases etc… The few days leading to Valentine’s day have been, like a negative Valentine’s day. I guess people were re-evaluating their relationships, and that led to some break-ups. Hey, maybe being single for Valentine’s day is hip. You’ll never know if you might land in a better relationship. I don’t know what’s the actual reason.
The other evil thing that that came with Valentine’s day is expectations. See, I might be speculating, but hear me out first. Just as the clock struck twelve, I saw a girl walking out of her boyfriend’s room, crying very badly. See, I don’t really know if she’s his girlfriend, and he’s her boyfriend or not, but I’ve seen her in this guy’s room enough time to conclude they have some kind of relationship. Oops, I wish I could help, but I can’t. The problem at hand might be complex beyond comprehension, and I don’t know her boyfriend as well as she does. Then again, I could even be making the problem worse for every party. So I’ll just hope everything will be better. Then I took a stroll to 7-Eleven for some Slurpee, and found another girl (this one I met for the first time, and I guess I’ll never see her again) crying badly. I guess these serves as a reminder, that hearts are fragile and we should do our best not to break it.
Then I went on to think about why they were crying in the first place. I guess I know the answer. They half-expect that their boyfriends will do something super-nice on that day, and I think they couldn’t control their tears when they were rudely surprised. “I saw this girl with a giant bouquet of flower, how come I don’t get one?” You see, and it gets worse with every bouquet they saw. Then it gets even worse, because it’s Valentine’s day and there are girls holding roses everywhere. (Somehow, they will be blind to girls who aren’t holding roses, because they will assume they are single anyway.) I somehow can’t explain the feeling at this point. Is it extreme jealousy, extreme sadness or extreme anger? I guess that differs from people to people again. That being said, Wai Hong was just thinking these all, and he doesn’t know the actual reason why these girls were crying. What a coincidence, why don’t I bump into crying girls on normal days?
My lower left back hurts since I think around two weeks ago. One of my friend thinks it muscle aches associated with doing too much gym. I think it’s muscles too and not the bones, though the places where it aches are tips of bones. Where the hip bones are pointed, it hurts. It hurts to sit down, stand up, and I can’t put my whole weight on my left leg only, it’ll collapse. I thought with some Counterpain and a few days of rest, it will go away, but it didn’t. Therefore, I can only conclude that I am continually injuring it. However, there are too many factors and any one of them could have caused it.
My laptop bag is sling type, and therefore I always sling it on one side. I think that’s no good, and especially now that my back hurts, I become sensitive to things that might cause me pain on my back. I have to learn to carry my laptop, and not sling it on my shoulders. Then, when playing basketball, I usually pivot on my left foot, and I might be twisting it too much, especially since the painful area is where the left leg attaches itself to the rest of body, but I hardly play inside nowadays, so this could be ruled out. Another theory, it hurts pretty bad when I use my left leg to perform lay-ups. I’m a right hander, and left leg complements right hand. I think this is one of the reason why, but hmmm, I can’t do anything about it. As it stands, I am booked for basketball tomorrow night too. The timing of my back pain somehow coincide with the timing where I started to do gym. Muscle aches in my arms and legs have subsided, but the pain on my back stays, so I guess it’s not the gym. Plus, my back feels better when I do gym. This is also a reason why I think it’s the muscle that’s the problem and not some broken bone or anything. I suppose when the muscle gets hot, it doesn’t hurt so much.
I am thinking, maybe the way I sleep is also causing the back ache. After all, the most painful part comes when I am trying to get off the bed in the morning. I can’t fall asleep facing up, so I always sleep on one side. Maybe I am always pressing on a nerve while sleeping? Maybe the thing I was hugging to sleep isn’t thick enough so my back muscle get stretched throughout the night? I seriously wanted to get used to sleeping facing up, because I heard that’s good for my back. Unfortunately, every time I tried it, I end up in frustration, and not having enough sleep.
I guess I am stuck with Counterpain for now. I think I can’t get off bed without it. Even the simple motion of sitting down or standing up after sitting for a while cause great pain. Luckily, even though I didn’t play well, we were winning games. =) Somehow we were winning all the way, until I switched teams, and then my former team started losing instead. Maybe I am just lucky. =) In the end, my former team managed to win some too, and they won the last game 7-0. Well, later at night, we’re meeting again. I hope that I somehow get enlightened and finish all my projects by tomorrow night.
The gym opens from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. The gym’s a little small, but I guess it has everything I need.
I guess one of the first steps of becoming a good student is to be familiar with the library’s opening hours. The library have become the primary place where I study now. Besides, as I become more and more interested in reading, being in the library, this mine of information, is like a dream come true. Of course, I could just probably link to the page since the information is ever changing, but I have decided to write it down.
Central Library opens from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. from Mondays to Saturdays and 9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. on Sundays. Trust me, I wasn’t sure of the opening hours before this because it changes from time to time and it always seem to be open. I would be surprised to find that the library isn’t open. Maybe one of these days, I should find a nice spot in some other library around here. Science library has got some nice computer books too!
I just got the gym membership, like four years after I said I was going to do gym regularly even after I left school. However, that opened a lot of options as to what I would do to exercise for the day. I like running and playing basketball too. Recently, I have been spending time thinking of what I should do, but that isn’t efficient, because I’ll spend time pondering over the same question everyday. It’s just like the question, what am I going to wear today or what am I going to eat for lunch today. I am trying to devise and algorithm to come up quickly with the thing to do for the night.
First things first, if it’s raining, then running and playing basketball isn’t possible. Then there’s only the gym to go to. So the first rule is to go to the gym if it’s raining. Then, it usually doesn’t rain nowadays so I’ll have to have the normal timetable of what to do. I began pondering what is the effective amount to do what in a week. I want to run three times a week, and play basketball three times a week. That only leaves me with one day left for gym. Then what day is good for doing what?
I have a free day on Thursday, so that gives me the green light to do more heavy things on Wednesday night. Of course, I don’t have school on Saturday and Sunday too, so I can do heavier things on Friday and Saturday night. I haven’t done my first session of gym yet since paying the membership fees, so I don’t know how heavy that is and how long I’ll take to recover. Half-court basketball is the most relaxing, followed by full-court basketball, from which I may get a little tired. Running is quite strenuous, and I have yet to regain the stamina to run the full route I am running continuously. I currently walk when the slope goes uphill. That means the part after business and before Arts, the part at the Central Library, and the part at University Hall just before Science.
When I am going to do gym too, I have to think what exercises I am going to do so as to not waste time thinking and deciding. I guess my legs are getting enough exercises from all the basketball and running, so I am going to let them rest while in the gym. I’ll do the treadmills for warm-ups. I’ll need some back and lower-back exercises, and lift some weights. Need to work on my shoulders a little bit, but they keep making the popping sound since a few years ago, so I wonder if that’s alright. Hey, it’s Wednesday tonight, and it’s raining, so I guess it’s decided, I’ll do gym tonight.
Other factors that might influence my decision is that when I see some of the usual people I play with, I’ll be tempted to play with them. So it’s decided, when I see people I play with, I play with them. So that’s rule number two in deciding what to do. Then if my muscle still aches from gym session, that is a good sign I should be running instead. I shouldn’t be away from the gym more than a week, so if I haven’t been visiting the gym for a week, I should be doing that. Of course, the actual decision is still a wild card, but laying some underlying principles on what I am going to do shortens the thought process a lot. I guess I saved some time everyday that could be better used somewhere else. =)
The last time I have been home must have been around 11 months ago, during the last Chinese New Year. It feels weird how time flies so fast. I am a little regretful that I haven’t accomplished much during the one year span and am going to be home again. Perhaps the best thing that ever happened through the year was the US trip. I guess I shouldn’t go into another reflection of how the year 2008 blew by me.
This time around, prior to making the trip home, I have overheard some chatter among some people that the price for getting home is $95. (I don’t know what currency, but it presume it’s possible to be both Ringgit and Singapore Dollars.) One of my Penang friend went home for last year’s Chinese New Year for SGD75. I was stuck at Larkin bus station for one night because I was stubborn as a mule and I didn’t want to pay a hefty RM85 for the ticket. It’s more a matter of principle, because the more you pay what they wanted, the more you encourage them to raise their prices especially during (festive) periods where people need to travel. While I understand it is just economics at work, RM85 is positively more than three times the normal price. The year before the last, I went home on RM22 at the same place.
Some people are going to pay it anyway, because we don’t have much other choices right? I say we actually have a choice. Chinese New Year, while being a festive season, but objectively, it is just any other day. Why not people set a date earlier or later than the actual Chinese New Year day to eat the reunion dinner? That way, tickets stay available and cheap, there will be no congestion on the North-South Highway so people can travel fast and safe, no congestion at the customs, and everyone can celebrate Chinese New Year happier. Of course, one problem is that there are only two days that are public holidays in Singapore for Chinese New Year. I heard there’s a week in Hong Kong, but I’m not sure if it’s just universities or the whole Hong Kong is on holiday for a week.
However, there are reasons to actually not take a holiday on the actual festival itself and take a holiday a few days earlier or later. On the night of reunion dinner, even NTUC that is usually 24 hours are closed. Many hawker centers are closed, at least until end of the 2nd day of Chinese New Year. I know most Chinese would have a sumptuous dinner, but I guess that’s not the case for most other people. In fact, getting food is usually so convenient for most people in Singapore that many do not cook at home. It’s easy to find a hawker center right below your block or just a few blocks away. Now what happens when those don’t open?
I was hungry for a quick bite, and Clementi was looking very much like a dead town when NTUC is not open and everyone was at home for dinner. The busses were empty, the streets were empty, and only the Indian food and Malay food stores were open at hawker centers. I walked over to McDonald’s and am thankful that it was open. However, there was a long queue and I was joining the wrong queue. This lady who was serving me wanted to maximize efficiency so she took as much orders as she could so that the back-line would get the indication that something is needed and can start preparing early. However, she fell into the common trap of taking too much order than she could possibly handle.
There was a group of people, me included, who had paid for our food but have yet to get them, waiting aside, and she still kept on taking orders. I should have joined the queue by an Indian man next to her. In the end, he managed to clear the queue over at his side, while on my side, there were lots of people still waiting for our food. However, that was not the point I was trying to make. The point is, there usually isn’t that much business down there. However, that day, since food is relatively harder to get, the McDonald’s was over-crowded. They didn’t even have enough seats for everyone there so some of the people sat by the bus stop to eat. It must be a great day to do business, because there is reduced competition.
However, while I know that there are benefits to opening your shop on a public holiday, I am not saying that people should do it. I think letting your employees off on that day is actually a great morale booster. I can see on faces of people who had to work despite being Chinese and it’s time for reunion dinner, that their morale were low. I guess, secretly they want to be at home, celebrating with their families. That is efficiency with less stress and more happiness. =)
I think I could possibly eye for breaking record time of going home. I left my room around 6 p.m., and only got the bus at 6.30 p.m.. I should copy down the 183’s schedule and remember it by heart. It might be very useful. However, the street were totally empty so I was a little scared that bus services have stopped so that bus drivers can go home and eat their reunion dinner. Not only there weren’t a person on the streets, there weren’t cars and busses. So I was thankful we finally got on to the bus. There were like 5 people in total on the bus to Clementi. By the time I am done with my burger and got onto the MRT to Kranji, it was 7+. I had previously hoped that I’ll be at Larkin by 7.30 p.m. but looks like I’ll have to settle for 8p.m.. Kranji was empty too and the bus came right when I arrived. I am feeling the good vibes already. =)
The bus wasn’t full and packed like it is usually, so that’s like good sign number two. The streets were empty, so the bus got to Woodlands checkpoint really fast. Then, there’s no one else but our bus people there so clearing that was easy too. Needless to say, we got back on the same bus with the same group of people crossing the Causeway. I heard a little about the new checkpoint on Malaysia side during my basketball games so I kept a lookout for it. We were there in less than 10 minutes. Nearing the end of the bus ride, a couple behind me started to talk to each other. They did the exact same thing the night before. It was two hours across the Causeway, and the another 30 minutes to get from the old checkpoint to the new one. The old checkpoint is now just darkness.
I overheard from them walking is disallowed too now. Back in the days, if the traffic jam is too bad, you could get down the bus and walk across the causeway. It’s like 15 minutes walk, so it’s huge savings compared to 2 hours you could be stuck at the Causeway. I guess I could imagine how it must felt like. Two hours in a totally cramped up bus because they will be trying to pack as much people as possible onto the bus isn’t exactly my idea of Chinese New Year celebration. If you have had experience taking 170, you know how bad it can get. People in the bus is literally bumper to bumper and could hardly move. Add huge luggage bags to the picture. It’s worse than NUS internal shuttle bus when people are rushing to lesson. You cannot feel the air-condition at all on a jam-packed 170. Worse if it wasn’t air-conditioned. However, I heard that nowadays, all busses on bus service 170 have air-conditioning.
However, there were nice moments on 170 too. One time when I was trying to get home, (I think I am around 15-16 years old back then) I got squashed into a 170. There was a girl in Nanyang Girls’ High uniform next to me. I actually tried to stay as far away I could from her, since I am shy ma but the feeling of her soft body pressing against mine was actually good. Good in a special way. And no, I was not wearing school uniform. This time, after having more experience travelling, I embraced a very important skill that made travelling actually fun. Travel light. I only brought 4 sets of clothing home in my bag, a packet of tissue paper and nothing else. I don’t actually feel the weight at all, and it’s easy to clear customs. I could walk and explore even with my luggage on.
The new checkpoint is huge. However, it isn’t as brightly lit as Woodlands Checkpoint and the grey paint coupled with that makes the majestic structure looks a little old though it’s new. I had to ask for directions on where to go. I guess this is really an upgrade from what it was. They actually look into your passport and scan in instead of allowing people to walk past the gate just by holding the passport up. They have more luggage check counters open now, but it’s not like they check everyone’s luggage still. They select certain people to get their luggage checked. The Singapore side checks everyone’s luggage.
Onwards to Larkin! Having around 9 years of experience now, I try not to respond to people who come up at the 170 exit and ask whether I need to ticket to somewhere and it’s departing immediately. I guess it’s a good decision. Even though you might be walking not far from there, and someone comes over and ask the same question, they have an impression that you walked around and already checked the price so they’ll be less likely to offer exorbitant prices. The first man I saw that asked the question again, I asked if I can see the bus first before deciding to buy. Then I asked the price. It was RM31. My gut feeling told me it was the actual price, because you know, when they anyhow give you a high price, they give you nice round numbers like RM30, RM35, RM40, RM45, RM85, you get the picture. Possibly RM39, 49 or 59 if they want to use psychological pricing. I gave him a piece of RM50 and he asked me if I had RM1. Now, if RM31 was already overpriced, and he didn’t have change, he would have easily lowered it to RM30. Instead, he chose to dig everywhere to give me back 9 pieces of RM1. Besides, RM31 is far from RM85 they tried on me last year so I was happy. By now, I would have missed the reunion dinner so that’s probably why they felt a drop in demand and lowered the price.
I got onto the bus around 8.15 p.m.. However, there was something strange. I was the last person getting on the bus and therefore, it should start moving soon. It didn’t start moving and the driver seems to have been summoned to somewhere. Then, an uniformed officer wearing a jacket labeled ‘LPKP’ came up and asked us one by one how much we paid for the ticket. Of course, we don’t have the ticket as prove anymore because their common trick is to issue you a ticket without the price when you get to the bus. They withhold the ticket with the price you paid, I think it’s a method of destroying evidence. Honestly, I didn’t know what does ‘LPKP’ stands for until I got on to the Internet just now, but I know that the bus operators are in deep trouble. Somehow, the atmosphere was extra happy.
I guess everyone was probably curious and wanted to ask around what everyone else paid for the bus trip. I am curious sometimes too, when it become obvious that I overpaid. This time, we didn’t have to act ourselves to feed our curiosity. Apparently, RM31 was the correct price for that Super VIP bus trip to KL. I got a good survey of what people paid. One Chinese girl paid RM45, and she’s the only other Chinese on the bus. One Malay guy paid RM39. Most people paid RM35. A few of us paid RM31. The officer went out of the bus. Apparently, the boss was denying that it happened so the officer came up the bus and asked everyone again in front of him. Of course, he tried other methods of denial, like saying RM35 these people are paying for a ticket further than KL, etc. But anything he said, came with a quick rebuttal from the rest of the people on the bus. It was a sure lose debate. He ended up having to pay everyone back the difference and put the blame on the boys that sold the tickets. Oh, he got a saman too. You must see his reactions when the girl said she paid RM45. Priceless. =)
After 9 years of enduring these things, I’m glad someone actually managed to put an end to these. Not charging people exorbitant and unfair prices is good. However, I think there will be some adverse effect. The only reason why we were still able to get ticket is because they probably chartered more busses to meet the demand. You know, Chinese people are ‘kiasu’ and tickets home to Chinese New Year are probably snapped up right on the day they become available. They are the reason we can still get home anytime we wanted, these available now tickets. Since after enforcement, this practice might not be lucrative anymore, I think some bus operators will pull out. That leaves some bus operators that still do these in the win because reduced supply coupled with constant demand means they will try to charge even higher price than we currently see. Plus, now there’s a risk involved. The extra income might be needed to pay for the saman.
I did see a relation between the prices charged, (which means the prices people accepted) and the type of people. Most people paid RM35, and they are also those who are either female travelling alone, or people who are in a family. Especially those that are with kids and babies, it makes it easier for the bus operators to charge higher prices. Families, it’s hard to bargain and walk around and find better deals when your children are wondering why you didn’t take the first offer that came. It just makes them having to walk more and more, and they get tired. When they get tired, morale drops, and it isn’t really good for family outing. Therefore, I have come to a conclusion, that you can get best prices if travelling alone.
I find it easier to do many things alone too. Of course, travelling with friends can be a lot of fun, but you still have to choose a group of good friends to go along. Your good friends might not be good travel friends. It really takes a lot more to get a good travel friend. Like back when riding roller-coasters, lone riders get a separate line. If you went with your friends, naturally, you’ll wait until the opportunity arises where all of you and your friends can get onto the roller-coaster and sitting together. Lone riders can sit anywhere. That reduced the wait time for popular rides from a 2 hour wait to only 30 minutes wait. I suppose you can apply the exact idea to getting bus tickets. Lone riders, like me, can sit anywhere, and can jump to the next bus operator in a flash if I find that I didn’t like the first one. Families, have to consider the amount of stamina family members have left. It’s also relatively tougher to actually find available now tickets that are together. I’ve seen group of friends all joining the single rider queue to save time. However, with families, you can’t break up that easily, especially when there are children involved.
How about those females who were travelling alone? How come they didn’t get cheaper prices as well? One of them blew the ceiling with RM45 ticket. I guess she had more reasons to do that that others since she was Chinese and it was after all, Chinese New Year. I get the impression that females are more generous. Or maybe they are in need of the security of knowing that they secured a passage to where ever they wanted to go. Or maybe they are lazy to walk around to find a better deal. Maybe they are too sheltered they didn’t have that much experience travelling alone. I don’t really know. There was a Malay guy too who paid RM39. Luckily, they all got their money back. What a great way to start the trip to KL! =) Everyone was in festive mood after that incident, and began chatting with each other. The Indonesian family behind me shouted a very loud ‘Padan Muka’ (it means, “Serve you right!”) after the boss left the bus. The incident made this year’s Chinese New Year very special, because it only ever happened once. However, because of the incident, we only got to leave the bus terminal at 9 p.m..
I fell asleep, woke up around 11 p.m. at an unknown rest place. Bought a Ramly burger! =) For RM3. There was a girl who hesitated to buy because it was RM3 and she was saying she could buy the same for RM2 under her house. I guess she didn’t know that it costs SGD2.5 here in Singapore. After finishing the burger, I fell asleep again to wake up at 1 a.m., in KL. The North-South Highway must have been congestion-less. I guess if you went home a day earlier, the story wouldn’t have been the same. I guess I wouldn’t be home even by 3 a.m.. Since I haven’t been back in KL a while, I was in a ‘high-awareness’ mode. I felt as if I was travelling. Everything seemed new or have a great sense of nostalgia to me. Everything was good. I knew there were less public phones under Menara Maybank now. It used to be the whole row, but now there’s only 8. Luckily, I tried two and one of the two worked.
Did I already say I was in a ‘high-awareness’ mode? I noticed Rota chips now costs RM3.30 at 7-Eleven. Since I haven’t been back in a while, there is a strange need to explore the place, and see what may have changed over the years. There were actually road-sweepers in the middle of the night! However, I think the task for him is too big for him to handle alone. I guess he wouldn’t be done by morning. However, I didn’t explore much because it was the darkest part of the night and everything’s closed and I guess they wouldn’t open the next morning too since it’s Chinese New Year. Even though I had little sleep, I felt strangely awake while I was back in KL. The first thing I did when I went home was the explore around. Everyone had slept. I like it that way. =) It’s the most conducive for thinking. Fortunately, my house isn’t that big, but unfortunately, there were too many items of nostalgia lying around. Didn’t have the time to read my old diaries.
I saw a book of interest on the book rack. It must have been my sister’s textbook. I forget the title by now, but it’s a recent book on management. All the examples cited inside were very recent and it included Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. I wanted to analyse the book thoroughly before going back to Singapore but I guess that was too ambitious. I did finish two and a half chapters out of five though. Even though some of the advice offered were common sense, it feels a little different to get reminded again. I wish I brought the book back to Singapore, but my sister needed it, so I can’t write in exact words. The number one rule to getting good results is no cutting class. Attend every lesson. It makes a huge difference.
In almost every organization, there is a need of a management. Of course, (and I am reminded by the book again) good managers are hard to come by. Really really hard to come by. I think getting some management skills will be great. I think it is an important part of life skill or getting an ‘A’ in life. I think we all must have met some poor management which we scorn at. Even though my house was part of a low-cost housing, we had to pay maintenance fee to some management and they can switch off your power and water supply if you don’t do so. The good news is that it isn’t expensive, but some money every month is still a lot of money in the long run. At least it appears to me, that they have been doing nothing. We don’t have a rubbish chute, so where does the rubbish go? There isn’t a collection point on every level as well. We all have to walk to a rubbish dump to throw our stuffs. I suppose these maintenance fees were paid so that the dump is emptied.
They did not ever swept our corridors. If they were clean, it’s because the house owners kept it clean. Then there’s the other part of the perils of living in low-cost housing. Some idiots have taken the liberty to vandalize the wall outside our house. It’s worse now that the house next to ours were always for rent. This time around, a group of Malay guys have taken residence there and they have decided they don’t want to walk to the rubbish dump to throw their rubbish, so they threw it in front of our house. Where’s the management when we need it? Yet another part of perils of living in low-cost housing, is that people will blast their karaoke sets in the middle of the night. It was 4a.m., and some people were still shouting Malay lyrics. They are not singing it. They are just trying to shout their lungs out. Of course, you already knew that the lift is constantly being vandalized. Low-cost housing comes with people with low moral education?
Anyway, back to management. According to the book, management is how to efficiently and effectively use resources. That is true, but often, lowering the amount of stress ranks rather low on most managers. Success, to them, is to be able to squeeze every cent worth of work out of you. After all, they say, that’s their job, and their specialty right? The book then went on to say that most (successful) managers work crazy hours, and hours such as 70 – 80 a week isn’t uncommon. It felt a little like bragging, that is, they take pride in working long hours, so much so that the book have to prepare you for working long hours. In addition, they also try to give the impression that successful managers travel a lot. I guess it depends on what is our definition of success. In my opinion, travelling a lot, especially having to take multiple long-haul flights a week, isn’t efficient. Of course, successful managers get paid very well, but as the book also agrees with me, good managers are very difficult to find.
That was quite an unusual way to celebrate the first few hours of Chinese New Year. Then I finally got too tired and had to retire to bed. Within a very short time, everyone else was awake and was waiting for me to eat morning rice/lunch so I didn’t have a lot of sleep before I had to wake again. I spent the entire first day feeling tired and sleepy. Went to a relative’s house, and then went to a shopping centre for the rest of day. However, a lot of shops wasn’t open, and there were very little people everywhere. I think a high percentage of the residents in KL are Chinese and a lot of them weren’t actually born in KL so they have to go back to their hometown to celebrate Chinese New Year. I guess that explains why all the roads were so nice to drive on, it was so easy to find parking spaces, and shopping was actually fun! =)
I got hooked onto television when I was at home. In fact, once I stepped into my house, I had been hooked on to the first show that was aired then. Before I read a book, I watched a show. When I got home from shopping, we were all watching the television again. A pity my Chinese isn’t that good, or else I could have recommended some shows to watch. Somehow, all the nice shows seem to come on air only during the Chinese New Year period. I caught Kung Fu Dunk, but it isn’t really worth watching. Oh, I caught Miss Chinese International Pageant 2008. A Stephen Chow movie too. Some variety shows, mostly for laughs. =)
Oh, there’s a new laptop too, but no one uses it. It’s supposed to be for me, and it’s quite awesome. It not only has a processor faster than my current one, it has double the RAM at double the speed, integrated web camera, remote control(!), and discrete graphics card. Too awesome. Then I decided not to take it, because I have decided not to be greedy. I was pondering what I would do with it, and I guess since it’s possible, I’ll just use it to play all the latest games. In addition, I have grown too used to Windows XP and my current laptop configuration. I know its strengths and limitations and am able to use this one to the fullest. Besides, I could almost do anything with this current laptop of mine. In addition, Windows Vista is incompatible with some of the older software that I still use. We were beginning assembly programming, and some Vista users already stalled. In addition, I have painstakingly installed my current laptop to its current configuration. I don’t want to slowly reinstall and reset all the settings on another laptop. Plus, if both laptops are of the same configuration, I feel that one will lose its uniqueness. I like to install different things on different laptops and make sure they are capable of doing different things.
Then I was pondering, whether I should just get both. It’s possible since no one uses the other one. Besides, the potential productivity increase is obvious. I have more than double the available desktop space, and more than double the processing power too. I can have references on one laptop and I can code away on the other one rather than changing windows, reading the references and coming back to code. Sometimes it isn’t efficient, because I don’t have them both present on the same screen, so when I change screen, I might have forgotten part of what I read and have to change the window over again. Then, luckily my screen isn’t that small, so I can minimize both windows and have them side-by-side. However, sometimes that isn’t possible with the limited desktop space, especially if one window have a lot of information. With two laptops, I can do that with both windows maximized.
Recently, I have started to upload videos before I sleep, because for some unknown reasons, uploads almost always fails when I am using the laptop. The only way I get them to work is to start uploading before I go to bed, and don’t touch the laptop ever after until it has succeeded. With two, I can dedicate a single laptop to uploading while I do other work on the other. Super-multitasking! Plus, I edit a few videos in advance so that I can upload them one by one. With two, I can upload on one, and edit on the other one. I guess having two laptops is going to be awesome! Then I decided I shouldn’t be greedy, because I already have a laptop, and I have almost everything I need. I should just leave it for my sister, even though she couldn’t fully utilize it yet. My dad’s laptop isn’t doing so well too, though it’s still working. However, letting him use the new laptop is kind of a waste, not because he don’t know how to use it or he can’t use it well, it’s because he don’t take care of laptops as much.
I am still stuck with this only laptop, but hey, in a year or two, I am going to graduate, and before I do so, I might get a better one. I should really work harder now to earn some money to realize all my dreams. Oh yeah, this year’s economy seems to be bad as evidenced by amount of ang pau/hong bao collection. Oh, on the night before coming back to Singapore, I ate at Chilli’s. Didn’t have the chance to try it while in the United States, but I did try it back in KL in the end. The menu did bring back a lot of memories during my days in the United States. I ate Honey-Chipotle Chicken Fritters (Chicken Fingers) and it was great. (I miss Chick-Fil-A and their Polynesian sauce too.) It’s cheap, when I converted the price to Singapore dollars and US dollars. I drank some margharita for the first time too. It actually tastes good! =) The portion was decent, my both sisters shared a main course and they both couldn’t finish.
On the second night, I was busy trying to get rid of my sister’s laptop of viruses. She got it all on her campus. I heard nobody maintains her campus’s computers and you can catch virus easily by just using your thumbdrive at one of the lab’s computer. They too, don’t have the benefit of internet in their own rooms, and hence their operating systems are not the latest version with latest security patches. Their anti-virus definitions are out-of-date too. Therefore, that’s how they caught these madness amount of virus. It was quite screwed and I haven’t had a great battle of cleaning viruses in a while.
It felt like her computer was normal, but there’s a difference. She didn’t know that she can’t ctrl-alt-del until I realized. Her Windows auto-update automatically turns off by itself upon booting, and wouldn’t stay on for a long time. When you manually try to access the update website, it gives you 404 error. Not only the Windows update website, all the other anti-virus websites too. Peculiar, isn’t it? Otherwise, the computer works fine. In addition, I guess the virus knows how to mask itself in the processes, because even after I managed to get task manager working again, I couldn’t find suspicious looking processes. Maybe there’s a virus down there in Ring 0. Since the auto-update disable itself upon booting, I guess it must be the work of modified registry entries. Some registry entries must be trying to re-acquire certain viruses after you managed to catch it. Just plain deleting suspicious files isn’t the solution.
I didn’t feel like slowly reading the entire registry to see if there’s something wrong in there. I bet there is. I was already running out of time, it was getting late, and I was getting tired. In addition, I only had an hour or two of sleep the night before. In the end, I slept very early in the morning too, and had to be awake a short while later to eat. Unfortunately, in the end, I left the viruses undefeated. It isn’t the work of a single virus. It’s a few of them. I managed to kill a few (with TAC rating of 10) with Ad-Aware, but there’s more since the symptoms continue to manifest themselves. Coupled with slow internet, it is going to be really time-consuming to weed them all out. But hey, even if I reformat, it would actually take time to reinstall everything back to the original configuration.
I thought I could sleep all the way back on the bus ride to Singapore. I was wrong. I was awake after two hours of sleep and I don’t know why. I couldn’t fall asleep anymore even though I had very little sleep the few days before. Please don’t do this to me, I have lots of classes on Wednesday! Sometimes, I hate myself, but after an hour of futility trying to sleep, I looked up and the sky was so beautiful. It was full of stars! It must be because it was already dark at night, coupled with very little lights on the North-South Highway. How I wished I had a map of the skies at that point of time. Spent about an hour watching stars too, reminiscing the days where I used to watch stars regularly. The more I looked at the sky, the more stars appeared! Sometimes I wonder, and I still wonder, what if, someone else from the stars are doing the same, watching ‘stars’ over them, and happen to be looking at us? We live in such a huge universe! How I wish I would be able to find out the truth one day, and find some ‘aliens’. What if we could find aliens that are much more modern than us? What if we could find aliens that are much more primitive than us? I hope that we find some one day and am able to communicate with them.
We’re citizens of the Earth, but we’re all so divided. There are different countries, different languages, different mentality and different races. Of course, different cultures, languages and races could be good, because it makes all of us unique and diverse. However, we’re divided in the sense that if there’s war, people will take sides, and no one will win. There will be people who are oppressive and people who are oppressed, and we wonder why both sides just couldn’t understand each other. This is where we are so divided. I am thinking if we all thought of ourselves as citizens of the Earth, it would be beneficial. If we are all citizens of the Earth, we would want to protect Earth. Wars wouldn’t happen, because it would only weaken Earth. Cross border taxes and tariffs will be a thing of the past. There will be no need for people to promote local made products over imports. Every product made is local, made in Earth. Hey, if I somehow one day manufacture some things, I guess I want to put the ‘made in Earth’ label. I guess if we somehow meet aliens, it would make us more united as citizens of the Earth.
Sometimes, I hope that I could extend my arms and touch the stars. I wish to visit as many stars as possible too. There are stars much bigger than ours, and I think they can have more planets in their systems too. Even if the star was smaller, I think it’s possible that they have more planets in their systems too. Since they are so many stars up there, they will be more planets up there too, so chances of meeting other life-forms isn’t that low. We might just get lucky that one of the stars have life forms. I guess this is an area where we need to improve. Space travel! =) After all, we have only explored such a small part of the universe. In fact, we haven’t even explored our own planet enough. I have only travelled to a few places since travelling is expensive. See, if everyone was citizen of the Earth, there would be no need for extensive security checks. Transport infrastructures between the current borders would be better. In addition, it allows people of different cultures, languages, and races to mix, making everyone even more understanding of everyone else.
If we can’t explore and find aliens, I hope that at least aliens find us. Hope that they come in peace, and they can understand us! =) So much questions will be answered. Besides, if they are more technologically advanced, they can share their technologies too, and if they are not, we can see themselves in reflection of our own history. We could share some technologies with them too and hopefully they improve it to better than we ever can. =)
The bus back to Singapore was potentially speeding and I ended up reaching far too early than expected. Tired from not having enough sleep, I have decided not to take taxi. Besides, I was still in the ‘high-awareness’ travel mode, so I felt like exploring the place a little more. I wanted to walk to the Singapore flyer since the view of the area around there seem great at that time. I did manage to get to Bugis, Chinatown, and Clarke Quay, but lost my way and didn’t manage to catch Singapore flyer. The roads were completely empty and the only cars that go around here in the middle of the night are taxis. Oh, my bus stopped very near Hotel 81 and ahem, there were girls in skimpy clothes walking around in the middle of the night! Of course, I saw a lot of things I don’t normally see or maybe never seen in my long stay in Singapore. Exploring is fun! =) The only place where I see people crowding in the middle of the night are MRT stations. I don’t know why. Whenever I walk past an MRT station, there will be people sitting at the benches near there, chatting, reading, and just plain stoning.
However, when I finally got back to my room, my bed seemed so tempting, I immediately fell asleep and never woke up, at least I didn’t manage to wake up for all my lessons. I am sooo horrible! Then again, I was really really really tired.
Wai Hong is currently an undergraduate student at National University of Singapore. He majors in Computer Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering. He is a member of the forever sixteen :) club since he was sixteen. He was lucky enough to end up in Anglo-Chinese School Independent and then Anglo-Chinese Junior College, where he spent his best years and still looking to spend more best years. He was born into the world on 16th October, sixteen years ago. =)