So lately I've been really pestered about the fact that I had my return flight to the US scheduled for just 2 days after my last final, as people around me even start telling me "Oh, you're not going to be here for long, well, hope you had fun..." Sometimes I was losing sleep over it, so I finally emailed my Mr. Fix-Everything-for-Me-Because-He's-So-Damn-Good Papa and asked him to call Cathay Pacific to see if they could do something for me. And guess what? Now I'm leaving a week later!!! And for NO extra charge!! Apparently Cathay is having a special offer for flights to the US, and they had a lot of available seats on May 14th, so they just moved me to that flight. YES!!!! I am so ready, so ready, so reeeeady... let the party never end!
Now I don't have to sneak away from studying for finals as much. I would just feel bad about doing that, although apparently other exchange students have very little qualms. So I'll maybe join them at times as well during the reading week. Now just have to decide where I want to go.
Again I don't know where to start with Singapore updates. Will say first though, my sister got into Rice!! Well, we sort of already knew that was safe to assume she would get in, but she definitely got in with style. Tons of merit-based scholarships were offered to her... practically a free ride... makes me look like the retard of the siblings, damn. Don't think she would choose Rice over some of the Ivies like Harvard and Yale, but I've still got a little time to change her mind if she gets into those as well haha.
So last weekend went to a "Francophile" dinner, where the NUS French-speaking club was having a gathering at a local French restaurant. Didn't speak any French at all haha, but it was nice to have a little French food in Asia for once. Emphasis on the word "little", typical French. After that meal I had to go out again and eat some more because I was still hungry.
The next day went to a Korean BBQ/hot-pot buffet place, pretty good. Met with some regular friends as well as an American guy who came to NUS on exchange like I am a few years ago, and now he is living here teaching English. Pretty cool. We ate a ton, too, because it was a buffet, so I made up for the previous night's dinner. I think we ate from like 11AM to 3PM, ridiculous. After that I went to a museum, because I actually haven't yet been to a museum in Singapore the whole time I was here. This one showcased Peranakan life in Singapore, pretty interesting. I'm always fascinated by histories of Chinese descendents making an adapted lifestyle of their own in a new culture, in this case Southeast Asia. Then went to a party that night, this time at a beach-club on Sentosa Island that was having its closing night. It was omega-crowded, people were packed on the beach and even standing in the water because they couldn't get a spot on the dry land. Lots of fun, but still trying to clean up all the sand in my room that traveled with me in my pants and shoes.
So I've decided today that California really is my home. Every time I go abroad, I'm always jittery with excitement at seeing new things and having that "man, the grass is so greener on this other side" feeling when I go out. But once the party dies down and the confetti settles, I really should go back to my original home, to grow up and become a man in my own domain. And what if I don't end up living in California, say if my job requires me elsewhere? I get a twinge just thinking about it, but there wouldn't be anything I could do about it. But where ever else I am, that will only be my temporary address, even if it is for years or even decades. I need a homeland, and my home is where those golden grassy hills with those grand oak trees and towering redwoods meet the vast ocean on the side where the Sun sets every evening. Haha, didn't know I could be that cheesy, but I'm afraid it's true. I'm just part of the Bay Area culture, and unless I'm in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, or somewhere nearby or in between, I will never feel completely at rest, anywhere else and I'll feel some odd bumps here and there on the streets where I walk, and watching my step wherever I go. Not that I can't make friends for life in the places I visit, as that is always a major plus, if not the best thing, about going abroad.
Reminds me though, this morning I had the hardest time of my life getting out of bed. I swear, I don't remember the last time I was ever that reluctant to get up. And it wasn't like I dreaded going to class or anything, I didn't have anything bad to avoid. I was just extremely comfortable, I didn't even budge when my alarm went off and kept ringing for 2 minutes or so. I think this current temperature in Singapore must be perfect for me, which according to Google is 88 F right now. 88, lucky number haha. Granted, I have my fan on too, so this is assuming there's a breeze as well, which in reality there isn't outside my room. I like warm evenings, which California only has sometimes during the summer, but that's OK, gives me something to look forward to every year. And I should be back in May, so just in time for when it starts to warm up there.
Ugh, have pictures too from last week but I'm too lazy to put them up... sorry! For my own reference, check the NUS photos in the S'pore folder and you'll see what I was thinking about.
Ok, time to find some dinner and do some catching up on emails. Au revoir!
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Some relief...
So apparently it's not a big deal if I was to fail a course here. Just one though. Rice will not put a fail grade on my transcript from courses taken here... hallelujah, or however that's spelled. Still need 12 credit hours though, so I would have to make sure to pass at least 3 out of 4. Should be much less stressful than I originally imagined though. So I'm actually looking again at travel options over weekends, perhaps Bangkok, since I really enjoyed Thailand and it was easy to travel there, or Tioman Island, which is supposedly just a ferry ride away from Singapore. Was thinking about Bali, but if Aunt Sandra visits from Shanghai I said I would go with her to Bali.
Hmm nothing really new happened this week. Lots of projects and other work that I should be working on. I feel tired already, and it's only noon now, on a Friday. Hope to go out today again in the evening, but now I'm just sipping bubble tea and staring memorized at the personal fan I now I have on my desk, blowing right in my face. A friend lent me this extra fan... and I must admit, as much as I wanted to come to Singapore for warm weather, having this fan makes sitting in my poorly ventilated room much better. It's also fun to talk to, chopping up my voice and reflecting back a distorted echo.
Yea, that's really all for today, blog-lecture ends early this time. As for homework for this week, I should work on projects, do travel research, and as always, do something new in Singapore.
Hmm nothing really new happened this week. Lots of projects and other work that I should be working on. I feel tired already, and it's only noon now, on a Friday. Hope to go out today again in the evening, but now I'm just sipping bubble tea and staring memorized at the personal fan I now I have on my desk, blowing right in my face. A friend lent me this extra fan... and I must admit, as much as I wanted to come to Singapore for warm weather, having this fan makes sitting in my poorly ventilated room much better. It's also fun to talk to, chopping up my voice and reflecting back a distorted echo.
Yea, that's really all for today, blog-lecture ends early this time. As for homework for this week, I should work on projects, do travel research, and as always, do something new in Singapore.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Worship the Sun by day, indulge in the fun by night
That test I mentioned last in my previous post turned out to be just as nightmarish as rumored to be, but I didn't feel too bad because everyone said it was horrible and historically the average on the test is about 15%. It was a multiple-choice test where more than one of the choices could have been right, or even none of them at all. So you had to indicate all the right choices to get ANY credit for each question... no partial credit awarded for getting just one out of two of the choices correct. It was very strange and I'm not sure if it was an effective testing method, just seemed sadistic. The prof who uses this method is actually my research prof, and he seems to think that this method would award those who both read the class notes AND attend lecture, because usually his questions would be structured to include information from both the print notes and his lecture talks. He even said at the beginning of the test, "Those of you who I see now but not in my lectures, good luck, you need it..."
After the test was unexpectedly a lot of fun to be had though. As celebration for finishing midterms I went with a friend to hit the clubs... yes, I know, I said a few times over the semester I would not be interested in going to any clubs, but this seemed like an appropriate time to make an exception. I was actually feeling very guilty about going, not because of other work to do or that I gave into peer pressure but because I told my other exchange student group that I wouldn't go with them on a nighttime bike-ride on the East Coast beach, because the ride wouldn't be over until at least 2AM and I had to get up early the next day to go on a class field trip for my solar power course. I went clubbing instead... because we started at 8PM and I figured I'd be done by, oh, midnight at the latest. As my friend joked to me, "I can give you a ride back, Cindarella". I'm so naive...
So as you can imagine, 8PM is considered very early for a club, even I knew that, but I met a lot of cool people and, well... I ended up not coming back to campus until past 6AM... yeah... It was admittedly a ton of fun, I'm glad I did it at least once, and it will be hard for me to refuse to go back. Actually... I went back the next day haha but just for a short trip to a hotel-bar, not hopping from club to club for hours and hours over the entire night like I did on Friday. So as for what happened exactly during all that time? Well, use imagination here, when I'm drunk it gets hazy. And wild :)
The people I hung out with were pretty much all native Singaporeans. A lot of bankers, lawyers, businessmen/women, etc... definitely not many engineers. They all like to be the "cool" types, and I like to have witty conversations with people so it worked out better than I thought, but a lot of the time I was just a listener/onlooker, and only sometimes talking/dancing.
So again, very sorry to the bike-riders, I ended up staying wayyy past my bedtime anyway. I didn't even sleep before the field trip, why bother? The field trip itself was interesting too, we went to Singapore's largest solar power station at the Marina Bay barrage, a giant facility that controls the sea-level near the mouth of the Singapore River. It actually wasn't a very impressive solar panel field in terms of area, but the technician there who toured us around definitely knew what he was talking about so that was cool. It was also a hot day out, so as it was for the solar panel lab I did back on campus I felt uncomfortably hot throughout the tour. But when I got home I immediately took a shower and a looong nap. Only to get up for another trip to the Fullerton hotel-bar with the same people I met the night before. Now I'm trying to catch up on work, which as you can see I am still avoiding by writing my blog instead.
Did learn however that a fellow Rice engineering student who came to NUS on exchange in the past did manage to actually fail one of his courses (I think he got a D, which is passing at NUS, but it has to be a C- or above for Rice). That is quite scary, I must admit. Now I feel a little worried about my own courses, so hopefully motivation will strike me and I can get back to work.
Root for me, as I've always been there for you!
After the test was unexpectedly a lot of fun to be had though. As celebration for finishing midterms I went with a friend to hit the clubs... yes, I know, I said a few times over the semester I would not be interested in going to any clubs, but this seemed like an appropriate time to make an exception. I was actually feeling very guilty about going, not because of other work to do or that I gave into peer pressure but because I told my other exchange student group that I wouldn't go with them on a nighttime bike-ride on the East Coast beach, because the ride wouldn't be over until at least 2AM and I had to get up early the next day to go on a class field trip for my solar power course. I went clubbing instead... because we started at 8PM and I figured I'd be done by, oh, midnight at the latest. As my friend joked to me, "I can give you a ride back, Cindarella". I'm so naive...
So as you can imagine, 8PM is considered very early for a club, even I knew that, but I met a lot of cool people and, well... I ended up not coming back to campus until past 6AM... yeah... It was admittedly a ton of fun, I'm glad I did it at least once, and it will be hard for me to refuse to go back. Actually... I went back the next day haha but just for a short trip to a hotel-bar, not hopping from club to club for hours and hours over the entire night like I did on Friday. So as for what happened exactly during all that time? Well, use imagination here, when I'm drunk it gets hazy. And wild :)
The people I hung out with were pretty much all native Singaporeans. A lot of bankers, lawyers, businessmen/women, etc... definitely not many engineers. They all like to be the "cool" types, and I like to have witty conversations with people so it worked out better than I thought, but a lot of the time I was just a listener/onlooker, and only sometimes talking/dancing.
So again, very sorry to the bike-riders, I ended up staying wayyy past my bedtime anyway. I didn't even sleep before the field trip, why bother? The field trip itself was interesting too, we went to Singapore's largest solar power station at the Marina Bay barrage, a giant facility that controls the sea-level near the mouth of the Singapore River. It actually wasn't a very impressive solar panel field in terms of area, but the technician there who toured us around definitely knew what he was talking about so that was cool. It was also a hot day out, so as it was for the solar panel lab I did back on campus I felt uncomfortably hot throughout the tour. But when I got home I immediately took a shower and a looong nap. Only to get up for another trip to the Fullerton hotel-bar with the same people I met the night before. Now I'm trying to catch up on work, which as you can see I am still avoiding by writing my blog instead.
Did learn however that a fellow Rice engineering student who came to NUS on exchange in the past did manage to actually fail one of his courses (I think he got a D, which is passing at NUS, but it has to be a C- or above for Rice). That is quite scary, I must admit. Now I feel a little worried about my own courses, so hopefully motivation will strike me and I can get back to work.
Root for me, as I've always been there for you!
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The one item in Singapore that is more expensive than in the US: tennis balls
How hard can it be to manufacture green fuzzy balls? Apparently in Singapore, it's quite difficult. A standard can of three tennis balls here costs US$4, about twice as much as in the States. And it's even more expensive if you buy it just from any supermarket, the cheapest can only be found in the Indian hawker shops, where I know they are making a huge profit, because I noticed on the price tags they just crossed out the Indian rupee "RP" and substituted in a $-sign. Unless they altered the price also, that would be a huge profit.
I was actually shocked to read in the Chinese newspaper today (yes, I sometimes spend my hours, usually in the research lab, reading what little I can understand in Singapore's free Chinese paper "Wo Bao", which actually has the more difficult words translated into English in a little "Helper" vocabulary box at the end of each article, but that still doesn't get me through the whole thing), that Singapore was #10 on the list of most expensive cities in the world! What?! Zurich, New York, Tokyo, and all the usuals I know were on the top ten as expected, but then they also said that Singapore was just one ahead of Hong Kong, at #11. I couldn't believe that any non-Japanese city in Asia would make it even near the top ten list. Singapore even beats London by a long shot, which I believe they said was in the 30s or 40s... granted that is mostly due to the major weakness of the pound sterling these days, but still. After further translation, I found out that the rankings were based on a survey done by companies that calculate the amount of spending allowance they should give an employee that they want to send to any of those cities for a business trip. Aha, that makes much more sense. If you really wanted to blow through a load of cash, like going to the nicest hotels and eating at fine restaurants, you could certainly do that in Singapore, but only just as easily as you could find a hawker stand across the street from that fancy buisness dinner that serves the usual $5 or less complete meal. Whew, for a moment there I thought I was seriously underestimating the value of Singapore dollars over my entire trip here...
Speaking of the research lab, I guess I'll put up some pictures of the lab I work in:
Yes, I know... everyone here puts up pictures of beaches and club parties, etc and here I put up a picture of me in clean-room garb next to an O2 plasma-etch machine and in the lab cubicle where I spend my Dilbert hours in Singapore. Sue me, I'm a geek at heart. But hey, it's another side of Asia I haven't seen before, so I'm making good use of time here.
I'm actually secretly very anxious right now about my research back home... Dr. Lou emailed me saying that the group we worked with back at ETH is now interested in publishing a paper on some of the work we did while we were there. I'm jittery just thinking about it. Man if I could manage to get some science article authorship cred as an undergrad, that's a sweet deal if I'm looking at grad schools later. Please, please, please... let me see some "R. Pei" at least once in Science or Nature magazine... ok maybe not that high up but somewhere nice. Yuekai Sun has an article with his name on it from our lab... makes me wish sometimes that I chose to do research in simulation rather than actual experiment work. You can publish stuff a lot faster when you do just simulations, because heck they might not even work in reality... and probably don't, no offense Yuekai :)
Anyway, at least I can come back to Rice in the summer and tell my profs that I at least learned some new tricks while on my escape vacation... err, I mean, "study abroad"... in Asia. Today I just spent more than 3 hours out on the 7th floor rooftop of the Engineering Workshop in one of Singapore's hottest afternoons, with no clouds out for even a scrap of merciful shade, 38 frickin degrees (Celcius, ~98 degrees Faranheit), and no wind... for a solar panel lab. I was so glad I brought an umbrella with me, to give some shade while I worked. And the labbie kept saying, wow, you guys are so lucky there are no clouds out to mess up the experiment... and I'm thinking, dude, just throw me off the roof now and end my misery. We spent those 3 hours of torture measuring the solar panel I-V characteristics, at different tilt angles as well, and learned a thing or two about what it feels like to be on the verge of heat-stroke. I hope Dr. Massoud will appreciate the work I've done to prepare myself for working some more on his beloved "Rice Eco-Technology Challenge" pet-project. Solar power to the market, here we come... not.
OK time to stop blabbing for real now, as much as I like hearing myself talk, or I guess... watching myself write. Test in two days, need to start being serious. I'll leave on this question to ponder... What is home?
I'm Ryan Pei and I approve this message.
I was actually shocked to read in the Chinese newspaper today (yes, I sometimes spend my hours, usually in the research lab, reading what little I can understand in Singapore's free Chinese paper "Wo Bao", which actually has the more difficult words translated into English in a little "Helper" vocabulary box at the end of each article, but that still doesn't get me through the whole thing), that Singapore was #10 on the list of most expensive cities in the world! What?! Zurich, New York, Tokyo, and all the usuals I know were on the top ten as expected, but then they also said that Singapore was just one ahead of Hong Kong, at #11. I couldn't believe that any non-Japanese city in Asia would make it even near the top ten list. Singapore even beats London by a long shot, which I believe they said was in the 30s or 40s... granted that is mostly due to the major weakness of the pound sterling these days, but still. After further translation, I found out that the rankings were based on a survey done by companies that calculate the amount of spending allowance they should give an employee that they want to send to any of those cities for a business trip. Aha, that makes much more sense. If you really wanted to blow through a load of cash, like going to the nicest hotels and eating at fine restaurants, you could certainly do that in Singapore, but only just as easily as you could find a hawker stand across the street from that fancy buisness dinner that serves the usual $5 or less complete meal. Whew, for a moment there I thought I was seriously underestimating the value of Singapore dollars over my entire trip here...
Speaking of the research lab, I guess I'll put up some pictures of the lab I work in:
Yes, I know... everyone here puts up pictures of beaches and club parties, etc and here I put up a picture of me in clean-room garb next to an O2 plasma-etch machine and in the lab cubicle where I spend my Dilbert hours in Singapore. Sue me, I'm a geek at heart. But hey, it's another side of Asia I haven't seen before, so I'm making good use of time here.I'm actually secretly very anxious right now about my research back home... Dr. Lou emailed me saying that the group we worked with back at ETH is now interested in publishing a paper on some of the work we did while we were there. I'm jittery just thinking about it. Man if I could manage to get some science article authorship cred as an undergrad, that's a sweet deal if I'm looking at grad schools later. Please, please, please... let me see some "R. Pei" at least once in Science or Nature magazine... ok maybe not that high up but somewhere nice. Yuekai Sun has an article with his name on it from our lab... makes me wish sometimes that I chose to do research in simulation rather than actual experiment work. You can publish stuff a lot faster when you do just simulations, because heck they might not even work in reality... and probably don't, no offense Yuekai :)
Anyway, at least I can come back to Rice in the summer and tell my profs that I at least learned some new tricks while on my escape vacation... err, I mean, "study abroad"... in Asia. Today I just spent more than 3 hours out on the 7th floor rooftop of the Engineering Workshop in one of Singapore's hottest afternoons, with no clouds out for even a scrap of merciful shade, 38 frickin degrees (Celcius, ~98 degrees Faranheit), and no wind... for a solar panel lab. I was so glad I brought an umbrella with me, to give some shade while I worked. And the labbie kept saying, wow, you guys are so lucky there are no clouds out to mess up the experiment... and I'm thinking, dude, just throw me off the roof now and end my misery. We spent those 3 hours of torture measuring the solar panel I-V characteristics, at different tilt angles as well, and learned a thing or two about what it feels like to be on the verge of heat-stroke. I hope Dr. Massoud will appreciate the work I've done to prepare myself for working some more on his beloved "Rice Eco-Technology Challenge" pet-project. Solar power to the market, here we come... not.
OK time to stop blabbing for real now, as much as I like hearing myself talk, or I guess... watching myself write. Test in two days, need to start being serious. I'll leave on this question to ponder... What is home?
I'm Ryan Pei and I approve this message.
Friday, March 13, 2009
I'm just Mr. Brightside...
Lately been revisiting the Killers again for music, got some nice techno remixes of "Mr. Brightside" stuck in my head. I was actually forced a few days ago to sing my own rendition of the US national anthem for an international student meeting. I refused for as long as I could, as I'm a horrible singer, but they insisted forever so I finally sung just two lines for them, the last two. The US anthem is quite badass, I must say. All the other anthems sound like pansy-songs... even Germany's now that they seem to have be wary of using violent/hateful anthems, for good reason admittedly.
So unfortunately the workload is really starting to crush me now. The main problem is that I have no idea how much effort I should put into my classes to pass them. I've heard that the fail-rate is quite high around here, about 10% of the students in engineering classes are repeating the course, which doesn't account for those who just failed and left. And the last day to set classes to audit for exchange students is TODAY, so as I'm writing this I'm still wondering if I should be cautious and just audit one of my courses.
The course in major question is Power Electronics, which I mentioned before has a terrible lab. Actually the second one was a lot better, but we also had the midterm this week... that was the scariest test of my life quite honestly. It's been a while since I've had to take so many in-class tests, and this one was in an extra-secure atmosphere, to the point where I could hardly concentrate on the test without feeling someone watching my every move... The professor and 3 other test proctors were there making sure none of us were cheating. The prof even went up to this girl sitting behind me and wrote on her test that he had suspected her of possible cheating, because she just had a piece of paper or something on the floor nearby, when the prof said he didn't want to see any other papers but the test out. The girl protested that it was nothing, but the prof insisted that he had to be fair to everyone... so that sucked for her. The test itself was brutal, alas I didn't study as much as I should have, but who does? Hopefully not too many others do, or the curve is going to kick my ass.
Which leads me to the dilemma of whether or not I'm going to audit this class or not... I don't know yet what grade I got on this exam, so I have to guess whether it's worth it or not. I think I'm going to stick to it, because I keep telling myself that only a pansy would drop it now. I came here to Singapore to see what it was like to be in one the best universities in Asia; how will I get a taste of the real thing if I wuss out of a normal-to-light courseload for a typical NUS engineering student? If it turns out the midterm went very badly, then I'll just go into "AZN lockdown" for reading period before finals, and hopefully do much better on the big mamu, which accounts for 60% of the grade. And if I fail... well that's just the price I pei, destiny is calling me, open up my eeeageeer eyes... 'cause I'm Mr. Brightside : )
Why are Asians so studious and hardworking? I feel like I should know this, but somehow I think I was left in the dust when it came to inheriting the "study-like-mad" gene from my Asian side. I think it's because Asians have such strong families centered typically around a tradition of encouraging the success of their future generations in a professional world, which in their belief begins with success in the academic world. I also read in some history book that Asians, particularly Chinese, were known for having civil service exams since the ancient days. These exams were meant in a way to select the Emperor's future department of administrative officals, and were taken very seriously in that time. That has led to today's perception of Asian culture, which I think the hilarious parody site "Onion News" summarizes quite well with one of their headlines "National Asian-American Society Prepares a Well-Organized and Somewhat Nerdy Report on Stereotypes Facing Asians in America".
And what drives them isn't just getting a good grade for their resume, they believe it's just honorable to get good personal rankings. My research-supervising undergrad, who is graduating this year, told me when I asked why he still studies so hard when he already has a job after graduation, "I want to go out with a bang." Wow, that's dedication. I remember my senior year of high-school I pretty much lost all interest in school, since I got into the college I wanted and that was the end of the story for me. But it's not like Gabriel (that's his name) is a complete nerd either, he even drove me down to Holland Village on a Friday night after we've been working late in the lab (I find this is a common curse shared universally among ELECS...) and there we'll have a beer and laugh about politics, women, etc. like I would normally do with a lazy-ass back home (with whom coversations are usually not that interesting, either). That reminds me actually, I came back to PGP last Friday evening after hanging out with Gabe when a certain... somebody... *coughcoughChua coughBi coughQuan cough* asked me when I got out of Gabe's car into the foyer, "Ryan, are you straight la??"... What?! Give me a break, woman... LAAA. In America a man just having a beer with another man is the ultimate symbol of heterosexual brotherhood, all that could have been done further to perpetuate the idea is if we were also watching football. And no, not cootsie-footsie foot football, but real. American. football. Actually we did have ice cream after the beers, but HEY it was HOT OUT... this is Singapore, duh...
Anyway, so yes, I'm shocked by how much the students here take their good grades to heart. They even have this hardcore ranking system, somewhat like the Latin honors in the US, except taken to a higher level, where you have First Class, Second Upper Class, Second Lower Class, Third Class, Passing, and of course... the Fail-Whales. First Class I believe is A- and above, which means if I converted my GPA from Rice directly to NUS I'd be in First Class... but something tells me that I really, really wouldn't belong there... First Class here absolutely means first-f**king class, no joke. Not this fluffy-wuffy, hyper-inflated GPA I have from Rice.
Man I'm already having resent about having to go back in less than 2 months... even with the hardcore schoolwork weighing me down. I had major resent too when I was in my final weeks of Switzerland, so I am beginning to think that I just don't like Houston... Having to go back to Houston, even if you're going through beautiful California first for a few weeks on the way, is a horrible punishment. When I was in Houston last semester I spent my bitter days in ELEC classes and in our spartan off-campus apartment wishing I was skiing in the Alps or riding the Bahn across the Swiss countryside... now I think I'll be going back wishing I was in People's Park in Chinatown having sugarcane juice, Siam coconuts, steamed fish-head, baklah pork jerkey, xiaolongbao or in Holland Village having my favorite sambol fish, chili crab, pratha, kaya... *tear*.
And on top of that, I've realized that since I arrived in Singapore, I have not yet been ill or stricken with allergies, which is an absolute miracle in my view considering that I am in Asia, which I usually associate with a fair certainty of getting food-poisoning at least once, and also it's technically spring-time, which is the worst season for pollen, and Singapore is covered in flowering plants. For stomach sickness, I think the fact that Singapore is so clean that has really spared me the experience of having to live on the toilet for half a day. This has allowed me to be especially experimental in trying new foods while I'm here, although today I did stumble on one nasty meat dish for lunch, some Indian curry that had liver and kidneys in it. Usually I like liver, but I don't know what they did to this one... it was just bad. Oh well, that's just one experiment gone ary, the rest are usually pleasant surprises. And as for the pollen, I think it has something to do with either the humidity taking the pollen out of the air, or just that flowers in Singapore are simply much better at targeting their own kind rather than accidentally fertilizing my eyeballs or my sinuses, which are usually very annoyed whenever those flowers make this unfortunate mistake. But yes, usually March is the worst month of the year for me back in the US (either CA or TX), I get so stuffed up that I can't even go outside to play tennis or anything because I'll just suffocate in the process.
Ok I think that'll be enough for this week... time to be a cool kid again and stop blogging... and start working ha... Or maybe go see a movie. Anyone want to see Watchman with me? Subhash highly recommends it, and I don't require much of anyone who wants to see it too, just don't be one of those people who talks during the movie or laughs like a madman at really bad jokes, or I will be most upset and demand a refund from you. Or at least an explanation for what-the-f**k-is-so-damn-funny-you-dick
Cheers!
So unfortunately the workload is really starting to crush me now. The main problem is that I have no idea how much effort I should put into my classes to pass them. I've heard that the fail-rate is quite high around here, about 10% of the students in engineering classes are repeating the course, which doesn't account for those who just failed and left. And the last day to set classes to audit for exchange students is TODAY, so as I'm writing this I'm still wondering if I should be cautious and just audit one of my courses.
The course in major question is Power Electronics, which I mentioned before has a terrible lab. Actually the second one was a lot better, but we also had the midterm this week... that was the scariest test of my life quite honestly. It's been a while since I've had to take so many in-class tests, and this one was in an extra-secure atmosphere, to the point where I could hardly concentrate on the test without feeling someone watching my every move... The professor and 3 other test proctors were there making sure none of us were cheating. The prof even went up to this girl sitting behind me and wrote on her test that he had suspected her of possible cheating, because she just had a piece of paper or something on the floor nearby, when the prof said he didn't want to see any other papers but the test out. The girl protested that it was nothing, but the prof insisted that he had to be fair to everyone... so that sucked for her. The test itself was brutal, alas I didn't study as much as I should have, but who does? Hopefully not too many others do, or the curve is going to kick my ass.
Which leads me to the dilemma of whether or not I'm going to audit this class or not... I don't know yet what grade I got on this exam, so I have to guess whether it's worth it or not. I think I'm going to stick to it, because I keep telling myself that only a pansy would drop it now. I came here to Singapore to see what it was like to be in one the best universities in Asia; how will I get a taste of the real thing if I wuss out of a normal-to-light courseload for a typical NUS engineering student? If it turns out the midterm went very badly, then I'll just go into "AZN lockdown" for reading period before finals, and hopefully do much better on the big mamu, which accounts for 60% of the grade. And if I fail... well that's just the price I pei, destiny is calling me, open up my eeeageeer eyes... 'cause I'm Mr. Brightside : )
Why are Asians so studious and hardworking? I feel like I should know this, but somehow I think I was left in the dust when it came to inheriting the "study-like-mad" gene from my Asian side. I think it's because Asians have such strong families centered typically around a tradition of encouraging the success of their future generations in a professional world, which in their belief begins with success in the academic world. I also read in some history book that Asians, particularly Chinese, were known for having civil service exams since the ancient days. These exams were meant in a way to select the Emperor's future department of administrative officals, and were taken very seriously in that time. That has led to today's perception of Asian culture, which I think the hilarious parody site "Onion News" summarizes quite well with one of their headlines "National Asian-American Society Prepares a Well-Organized and Somewhat Nerdy Report on Stereotypes Facing Asians in America".
And what drives them isn't just getting a good grade for their resume, they believe it's just honorable to get good personal rankings. My research-supervising undergrad, who is graduating this year, told me when I asked why he still studies so hard when he already has a job after graduation, "I want to go out with a bang." Wow, that's dedication. I remember my senior year of high-school I pretty much lost all interest in school, since I got into the college I wanted and that was the end of the story for me. But it's not like Gabriel (that's his name) is a complete nerd either, he even drove me down to Holland Village on a Friday night after we've been working late in the lab (I find this is a common curse shared universally among ELECS...) and there we'll have a beer and laugh about politics, women, etc. like I would normally do with a lazy-ass back home (with whom coversations are usually not that interesting, either). That reminds me actually, I came back to PGP last Friday evening after hanging out with Gabe when a certain... somebody... *coughcoughChua coughBi coughQuan cough* asked me when I got out of Gabe's car into the foyer, "Ryan, are you straight la??"... What?! Give me a break, woman... LAAA. In America a man just having a beer with another man is the ultimate symbol of heterosexual brotherhood, all that could have been done further to perpetuate the idea is if we were also watching football. And no, not cootsie-footsie foot football, but real. American. football. Actually we did have ice cream after the beers, but HEY it was HOT OUT... this is Singapore, duh...
Anyway, so yes, I'm shocked by how much the students here take their good grades to heart. They even have this hardcore ranking system, somewhat like the Latin honors in the US, except taken to a higher level, where you have First Class, Second Upper Class, Second Lower Class, Third Class, Passing, and of course... the Fail-Whales. First Class I believe is A- and above, which means if I converted my GPA from Rice directly to NUS I'd be in First Class... but something tells me that I really, really wouldn't belong there... First Class here absolutely means first-f**king class, no joke. Not this fluffy-wuffy, hyper-inflated GPA I have from Rice.
Man I'm already having resent about having to go back in less than 2 months... even with the hardcore schoolwork weighing me down. I had major resent too when I was in my final weeks of Switzerland, so I am beginning to think that I just don't like Houston... Having to go back to Houston, even if you're going through beautiful California first for a few weeks on the way, is a horrible punishment. When I was in Houston last semester I spent my bitter days in ELEC classes and in our spartan off-campus apartment wishing I was skiing in the Alps or riding the Bahn across the Swiss countryside... now I think I'll be going back wishing I was in People's Park in Chinatown having sugarcane juice, Siam coconuts, steamed fish-head, baklah pork jerkey, xiaolongbao or in Holland Village having my favorite sambol fish, chili crab, pratha, kaya... *tear*.
And on top of that, I've realized that since I arrived in Singapore, I have not yet been ill or stricken with allergies, which is an absolute miracle in my view considering that I am in Asia, which I usually associate with a fair certainty of getting food-poisoning at least once, and also it's technically spring-time, which is the worst season for pollen, and Singapore is covered in flowering plants. For stomach sickness, I think the fact that Singapore is so clean that has really spared me the experience of having to live on the toilet for half a day. This has allowed me to be especially experimental in trying new foods while I'm here, although today I did stumble on one nasty meat dish for lunch, some Indian curry that had liver and kidneys in it. Usually I like liver, but I don't know what they did to this one... it was just bad. Oh well, that's just one experiment gone ary, the rest are usually pleasant surprises. And as for the pollen, I think it has something to do with either the humidity taking the pollen out of the air, or just that flowers in Singapore are simply much better at targeting their own kind rather than accidentally fertilizing my eyeballs or my sinuses, which are usually very annoyed whenever those flowers make this unfortunate mistake. But yes, usually March is the worst month of the year for me back in the US (either CA or TX), I get so stuffed up that I can't even go outside to play tennis or anything because I'll just suffocate in the process.
Ok I think that'll be enough for this week... time to be a cool kid again and stop blogging... and start working ha... Or maybe go see a movie. Anyone want to see Watchman with me? Subhash highly recommends it, and I don't require much of anyone who wants to see it too, just don't be one of those people who talks during the movie or laughs like a madman at really bad jokes, or I will be most upset and demand a refund from you. Or at least an explanation for what-the-f**k-is-so-damn-funny-you-dick
Cheers!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Nothing profound can be said about death?
Two major student deaths just occurred in Singapore recently. First a student at Nanyang Technical University stabbed his professor for giving what he believed to be an unfair grade, and then killed himself. Then an American exchange student at NUS, who was living in my dorm, died from undeclared causes, possibly alcohol related. The latter story was a shocking one, as I've never really thought about what to do in an emergency in a foreign country before. The guy who died had another exchange student with him at the time of his breathing difficulties and collapse, and I'm sure the guy with him was fairly panicked about what to do. Who to call for one? If I was there I think I'd be completely useless, and out of idiocy just dial 911 on my mobile and hope that number works here in Singapore as it does in the US. But no, it's 999 for police and 995 for the ambulance, which I just found out now. Anyhow, it sounded very tragic for his friends and family, who probably felt helpless to save his life. And that's all I can say.
I will now recount my midterm/lab stories for this week. These were very special midterms/labs, because they were the first ever that I completed for a grade outside the US... and they ended up going pretty badly I must say. The very first test was one of those horrible tests where it's all true/false, and if you have to guess on the answer, you get no points for leaving it blank and -1 point for answering incorrectly, so you have to weigh the risks of answering carefully. Sign that I wasn't taking the test in the US... in the middle of taking it we heard a Muslim prayer call from outside... too bad Allah didn't help me out on this one. I answered all the questions out of confidence, but got 6 wrong out of 25, so the final score was 13/25, about 50%... yikes.
The second test I took was also an embarrassment, because before the test the prof was telling the class that American universities are supposedly more difficult than Singaporean, because they assign graded homework every week *gasp*! And he checked with me to make sure he was right, and I responded as weakly as I could... because I didn't want to be considered the "badass" in the crowd... sure enough, I was the last guy there to finish the test, because I couldn't for the life of me answer one of the critical questions :( ... Utter disappointment representing the big, bad U.S.A...
Profs are also much less trusting of students taking their tests than in the US, although coming from Rice with our take-home, Honor Code pledged tests, I'm used to quite a bit of trust even compared to my own homeland. But here the professors are very controlling of the allotted time, and they make sure absolutely nobody is sitting directly next to another person, to prevent looking at each other's papers. I actually don't know, PLEASE TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT AS I'M PROBABLY INSANE, but maybe I prefer the non-Honor Code style. They say that Rice is a small school that can afford to institute the Honor Code because pretty much everyone knows each other, and such a close-knit community should feel a sense of honor and pride in being part of the tradition. Therefore, we are a "free family" in some ways. But Rice is growing in size, and competition is fierce in some classes, so unless we really ramp up our "family values", who's to say everyone is on the same boat? NUS could never afford to use the Honor Code, it's just too big and every student feels a ton of pressure from all sides to do well. But yes, I do love being able to take my test whenever, wherever I please, it's a priceless luxury. So for now I'm not belligerent against the current policy.
Another freedom vs. security story (in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin's famous words, "A society that desires both freedom and security deserves neither and loses both", which I remember not from U.S. History class but from Civ IV the computer game). A few days ago I visited the NUS Student Lounge in YIH, which is a nice lounge with a pool table and comfy chairs, but also very tight security. The door to the lounge is card-access locked, and inside there are security cameras watching every corner of the room. To me, card-access makes perfect sense, we even have that at Rice to keep out hobos from the street and other unwanted visitors. But high surveillance? Is that necessary? I was told earlier by a native student that they actually put those cameras in there because they simply don't trust the students to both take proper care of the facilities or from even having some rebellious meeting in that room where they could discuss the need to overthrow the government or something. The rumor is that you will be punished somehow for even having a traitor's conversation speaking ill of the authorities in there, but I don't knooooow if that's fact. The picture in my head is Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew sitting in his living room in his bunny slippers watching some NUS student in the student lounge picking his nose on the television, making sure he at least isn't chewing gum or carrying durian... seems unlikely. In my case, I ended up being very glad there were cameras. After swiping my card to get in, I didn't put my wallet back in my pocket and just put it on the table in front of me where I sat. So as you can predict, I forgot it when I left, and didn't realize that I did until more than an hour after I left. Panicked at the time, because I was envisioning in my mind those really annoying emails that I always get from the Sid Rich listserv about some idiot (like me this time) leaving their iPod, wallet, cell, w/e in the Big Room (our version of the student lounge) and losing it, I ran from halfway across campus back to the lounge in the faint hope of retrieving the wallet, which I had just loaded with a new fat stache that I recently exchanged from US$... damn. To my complete surprise, when I came back my wallet had just moved from the table to a chair, where someone was sitting next to it reading a newspaper. I don't know who moved it, but I thanked the person there just in case it was them, and checked the contents: everything was still in it. Wow... what a relief. It seemed like a miracle, until I remembered those cameras. If someone had stolen it, the act would probably would have been recorded from 2 different angles, giving clear identification of the culprit. I don't assume it was this actually this deterrence that saved the day, maybe students here just have moral backbone, but regardless I was happy there was a safety net for me that time. Which leads me to conclude, what is liberty without security? In the US we are always complaining about terrorist watch and surveillance of our own citizens' activity, since that's infringing on our "personal freedom". But what is freedom from government oversight if it does not include freedom from criminal abuse? There is no such thing as freedom in a non-ideal society, just a choice between authority of the elected thug or of the opportunistic thug. So I think Benjamin Franklin was right, but only in the sense that there has never been such thing as complete security or complete freedom, only a messy hodgepodge of both. And I myself would have lost a lot of Benjamin Franklins that day if otherwise...
By the way I am not espousing Singapore's authoritarian government, but they shouldn't go without credit. For an inspirational anti-terrorist act in Singapore, read online about the Singapore Airlines Flight 117 hijacking at Changi Airport... miraculous.
Ok where was I before this rant? Yes, midterms and stuff. So I'll mention the assigned lab. In essence, it was painful. The first lab I had was actually kind of cool, because it was in the lab that I do research for. The second one, in Power Electronics... ugh... 1) I didn't show up with the right pre-lab materials, so that automatically docks off like 25% of the lab grade, which is 10% of overall grade, 2) It was extremely tedious and I didn't learn anything, 3) It was covering material we hadn't covered in lecture, but were expected to know by watching the previous year's webcast lectures... wtf, 4) the lab technician had a really strong accent, so I understood nothing he was saying, yet he still really liked to talk to me thinking I understood him so he would blabber to me incomprehensibly for like 10 minutes straight when I'm supposed to be doing the labwork, while I just nod like a bobblehead, 5) the scheduling is really messed up, and I mistook when I was supposed to do this lab, which ended up being at the same time as a midterm I had to take, so I had to reschedule to another time that overlaps with a lecture I'm supposed to attend, but I guess midterm is more important than lecture...
Yeah, I hate the electronics lab. Tough tests I can endure, but gruelling, confusing labs are the worst. Oh also, people here tend to have a real issue with my cursive writing. They all write in ultra-clear, clone-like print that resembles the careful precision used to write Chinese characters, so naturally reading my scrawling cursive is like a foreign language to them. I've resorted to sometimes drawing, because I do like doodling, and so whenever there is a lab procedure that I have to copy, I usually supplement it with a comic, like this:
Yes, that's a silicon wafer taking a shower, in RCA I, RCA II, and DI H2O, to illustrate the RCA process. Then he dries himself off with a N2 blowdrier... actually let's say that's a "she" not a "he", there's just something mildly conspicuous about drawing a man-wafer in the shower. It will be interesting to see if they will take off points for this; in the US I usually get extra points for trying to show some humor, but here I really don't know what they'll think... but I can afford it because I'm an exchange student SUCKERS!!! HA
And in continued celebration of being an exchange student, I tried playing rugby a few days ago as well. I have to say, I much prefer it upon first try to American football. To this day I don't know all the rules of football, all I know is that in tough times like these the NFL is a lifesaver in terms of providing employment to some of America's best and brightest. So I'm one of those dorks who prefers the Superbowl commercials over the actual game itself, because I really can't relate to the game strategy. But rugby seems decent, maybe I'll play again. Granted this was touch-rugby, so less violent than real rugby.
I feel a last rant coming on... so brace yourselves. This has nothing to do with sport, school, or politics... but love and sex! Yes, the knitty gritty stuff!... actually no, I really can't say much. But I will give my brief observations. Here's the general equation: Love in Singapore = Dating in school (don't graduate without a diploma... or a partner!) + finding an acceptable (not just for yourself but usually your family weighs in as well) partner + getting hitched, which is usually denoted in daily conversation by "Did you hear la?! They (the couple-to-be) are applying for HDB* la!" + having babies + continuing the cycle as shown. *"HDB" stands for "Housing Development Board", which is Singapore's subsidized housing authority. They have really cheap housing available for such an urban city, but you usually only apply for one when you are starting your new family, hence when it's time to get married. You might think that this is a pretty mechanical, straight-forward process, but hey at least it beats the formula of love in the US, which today might = get drunk/high in school + get a girl pregnant (and avoid being shot by her Dad) + having babies and/or abortions + applying for our own version of HDB, or government aid to keep the bank from foreclosing your home + getting a divorce + continuing the cycle as shown. On the other hand, arranged marriage here has pretty much phased out completely, so free love is all the rage here at NUS... but it's not obvious to the careless eye. There's definitely no PDA or anything (you're also not allowed to have someone of the opposite sex in your room unless the door's open, subject to $100 fine or more if disobeyed), so you have to delve into the local gossip to see the love triangles, the romance drama, and webs of relationships. Not that I have, I'm not here to act as Chief Investigator in these matters, they're best left to themselves.
And yes, as today's trend goes, Asian girls with white guys is still more than a perfect match in the eyes of just those who are either Asian girls or white guys. White guys are of course very outnumbered here, but those who survived the journey here are free to choose as they wish. Not really, I exaggerate, but it is definitely prevalent, not just in Singapore but especially tourist hotspots like Thailand, although a lot of what goes on in Thailand is unmentionable. I'll just say that in Singapore, while taking a tour with Dad while he was here of the famous Raffles Hotel, we saw these two white guys sitting at the bar going through pictures (without trying to hide them or anything!) of scantily clad Asian girls, presumably prostitutes or something along those lines. They were obviously in town for more than just a Tiger Beer or a Singapore Sling, although I suppose the latter could mean more than one thing... haha that rhymes.
Can you really blame either party though? I mean, at least the white guys are attempting to learn a bit of a culture other than their own, and this is much better than some I've seen, like this American guy at the Bangkok International Airport who vehemently refused to let the Asian security guards to put his spare change and cell phone through the X-ray machine because he thought they would steal them... Seriously, at a big international airport's gate security? Your spare change and cell phone? Alas, they ultimately had to just take him aside because he was slowing everything down; I hope they just offered to put him through checked bags so he wouldn't have to take out his pennies. So at least the white guy with Asian love in his eye doesn't fear Asian culture and society, he just might misunderstand it... unless he objectifies it? I don't know actually, it's a tough call. And for Asian girls, is it their fault that white guys, proportionally to the rest of the world's population, have stable backgrounds and finances? No, but that does objectify the idea of finding love. I just refuse to believe it's merely fetish, there must be a deeper historical or psychological association than that.
As for Asian guys and white girls, cheer up! You're practically made for each other, because while both your counterparts are busy spurring a global stereotype, you're free to make each other as happy as you please! You might say, come on Ryan, it just doesn't work that way... and it does seem to me sometimes that Asian guys in Asia are often only into their own kind, and white girls are seen these days as the "Butches" as far as chicks go... a.k.a. femiNazis, but you should all be above the stereotypes that you think are putting you at a disadvantage. Live a little, and heck look at my parents, things worked out for at least one Asian dude and one white gal, if you ignore the fact that they spawned a demented, twisted child.
In my own interests, I can't say which I would prefer in a woman... on one hand I'd want someone who is on my level of intellectuality and can win debates with me, but on the other hand I'm pretty masochist, and would love a charming housewife. In the end though... I'd be open to the femiNazi, if she really was the right person who could connect with me on all the right air frequencies... but hey! take that with a VERY small grain of salt as well, heck not even a grain, like half of a salt molecule, either the Na or the Cl. I really enjoy good food, and there's nothing in the world like a person who loves you that can COOK too. And who knows how senile I'll get with age, things could get ugly.
Ok laaaaa... time to do more studying and work... I've blogged my brains out for tonight. Cheers!
Oh but you've probably all seen the "I'm on a Boat" song by SNL (the same group that did equally funny "Jizz in my Pants"), but you have to see it if you haven't... hilarious:
(not embeddable, but has HQ option so sound is much better):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_YlkEUOonI
I will now recount my midterm/lab stories for this week. These were very special midterms/labs, because they were the first ever that I completed for a grade outside the US... and they ended up going pretty badly I must say. The very first test was one of those horrible tests where it's all true/false, and if you have to guess on the answer, you get no points for leaving it blank and -1 point for answering incorrectly, so you have to weigh the risks of answering carefully. Sign that I wasn't taking the test in the US... in the middle of taking it we heard a Muslim prayer call from outside... too bad Allah didn't help me out on this one. I answered all the questions out of confidence, but got 6 wrong out of 25, so the final score was 13/25, about 50%... yikes.
The second test I took was also an embarrassment, because before the test the prof was telling the class that American universities are supposedly more difficult than Singaporean, because they assign graded homework every week *gasp*! And he checked with me to make sure he was right, and I responded as weakly as I could... because I didn't want to be considered the "badass" in the crowd... sure enough, I was the last guy there to finish the test, because I couldn't for the life of me answer one of the critical questions :( ... Utter disappointment representing the big, bad U.S.A...
Profs are also much less trusting of students taking their tests than in the US, although coming from Rice with our take-home, Honor Code pledged tests, I'm used to quite a bit of trust even compared to my own homeland. But here the professors are very controlling of the allotted time, and they make sure absolutely nobody is sitting directly next to another person, to prevent looking at each other's papers. I actually don't know, PLEASE TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT AS I'M PROBABLY INSANE, but maybe I prefer the non-Honor Code style. They say that Rice is a small school that can afford to institute the Honor Code because pretty much everyone knows each other, and such a close-knit community should feel a sense of honor and pride in being part of the tradition. Therefore, we are a "free family" in some ways. But Rice is growing in size, and competition is fierce in some classes, so unless we really ramp up our "family values", who's to say everyone is on the same boat? NUS could never afford to use the Honor Code, it's just too big and every student feels a ton of pressure from all sides to do well. But yes, I do love being able to take my test whenever, wherever I please, it's a priceless luxury. So for now I'm not belligerent against the current policy.
Another freedom vs. security story (in the spirit of Benjamin Franklin's famous words, "A society that desires both freedom and security deserves neither and loses both", which I remember not from U.S. History class but from Civ IV the computer game). A few days ago I visited the NUS Student Lounge in YIH, which is a nice lounge with a pool table and comfy chairs, but also very tight security. The door to the lounge is card-access locked, and inside there are security cameras watching every corner of the room. To me, card-access makes perfect sense, we even have that at Rice to keep out hobos from the street and other unwanted visitors. But high surveillance? Is that necessary? I was told earlier by a native student that they actually put those cameras in there because they simply don't trust the students to both take proper care of the facilities or from even having some rebellious meeting in that room where they could discuss the need to overthrow the government or something. The rumor is that you will be punished somehow for even having a traitor's conversation speaking ill of the authorities in there, but I don't knooooow if that's fact. The picture in my head is Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew sitting in his living room in his bunny slippers watching some NUS student in the student lounge picking his nose on the television, making sure he at least isn't chewing gum or carrying durian... seems unlikely. In my case, I ended up being very glad there were cameras. After swiping my card to get in, I didn't put my wallet back in my pocket and just put it on the table in front of me where I sat. So as you can predict, I forgot it when I left, and didn't realize that I did until more than an hour after I left. Panicked at the time, because I was envisioning in my mind those really annoying emails that I always get from the Sid Rich listserv about some idiot (like me this time) leaving their iPod, wallet, cell, w/e in the Big Room (our version of the student lounge) and losing it, I ran from halfway across campus back to the lounge in the faint hope of retrieving the wallet, which I had just loaded with a new fat stache that I recently exchanged from US$... damn. To my complete surprise, when I came back my wallet had just moved from the table to a chair, where someone was sitting next to it reading a newspaper. I don't know who moved it, but I thanked the person there just in case it was them, and checked the contents: everything was still in it. Wow... what a relief. It seemed like a miracle, until I remembered those cameras. If someone had stolen it, the act would probably would have been recorded from 2 different angles, giving clear identification of the culprit. I don't assume it was this actually this deterrence that saved the day, maybe students here just have moral backbone, but regardless I was happy there was a safety net for me that time. Which leads me to conclude, what is liberty without security? In the US we are always complaining about terrorist watch and surveillance of our own citizens' activity, since that's infringing on our "personal freedom". But what is freedom from government oversight if it does not include freedom from criminal abuse? There is no such thing as freedom in a non-ideal society, just a choice between authority of the elected thug or of the opportunistic thug. So I think Benjamin Franklin was right, but only in the sense that there has never been such thing as complete security or complete freedom, only a messy hodgepodge of both. And I myself would have lost a lot of Benjamin Franklins that day if otherwise...
By the way I am not espousing Singapore's authoritarian government, but they shouldn't go without credit. For an inspirational anti-terrorist act in Singapore, read online about the Singapore Airlines Flight 117 hijacking at Changi Airport... miraculous.
Ok where was I before this rant? Yes, midterms and stuff. So I'll mention the assigned lab. In essence, it was painful. The first lab I had was actually kind of cool, because it was in the lab that I do research for. The second one, in Power Electronics... ugh... 1) I didn't show up with the right pre-lab materials, so that automatically docks off like 25% of the lab grade, which is 10% of overall grade, 2) It was extremely tedious and I didn't learn anything, 3) It was covering material we hadn't covered in lecture, but were expected to know by watching the previous year's webcast lectures... wtf, 4) the lab technician had a really strong accent, so I understood nothing he was saying, yet he still really liked to talk to me thinking I understood him so he would blabber to me incomprehensibly for like 10 minutes straight when I'm supposed to be doing the labwork, while I just nod like a bobblehead, 5) the scheduling is really messed up, and I mistook when I was supposed to do this lab, which ended up being at the same time as a midterm I had to take, so I had to reschedule to another time that overlaps with a lecture I'm supposed to attend, but I guess midterm is more important than lecture...
Yeah, I hate the electronics lab. Tough tests I can endure, but gruelling, confusing labs are the worst. Oh also, people here tend to have a real issue with my cursive writing. They all write in ultra-clear, clone-like print that resembles the careful precision used to write Chinese characters, so naturally reading my scrawling cursive is like a foreign language to them. I've resorted to sometimes drawing, because I do like doodling, and so whenever there is a lab procedure that I have to copy, I usually supplement it with a comic, like this:
Yes, that's a silicon wafer taking a shower, in RCA I, RCA II, and DI H2O, to illustrate the RCA process. Then he dries himself off with a N2 blowdrier... actually let's say that's a "she" not a "he", there's just something mildly conspicuous about drawing a man-wafer in the shower. It will be interesting to see if they will take off points for this; in the US I usually get extra points for trying to show some humor, but here I really don't know what they'll think... but I can afford it because I'm an exchange student SUCKERS!!! HA
And in continued celebration of being an exchange student, I tried playing rugby a few days ago as well. I have to say, I much prefer it upon first try to American football. To this day I don't know all the rules of football, all I know is that in tough times like these the NFL is a lifesaver in terms of providing employment to some of America's best and brightest. So I'm one of those dorks who prefers the Superbowl commercials over the actual game itself, because I really can't relate to the game strategy. But rugby seems decent, maybe I'll play again. Granted this was touch-rugby, so less violent than real rugby.
I feel a last rant coming on... so brace yourselves. This has nothing to do with sport, school, or politics... but love and sex! Yes, the knitty gritty stuff!... actually no, I really can't say much. But I will give my brief observations. Here's the general equation: Love in Singapore = Dating in school (don't graduate without a diploma... or a partner!) + finding an acceptable (not just for yourself but usually your family weighs in as well) partner + getting hitched, which is usually denoted in daily conversation by "Did you hear la?! They (the couple-to-be) are applying for HDB* la!" + having babies + continuing the cycle as shown. *"HDB" stands for "Housing Development Board", which is Singapore's subsidized housing authority. They have really cheap housing available for such an urban city, but you usually only apply for one when you are starting your new family, hence when it's time to get married. You might think that this is a pretty mechanical, straight-forward process, but hey at least it beats the formula of love in the US, which today might = get drunk/high in school + get a girl pregnant (and avoid being shot by her Dad) + having babies and/or abortions + applying for our own version of HDB, or government aid to keep the bank from foreclosing your home + getting a divorce + continuing the cycle as shown. On the other hand, arranged marriage here has pretty much phased out completely, so free love is all the rage here at NUS... but it's not obvious to the careless eye. There's definitely no PDA or anything (you're also not allowed to have someone of the opposite sex in your room unless the door's open, subject to $100 fine or more if disobeyed), so you have to delve into the local gossip to see the love triangles, the romance drama, and webs of relationships. Not that I have, I'm not here to act as Chief Investigator in these matters, they're best left to themselves.
And yes, as today's trend goes, Asian girls with white guys is still more than a perfect match in the eyes of just those who are either Asian girls or white guys. White guys are of course very outnumbered here, but those who survived the journey here are free to choose as they wish. Not really, I exaggerate, but it is definitely prevalent, not just in Singapore but especially tourist hotspots like Thailand, although a lot of what goes on in Thailand is unmentionable. I'll just say that in Singapore, while taking a tour with Dad while he was here of the famous Raffles Hotel, we saw these two white guys sitting at the bar going through pictures (without trying to hide them or anything!) of scantily clad Asian girls, presumably prostitutes or something along those lines. They were obviously in town for more than just a Tiger Beer or a Singapore Sling, although I suppose the latter could mean more than one thing... haha that rhymes.
Can you really blame either party though? I mean, at least the white guys are attempting to learn a bit of a culture other than their own, and this is much better than some I've seen, like this American guy at the Bangkok International Airport who vehemently refused to let the Asian security guards to put his spare change and cell phone through the X-ray machine because he thought they would steal them... Seriously, at a big international airport's gate security? Your spare change and cell phone? Alas, they ultimately had to just take him aside because he was slowing everything down; I hope they just offered to put him through checked bags so he wouldn't have to take out his pennies. So at least the white guy with Asian love in his eye doesn't fear Asian culture and society, he just might misunderstand it... unless he objectifies it? I don't know actually, it's a tough call. And for Asian girls, is it their fault that white guys, proportionally to the rest of the world's population, have stable backgrounds and finances? No, but that does objectify the idea of finding love. I just refuse to believe it's merely fetish, there must be a deeper historical or psychological association than that.
As for Asian guys and white girls, cheer up! You're practically made for each other, because while both your counterparts are busy spurring a global stereotype, you're free to make each other as happy as you please! You might say, come on Ryan, it just doesn't work that way... and it does seem to me sometimes that Asian guys in Asia are often only into their own kind, and white girls are seen these days as the "Butches" as far as chicks go... a.k.a. femiNazis, but you should all be above the stereotypes that you think are putting you at a disadvantage. Live a little, and heck look at my parents, things worked out for at least one Asian dude and one white gal, if you ignore the fact that they spawned a demented, twisted child.
In my own interests, I can't say which I would prefer in a woman... on one hand I'd want someone who is on my level of intellectuality and can win debates with me, but on the other hand I'm pretty masochist, and would love a charming housewife. In the end though... I'd be open to the femiNazi, if she really was the right person who could connect with me on all the right air frequencies... but hey! take that with a VERY small grain of salt as well, heck not even a grain, like half of a salt molecule, either the Na or the Cl. I really enjoy good food, and there's nothing in the world like a person who loves you that can COOK too. And who knows how senile I'll get with age, things could get ugly.
Ok laaaaa... time to do more studying and work... I've blogged my brains out for tonight. Cheers!
Oh but you've probably all seen the "I'm on a Boat" song by SNL (the same group that did equally funny "Jizz in my Pants"), but you have to see it if you haven't... hilarious:
(not embeddable, but has HQ option so sound is much better):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_YlkEUOonI
Monday, March 2, 2009
Listening to Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack while studying makes me feel like Jaimeet... all I need is the funny hat
I honestly don't know where to begin on this one. Let's go back to the Thailand/HK trip before I forget what happened. Thailand was cool, I can summarize it as elephants monkeys beaches coconuts bahts wais temples snorkeling mangostickyrice lemongrass... and more. Earlier posts describe more in detail. Here are the corresponding pictures that I promised, most of them compliments of my sister, who also uploaded them on FB if you want to see the others:
The resort in Phuket, I'm in the living room of our villa... sweet pad
Our private pool on the top floor... complete with lagoon view and little waterfall
Evening turn-down service, the maid leaves a nice note
Buddhist Temple complex
The elephants! Their squishy trunks with black spots remind me of overripe bananas
Wonder what he's thinking in that huge head of his... Hey bud, just be thankful we aren't a typical pair of obese Americans as big as you are
In Hannibal's army on the march on Rome...
Baby elephants
The mighty water buffalo
The monkey that I wanted to steal to fetch me coconuts for as long as it lives... muhaha
It personally had no taste for coconut, but rather just plain cow's milk...
The fish farm / floating restaurant that we ate at, everything fresh!
Snorkeling
It's like swimming in your food
Very beautiful beach
Ok that's enough of Thailand. Here's a round of HK:
First things first, went to the huge cemetary in Chai Wan to see Dad's grandparents... I like this picture of the cemetary on the hill overlooking the skyscrapers since it shows the intensity of Hong Kong's urban development, both for the living and the dead
R.I.P. great-grandfather Bei (or "Bui" in Cantonese), with his grandson and great-grandson
We tried to look for great grandmother Lee, too, but were unfortunately unsuccessful... there were so many cremation boxes, stories upon stories of them in multiple buildings.
My favorite on this trip to HK, the seaside fish-market/restaurant row in Sai Kung. Never been here before myself, but it was a good thing we checked it out. They had pretty much any kind of seafood you could possibly want, and more... heaven on earth
Feeding time for the big catches... these here are mostly groupers
Moray eels
Stonefish! They are the ones that look like rocks sitting on the bottom there. These are very poisonous if you touch their spines, but I guess they're still edible?? Those things in the bags are mantis shrimp.
Really cool photo that Nat took, with the restaurant's neon sign reflected perfectly in the mouth of this giant parrotfish.
Ours! A smaller parrotfish that was steamed for us... ohhhh so good, its flesh was probably the most tender fish I have ever eaten
NOM NOM NOM! "Ho m'ho sik?... Ho sik ah!!"
The guy to my right is my Dad's childhood friend from back when he was in primary school in HK. He and his wife have a really nice apartment on the Island, overlooking the horse racecourse. They're both dentists... by day... you won't believe what they do at night...
...That evening, we find them on an abondoned floor of some printing supplies warehouse where they've set up a whole studio of instruments and amplifiers, etc. Apparently they get together with other amateur musicians every Saturday and just sing and play all night long... awesome
My Dad's friend is really into drums
Of course, the HK light show. And there's one of our own family jewels there in the center stage...
Just so I don't forget my favorite spots to eat in HK for the next time I visit, I'm making a list now of my own most memorable "Kowloon" ("9 dragons"). Trust me, I will come again and again just to eat my way through town.
1) Roast goose/duck: probably Yung Kee, Wellington St., HK Island, but it's good almost anywhere that has the real plum sauce, not that cheap paste stuff
2) Fresh seafood: Sai Kung, you rarely find fresh parrotfish these days in markets anywhere in the world, and everything else we tried, like cuttlefish, tiger prawns, eel, razor clams, were all also good
3) Afternoon tea: Peninsula Hotel, Kowloon, for a real taste of British-era HK, if not also in London's characteristically high price-range... bloody expensive
4) Congee, pork knuckle, wanton noodles, and other "comfort" foods: I forget the name, but it's a busy little restaurant on the 3rd floor of IFC... delicious pork, beef, and congee
5) Dumplings: Dynasty, 4th floor of Renaissance Hotel, Kowloon, very good dimsum place with all handmade dumplings
6) Vietnamese pho: hawker stall in Ocean City mall, nearish to the Marco Polo hotel. had really good meat-combo pho.
7) Spanish tapas: Yes, HK can even serve great tapas... this one was on the top floor of Kowloon MTR station, open-air, especially good were the ham-wrapped dates with cheese stuffing... reawakened my fetish for dates that Shamoor and his MSA crew introduced to me
8) Mango desserts: Forget the name again, something with "shan" in it; there's a shop on the row facing the Kowloon Star Ferry pier, and they serve mango-everything... if I go again I'll have the fresh mango with coconut "noodle" dessert
9) Cafe with a view: the old-fashioned cafe on the Peak that has apparently been around since when my Dad lived in HK, it's outside the big malls and gallerias now at the Peak and has excellent apple tart
When I'm finished with Singapore I'll have a similar list. So far there is no Cantonese food here though that even comes close to comparing with HK's, but then again I tend to eat cheaper on my own than with Dad, so I have yet to try the nicer establishments.
Well that's about all for my spring recess. I flew out of HK back to SIN, and Dad and Nat left directly for SFO. Now it's the week of midterms, but I've already started myself off on a good note with the first midterm today for Power Electronics... by not taking it. Apparently the professor announced in the last class, which I skipped the week before recess to go traveling :), that the midterm that was supposed to be given today was moved to the following week. So I lucked out, because I really was not prepared at all for this test.
And in celebration of the postponed test, I spent today napping... because procrastination is my middle name as it is for everyone. And then after studying for just a little while I got on here and blogged, because blogging is always fun for one's own reflection.
Later I want to say a few more things about what I've observed about work-ethic and social life in Singapore and Southeast Asia in general (it's not all about the food and adventure). But I think it's time to study some more... so cheers for now, and goodnight!
The resort in Phuket, I'm in the living room of our villa... sweet pad
Our private pool on the top floor... complete with lagoon view and little waterfall
Evening turn-down service, the maid leaves a nice note
Buddhist Temple complex
The elephants! Their squishy trunks with black spots remind me of overripe bananas
Wonder what he's thinking in that huge head of his... Hey bud, just be thankful we aren't a typical pair of obese Americans as big as you are
In Hannibal's army on the march on Rome...
Baby elephants
The mighty water buffalo
The monkey that I wanted to steal to fetch me coconuts for as long as it lives... muhaha
It personally had no taste for coconut, but rather just plain cow's milk...
The fish farm / floating restaurant that we ate at, everything fresh!
Snorkeling
It's like swimming in your food
Very beautiful beach
Ok that's enough of Thailand. Here's a round of HK:
First things first, went to the huge cemetary in Chai Wan to see Dad's grandparents... I like this picture of the cemetary on the hill overlooking the skyscrapers since it shows the intensity of Hong Kong's urban development, both for the living and the dead
R.I.P. great-grandfather Bei (or "Bui" in Cantonese), with his grandson and great-grandson
We tried to look for great grandmother Lee, too, but were unfortunately unsuccessful... there were so many cremation boxes, stories upon stories of them in multiple buildings.
My favorite on this trip to HK, the seaside fish-market/restaurant row in Sai Kung. Never been here before myself, but it was a good thing we checked it out. They had pretty much any kind of seafood you could possibly want, and more... heaven on earth
Feeding time for the big catches... these here are mostly groupers
Moray eels
Stonefish! They are the ones that look like rocks sitting on the bottom there. These are very poisonous if you touch their spines, but I guess they're still edible?? Those things in the bags are mantis shrimp.
Really cool photo that Nat took, with the restaurant's neon sign reflected perfectly in the mouth of this giant parrotfish.
Ours! A smaller parrotfish that was steamed for us... ohhhh so good, its flesh was probably the most tender fish I have ever eaten
NOM NOM NOM! "Ho m'ho sik?... Ho sik ah!!"
The guy to my right is my Dad's childhood friend from back when he was in primary school in HK. He and his wife have a really nice apartment on the Island, overlooking the horse racecourse. They're both dentists... by day... you won't believe what they do at night...
...That evening, we find them on an abondoned floor of some printing supplies warehouse where they've set up a whole studio of instruments and amplifiers, etc. Apparently they get together with other amateur musicians every Saturday and just sing and play all night long... awesome
My Dad's friend is really into drums
Of course, the HK light show. And there's one of our own family jewels there in the center stage...
Just so I don't forget my favorite spots to eat in HK for the next time I visit, I'm making a list now of my own most memorable "Kowloon" ("9 dragons"). Trust me, I will come again and again just to eat my way through town.
1) Roast goose/duck: probably Yung Kee, Wellington St., HK Island, but it's good almost anywhere that has the real plum sauce, not that cheap paste stuff
2) Fresh seafood: Sai Kung, you rarely find fresh parrotfish these days in markets anywhere in the world, and everything else we tried, like cuttlefish, tiger prawns, eel, razor clams, were all also good
3) Afternoon tea: Peninsula Hotel, Kowloon, for a real taste of British-era HK, if not also in London's characteristically high price-range... bloody expensive
4) Congee, pork knuckle, wanton noodles, and other "comfort" foods: I forget the name, but it's a busy little restaurant on the 3rd floor of IFC... delicious pork, beef, and congee
5) Dumplings: Dynasty, 4th floor of Renaissance Hotel, Kowloon, very good dimsum place with all handmade dumplings
6) Vietnamese pho: hawker stall in Ocean City mall, nearish to the Marco Polo hotel. had really good meat-combo pho.
7) Spanish tapas: Yes, HK can even serve great tapas... this one was on the top floor of Kowloon MTR station, open-air, especially good were the ham-wrapped dates with cheese stuffing... reawakened my fetish for dates that Shamoor and his MSA crew introduced to me
8) Mango desserts: Forget the name again, something with "shan" in it; there's a shop on the row facing the Kowloon Star Ferry pier, and they serve mango-everything... if I go again I'll have the fresh mango with coconut "noodle" dessert
9) Cafe with a view: the old-fashioned cafe on the Peak that has apparently been around since when my Dad lived in HK, it's outside the big malls and gallerias now at the Peak and has excellent apple tart
When I'm finished with Singapore I'll have a similar list. So far there is no Cantonese food here though that even comes close to comparing with HK's, but then again I tend to eat cheaper on my own than with Dad, so I have yet to try the nicer establishments.
Well that's about all for my spring recess. I flew out of HK back to SIN, and Dad and Nat left directly for SFO. Now it's the week of midterms, but I've already started myself off on a good note with the first midterm today for Power Electronics... by not taking it. Apparently the professor announced in the last class, which I skipped the week before recess to go traveling :), that the midterm that was supposed to be given today was moved to the following week. So I lucked out, because I really was not prepared at all for this test.
And in celebration of the postponed test, I spent today napping... because procrastination is my middle name as it is for everyone. And then after studying for just a little while I got on here and blogged, because blogging is always fun for one's own reflection.
Later I want to say a few more things about what I've observed about work-ethic and social life in Singapore and Southeast Asia in general (it's not all about the food and adventure). But I think it's time to study some more... so cheers for now, and goodnight!
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