Uncategorized 8:50 am
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/33335.html
I AM SO GOING TO GET THIS GAME… but it’s for xbox/ps3… which means i have shell out a lot more than just $100 for it.
If i wait for the pc version will have to wait for at least half a year… or even much longer… or maybe it will never come out? Cuz the game really looks a bit too complex to run on a pc engine. But man it’s awesome!!!!!! And we can finally get it legally too!! 
Uncategorized 8:33 am
sometimes i really wonder… how come people cannot type as fast? oops!
Uncategorized 1:18 am
One paper is down. It is supposed to be the easier chem eng module, CN_3124, but I screwed up big time. I screwed up my mid terms, and now I screwed up my finals. Mistakes made ranging from totally never saw that coming mistakes, to utterly stupid ones like pressing one more zero in the calculator.
CN_3124 is well known for it’s inconsistent markings. The markers, presumably graduate students, assign zero marks if they don’t see any familiar numbers, even if the method is correct but you just happen to punch calculator wrongly. Hence, every careless mistake is costly.
I wasn’t whining to many people (except the few who were on the train with me home), but I was kind of “crushed” after that experience, and didn’t feel like studying yesterday. When I reached home, I started thinking of what is going to happen. I started punching the calculator again, this time calculating my GPA and deciding what grades I must score for the remaining modules to maintain a 4.0 average, and then reassuring myself that one module won’t make too much difference, to the point of obsession.
Two issues are involved here:
1) Trust in God
2) Acceptance of chastening in my life.
As much as I convinced myself, oh I’d pray for good grades, and a great life, and I’m quite sure God will provide as what I expect Him to, I always had a concluding thought that even if things are bad, oh, I will feel depressed for a while, but I will accept that it is God’s will, so as to assuage my guilt for such idolatry, But then again God will surely bless me with good grades no matter what, right? And so the self-delusion cycle continues.
All the Bible phrases of things that I don’t want to hear, I conveniently covered up. I remembered Pastor’s speech that God will provide, I remembered his message of God’s blessings, but I forgot what he had taught us during church camp. God will chasten His children. As Hebrews 12:6 reads, “For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” The ideal response of course is to rejoice that I actually have the privilege of being chastened, as God’s child. But the understandably more “practical” response is to accept that it is God’s will for me, even if I do not enjoy it. Well, I’ve failed the test. I thought I would take it well all these while, but now I know I don’t.
Quite aptly, just 2 days ago, I was reading about King David’s sinful census of Israel and Judah (2 Samuel 24). At that point in time, actually I was wondering, hey what’s wrong with conducting a census just to see if your country is stable or not? Just a few hours ago, I realized what’s wrong. There is nothing wrong with conducting a census. But conducting it for the purpose of gauging if you can expand your territories, without even considering God’s help, is tantamount to distrusting the Lord. Why should we not trust God? Sounds easy, until I experienced it today. I did exactly what David did… conducting a census. I calculated the marks deducted, and tried to think if a B+ is still achievable. I calculated and memorized what scores I need to have for the other modules. Doing it without overt feelings of attachment to it, is ok, in fact it’s good since we need to know where we stand so we can excel. But doing it just to convince myself that everything will be ok… that is a bit wrong hur. All these because I haven’t accepted that all that has happened is in God’s control, or because I haven’t done my part in studying properly, although in this case I really did study quite hard. To put it honestly, I doubt God.
What are the factors that prevent me from submitting this part of my life to God?
Firstly, it’s an issue of covetousness. As much as my friends think I am slack, I secretly want to do well for my exams. I want to get a high CAP score, and more.
Secondly, it’s an issue of pride. Those who know me will know that I hang out with a bunch of dean’s listers or potential dean’s listers. All darn smart and hardworking people.. While they always have a good laugh with me for saying the most ridiculous things in any situation (I somehow have a knack for doing that), I can tell they never really treat me very seriously when it comes to academic stuff. Because I’m more stupid than them? Probably. And I keep wanting to do well, just to show them that I’m on par with them, if not better.
Thirdly, it’s an issue of obtaining justice for myself. I know I truly don’t deserve the grade for CN_3124, because I just know the markers will very likely anyhow mark. And since some of my mistakes are at the start of the questions, even though my methods are correct, no answers match, will get zero marks.
With the issues singled out, then there are the lessons I should learn.
I think the first issue is ok, if I am not fully obsessed with it. Covetousness is sinful but I guess wanting to do well in life isn’t. The second issue is probably the hardest to resolve. I will see my friends until I graduate. This cycle of wanting to compete with them will not stop if I continue to be so worldly. Although I shouldn’t be. I am a child of God; I have the kingdom of God at the end of earth’s journey. I am protected and blessed. I have the most important things secured, why should I care so much about the less important things, like pleasing men (i.e. my friends), or pleasing myself? Well, as for the third issue, I guess life will never be fair. People die when they do not deserve it, and here I am, whining and wallowing in self-pity about my undeserved grade in my exams. If you want to fight to your death to get that mark, you can do that, but you’re killing all your brain cells.
Of course, the most important lessons are to submit myself to God’s will. Things may look bad now, but they really aren’t. Things may look bad now, but just trust God to know what He’s doing. Things may look bad now, but hey, it’s just God’s chastening me, to refine me to become a better person.
And of course. It’s easier to type this out than actually appreciate this. As always! With myself, I’ll continue sinning in this manner. And in so doing, sins of various other natures will manifest as a consequence. With God, all things are possible though. So if one task is of most importance, that is not to cease praying for a change.
Uncategorized 1:08 am
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7338131.stm
This is quite funny…
Uncategorized 11:13 pm
Please tell me of all days why hold a safety training course during my precious READING WEEK!!!!
On the bright side, exams over on the 6th May.
On the dark side, my internship begins on the 7th May.
On the bright side, my birthday falls on the 7th May and that’s a good enough reason to go mambo. And engage in hours of team fortress 2 orgy. I think I finally got the hang of what it is to strafe properly in the line of fire. Hopefully I will be promoted out of my status as Free Frag in no time.
Uncategorized 9:00 pm
Ever wondered why there are tv shows and movies based on doctors, medical students, lawyers, law enforcers, firemen, soldiers, but none based on engineers so far?
Well, here are some snippets of rejected scripts featuring engineers.
“Grey’s Refinery” – Ending Sequence
(peaceful background music begins)
Joshua stares pensively into his finished design lab report, a satisfied smile crept into his face. Camera zooms out into wider view. A sense of peace and calmness pervades the room while a textbook entitled “Fundamentals of Momentum, Heat and Mass Transfer” lays on the table, and 6 other engineers sit nearby busy discussing their flow-rate and pressure-drop related assignment. Outside the engineering complex, birds chirp and trees sway with the wind.
Narration (Joshua): In the end, things are not as bad as it seems. Despite all that has happened, we have learnt a very important lesson. Designing a heat exchanger is perfectly flexible, and we need not be too conservative in our overdesign. After all, there’s more to life than Chemical Engineering design project 1, such as finding out whether 13 hydrocyclones is economically feasible in the Chemical Engineering project design project 2.
(End credits for GREY’S REFINERY roll)
Scriptwriters have tried to feature engineering students in various movie genres too.
Suspense:
Narrated: you can trust no one near you. not even your best friend.
Stan: Hey, what answer did you get? How long does your designed reactor run ah? I got freaking 600 seconds!
Oon yong: I got 5000000 seconds initially, then I spotted a careless mistake and now I have 30.
Jq: I have 4500 but after changing the conditions now I have 1600.
Student L: I have 900 seconds.
Student C: I tried entering 5 seconds but my program has been running for the past 30 minutes and hasn’t given me the result!
Action:
[The following takes place between 1650 and 1700]
[1650]
Part tech student: Hey! Prof U has finally uploaded his notes! If we can rush to the comp centre and print and run straight to LT 7 we can catch his lecture on time!
Mystery:
(Professor Chen is speaking about boundary layers on turbulent fluid flow. A student suddenly gets up and leave.)
Fluids Student B: Hey why are you leaving?
Fluids Student A: I have no idea what is going on. There’s no point staying behind listening.
Horror:
[Scene 1: Fluids mid-term. Camera zooms in onto the question paper, revealing 5 totally un-doable multiple-choice quesitons.]
[Scene 2: Accident scene. Dead student found on the floor, clutching a piece of scrunched up paper.]
Detective: (picking up the paper) It says here, C.N. 2116 Assignment 7.
Tragedy
[Scene 1]
Prof T: The mid-terms are out. Only 3 guys got full marks! Only 3 guys! I’m so disappointed. Oh, and the number of people who got 0… about a quarter of you all.
[Scene 2]
Design Project Group Leader: Hey it’s Good Friday! We have no lessons! Let’s all meet at PGP at 9 am, and we can start our calculations until night! I got to leave at 5 though, must rush for Easter concert.
Stand-Up Comedy
Prof W: (in a PRC accent) Sometimes the graph looks-a very s-mall. Hence you have to eyeball the charts to get your answer.
Prof W: (in a PRC accent) In the past there are no calculators. Hence engineers use pen and pencil to calculate the correlations.
Prof W: (in a PRC accent) This is known as the knudsen coefficient. Knudsen is pron-anced as “nud-sen” because the “k” in the front is-a silent “k”.
Romance
(7 lost students and a confident-looking student – a regular dean’s lister- gathered in a meeting.)
7 lost souls: I have no idea how to begin the 2125 design project.
Jeffrey: Oh, don’t worry. I have specially created this user-friendly Microsoft Excel file. It has all the equations and correlations linked together. The required iterated cells are highlighted in yellow; the ones to be compared with are highlighted in blue. I have also written down troubleshooting advice for the following 431639990 unforseen scenarios.
7 lost souls: Have I told you I love you?
—————————-
A potential emmy-winning series has also been rejected, deemed too horrifying for the casual audience.
Plant M.D.
INT. DESERTED CABIN. DUSK.
Camera zooms into the cabin. An engineer, clad in his Sunday best – university’s orientation T-shirt and shorts, sits at a table, deep in thought. On the table lay his prized possessions, a full collection of different graph papers, a SHARP EL-123 capable of solving matrix equations, and a glass globe of Jurong Island. He scribbles some 3-line equation, and squints.
Engineer: Hmmm. add this… add that… divide here… integrate there…. minus here…. sub into this correlation… hey wait, this is not standard room temperature and pressure, cannot use this.
Camera shifts to the wall. The clock ticks by, and fast forward to 2 hours later.
Engineer: Bingo! This should be it. A reactor capable of condensing 1 millions pounds of propane. My precious……
Engineer submits the Polymath code to his company, looking happy.
(Scary music begins)
CAMERA ZOOMS IN ONTO HIS CODE, WHERE THE ENGINEER HAS LEFT OUT A “MINUS” SIGN IN FRONT OF EQUATION NO. 436.
Cut to two months later.
INT. PLANT. DUSK.
Another engineer sits on a chair, facing the computer. He is doing night shift, and for leisure he is currently trying to figure out an alternative to calculus. A reactor is behind, turned on and running.
Silence.
Noise comes out from reactor. “Ch- ch- ch- ch- ch.”
Engineer sits up, startled.
Engineer: Wh-wh-who’s there?
Noise again.
Engineer gets away from his chair, and follows the source of the noise.
Suspense music builds up, then a “jump scene” music as engineer turns to the other side of the reactor.
Engineer: (heaving a sigh of relief) Ahh…. it’s just a rusty steam valve vibrating!
Engineer turns the valve clockwise slightly, the noise stops. Engineer chuckles, and goes back to his computer.
Noise begins again.
SUSPENSE MUSIC BUILDS UP.
Engineer: (slightly terrified) Err… hello? Who’s there? It’s not funny anymore!
Engineer walks towards the reactor again, and stops short, face frozen in horror. Camera switches to what he’s looking at:
A sign on the reactor that reads “Pressure is 30 times atmospheric pressure. Temperature is not room temperature”
Engineer: (gasps) Oh no! I used the ideal gas equation to calculate the reactor volume! Now it’s gonna blow!
CHASE MUSIC.
Engineer attempts to make a dash to the exit. Unfortunately his latest-designed padlock malfunctions, and the engineer fumbles with the padlock for the next 30 seconds or so.
A sound of a screw dropping is heard.
Engineer looks back.
BLOODCURDLING SCREAM. FADES TO BLACK.
Uncategorized 10:22 pm
joshua: i remember, for mortal kombat, the subzero fatality is he grab the person up and smash the body to bits. then i also remember for subzero his beastiality is the polar bear.
——
(in school)
me: it’s already eight plus pm. is the cookhouse still open?
——
4 of us had just finished calculating and submitted our first draft of heat transfer design project data to jeffrey for editing, We were very sure we made some mistakes somewhere along the way but we had double-checked again and again AND AGAIN and couldn’t find any. For once we were confident with our ability to solve chemical engineering problems…
Jeffrey: (by email) Yoz, you have calculated the shell side heat coefficient wrongly.
(on 4 separate occasions…)
joshua (to jeffrey): i knew it.
alan (to jeffrey): i knew it.
xinli (to me): i knew it.
me (to jeffrey): i knew it!
——
Whinings 8:19 pm
I seriously need to start studying. It’s less than 2 weeks before the exams and I’m still. Playing tf2. Playing my keyboard. MSN-ing rubbish. Taking long afternoon naps. Performing clicking sprees on wikipedia. Wishing people happy birthday on facebook. Regularly rummaging the fridge for junk food and then eating them while stoning on my bed. BLOGGING ON WORDPRESS.
Anything but open those damn engineering textbooks because I don’t understand what they’re saying, and the first step to attempt to make sense of everything is so tough! Oh, the pain!!!!
Uncategorized 10:53 pm
I successfully pranked one person this year!!!
I first received the mail from richie:
“You are cordially invited to my wedding. It is held on the 31st April, at Holiday Inn Park View, 8 pm. Please rvsp whether you are turning up or not. Thanks!”
I was shocked, but I actually believed him since I haven’t talked to him for ages so who knows right! But I also didn’t know whether to turn up or not since it was my exam season and I am having a really tight schedule. So I turned to my organizer and checked how many days before the next paper.. it was then I realised.
But I forwarded this sms to a few people, initially thinking everyone would know and it won’t be too big a deal. True enough, most caught the joke, and one replied “Wah! Shotgun isit?” Then there was one person who didn’t reply.
1 hr later, while on the bus with joshua, I had cleanly forgotten the incident. Then suddenly that person called.
Him:”Hey, really ah? I just received your sms.”
Me:”Ya. Really la!”
Him:”Really? 31st April??”
Me: (thinking he must have realised the joke)”oh.. ok… so you know.”
Him: “Ya. I know……
…… But of all days why choose 31st April??“
Me: (almost burst into laughter) Oh, it’s a long story.
Him: But it’s during exam time leh!! Such a weird day..
Me: Yea, so it’s understandable if you don’t turn up but I hope you’d come. Please confirm with me soon ok?
Him: Ok…
Joshua was with me the whole time and we laughed so loudly that the people in front of us turned back and stared at us.
15/20 minutes later.. on the train station, he replied:
“f— your 31st april”
Oh well, it was funny!!!
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