A bit random here but I miss waltz-ing =(

"Busy as a bee" week.

Spent most of the time this week settling all the windsurf takeover procedures and just plain mugging. Somehow the time I spent on mugging is not very efficient/productive, perhaps because distracting thoughts from windsurfing keep intruding into my mind and took over that limited cognitive resources that I have.

But oh well, I just hope to set up the basic framework and leave the respective people to do their own job. Sometimes I do indeed need to learn the skill of delegating work. There's just too little time.

Next week there is the long awaited CPG trip, the TeamNexus camp as well as the committee handover dinner. Time is so short, and I have got 2 mid-terms right after I come back from Gopeng camp.

And not to mentioned that 5 page forensic fingerprint report that is due the same week as the mid terms. I can feel hell week approaching. Pray that I can survive this :/

Now its back to studying, will post up the new book ( I sit, I write, I flush) when I got the time to do so.

"I still want to believe that miracles exist." (CP, 12.09.2009)

Its been a long time I had a new book to read. And so it happened that jieying had a book for me to write a review about for the cdac magazine.

This is a super interesting teen book. The language is not complicated and the best part is the book is not extremely thick as well (as compared to my textbooks). Mr. Busy me took some time off last thursday to read this overdue book. And I'm done reading this in a day.

The main story is about living on this concept of "borrowed time". Supposed that one day you realise your schoolmate is dying and you decide to donate a month of your life to him to encourage him to be strong. That was what Anthony Bonano (also known as Antsy) did in the story.

Word began to spread about Antsy’s great act and everyone started following suit, donating “a month of life” to Gunnar. Suddenly from then on, Antsy became the Master of Time. This new found power came with great responsibilities as well. Very soon, Antsy realized he has within his control the ability to trade items with time. By the end of the story, he had amassed 123 years of life.

But all good things come to an end eventually. When Antsy’s dad donated two years of his life and suffered a heart attack immediately, panic struck and everyone started asking for “refunds” of their lives!

What should Antsy do when this happens? Faced with pressure from his dying father, the schoolmates, his friend Gunnar, Antsy has to find a solution to the mess that he created.

Read the book yourself to find out more!

Time to get on with life.
Don't emo too much peng.
There's still a lot of people waiting.

While revising, I went to read up and actually found out that I had fallen prey to the prospect theory.

When people have to make decision in situations where they choose to take risks, most people tend to choose the risk-seeking behaviour if they are faced with 2 options that involve losses. So like the classic example of the "Asian Plague" and the solution of choosing between

(1) Program A can save 200 and let 400 people die
(2) Program B has 1/3 chance of saving 600 people and 2/3 chance of them dying.

Most people will end up choosing B. Even when it might not be the best choice. Apparently it is explained using heuristics. Can't believe that as a psychology student I actually committed the same mistake as well. But oh well, this is life.

(edited this post while i go and read up more on heuristics. it will be bad to post wrong information here. haha)

After a few days of mental turmoil, I'm totally drained.

I had held high hopes for the coming year, I thought things might just turn out the way as I envisioned it if I tried hard enough, but sometimes some are just not within my control. I have many plans, some may bear fruit, some may not. Many have questioned my decision, and I'm tired of explaining it all over again for the umpteen time.

Yes it was a mistake. I never expected the consequences to be that serious. I am far too restricted in my own perspective to see beyond my own point of view. Someone please knock some sense into me and open up my horizon.

Since there is no turning back now, as yw said "from now on, the choice that I made is the right one, even if it may not exactly be the best, most objective one. But I will have to stick by it."

It's time I moved forward. It will be best if they can understand and move along with me. Otherwise, I just have to go on, together with a new untested batch that I put my faith in. I don't know for sure how many will end up mia-ing, but I will make sure it doesn't end up crippling the rest of us.

"Life is never a bed of roses". I can forsee the road ahead clearly. It is going to be tough, but the results is definitely worth the effort someday.

Remember this year is windsurfing year. it awaits.

I seldom post entries in chinese. But this story is just so ....

蝙蝠侠哭了

蝙蝠侠是Gotham City的守护者，从来不求回报，只是希望Gotham City市民能过着安定的生活，也不想想自己快乐过吗，付出这么多值得吗？也许是因为蝙蝠侠的随传随到，所以Gotham City市民从来也没感激过蝙蝠侠，把他就当成可有可无的“工具”。Gotham City 警长只需要到屋顶打开有着“蝙蝠”标志的投影灯，把蝙蝠标志投向黑暗的夜空, 蝙蝠侠就一定火速赶到屋顶和警长会合，然后就默默的继续他的行动。 在行动成功后，就消失在黑暗中，在高处鸟瞰整个城市，然后满意的回到自己的豪宅，继续做个忧郁，寂寞（其实他有个郁闷又罗嗦的管家）的宅男。

有一天， Gotham City来了一个新的Super Hero. 他的服装很炫，很有型，而且人缘很好。不过多久，就变成Gotham City的万人迷。街头巷尾都贴了印有他灿烂笑脸的海报，小孩都握着他的公仔，嘴里嘀嘀咕咕地嚷着长大也要做个Super Hero,站在一旁的爸爸妈妈都露出会心的一笑。蝙蝠侠一瞬间成了大家的回忆，成为历史的一部分。尽管市民开始对他冷漠，但是，他还是守候着Gotham City，认为那是他的使命。除了Gotham City, 他在哪里都找不到那熟悉的归属感。保护着城市，好像就是他活下来的理由。

蝙蝠侠也想做个普通人，远离Gotham City，远离和Joker, Penguin 那堆恶人周旋的生活。但是， 他一旦离开这种生活，就少了他蝙蝠侠的身份，成为普通的Bruce Wayne, 成为Gotham City 的普通市民。

蝙蝠侠心里却不想放弃一切，因为他爱这个城市，所以不想离开。但是，蝙蝠侠也是人，他也会累，也会想离开Gotham City。他不是不爱Gotham City了，而是Gotham City对他的冷漠，让他失望。

蝙蝠侠哭了。。。。你看到了吗？

他戴着他的面具在哭， 你又怎么看得到呢？

credits: a starfish story

Rained the whole morning so windsurf session was cancelled.

But the notification came too late, I was already at water venture when I received the sms from jude. So in the end I still went out to surf using the club board.

Figured out that I really have to train for the next few sessions because my tacking and gybing is pretty bad (to be honest). Windsurf is going to take up quite a lot of my time this year even since I took on the job.

Also stayed back till late yesterday with samuel, yoongwend and esther as well as the other university representatives for the WAS meeting. Apparently we are now all committee members of the Windsurfing Association of Singapore (which means more work for us).

Meeting was pretty long, but I saw a genuine effort to revive the windsurfing sport back into Singapore. Its a fun and exciting sport, both physically and mentally challenging at the same time. But I still believe that given enough effort (like all other sports), someday I can plane on the water and feel the wind blow away all the stress that I have.

Suddenly felt an impulse to blog.

But there seems to be nothing to write down at all. Perhaps its because this entire week I have been busy with tutorial work and windsurfing stuff that I hardly have time to sit down and enjoy doing the things I like.

The most interesting event I could think of is star-watching at my uncle's place. Like me, he is also an avid astronomer-wannabe and he got a super cool telescope that can be used to do star gazing. A pity that I have missed out too many star explorations trip with him because I was busy. But last sunday I managed to grab some time off to go star spotting at his house multi-storey carpark.

Nothing impressive was seen though because the night sky was only cloudless for a short while. But nevertheless I got to see Jupiter! Its not exactly big and clear like those in the astronomy books, but its still the first planet I saw with my own eyes.

I look forward to seeing Saturn and its beautiful rings next time =)

A picture of Jupiter taken from yahoo images.

What a week!

Windsurf Championship was a great experience. I finally rid myself of the traumatic experience of the last Internal Race. So it is possible that a new memory can erase/negate the memory of an older incident.

I still remembered the Internal Race was a total disaster. 3 Races with DNS (Did Not Start) and getting drifted 2 breakwaters away and no one to save you. Fortunately I managed to complete all the race course at yesterday's windsurf champs. Identified my weak points and I shall improve on my board handling in strong winds. Somehow I can't really handle the wind proficiently yet.

And the biggest surprise I gotten after the race. haha shall not post it up here.

Its about time I start to concentrate on studying and spend lesser time on all the exciting stuff I like to do.

So I will not be able to blog as regularly as before. And I still have to figure out how to upload the photos on blogger =(

Somehow I cannot seem to upload photos onto blogger =(
Its the end of the holidays =(
I got no money left to spend =(
There is still a lot of things I want to do yet =(
Sch and mugging is starting to pile up =(

But CPG Dinner & Nite cycling this week. and that is a reason to smile =)

These days other than the NDP preview that I watched on saturday, there wasn't much things for me to do. Other than picking up on my neglected reading (currently reading Paulo Coelho - The Winner Stands Alone), I spent most of my time trying to figure how to use photoshop and photoscape.

And now I'm so addicted to taking photographs in second life =)

My desktop keep getting infected with trojan/virus. And its irritating me a lot. I need help to remove these nasty pests!

Matric Fair is over. So that is another item off the list. School is reopening.

Not much happenings during this period, maybe with the exception of the extremely cute japanese anime (which I forgot the title) which I watched together with the kids during Project Excellence.

And also meeting my abacus teacher who taught me like more than 10 years ago. Its such a small world that she is currently teaching at the community centre near my house, but for the past 10 years we have never met. Somehow things just happened and we finally met again =)

It's good to know people who have made an impression in my life.

Windsurf Camp went pretty well (looking at the response on facebook). I didn't really expect that though, after all many of the things didn't really go according to plan. But somehow everyone still had fun (which is what the whole camp should be like).

Before I start writing about my camp reflections, I will first like to thank personally everyone who has helped me a great deal throughout the camp. Comm members (Eugene, Yoongwend, Kwanrong) and gay buddy Jude for supporting me all the way with the planning and execution of the programmes. CPGs (Hen, Sab, Char, Karen), yanjie, alvin, yongjian, joanna for volunteering to be OGLs when I was extremely shorthanded. Esther for transporting stuff and Simon for kindly lending me all the games logistics at such a late notice. THANK YOU ALL =)

On a personal note, I wasn't really satisfied with the whole camp. Somehow I felt it could have been even better than the one we ended up with. Perhaps this is so because I set quite a high standard as to what a camp should be like. When I fail to reach this, I tend to get disappointed with myself. But what I realised after all this is, as long as the rest of the participants enjoyed themselves, nothing else matters much.

It took me quite alot of effort to plan for the treasure hunt and the mini-race, so it was quite a waste that I had to scrap both plans because the participants didn't really seem interested. But I guess I ought to be more flexible and just go according to the situation instead of rigidly follow the initial plan.

After the second night, almost a third of the participants left the camp early and I was rather saddened by this. I started to question myself whether this camp is indeed such a failure. Never have I been to a camp when so many participants left the place early. Imagine 46 people reduced to 31 at the end of the last day. But things still have to go on.

I cannot expect everyone to enjoy themselves fully in this camp. There had been lots of hiccups because a lot of the things wasn't well-thought out and planned. Boards, accomodation and BBQ food was a problem. Though no one said it out, I could still sense their disappointment. And this really made me emo.

But I am still heartened to see that a few more people seem to be interested in windsurfing. Next camp will be better (If I still remain in comm). But for now, I shall still do my best to serve my remaining time before the next batch takes over.

Away for Windsurf Camp 21-23th July.

Totally caught unexpected when huihui told me simon is not around to conduct yesterday's PE session. We were unprepared at first but fortunately the 3 of us still managed to pull through with chinese chess.

What I learnt from yesterday's session is that we have grown over-dependent on simon's lesson plan that we failed to have any backup in case of contingency. And communicating with the kids and getting their attention is indeed hard work.

I marveled at huihui's patience with the kids. No matter how inattentive/disruptive they were, she still kept her cool and continued the class smoothly. That is what future teachers should be like =)

I didn't know doing cement work would be so tough. Looks like I shouldn't underestimate those construction workers.

This short working experience has been fruitful. I've been to so many departments during this period that I doubt not many undergraduates can get a feel of the things that I do.

If I were to list down my job scope, they will include...

Project Coordinator department - liase with customers on job scope, create schedules for work, do risk assessments/method statements, attend site meetings, go for site surveys with supervisors.

Operations department - plan manpower allocation, transportation arrangements, tools maintenance, admin work (Delivery order, storage order etc.)

HR department - interviewing new employees (I still remeber the first interview I had to conduct, that was when its was only my second day of work. haha). Record daily attendance and leave application and medical certificates.

Purchasing Department - sourcing for tools for work (eg. generators, customised bolt/nuts, cement, electrical panels etc), negotiating price for subcontract.

plus a whole lot more of weird little hands-on jobs like cement work, dig trench, lay power cables, drive forklift, help in hoisting, scaffolding, fixing pipes, delivery of equipment etc.

Ballroom class is over. Unexpectedly, the class was extremely small yesterday so I managed to get more attention to improve on my waltz. Christine (the teaching assistant?) was definitely a great help and now I'm more confident of my 18 steps.

Shall practice regularly in case I forget this skill and wasted all my wednesday nights. Finally another item off my list. It's about time I get a break and just stay at home to sleep =)