Are you superstitious? I think i’m not, yet when there is a funeral next to the place where i usually park, there is a weird feeling. Stole a look at the foto of the lady who passed on, she looked like she was in her late 70s. I hope she had a good life. I hope she takes care of me when i ride out the next few days…

I was just chatting with andrea over msn about air ticket prices, especially those for round trips to taipei. I think i’m more or less firm over taking jetstar, since the promotion for thai airways isnt that enticing. Thai is more expensive by less than 10 bucks but seriously i dun fancy a stopover in bangkok which would extend the total travel time to 7hrs 10 mins, instead of jetstar’s 4 hrs odd. I figured that i can live w/o food for 4 hrs, since you have to buy food in the plane and u can’t bring your own food. And she claims that the x-ray scanner can see the burgers that i’m trying to sneak on board, and mabbe the cabin crew would confiscate my burger and resell back to u for 8 bucks..

Of cos there are other ways of milking the budget passenger:

Ten Ways for budget airlines to milk their passengers:

1. The confiscate n sell your food back to you idea on top..
2. Use toilet: 50 cents. 1 pack of tissue: $1.00
3. All planes to be controlled by new pilots unless more than 50% of the passengers pay a $50 surcharge to upgrade pilot to a veteran one.
4. Seats would not recline unless you put a 50 cents coin, every 30 mins. Failure to do so would mean instant springing back of the seat.
5. Sell prime seats for a premium, ie. near toilet, or far away from escape doors
6. Stewardess will bug u every 5 mins to ask u buy food or kopi unless u tip her with $50
7. Baggage space above the seats are operated with EZlink cards *toot toot*
8. Calling for assistance costs $1 each time. This is different from the stewardess bugging u to buy kopi
9. Conduct tours of cockpit for kids at $50 each. Remember dun ask the parents, just ask the kids. Persuade the kid and the parent follows automatically
10. Sell immigration forms that are actually given out for free. Charge $5 for a form-filling service

:D

Anyone keen to join me on this exploration journey ard campus? sort of a final tour ard campus b4 i shout “ORD LOH!!!”

I’m sure many ppl have read about the ntu student who is a malaysian scholar who emailed the entire ntu student population. His main bitching point was about the standard of english that his lecturers spoke. He said that since he’s a scholar and he doesn’t have to pay sch fees, he feels indignant for other students paying 6k per yr and getting crap english, and he’s hoping to rally support for petitionin the admin

I read the email and seriously his english sucks ass, i tot he was a prc..but yea that’s besides the point. I can understand how he is feeling, in the sense that we are paying 6k a yr, we should be able to get ourselves some decent lecturers. That however is not the case in aNUS as well, where the standards of lecturers are sometimes questionable.

Being in aNUS for almost three yrs, i have been lectured by PRCs, Indians, Germans, Englishmen, Malaysian, i think thats about it. A main problem is that aNUS shifted from a teaching university to a research-intensive one. This of cos is beneficial to the university, as it would raise the profile of the uni as a research hub. Singapore as a result would also obtain more clout in the research world, be it science or arts. Professors are tenured, PhD holders are employed mainly because they can contribute primarily to the research, not because they can or want to teach.

Some of these faculty members also know that, they know that they can’t teach for nuts. Their strengths lie in research, and they are definitely experts in their fields of specialities. It becomes convenient to make it a part of their requirements for some of them to teach a relevant module to undergraduates.

Teaching however is not something that one learns to do in graduate school, or for that matter in XYZ lab. I can be an expert bike rider but that doesnt mean that i can teach a noob to ride a bike like me. It doesnt mean that i noe everything about riding and bikes, that it automatically means that i’m a good teacher.

Well i will say this, for the standard of some of the professors’ teaching, we are better off employing masters holders or fresh PhD chaps who are of cos not as expert in their fields but have the passion to teach. Let the research ppl just do research, we dun need them to come and do a poor job teaching undergrads, and i bet they can’t be bothered, judging by the standard of notes provided by some of the physics lecturers (Read: recycling notes for 3-4 sems, or direct copy-paste from textbooks). We are paying 6k odd per yr to get a good education, you are taking the money to employ research ppl and @ the same time compromising on the standards of the undergraduates, who are your main customers.

I will also never forget how Ah Bao didnt bother changing his MM1 notes to read “Sem 1 AY2004/05″ from “Sem1 AY2003/2004″; and walking into tut classes empty handed. Lecturers like him only help to kill off the interest of the students taking the module.

A good teacher not just imparts knowledge to his or her student, he or she also inspires them to want to find out more about that subject. They also serve as role models for their students. I am glad to have some very passionate teachers throughout my education, incl in nus. I will never forget how prof sow always explained things nicely to us back in yr 1 lab, and prof shen arranging extra classes for us on saturday for E&M, and also giving the class 50 bucks to buy food for lunch that day. Prof Englert may set very tough papers and tut qns but u can see that he genuinely cares for us by explaining properly as long as we too make an effort to understand QM2.

How to 十年树木，百年树人 when you dun get good gardeners?

This sem, i’ve rediscovered the fun of this game which i used to play back in rv during my sec 1 days.. a few of us in the class would crush paper into balls n try to sink free throws into the waste paper basket in the corner of the room. We got so proficient that we sank them from the back of the classroom, and eventually from the opposite corner of the room. Doing this whenever the teacher is not in room, ie. during breaks and in-between lessons… So u can imagine how many heads n ceiling fans the poor paper ball has to siam4 enroute to the basket. Needless to say, there were often collateral damage in the form of pissed off classmates, mostly gals. I got caught once in the midst of my jumpshot, mdm chan walked in when i was up in the air going to release the paper ball. I didn’t, managing to hold back in time.

This semester, due to the fact that i have 2extremely boring lectures in the form of SSD and NPP at S1a’s seminar room. Coffee/coke/jia jia liang teh is a must to keep myself awake, and their cans end up as my balls in my attempt to sink a few shots. There have been spectacular misses, like missing with a coke can from less than 1 metre, slamdunk dist in terms of wastebasket-ball; and spectacular arching shots over multiple tables (and heads), often with me not being able to see the basket in the 1st place..heh.. i realised it’s much easier to throw with an underarm motion as it puts the can into a spin, arching beautifully into the basket.. nescafe cans are the worst to sink, owing to their longish shape and light weight..coke is in the middle along with most of the cans… shape’s correct but still abit too light.. the best is the liang teh can..heavy heavy.. haha! i did something new today…basically a flat projectile that could have knocked the basket over had it not gone in from about 4-5 metres.. but yea it went in pretty nicely, with a resounding clonk

The simple things in life often make me the happiest person, seriously

Inspired by Mr William Kaw who commented in the Hai~Ren/PDQ Scandal Post. I did give him the benefit of the doubt that it was a pure typo and nobody should be like me n resort to vulgarities but then, as brought up by more than 1 person..

Is “FYU” a typo for “FYI” For Your Information, or an acronym for Fuck YoU

Let the flames rage

Edit: Teck said that his FY could be Fuck You..that makes more sense, fuck you understand. But however the structure doesnt make sense. FYU should have an exclaimation mark after that as emphasis. But i think william kaw is not so uncivilised to come to my blog n scold me fuck you, and surely his england better than that…bizad student aiming for cap 5.0 leh.. i only 3.31..how to fight angmoh with him..

…at least for a few hours..heh.. pa just got digital cable, and i think cos they are still setting his channel options. So as a result, we have ALL the channels for a while..5am now..time to cheong cricket match I dun wanna go sch leh…haha!

He’s actually the secret author of Chronicles of a Teenage Drama Queen as exposed in this Funkygrad article

Chronicles of a Teenage Drama Queen By: Hai~Ren Nominated for: Best NUS Blog What caught our eye: welcome to my monologue im a girl who is finding my place in the society trying to pen down chronicles of my life believes that pictures represent a thousand words trudging through ups and downs experiencing happiness,anger,pain and sorrow cherishing every breathing moment thankful for my family and friends always look on the bright side of life And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. Chip off the blog: we went picking people up from their respective halls. going to their room to check it out. and yes revelation of the day: we found that mr so-and-so have a whole stash of porn in his comp:) plus we know who are the zai drinkers from the number of beers/red wines they have in their rooms. and then fong seng, the hall people’s favourite hangout place. i had the yummy prata plasta plus milo dinosaur.

If this is not scandalous, what is??? So it’s Hai~Ren who goes ard @ nite on campus taking pics like this: [20/03, 4.30am removed as requested by william. Point to note: A link/pic that is put onto the net is open property unless you specifically tell ppl that “no, dun grab it or link to me”. I am perfectly happy to to remove it…]

I have made a few changes on the blog, and i would reveal some here…

1. New ego banner
2. All comments are moderated, unless u have a comment that’s approved previously
3. Some posts, present n future would be passworded..passwords would be made known to selected ppl upon request

For all my complaining and complaining about nus, I’m actually gonna be a student ambassador for tomorrow and sunday @ the openhouse. It’s amazing how my pride for nus is instilled just by paying me 120 bucks for 2 days..heh.. sellout i noe..

On a more serious note, yea right.. carlin showed me the Ms Singapore Universe 2006 website and i saw a few familiar faces plus spotted a few good ones, by my standards of cos. You are more than welcome to suggest ur choices, to each his or her own:

Favs so far: Andrea Teo Jade Seah

Faces that i’ve recognised on campus: Jeanette Wee She was in one of my econs tut class, and apparently her bf’s incredible hulk.. Weng Yifei She was from rv..

I shall further analyse the other contestants when i have the time

In my 1st attempt at vblogging, I decided to record this after riding back from nus in the rain. Frankly the weather is damn fucked up today..

1st one on riding..

and 2nd clip, bitching about the weather

Guess what, the rain stopped after i recorded the 2nd clip.. best

Congrats to Hai~Ren and Aishah, your blogs have been shifted in my Bloglines to the Friends section, from “Singapore” and “NUS Best Blogs”.

Dun need to thank me

Only Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Models

Not suitable for young boys, old prudes.. Someone pass Hai~Ren the tisu pls

According to sources, the lecturer who’s featured as Dancing Professor knows about this video liaoz..haha! Apparently he doesnt mind but he’s not sure at the admin would say if they know about it.

What can i say…

Ok if the prof asks me to remove it, i will. However i must reiterate that it’s all done in jest.

If the admin comes to tell me to remove it, they have a better chance of letting a quantum particle tunnel thru a potential barrier

Even though i didnt make it into final for Blogfest, i cannot let hAi~ReN beat me with his pics of jap gals

So i have my own as well, dun play play