w.w.W.

The first week of the semester has come and gone, and it still feels like the new academic year hasn't got off to a proper start yet. It's probably due to the lack of freshmen in Raffles this year. No freshies means no-one to remind you that you're getting on in years. Oh, that's another thing that still surprises me - I'm a third year already! Which makes me sort of "senior" in the pecking order of hall, I suppose. Half of my university life is done and the reality hasn't sunk in yet.

***

My timetable is finalized and it looks pretty spacious, with a lot of empty spaces that I had reserved for labs or additional modules. As far as I can see, only two of my modules have mandatory lab sessions, which means that I will be attending fewer labs this year. I had initially wanted to take a 2 MC Music module or a GEM but my low General Account balance put an abrupt end to that plan. So I shall wait until next semester when I can hopefully take Intro to Urban Planning. It looks so exciting! I will exhaust all my points though, and still have 3 UEMS to clear after that. Gakk. Maybe I will just overdose on EE modules if I'm too poor.

***

First impression of my modules so far. The first I attended was EE3001, the project module which doesn't have a proper name. I still don't know what it entails, but my team of 8 will be working on a feasibility report for a hypothetical engineering product. We're meeting the supervisor tomorrow evening to pin down our topic. There are no lectures or tutorials, so this is my first all-project module. Sounds intimidating, but we'll pull through somehow.

EE3103, Communications was next. Jon and I were a little late for the first lecture and so we had to squeeze into LT3 which was packed. It seems like quite an interesting module so far; we've covered amplitude modulation so far. I first heard about it from Kavan who took it last year. At the time I wasn't really interested in the module - it sounded pretty dull to me. Well... at the time, I was feeling pretty dismal about choosing EE as my major, so that's not a surprise then. Now Comms is going to be my specialization. Wahoo! Big turnaround.

The lecturer for Part 1, has been teaching this for over 20 years in some form or another, so it's no wonder that he sticks to the old transparency style. His delivery reminds me of Bernard Tan who lectured Science of Music. Enough said there. Mm, perhaps I can add that I attended less than half of those lectures. No serious consequences though.

EE2007, Microprocessor Systems was next. This one looks pretty important and I shall be putting a lot of effort into it because I know nuts about microprocessors and my programming skills leave a lot to be desired. Lots of familiar faces here, as all the EE students in Group B are taking it.

EE3408, Integrated Analog Design was not on my list at first, but it quickly became my best option for 5th module to take after I discovered that EE2007 clashes with a lot of modules. :(( It's a continuation of EE2005 with emphasis on using CMOS transistors to make circuits. There are no practicals, only simulations which we can do on our laptops. (There is a follow-up module where students can design chips and actually have them manufactured - sounds cool but I'm not really interested in that area.) It's a Design module so it satisfies one of the EE elective rules.

Last one is EG2401, Engineering Professionalism and a 3 MC module. It seems quite interesting so far, the material on ethics and real-life engineering situations is a welcome breather from the deluge of technical stuff that I weathered last year. There will also be a group project. Wonder how that will be like.

So there you have it, my 5 modules and 19 MCs this semester.

***

Concert this year is really suffering, as it's traditionally a freshmen-powered event. Music is having its own problems too, which I shall say nothing about, except that I will probably have more work coming my way soon. Aargh how!? I have a mental block for melodies and my recent improvisations were pretty crappy.

***

Joined Electronic Music Lab last week... it's a campus group under CFA so there are CCA points, maybe. But I wasn't thinking about the points when I joined, to be frank. I've been wanting to expand my compositional skills beyond the usual piano-based ramblings, and EML seems to provide that opportunity . It's a composing-focused group, unlike the others like Choir , Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band where performance is their main activity. Went  for a first lesson in Saturday, and hopefully the rest will be of use to me. And hopefully I can contribute to the group in some way too. It's really really small, and quite low-profile too though it's been around since the 1980s.

***

Suppertime now. Uncle Vincent has resumed supper now that Tasty Aunty has closed shop for good. Can't say that her food was uniformly good, but she's a household name in hall and seeing old-timers go is always sad.

Raffles Hall Float won the prize for Least Cost Float at NUS Rag Day 09/10! Congratulations to all the floaters who slaved away day and night to make it happen, and all the other people who came back to help!


It was my second time observing the float from the spectator stalls, the first being in my second year (I was pushing the float itself as a freshie). Our theme - well, I can't explain it properly, not really understanding the story behind it. Something steampunk-ish with uh, an angel and stuff. Arrgh, I think our plot is too difficult for simple old me. The typical float plot involving idyllic villagers, marauding villains and a miraculous rescue by a powerful guardian, followed by a "We're All Happy Happy Friends Now" dance - now, that's something more up my alley.

Raffles Hall has no freshies this semester, so we were operating solely on Senior Power. That meant fewer dancers, and a smaller workforce to paint and glue and cut. We pulled it off anyhow, and that makes me happy! I shouted myself hoarse during the cheering session. Our contingent of people was minuscule compared to the sizable sea of other halls' supporters. But still, we managed quite decently. Hooray, a nice start to the semester!

***

I got my printer-scanner today from IT Co-op. Finally, no more treks to Yusof Ishak House to print tutorial sheets. I spent the larger part of the night getting the printer to print my EE3103 notes. After a disastrous trial with Foxit Reader (some text appeared upside-down - I had to sacrifice 39 pages), I managed to get double-sided printing successfully, with a lot of help from Jon. Whew. No More Foxit Reader for Me.

PS. EE3103 is Communications. It looks Fun! Fun upon Endless Fun!!! Fourier Transform- welcome! Modulation - hey old buddy! Ah ha ha!

*ahem*

Sorry, just a little psyching myself up so that I can face the first lecture tomorrow.

***

The theme for this year's hall experience is "New Beginnings". The hall is undergoing extensive renovation to make it a better place for us to live in. (But not for the master and resident fellows - so sad, their dilapidated rooms are not receiving a facelift!) It has been the top item on everyone's wishlist for ages upon ages, and finally it's happening. In addition to new rooms, we have new toilets (big cheers!), a new covered walkway to the YIH bus stop (yay!) and a fresh Communal Hall (next year). In the meantime there is going to be some inconvenience as we vacate blocks 3 and 5 for the contractor to move in, but it's a small price to pay.

Gant and a few of the other incoming JCRC members shared some of their visions for the coming year with the hall residents. With a crowd comprising seniors entirely, the discussion was quite open and fun-filled compared to the usual forums. I look forward to the proposed squirrel house and RH dog. That generated amazing laughter.


Not the exact words spoken, but something like that.

***

EE3001 briefing today was so boring that I dare not describe it. I have formed a group with Jerold, Abhinav and some of Jerold's friends. This module looks frightening. It's a technology assessment project, in which we have to conduct feasibility studies on product proposals related to Electrical Engineering. It appears quite daunting. Gahhh.

Hmm, it seems that my narration of the Senior's Camp is quite overdue this year. Senior's Camp has been greatly expanded this year since RHOC does not have Orientation to organize due to the lack of freshmen. So they gave us The Amazing Rhace instead.

Initially, I had not intended to join, being inclined instead to fritter away time in the relative peace and quiet of my room. Something, though - I can't recall exactly what it was now - something slapped me awake and I realized how foolish I was, craving seclusion when that was the last thing I needed. Perhaps it was the long 12 weeks of the internship. I've got a nagging feeling that I could have done something much more productive than that this vacation, although I can't imagine exactly what now. Perhaps it was the seclusion of the past year - entirely my own doing, that one. Perhaps some random event or conversation. I don't know. Anyway, when Jon asked if I could go, I replied "Yay!!!" with more exclamation marks than would be considered sane.

Ah, what to say about the RHace. Fun? Yup! It was conducted ala the Amazing Race that we see on television. RHOC arranged a variety of exciting activities all over Singapore, ranging from human hamster balls to Laser Quest to... handicraft under the Esplanade... all right, maybe not so exciting, that... Camping at the East Coast Park was fun - I don't recall camping before - oh, we did lots of walking too. Cabbing also. We cabbed all over the place, mainly when public transport was tortuously slow. Especially bus 2 to Changi Village. We could have rode into the next century on that bus.

I was quite amazed at the effort and expense spared for the activities. Some of the events like the hamster ball and water skiing were really expensive. And nine RHOC-ers rushing around Singapore to coordinate must have been really hectic. All the same, we had to pay our share of transport and food, and the expected reimbursement did not amount to much in the end - only $12, out of $30 spent per person. But I guess it was worth it for the experience and company.



Company: Me, Jia Voon, Gail, Jon. Someone took this during the bumboat ride to Pulau Ubin, i.e. Granite Island.

I was going to write a full and detailed description of the whole thing but as Gail has already done a wonderful job (and I daresay my narration would be quite similar to hers) I changed my mind.

***

One of our tasks was to walk to Bedok from East Coast Park and eat the bak chor mee there. The food centre was in Bedok North, which was still abuzz with people when we reached it at midnight, hungry and tired from a long day. Jia Voon, Jon and I thought the noodles were really good and we decided to return before our holiday was at an end.

Which we did last Thursday. Gideon followed us. Upon arrival Gideon commented that it was the same place that he brought his orientation group when he himself was in RHOC, in my first year. Immediately, I realized that I was in Gideon's group during orientation and I had been to that very same food centre when I was a freshie, after busy hours flagging at the town centre! Imagine how quickly such memories fade from my mind. I was completely lost then, clinging on to a senior in the midst of an unfamiliar world. A small wave of nostalgia washed over me, on top of the smell of the noodles and chicken wings that comprised our dinner.

- Oh no, I'm hungry. This is why I avoid blogging about food.

***

I watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Gail and Jon yesterday on his computer. Or should I say, Willy Wonka and his Chocolate Factory, because it wasn't the recent movie with Johnny Depp in it. This was actually the 1971 version, which I didn't know existed. It was pretty charming. and full of chocolate (of course). Later all of us went to Cheers to get chocolate. This was mainly for their benefit and not mine, as I don't enjoy chocolate that much. Maybe I haven't found the right kind of chocolate yet.

- It was a musical, with songs that I felt did not fit into the story well. Really random songs, which broke up the flow of the movie. I would have much preferred it without all the songs, I was thinking, until Gene Wilder (who played Willy Wonka) started singing Pure Imagination. I suddenly realized that I had heard this song before! Audra McDonald sang it beautifully in one of her concerts (I discovered her while searching for Sondheim's songs on Youtube, as I often do) and she said it came from Willy Wonka. So I did know the movie after all.

I will attempt to play it on the piano in the comm hall. No more teatime, so the piano lounge will hopefully be less noisy.

*Insert nice warm feeling here*

Just a short post before I pop off to bed.

My internship has unofficially ended, since I'm taking leave tomorrow (or later this morning, rather) for the Amazing RHace. My supervisor and two other people from my section treated me to a nice lunch at Swensen's today... it's a tradition for the staff to treat internees before they leave. Very touching.  - Said goodbye to all the people who helped me throughout the 12 weeks I was in LTA... and would have felt emotional on the journey back to hall if I hadn't  felt drowsy the whole way.

It's still pretty hard to think that two and a half months have passed, just like that. I didn't do very much in LTA but I'm grateful for all the people who have taken time and effort to make sure I learnt something... which is pretty amazing really, seeing that I was just dry deadwood in there. To be rather frank I didn't get to do very much, apart from seeing testing works at MRT stations and trying to be very interested in cabling. But still, I think I would choose LTA if I could do it all over again. Public transport is so so so fun! :D

So that's an ending. Another one is the Raffles School of Leadership Development, a camp which just concluded today... all the participants are fired up about the future of the hall, and my little part in the whole scheme of things suddenly seems a lot clearer now. Thanks a million to Eng Hai, the alumni who conducted the sessions for us. He's a great guy whom I first met through Pei Yiing when we were working on the 50th Anniversary Commemoration Book, and I really must take my hat off to him. Although I never wear hats, but you know what I mean. So it's an ending that marks a beginning.

Concert is slowly heating up... I just got wind of my part in the upcoming concert and suffice to say it will probably KILL me. I was just supposed to crank out some little song and suddenly BIG WHAMMY! But it sounded SO VERY FUN that I couldn't pass it up,,, well all right, this hinting of things left and right is kind of irritating, I know, but nothing is set in stone yet so we'll see.

Module bidding has started and I've got my EE modules... now time to handle my GEM and UEM. I realized that my carefully worked-out plan was quite impossible to carry out after being shocked by the measly balance in my General Account... but a backup plan has been made in the form of EE3408 (Integrated Analog Design), a topic which I ABSOLUTELY ADORE but from online research the project is going to be tough. Never mind, will handle that during Round 2A next week.

Amazing RHace tomorrow! Jonathan (who by now deserves to be simply Jon), Gail, Jia Voon and I will traipsing around Singapore doing silly things. Will blog about it, if I'm still conscious afterward.

-What the heck! This was supposed to be short. Sigh. Good night world!

I had just returned from dinner when Lee Hoong asked if I was free. Apparently, the Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge University was to perform in half an hour. I was quite happy to go, as my last attempt at attending a life performance ended in a huge thunderstorm and running for cover (so much for the Night Festival at Bras Basah) and the resulting mild pangs of dissatisfaction were still making an occasional appearance. So off to the UCC for an hour of choral music.

I still find it hard to believe that RH is so near to the UCC. It makes me wonder why I don't go there more often, given the wide array of interesting events put on throughout the year. I shall resolve to attend more events there. And no more piano events. Sigh, I feel sick of piano events. Must be an overdose of piano.

The repertoire, I was delighted to discover, included the oratorio A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett. I can still recall the day I found out about this English composer: in a specimen paper for my music theory exams in one of my grades. I remember playing the comprehension passage out on the piano and thinking to myself, "Hey this isn't bad! I must look out for this composer." Then I forgot about him for about six years.

They sang the same negro spiritual tonight, Steal Away. I still remember the entrance. It brought a warm feeling. Not nostalgic. New yet comforting.

The other spirituals from the oratorio were quite fun to listen to compared to the works by Holst and Byrd that came before that. I ust admit that I didn't care much for those pieces. I can't remember a single one now, sitting at my laptop merely hours after the show. Byrd was more traditional and Elizabethan (well, I didn't know what Elizabethan-era music sounded like, so now I know) and closer to my imaginings of medieval music, while Holst was... not what I'm used to for Holst. I think I'm too accustomed to hearing his Planets suite. I know he was also heavily involved in English traditional music but... Planets is so mega-famous that it left a stubborn imprint on my mind. Time to undo!

So, all in all, a fun night? Yes, fun. Quite different from my night work at Orchard MRT last night, in which I sat around the station at 3am listening to people arguing and being confused about series and parallel wiring until 5am, at which point my supervisor let me go back. But that was fun in its own way...

Staring at my Signals textbook for the past hour has been eminently unproductive. Typically half a page manages to sink in before I am suddenly confused by the algebra and go read news websites. Which of course, leads to more unproductivity... sigh... and now I am blogging...

*

Anyway, the Signals E-test on Thursday turned out all right. It was on the first half of the module, but fortunately no questions on modulation appeared. I guess it was just my luck, as the questions are randomized for everybody. Got a weird mouse that made it very difficult to click on the multiple-choice answers. Oh well, that's over now. We get a second try next month and the higher score counts, so must try harder! Yeah! Um.

On Thursday we are having our VHDL test, and for those who don't know what this funny thing called VHDL is, it's a programming language used in designing digital circuits. It was an amazing relief to find that the language templates can be accessed during the test, because I don't want to memorize all the funny syntax failing which we get a nice friendly BAD SYNCHRONOUS DESCRIPTION error or something as jolly. I have a small phobia of VHDL already because I flunked the question for that on our mid-term test. Didn't study properly.

Now I come to think of it, I had a bad feeling for the whole of Digital Design which started from the nightmarish lab where we were supposed to design our Guess The Number circuit... due to general panic my brain stopped working. Jon managed to finish his design :( So stressful. Then again, he is working on a different assignment from me and Swee Yee. I only got the design late one night after browsing through an interesting book on the hidden spaces of the New York underground... esoteric bedtime reading.

We are actually encouraged to use VHDL to test our Guess The Number circuit beforehand, but I have faith in my design. :P This means that when I finish wiring I will be either very happy or very depressed. I suspect the latter.

*

I realize I don't enjoy lab sessions.  I always freeze up and do not know what to do next. Like in the last Signals lab, I was struggling to finish, so the lab officer came and told me what to do. (This is quite strange. Usually the lab officers just stand by the side and do paper work. Ms. Ho was very helpful.) I guess the stomach upset halfway through the lab didn't help either. Reminder to self: no more Indian food before labs.

*

All right that sounds depressing enough. On the bright side I got good marks for the Systems and 2012 tests! Very happy. *pats self on back* Wonder if the others did OK.

*

EE2012, which is "Analytical Methods in Electrical and Computer Engineering" - hence everybody calls it 2012 - is one heck of a funny module. Our lecturers, and the module itself. Our first lecturer, Hari K. Garg is very jovial and enthusiastic during lectures. I notice he likes to use the word "folks" frequently - example of usage:


The first half of the module is basically A-level statistics from Further Maths, so most of the material was just revision. And that's a good thing because if I was completely fresh in this area it would be too tough to take everything in.  He goes very fast. The tutorials are even less helpful because our tutor spends about 35 minutes re-teaching the material and then crams the questions into the last ten. (But she is very nice and approachable.) In the end it's more helpful reviewing everything on my own, seeing that all the detailed solutions are given anyway.

The second part is taught by Ben Chen (oo he's from China, I used to think he was a local) who is very straightforward. How so? He spent the introductory lecture explaining that this module contained all the leftover bits that don't really fit in elsewhere but need to be included to satisfy accreditation requirements... followed by some remarks about the ECE department which he delivered in a somewhat resigned tone. Nice start. Interesting to know these things. His part is on complex analysis which I think will be quite a nice change, like going back to MA1505 days. Nice quote:

Haha I've been keeping myself off for quite a while now. I guess I haven't felt like updating my blog because (a) nothing interesting seems to happen, or (b) the interesting things cause me to be very busy. In fact, I shouldn't be blogging now because (b) still applies and has been ever since I got sick on Friday and missed two lectures.

I wonder why this week is so packed compared to the last. There are going to be dry runs for Phoenix Fest from tuesday to thursday, and friday is PERFORMANCE DAY *gasps* I think our group isn't ready to go up on stage yet. And I have a bad feeling that after teaching everyone to sing their own parts, I don't really know mine that well. And I am the only one singing the bass line. Everyone is worried. What a wonderful world indeed. Helps. :P

Singapore Studies project submission is on Friday, and it is half-complete. Probably will be working on it till I fall asleep tonight. I just saw one guy's written report in the workbin on Sunday, and it is OMIGOSH. After that I started panicking and found that it was more difficult than I thought. Luckily I found a wonderful book in the library detailing the history of the Malay kampungs of early Bedok which has been an absolute life-saver. Still, it's a bit sad that I haven't found more source material. My fault for choosing that painting of Bedok to work on, I suppose. Sometimes I wonder why I want to make things difficult for myself. SSD2213 is one of the more difficult SS modules.

That being said, it is probably my favourite non-core module by far. Much better than Financial Accounting (urgh) and Science of Music (zzz). The lecturer is very entertaining yet informative, and I love the subject matter. (It's about the urban history and architecture of Singapore.) I'm happy I got it. Hee hee. Now on with the business of not failing it.

The Phoenix 50th book articles are piling up like nobody's business. Luckily I already finished writing my own article and have only a few articles left to edit - I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get it out in time. It has significantly less smoke than I expected. Which is a good thing. :) Now the layouters are going to be suffering. I hope Tirza is OK. She is under significant duress.

As for my core modules, hahaha. (Desperate laugh) Signals and Digital Design are not going so well, although not to the extent of Semiconductor Devices last semester. Anything is better than Semiconductors last semester. Currently I am still scraping through tutorials pretty well (mostly by doing the questions while the tutor is answering queries from some irritating people who want to know everything and, by the sound of it, didn't attend lectures.) Well, the recess week is coming up so there should be time to study. HAHA I'm only kidding myself. I never get anything useful done during the recess week. :P

The happiest thing today was finding out that the lab for EE2006 did not need a report, and that we could leave any time we liked. So happy. Used the extra time to go to the hardware shop next to Fong Seng to get a paint quotation for the rain blocker project. Jon came too and discussed how our field of study has contributed immensely to the English language.

Enough rambling. Back to work now.

I changed my blog template! And this time, I successfully adjusted the nitty-gritty layout stuff using CSS code, which used to be a pain and is now merely an ache.

The Raffles Hall choir went to Causeway Point for carolling today (next to Woodlands MRT). This is not the first session, actually; it was our fourth. But I let the others slip by on this blog due to lack of time. I thought that I would have more time to blog, looking at the empty spaces on the schedule. But it's amazing how my time fills up with random debris if I'm not careful.

Anyway, about carolling today. Those staying in hall took our lovely cute bright yellow bus to Woodlands, where we met up with the remainder of the group. Jiun Jeh (JJ) and Kavan came today! The more, the merrier.

It also means more basses. Go basses! Blast everyone else out of audible range!  - Sorry, just indulging in some section-to-section rivalry. Please ignore.

The tech setup today was less than optimal, to say the least. The mall only provided three microphones, which was one less than we were used to. As a result, the mike placement was compromised and so was our sound balance between different sections. And worst of all, some idiots threw coins at us from the upper storeys and hit us on the head while we were carolling! Argh ouch. Gant complained to the management and there were no more problems after that.

Crazy day tomorrow: 12.00 at Heartland Mall@Kovan, 3.40 White Sands @ Pasir Ris and  6.30 Causeway Point. It is going to be a long tiring day.

Some pics from our Heartland Mall session!





Shu Shan, our lovely conductor!



*

Can't wait to go back home on Monday. =)

Still sleepy and now, sticky too. Must take a bath.

( Long Entry! Read if you have time to spare. )

Feeling sleepy, so will let the pictures do most of the talking. Shan Qi, Weng Yi, Abel and (oops, I do not know your name! Oh no!) went to the Botanical Gardens on Wednesday because Weng Yi was going back the following day. Shan Qi and I took the shuttle bus to the Bukit TImah Campus and spent the morning wandering around.

( Lots of pictures! )

On Sunday I made an impromptu decision to go sightseeing in the city! Which was somewhat delayed due to rain in the morning. Distressingly enough (especially for my laundry), strong sun has been quite elusive these few days, and is intermittent at best. Hence the rather dull photos that follow.

( Lots of pictures! )

Wahoo, exams are over for me! Yay! So the title is quite misleading - since my exams only lasted for a week -  but I couldn't think of anything else that fits into the naming convention of my entries. Better think of something good, I have two and a half years here to go. Suggestions anyone?

( Aaand click for the exam details! )

Just a short one today, because although I have woken up early today ("early" being a relative word), there really is quite a lot to do. Hmm. This is probably due to bad planning. I drafted my study timetable last Tuesday while thinking that it was Monday. That probably explains why my EE2005 is suffering from insufficient time allocation now. Yup, I'm still in denial mode when it comes to the day of the week. Sadly.

*

Exams!

Tuesday: ACC1002X Financial Accounting, 1pm
Wednesday: EE2011, Engineering Electromagnetics, 9am
Thursday: EE2004, Electronic Devices, 9am
Friday: EE2005, Electronics, 9am
Saturday: Yay!

*

Whyy must EE2011 be held at PGP? Arrgh. It is so so far. But considering that those people in PGP have been waking up early and jamming onto the bus since last year, I suppose I must be thankful for staying in Raffles. Hooray! Raffles is so convenient. There was one exam last semester where I forgot my calculator and managed to rush back to my room to get it. I don't think  this is possible anywhere else! Okay, maybe in Kuok Foundation. Or Ridge View.

Oh wait, I remember I didn't do very well for that exam. Urm.

*

I was thinking of putting my MIDI for Science of Music up, but I really need to work on past papers before Accounting in the afternoon. Another time.

The weather is wonderful today! It was wet yesterday and this morning too. Now a cool, gentle wind is blowing. It is so serene and peaceful looking out at the garden path outside my window. In about an hour there are going to be lots of people going for tea so it'll get fairly busy, but for now it's tranquil. Can hear insects chirping and buzzing away. Very jungle-like.

Aargh, a fly just flew in front of the screen. Tried to smash it but missed. More on this below.

I managed to use my new umbrella for the first time today! (I lost the old one in LT6 last month.) That probably contributed to the all-round good feeling today. An umbrella can turn a horrible rainy day into a wonderful rainy day.

*

Various photos taken during my stay at PGP.


My desk. A bit dark but nice.



It's a double room.



With kitchenette. Everything works.



The view from the window. You can see a bit of KEVII hall from here, and to the right is the internal shuttle bus terminal.

*

I moved back yesterday and horror of horrors, there was a packet of food from two weeks ago gathering pests. After throwing it away, I rummaged through the rest of the room, uncovering more little swarms of flies while doing so. Most of them are gone now, but the occasional one still makes its presence felt.

They are hard to catch. Irritating little fellas.

My scheduled cleaning-up of the room has been postponed slightly because of the damp weather, but more because I am feeling lazy to mop. And after coming back from EE2005 tutorial I suddenly feel like doing questions. Which I shall do as soon as I finish this.

Missed another fly. Though it might be the same one. They are quite indistinguishable.

Thought I saw a cockroach yesterday. But it was probably a trick of the imagination. I am trying to convince myself that this is the case.

*

It's good to see everyone again. Met random people in the corridors who said hi. But not many though; I don't think many people know me. I'm not very high-profile, and was a bit of a phantom even before getting packed off to PGP anyway.

There was choir practice yesterday, and we did "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", "White Christmas" and "Feliz Navidad". Wonderful wonderful songs. It was the last scheduled practice before exams, so Gant made it short and sweet. Looking forward to carolling in December!

On a related but cryptic note, we have got a peek at the carrot! It is smaller than expected, but still better than nothing. Of course, we have to be around to harvest it because it won't pop out by itself. Thanks Gant!

*

Got a note slid under the door yesterday from the Varsity Christian Fellowship. Caleb wrote it out for me. It's a tradition that they write encouraging notes for hall residents around exam time.

It's so simple yet sweet. I shall put it on my pinboard.

*

I finally submitted my composition assignment for Science of Music! It's a MIDI format piece, not more that 60 seconds long. In my case, it ended up at 63 seconds or something like that, so I had to increase the tempo in order to make it fit. It sounds faster than is comfortable, but one gets used to it I think.

It's a real puzzle how the lecturer marks something like this. I mean, trying to grade 200 pieces of music on a scale of 1 to 20... is quite an impossible feat, I think. But he does it every year - twice a year, it is offered in both semesters - so he must have some system. And how on earth does he prevent plagiarism? There's nothing to stop people from cannibalizing bits and pieces of MIDI files which are so freely available on the net. Hmmm. If only there was some software like Turnitin that checks MIDIs instead of text. Haha, idea...

I used my old friend Sibelius to compose the piece. (I'm using version 5.)



The opening of the piece.

Sibelius does export to MIDI so it was perfect for the job... or so I thought. Imagine the shock when I discovered that it was playing back phantom notes in the piano part! This was entirely unexpected. The offending notes were a D-D' octave which popped up at random parts during playback, depending on where I started the playback from. Aargh!

In the end I had to shunt the file from Sibelius to Reaper to Anvil Studio, all programs with MIDI editing capabilities but each with their own drawbacks. Reaper, for example, can do fine adjustments to each note easily but strips tempo information. Anvil Studio is hard to use. (For me,at least.)

By the way, Reaper is very interesting. I used it for exactly 2 songs in Rendezvous, Renee's filler (which sadly, during the show, was cut after 45 seconds, leaving the remaining 1 1/4 minutes lost)  and Ee Hiang and Lucian's emo love duet (Gabrielle and Aidan's duet). That song sure took up lots of time to edit, oh my goodness! But it was worth it! Thanks for composing such an awesome song, guys!

Ah, back to Reaper. This is my MIDI piece.



The whole piece squeezed into 1200 by 800 pixels

I don't normally work at this zoom level; I zoomed out so that the whole thing would fit on the screen. Each horizontal division represents one bar and each vertical division represents one semitone - well, you can see that from the piano diagram at the side. The different colours are for different instruments. Grey for piano, blue for guitar, green and red for strings, cyan for flute. The skyscraper-like bars are for the velocity of the notes, i.e. how loud they sound.

It looks like an abstract art piece! Yay, my MIDI is art in more than one medium. ^_^

*

And I have discovered a very useful site for NUS students interested in classical music! It's the Naxos music library, completely free for NUS students. Just log in via the library portal, right here. Wonderful. There's an amazing amount of music to explore. There used to be an annoying pop-up that asked you if you wanted to continue after a period of inactivity, but I haven't noticed it recently so maybe they removed it.

Now time to do EE2005, Homework Assignment 10. Amplifier circuits. Hooray.

It's been a fairly uneventful two weeks. That's because I've been stuck in a room in PGP the whole time. It's on the ground floor of block 13, which is one of the graduate residence blocks.

I miss Raffles Hall very much. ;(

Not that it's uncomfortable here or anything; the room is actually quite pleasant. For one, there's an air conditioner! A small standing one, but it still can freeze the room in the early mornings. The fridge is very useful too (must remember to eat the fruits aunty got for me). And the microwave oven as well. Toaster is good, I used it twice to heat up muffins. I use the extra bed to put miscellaneous things like my bag and the daily newspapers. Of course, I'm contagious (maybe less so right now) so people get food for me and hang it on the door handle. The attached bathroom has a wonderful shower which, though not very positionable, is much hotter than the one in-

Wait! Why the heck do I want to go back to my own room!? Aargh, it is so much more comfortable here.

But I miss my friends. Sigh, no visitors are allowed here. Jonathan really wanted to come over but, well. Rules, rules.

Still, it has been very beneficial I think. I'm not going to get chickenpox again! And it has been good to get away from hectic hall obligations. It's refreshingly liberating to miss meetings and have an extremely valid excuse for not going. To think that three days before being diagnosed I was cracking heads over Phoenix article structures, practicing songs for NTU Hall 11 and throwing together decorations for Halloween. More or less concurrently.

And missing classes has, well, been refreshing too. Honestly the last few weeks of lectures were steadily declining in usefulness for me. It's good to sit down and spend the whole day reading. I'm glad I have some soft copies of my textbooks. Knew they would come in useful.

*

If all goes well I can go back on Wednesday! Ugh, I have a truly mountainous heap of clothes to wash.

"Aunty Nancy" has been buying food for me every day. She's very thoughtful and kind. 2 evenings ago she got me a bucket, detergent and hangers to do a bit of washing. And that was exactly what I needed at the time! Yay.

I have been surviving on PGP food which makes a nice change from Hall food. Argh Argh Argh Argh Argh Hall food! It's getting more and more horrible by the week. I can't imagine facing it again. I wonder why it tasted so nice last year; I'm very sure all the dishes are the same, and the cooks have not changed. Oh darn. I can just taste the durian-flavoured tea already.

*

My group's accounting project is nearly done! Sunshine is going to print it and our 25% is in the bag. I do hope we get good marks, we spent an awful amount of time on it. Well, I know I did. Having one group member who is stuck in a room 24 hours a day with nothing to do but work is good for any project.

Apparently the final exam is going to be tough, or so I heard. Mmm, must not slack. Although a lot of it was already covered at SPM level (more than I expected, in fact!) it will nevertheless be a challenge.

*rubs hands in anticipation*

*also, it is cold*

*

I missed the quiz for electromagnetics today (EE2011). Luckily my little piece of paper signed by Dr Patrick will solve all problems. I must treat this MC nicely, it has saved me lots of trouble. Sort of like an magical pass, "Skip Tests and Tutorials for Free! Valid As Long As You Are Spotty."

I will not scribble on the MC like I do for all my other scraps of paper. The sheet of paper in front of me is covered with a combination of mind map, EE2011 equations, accounting journal entries and diagrams of highway interchanges. Must save paper, you know.

Ooo, there are three square inches in the corner I can use for band diagrams. Yippee.

No, wait. I shall use it for a trumpet interchange. Yes. All maps need one.

*

It is getting quite late. Time to scout the kitchenette for unwanted visitors before boiling water for tomorrow.

As I sit here the fire drill is going off like crazy. However I'm exempted from it because I've got chicken pox! I just found out yesterday and now one week of staring at four walls awaits. Yay fun!

I suppose I'd better use this time to catch up on the last few weeks' lectures, which got more and more mystifying by the day. Erk. Better late then never, I suppose.

Oh, the alarms have stopped ringing. Hm, I suppose everyone is gathered at the car park by now.

Yup, pretty unproductive week all around. Monday and Tuesday were spent in choir practice as well as decorating the comm hall for Halloween... although I feel the latter was wasted due to the humongous promotional posters that the Holiday Committees stuck everywhere. They are much more striking that our pathetic little spiders with insufficient legs. And they even built a tropical-themed hut out of wood and palm fronds in the middle of the comm hall! They really are going all out to attract people this year.

But I think the white board with spider webs and the word "Halloween 08" is quite nice. I designed the lettering :) It's a bit too clean and not bloody enough. Argh, I forgot we were supposed to take a picture of the whole thing once it was finished! I shall leave that to Thierry.

Back to work now. Next tablet at 7.00 pm.

For those who have been puzzled over my absence over the last 3 weeks, I'm back with a simple explanation... Concert Crunch! Yes, that time when lectures, tutorials, sleep and overall well-being are set aside for the sake of Concert. Was it worth it? Maybe.

Now that Rendezvous is over, I can look back on my efforts more calmly. Clearly there were some things that I did right, and others that I did... wrong? I don't know if I can call them wrong because I still haven't learned to do them right yet. But they certainly were unpleasant when they cropped up.

I was feeling slightly depressed for the past few days hearing all the feedback about the music. Well, there really was not much feedback. Every single non-concert senior I talked to felt that last year's music was better than this year's. That was quite a blow because I had made it one of my objectives, at the very beginning, to improve on the quality of the music. On hindsight, it was probably a disaster in the making, to be so grandiose in my ambitions while remaining blissfully unaware of my limitations and of the music department as a whole.

This depressing rambling is getting nowhere, I admit. Let me talk about the songs!

Through a series of unfortunate (but probably avoidable, had my ears been open at the beginning) events, I was saddled with three songs: the Introduction song, the Jealousy song and the Ballroom song. (I still think of them by their functional names.) Alex took the Deception song (which turned out marvellously impressive on stage), Sheri, Hwee Shan and Jinq Horng composed the Humorous Music, Alicia and Weng Yi did the Love Song (2), aka Elizabeth and Wulfric's duet, Samantha and Shan Qi composed the Determination Song, or Phineas's song, and the Murder Music by Bi Xiu and Kyna. (Actually there are 26 separate pieces of music including fillers, but these are the major ones.)

Of all of them, I like the Ballroom song the most. It's probably because I spent the most time thinking about it - as soon as I received the script during the holidays. That was my "Nightmare Before Christmas" phase, and it shows very clearly. I still remember the very first line I thought of - "We could dance away the hours", the melody of which eventually became the foundation for the chorus. Lyric-writing proved a real pain because I really had no idea how to go about it. Note for next year, if ever: Rhyme less.

Um, I just realized I have to continue talking about concert the next time, or my Accounting homework is doomed.

*

Madhu and Sabarish came to discuss the decoration of the comm hall for Halloween just now. OMG! The pressure is enormous. I have no idea what to do to impress the hall residents. By the way, this year's Arts and Graphics committee is quite different from last year's because we are expected to come up with our own designs for events instead of just providing manual labour. Argh! And we have to present our work to Thierry tomorrow and I suspect he will be distinctly unimpressed. I mean, they already did gravestones, spiderwebs and hanging bats last year. I don't want the same old, same old. People Will Comment.

And I don't really feel like I'm good enough for  this department. I can't even use Photoshop properly yet. Plus I already missed one design assignment (for the 50h anniversary jacket) and am starting to fret about my attendance. If it drops below 80% I can say bye-bye to this committee. And to Choir as well, since Choir is my overloaded activity. I will lose all my base points for Choir if I don't keep on top of the deadlines for A&G. Why arrgh!?

*breathe deeply*

Okay, slightly better. I've got tomorrow afternoon to improve on the ideas. If I don't fall asleep, that is. I have a tendency to fall asleep after teatime these days. It must be the higher-quality - and therefore more filling - dishes that we get these days. Darn you, prata!

*

I am so very very glad that I'll finally be able to see Jen Sern and Jia Loon for choir practice tomorrow! They've got lots to catch up on due to their involvement in Cast. Good job, guys! I really enjoyed your performance that night. But now it's on to pressing business. At last, The Bass section will be complete!

On the downside, Chevy and Raffli are acting in an NUS Stage production tonight, which I won't be able to go for! Argh! The poster looks most intriguing (the two elephants, scattered all over campus). And worse, Daphne, Xianling, Weibin and Shu Shan are going too! So basically we have no section leaders, save me. Gant has been having a headache finding replacements.

Oh, and I have to conduct the warm-ups too. No idea how to do it though.

Rainbow Connection and Tea for Two are hair-raisingly hard to teach the guys. Must work more on them.

*

The essay for Science of Music is coming up! Naturally I'll be writing about Rendezvous. 200-800 words is surprisingly short for an essay comprising 30% of the module marks.

After that will be the composition assignment, which is not going to be a problem. Hee hee. I'm looking forward to coming up with something more pop in style. 

I don't think I learned very much from this module. Apart from the physical basis behind the musical scales - which is uninteresting to me at least - most of the things are stuff that I already know. Like musical notation. The first few lectures were so elementary that I drifted off to my private mental playground. As though 8 years was not enough already... Maybe the next part on electronic music will be interesting. Hopefully.

I'm waiting for next sem so the the Geography module I want becomes available. Perpetual anticipation...

*

Went to interview a hall alumnus for the 50th Anniversary commemorative book, last last week. It was fun! Jonathan was there too, asking questions and taking excellent photographs. Mr Jeffrey Chan was great to interview - we just prompted him a bit and he went on for ten minutes at a time. Then all I had to do was nod and "ah", "I see" my way through.

We came back to hall slightly later than expected because Jonathan had to go to the Nikon service centre in Anson Road (nearest MRT: Tanjong Pagar) to replace a faulty flash. Then we went again to collect his bunch of keys that he left behind accidentally. By the time we got back we were starving. I had Indonesian Panggang. So did he. It was hard to decide what to eat, because he didn't know what to order. This is, contrary to appearances, not an error. Ask to find out.

After that I went for the Science of Music quiz. It was open-book, but I don't print my lecture notes so I had to depend on the notes of the person sitting in front. But that was only for one question, I promise! Just a little peep to find out the frequency ratio of a Just Third interval. (It's 5/4.)

*

I hear thunder in the distance.

Yay.

Yayyyy! It's so nice to sleep when it's raining outside. So cozy and safe and secure.

WAHOOO!

oh.

I just remember I lost my umbrella in LT6 two weeks ago.

...

I hear thunder in the distance.

Sobs.

A recent flurry of events has left me with little time to update this blog. Well, I still have little time to update this blog - I really should be doing my EE2005 lab report right now - but the appeal of taking time off to write has temporarily overcome the anxiety of work.

*

Concert is rolling along as best as it can. My music members are great people! What they lack in experience, they make up for with determination (haha, that's one of the song subjects) and persistence. Although none of them have managed to complete a song to satisfaction yet, some groups are closing in; we'll soon hear the first of our products from the year ones! Can't wait for it. After all, that's what concert is about, partly: to give year ones the chance to show what they can do.

On a related note, Alex had finished his two songs some time back and is now dealing with CCC (Concert Central Committee) stuff as well as advising the year ones. He did the theme song for Concert , which hopefully will be used for many concerts to come, and also the Deception Song sung by Miranda Peacock during the opening of Act 2. I really like both the songs - the theme song for its honesty and simplicity, and the Deception for sheer effect. You've got to hear it to understand. Come for Concert!!!! The music will be great! The cast too! And basically everything else that you can think of!

(Okay, a bit of blatant and unsubtle promotion there. But still. Come For Concert! 17h and 18th of October at the University Cultural Centre!)

On my side, the Introduction song is finally out and the cast members will be learning it tomorrow after I brief Brian about the choral aspects. However Weiting insists that Gabrielle Scarlett's section is too difficult to choreograph, and besides is out of character for the glamorous, spotlight-loving Scarlett. Fair comment. The offending section will need to be replaced, and soon. Otherwise I will die doing my Ballroom Song which is coming up next. (Luckily I started on that one back home during the holidays, so there is at least some foundation to work with.)

*

<rant>
I don't get why the EE2011 lab requires us to use software that is eminently unsuited to the tasks we have to carry out. For one thing, it's shareware which expires after 10 days. Still okay. But. There is no provision for setting points to ground voltage - or any other voltage for that matter -  and the rendering is quite unprofessional. And then we were supposed to map the electric flux lines in an L-shaped conductor but we are only allowed to create, at most, a simple straight-line interface cutting from one side of the screen to the other. I can't figure out how the lab TA managed to do it during the demonstration. If he managed to do it at all, that is. Yucks and double yucks. Hate the software passionately.
</rant>

Today - or was it yesterday. Yup, yesterday - our lecturer for EE2011 taught us a Dutch proverb. (Guess where he's from!) It goes

"mosterd na de maaltijd"

or "Mustard after the meal (is over)". Basically it means making amends or trying to correct something when it's too late. He was talking about the lab software above. He apologized for the oversight and promised that the proper software would be installed the day after.

He's a really nice guy actually. Very friendly. Like the way he talks to people who wander into the lecture theatre accidentally until they get weirded out and leave. He's the more interactive sort of lecturer. Which is a good thing, except maybe that he spends too much time on the simple stuff. Like how to integrate constant functions - fifteen minutes devoted to that, I remember - and a lengthy demonstration, involving volunteers, on how electrons should behave. That one was funny. And don't sit in the last 6 rows or you will be eligible for harder questions.

*

Arghh, got choir and Phoenix meeting at the same time later. I hope this does not happen too often.

I decided to overload one activity this year - which turned out to be Choir instead of Arts and Graphics as originally planned. It's getting off to a rather challenging start.

Raffles Hall is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year! Naturally this calls for a 50th anniversary commemorative yearbook - Phoenix. Which I am involved in, being the writing head. Arrgh, we are short of members this year. I desperately hope to get good members. I'll be seeing them tonight. Aha Thuy is one of them! But she is in the layout section. Mm, Pei Yiing and Jia Voon are also good to work with; they are my bosses this year in Phoenix. Tirza is the layout head. Qiqi and Joe are also in, but in the normal yearbook department. Wei Jie is a Year One and will be liaising with the alumni - an intimidating task from the sounds of it. And Jern Tat is scanning photos. Er, well his job scope is actually more comprehensive that that, he's the printing liaison. But it was pretty funny when that arose in our meeting on Sunday.

Mountains of work awaiting me. Oooh boy. Must get cracking.

*

Time to go before I miss my dinner, as has unfortunately happened in the past. But before that!

I got an e-mail on rat urine and drink cans (yeah, that one again). Let me recommend a useful site: Snopes.com! Definitely an institution in its own right (like Wikipedia is), it contains lots and lots of useful information on what's a hoax and what's not. Recommended reading whenever you stumble across some email making its rounds proclaiming sensational news.

But as a humorous reminder on relying too much on any single source for information, see this comic from XKCD, a very well-known webcomic. Lots of funny stuff there.

Gotta go eat dinner now.

*

Yay, finished with Phoenix meeting and choir practice. Now I have free time to continue my lab report which is due in the following 24 hours. But first!

Choir practice was all right. I came about 1 3/4 hours late, and at that point some of the members had to leave for cast practice in the dance studio. Which was a pity since I was looking forward to working with them. Oh yes. Gant somehow convinced me into being the bass section leader so I have to teach the bass part for the songs. Choir this year is much bigger, so some division of labour is necessary.

Oh Come, All Ye Faithful and Silent Night went bumpily. As expected for the first practice, voices were still raw and all over the place. I met the new bass members! Moses is new in Choir, plus Liuqi and Yan Jun too. Raffli is now in the bass section instead of tenor like last year. Kavan and Gant are the usual fixtures. It's going to be the usual choir struggle from now on. Hee hee. I like. :)

Brian came over to discuss the intro song just now. Heard lots of interesting news about cast. I must go down to see them one of these days.

Now lab report.

Short post today. Got to finish my tutorial questions...

Chevy's birthday!



Chevy and the girls.



Chevy and the guys.




Chevy and the support crew. (i.e. those not in the other two pictures)

It was pretty funny. Weibin and Shu Shan (I think) went to Chevy's room to tell her that there was a choir meeting at Gant's room. This was about 12am, pretty suspicious time for meetings. Then she came in her pyjamas looking a bit bewildered. The rest of us were busily pretending that there was an actual meeting going on and covering up the cake in the centre of the room. Of course eventually the act broke up and we all sang the usual song. It was so fun!

Chevy got a gigantic colourful birthday card with lots of messages on it! I'm always amazed at the length and effort that went into some of them. Like Shu Shan's message. Heehee.

Gant has got to coordinate all the birthday celebrations for Choir for one year. Good luck Gant! I'm sure you can learn to like arranging surprises and making cards and all that.



Extremely random Chevy picture.

*

Got a depressing email just now.

And then another one.

Guess we've got some owning up to do.

Mmm.

*

Aaaaargh concert music! So far my job feels more like "software troubleshooter" than "music head". I've begun to doubt the wisdom of introducing this new software on everyone's laptops. Might be more trouble than it's worth.

And my song has temporarily come to a halt as all the tutorials and lectures have started rushing in through the door like floodwater.

Ah yes, that reminds me to check if the mop and slippers which I left outside for the past 5 (rainy) days have dried yet.

Picture post! These are from the NUS Rag Day which was held 2 weeks ago. Our hall was in it as always. Thankfully it was held on campus this year. I've had enough of the Padang already.

Anyway most of these pictures were not taken during the actual performance, because during that time I was peering through a narrow gap behind the VIP section trying to catch a glimpse of the proceedings through the spaces between people's heads. And during Raffles' turn I was busy cheering next to lots of other green shirts and quite forgot about it. And I got slightly sunburned but that's okay.



Raffli explaining the concept of the float to the judges. Our float designers, Thierry and Tirza, came up with the idea of a musical forest. A girl stumbles upon the forest, awakening it and soon all the plants start to play music!
 
*

A recent trip to the URA gallery in Maxwell Road. That's Urban Redevelopment Authority. It was pretty fascinating. Lots of maps! Lots of models! Lots of little green pins that pass for little green trees!



You Are Here. It's quite near the Tanjong Pagar MRT station.



*
Finally all the concert members have been sorted into their respective departments. Some departments still need members, though, so their problems aren't over just yet.

I'm just thankful that most of my members weren't selected by other departments. Otherwise there would be a Big Problem.



Alex's skeleton. Not his real one, but the model of course. The guitar also belongs to him. Alex, not the skeleton.