So as we bid farewell to 2011 and welcome the new year, I shall start off by penning down my new year resolution before the first day ends. So here it goes,

New Year’s Resolution 2012

Destroy sloth. Live a healthy lifestyle and keep everything else in balance.

Yup, that shall be my resolution for the new year and with that said, I’m actually looking forward to new year and all the things it brings, be it trip or no trip.

I hope the same for you too, my unknown readers. Have a great new year ahead! ;)

In it, he wrote:

Dear Zi Shyun

Congratulations on getting in the the [A+..A-] band in last semester’s CS2103/T. A good grade such as this proves that you are good in both theory and practice side of Software Engineering. I’m impressed.

I hope you did equally well in other subjects and will turn out to be one of our top students over time. See you around next year!

Happy 2012!

-damith

This email marks the first time I’ve ever received an email of appraisal from a lecturer in NUS and damn, it actually has a pretty nice and heartwarming feeling to it.

Something about what Mr. Damith said on the last bit, I’m not exactly sure if I will end up as one of the top students because that kinda seems a little out of my reach. As a matter of fact, I do not aim to be part of the top students. I just want to be an above-average student and try to enjoy my university life.

Back to the email, although I doubt the content of the e-mail will vary from student to student, I sincerely thank Mr. Damith for taking the effort to individualize the emails instead of mass sending to the students that did well. Well maybe he wrote the program to do so but it doesn’t matter, it’s the thought of sincerity that ultimately counts. I’m not sure if lecturers realize this, but e-mails like this really helps to jolt and motivate students, especially the disadvantaged ones, like myself.

You may wonder why I call myself a disadvantaged student. To clarify, that is because I have no prior knowledge to any sort of programming before pursuing a Computer Science degree in NUS. I studied Arts, more specifically Filmmaking, in polytechnic and that means I receive neither the same kind of analytical and mathematical training the JC students or foreign students underwent nor the related computing knowledge that Computing poly students get. But thankfully, I did work hard in high school and that made catching up a littler easier, but does not in anyway reduce the difficulty level.

As a recipient of this email, I’m feel really happy deep down inside seeing that a lecturer has recognized my hard work. More importantly, it made me realize that all the long and painful hours that I have invested in this semester have paid off really well with good grades. And what makes me happy is knowing that it is actually possible for a disadvantaged student to do well by working really hard and such affirmation motivates me to continue working hard next semester.

Speaking of which brings us to a famous quote by Albert Einstein

“Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work…”

Now if you do the math, it’s true that a non talented person who gives his best will always lose to a talented person who similarly gives his best. But understand that not every talented person will give his best, much less even reach 100%. Even if they do, you’ll only lose them by that mere 1%. And honestly? 99% is still a very nice number to sit at, well, at least for me. ;)

“The battle of the brains have come to an end. Please quickly finish up what you are writing and stop writing,” my lecturer announced, signalling the end of the examination and also the start of our freedom… well at least for the time being before the next semester comes kicking in.

As promised, Shawn, Guo Wei and I traversed (computing term =X) to the nearby Engineering faculty to celebrate our temporary freedom with our favorite comfort food – McDonald’s. After much consideration, I got myself an upsized McSpicy meal. In fact, the three of us got McSpicy meals. And as we indulge in our comfort food, the three of us also discussed about the exam questions, and this eventually digressed into other topics such as Guo Wei’s favorite topic – money.

After our fufilling burger lunch, there was another objective lined up for us to accomplish. This particular objective was brought up by Guo Wei whom I quote, “After CS2010 paper, we’ll have all the time and we are going to at Starbucks until our ass turn sore”. So, off to Starbucks we went.

At Starbucks, we settled ourselves at the generously spacious couches and talked about almost everything that guys would love to discuss about – girls, money, jobs and whatnot. In the end, we really sat at Starbucks for over 3 hours until our asses started to ache so bad. But just before we parted, Shawn somehow just had to suggest playing arcade and the three of us ended up at West Mall’s Time Zone. We topped up 25 dollars of credit and ended up playing the hammer of strength, punching bag, basketball, shooters, bishi-bashi clone, Daytona, Stacking game, and Street Fighter IV. It was surprisingly fun, considering that I rarely play arcade. Now, in case that last sentence caused you to raise an eye brow, no… playing lots of computer games does not mean you play lots of arcade.

We finally parted and went our seperate ways for our own night activities. It was a day well spent and definitely a day worth remembering.

Here’s a picture of the three of us taken at NUS YIH’s Starbucks:

That’s about all I have for now. I shall leave my reflection on this semester for a later date. ;)

Dr. Seow, Dr. Zeehan and all lab assistants,

The time has come for us to part and I would just like to take some time off to thank you all for such a wonderful experience in LSM1301. I hail from the School of Computing and although Science is not my forte nor area of interest, I have definitely enjoyed learning about the Science of Life, Biology. The enthusiasm and passion you all displayed in lecture have made Biology so much more interesting than the other Science modules I have taken so far. The efforts are very much appreciated and while my words alone do not do them justice, it sure does beat keeping my gratitude silent.

So a big thank you to you all once again.

Hope to see you all around in Faculty of Science some day.

Jacky.

I certainly hope that they get to see the message before they take down the module website.

Anyways, gonna rest up a bit and head back to my muggin’. ;(

Update: Dr Seow has read my message and responded to it.

Dear Jacky

Thank you very much for the kind words of compliments. It is always a great encouragement to the teaching team to know that our efforts in ensuring that the module is both enriching as well as enjoyable have not been wasted and have been successful.

All the best in the rest of your examinations. Please say ‘Hi’ when you do see us, whether in or out of the campus.

Regards
SEOW Teck Keong

Definitely. You bet I will ;)

Signs off,
He

Buckle up folks! It’s time to wind back the clock and unfold the untold!

Sometime in May 2010

It was post-dinner. I was in the kitchen having a little casual conversation with my eldest sister about the next chapter of my life in NUS. We talked its culture, food, facilities, lecturers, girls – you name it. Then a thought struck her. “Have you signed up for any camps?” She asked inquisitively. I kept quiet, pretending to not hear her question since I wasn’t at all interested in outdoor activities, much less a camp.

“You better, you know? If not, you’re gona be a loner in uni.” She warned. “Uni isn’t like your poly. There are no fixed classes.” I listened attentively. “Trust me, you won’t be able to do your assignments without help.” She pressed on. After hearing this, I admit that I did get a little worried. ”So then… which camps should I sign up for?” I inquired.

She took a little booklet from my admission package providing on the several camps offered specially for freshies. “What?” She exclaimed after browsing through the booklet. “You mean, there aren’t any camps for computing students?” To be honest, I was uncertain too since I hadn’t bothered myself to look through the booklet. (But in actual fact, there was actually a camp for computing students. Just that somehow it wasn’t included in the booklet.) “Oh man, computing students are really nerds man. They don’t even bother to organize camps.” She shook her head in disgust and then went through the booklet again to search for alternatives. “There,” she said, pointing her index finger to a page with oversized words ‘Union Camp –  The Largest Cross Faculty Camp’, “join this one then, it’s a camp where freshies from all faculties come together.” I looked at the page doubtedly. “Believe me,” She assured me, “you’ll get to meet a lot of people from other faculties. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find a friend from computing. Or maybe even a new girlfriend.” She shrugged cheekily as she passed the booklet to me.

“You better hurry,” she decreed as she rose to leave the kitchen, “go sign up before the slots are all filled up!”

I stared at the oversized words ‘Union Camp – The Largest Cross Faculty Camp’, running through what my sister had said to me in my mind.

It was decided.

6th July 2010

I arrived at Kent Ridge Hall, a student dormitory in NUS. Gathered just outside the lobby of Kent Ridge Hall were jubilant chatty youths dressed in bright red, blue, green, yellow t-shirts. I belonged to the green house, codenamed Four Play (Foreplay). So instinctively, I approached the group of green t-shirts and introduced myself. Turns out, they were all OGLs (Orientation Group Leaders) and I was the earliest freshman to arrive. I sat down with them and they offered me breakfast. I quickly warmed myself up with a few of them and soon other freshies starting pouring in.

Soon, everyone were called into the hall and inside there each house further split into four smaller OGs (Orientation Groups). I wasn’t initially sure which OG I belonged to but I found out shortly after from one of the OGL that I’m with Play². “What a name”, was the first thought that came to my mind. But soon I realized why.

Our OG name is actually based off Phua Chu Kang’s famous catch phrase: “Don’t play play”.

Our OGLs, JY and HJ settled us into groups and we began doing some routinal self-introductions. After which, we started playing a couple of ice-breakers: The ‘Hammer’ Game and MRT Stations. In short, The ‘Hammer’ Game (I forgot what it was originally called) is something like Monkey. The mauler is given a hammer and he’s supposed to hit whoever is being called and if the target fails to call out another name before he gets smashed by the hammer, he will be the new mauler.

The ‘Hammer’ Game in progress. Happy Smile… Pretty sadistic huh?

Now that everyone is pretty familar with each other’s name. It’s time to add a little twist. Here’s where MRT Stations comes in. In a nutshell, the game works pretty similiarly to The ‘Hammer’ Game, everyone is assigned a MRT station and the game starts with someone’s station name being called. When that happens, the two persons adjacent to the target will slap the their respective sides of the target’s thighs till the target calls out another station name.

Assigning the MRT station names.

The game in progress. Solomon is being attacked by me!

Me, Aaron and Solomon taking a pic after the ice-breakers.

It was then time for us to move into our rooms. We were each given a room card, meaning each of us actually had our own rooms. Great! Honestly, as much as all the freshies were very much acquainted during the ice-breakers. I wasn’t exactly ready to sharing a room with someone I just met. Who knows what might happen. Besides, it’s not like the rooms were meant to be shared. They were so small that if you turn sideways from the windows, you won’t be able to lie down on the floor. No joke. Inside the ‘cosy’ room fits a single bed, a desk and wardrobe to the side. And no, the rooms are not air-conditioned. Well. What do you expect? It’s a hostel room.

After leaving our bags in our dormitory rooms, we gathered outside Kent Ridge Hall again. While waiting for the next set of instructions. We made full use of the time to take a group picture.

OG Play²

It was time for field games. So off to the Sports and Recreational Center we marched.

Here’s our House Head, Benjamin with one of our OG identities… LUCY

Real human Table Football in progress!

Pass the lemon and peanut butter.

We were supposed to pass the poker cards using straws…

Yeah. Like this.

There was a particular game worth mentioning where the participants had to pick fruits out of a bowl of water with instant noodles soaked.

Yeah this one. Nasty huh?

And no… You’re not supposed to use your fingers. You’re supposed to dip your head in and use your mouth to pick it out. “Ew,” you’d say. And true enough, a lot of freshies sat out for this game. But since there had to be people competing for each game, some unfortunate souls had to be sacrificed…

So… I ended dunking my head in to pick a hairy rambutan. Well done Union Camp.

Discussing strategy for the game 老鹰抓小鸟. Obvious question: Guess who are the 小鸟s?

See those poles? Yup. Me and my partner, Crystal, are getting ready for a dizzy game.

Break time! Time for another OG photo!

And how about some wrestling entertainment from Kelvin. Here’s a choke slam on poor LUCY,

an elbow smash,

and a sissors-lock!

Then we went back to playing field games…

Here’s a game of Twister in action.

When we were done with all the stations, we settled down in a circle and played The “Ouch” Game. It’s pretty sadomachochistic. Basically, a target’s name would be called and the person on his left would have to slap on the target’s thighs rapidly while the target has to pinch the person to his right. The torture can only be passed on when the person to the target’s right says “Ouch”. Thereforce, so long as the person does not yell “Ouch”, the target would be tormented indefinitely with malicious slaps.

Edmund forcing the person on his right to say “Ouch” to end his own torment.

This picture doesn’t seem to highlight my injuries well. But in actual fact, my arm was swollen from Ong’s fearsome pinch.

Just as the sun was about to set, we headed back to the hall. But to our horror, we were not allowed to rest. There was a mass dance practice in store for us. Oh my gawd. I remember my OG mates were all whining about how sweaty, exhausted and foul-smelling we already were. But oh well, I guess it was time to stink up the hall.

Taken during our mass dance rehearsal.

I remember we danced along to Lady Gaga’s Telephone and Katy Perry’s Hot N Cold. It was pretty lame but I admit that I did enjoy myself watching everyone touching themselves and cocking up the moves.

After the dance rehearsal, we had a really ‘special’ Special Partner event. Basically, all freshies would be blindfolded and paired up with someone of the opposite sex from another house. I know what you’re thinking. Fortunately, Union Camp has a boy-girl ratio of 1:1 so everyone had a partner of the opposite sex. Thankfully, huh?

 On our way to meet our special partner.

We were all given nicknames. I was called Ah Beng… and obviously, my special partner was called Ah Lian. We sat down face-to-face, holding each other’s hands and we talked to each other without removing the blindfolds.

Me and my Special Partner meeting for the first time.

Thankfully, I did get along quite well with my special partner; I heard from my OG mates that many of their special partners were freaks. After the ‘special’ partner routine, we were returned to our initial displacement and everyone were discussing about their ‘special’ partner. It’s like all of a sudden, everyone seemed energized. There’s really only one word to express this: Wow.

I remember it was almost 10 pm. Just when we thought we could go back and rest, one of the committee members picked up the loudspeaker and announced to us, “Freshies, I know you all are every tired but that there is still one more activity.” It was really a fml moment and you could see everyone’s face drop and whining all over again.

We musterd our final strength and went on the ‘Mystery Trail’. The premise of the story is,”Union’s Camp project director is murdered and we’re supposed to play detectives.” I kinda like the idea of it since I’m a huge fan of the detective genre, especially Kindaichi Case Files.

Here’s the murder scene.

Investigating the room.

After going to all the scenes, we headed back to the hall where we were supposed to piece together all the clues and come up with our own version of what has happened. When every OG has handed in their reports, the commitee played us the video showcasing what actually happened. I remember ours was pretty close but we still lost the game to a better OG. Who cares, it was time for bed… not.

Our crazy OGLs suggested supper and as much as I was exhausted, I didn’t want to miss out on the action. So we went for a quick supper nearby the Campus. When we got back to our rooms, all cleaned up, I fell asleep within seconds of lying on the bed.

Day 2, 7th July 2010

We kickstarted the day with another dreaded mass dance practice before heading off to the actual deal: Food Hunt. In Food Hunt, we were tasked with travelling down by strictly public transport to places of interest to play station games and taste supposedly good food. To be frank, I wasn’t looking forward to it. In fact, I was complaining about the lack of sleep and the unreasonable hot sun. Still, off we went with the hunt!

Here’s a photo of Play² in the bus!

Our first stop. We stopped by a playground and had to take photo of a yellow dragon.

But we got carried away and decided to revive some of our childhood memories.

Finally. We settled down and took photo with this yellow dragon.

Then while we were about to cross an overhead bridge to our next destination. I was confronted by my OGLs HJ and JY regarding the Union Camp pageant that would be held at the end of Day 3. They asked me if I were keen in joining it. At that point in time, I was pretty much hesistant about it because I’m not exactly the kind of guy who likes to show and garner attention. Besides I didn’t think I was that good looking or talented enough to join. So I gave it a pass.

We then headed off to ABC Brickworks Market and Food Center…

and then Tiong Bahru Market for our very much deserved lunch. I remember I had some tasty chicken rice and soy milk!

Another group photo of us before moving off!

We travelled to our first station and over there, freshies are supposed to participate in the station games in pairs, more specifically a boy coupled with a girl. This particular station was rather challenging as we had to transport an egg across a painful rocky path barefooted and we are not allowed to use our hands. Instead, we had to accomplish the task by utilizing various parts of our face. See below.

Me and Drusilla using our cheeks.

Some of my OG mates had it worse. For instance…

Lek Chia and JiaJun were forced to use their mouths to move the egg. Lol. What a scandalous photo =X

For our final stop, we had to get to Suntec City to take photos with the sponsors of the camp – Sony Vaio. It was a far journey so we stopped by at The Central for a break.

Me, Aaron and Charles!

We finally reached Suntec City after the long walk under the hot sun. We went straight to the Vaio store and we record a group cheer regarding Sony Vaio. We were all exhausted and brain dead. Nonetheless, we did come up with a short and simple that went along the tune of a popular Mandarin nursery rhyme, 客人来.

Here’s a photo of our video uploading onto one of the Sony Vaios in the store.

Another group photo in front of the store.

It was then time for us to return to the campus. We took a long sleepy bus ride back to NUS and it was already evening by the time we returned. And you know what that means – it was time for the Special Partner event again! As usual, we were instructed to blindfold ourselves.

The guys awaiting our dates with our Special Partners.

On our way to meet our Special Partners.

Going to various stations to play the games.

The guys waiting for our Special Partners to arrive.

That night, we were supposed to complete several station games with our Special Partners. The station games are designed in a way for couples to build rapport and develop that chemistry. Besides that, the station games are supposed to make the couples ‘touch’ each other and get each other dirty. Like one station, the couples are supposed to style each others’ hairs with a ridiculously amount of gel. I remember me and Special Parter agreed to just put a minimal amount of gel on each other. But OGLs just had to ruin our plans by manipulating our hands to screw each other up. But we can’t really blame them, can we? After all, that’s what Special Partner games are for.

My Special Partner and I taking a photo.

Anyway, I remember me and my Special Partner had pretty good teamwork, we managed to complete each station fairly quickly. And while waiting to move on to the next station, my Special Partner and I chit chatted. We hit off pretty well, and exchanged so much words with each other, so much that her OG mates decided to join in our conversation.

After the games, we were brought back to line up. There, we had a mass conversation trying to find out who each other were.

And before we knew it, hours have passed by and it was time for the couples to seperate again. We hurried back to our halls and washed away the mess. There wasn’t any supper that night… we were all too exhausted for that. And within seconds, I…….

Day 3, 8th July 2010

It was beach day! And as usual, the freshies had to be up by 8am. After a quick breakfast in NUS, we took a coach to none other than Sentosa. We journeyed to Emerald Pavilion and after settling down, we played the “R O C K rocks” game and MRT stations while awaiting the other OGs to arrive. By then, it was time for us to put on our OG identity. For Play², it was mainly green-colored hair sprays and finger paints. Why? Beats me too. =/

Our house head, Benjamin, with the green spray. He does kinda resemble Show Luo huh?

Yup we’re supposed to highlight our hair green.

Check out Charles’ hair. He has a letter ‘C’!

And we’re supposed to use some cheap ass paint to paint our fingernails green.

Out of nowhere, an insulated drink dispenser was carried to our circle and each of us had soy milk!

Hmmm. Nice soy milk.

I was showing my OG mates a tricky hand gesture, “Hunter Chasing The Rabbit”.

Let’s move out for the beach games!

But there’s always time for a picture! :D

For one of the beach games, we were supposed to go around looking for specific types of people to take photos with.

Here’s a picture of Play² with a caucasian bikini girl!

Play² with a ‘hunk’. We cheated by asking of our OG guys to pose as one =X

For the other games, they were more energy consuming. For example, tug-o-wars, where the guys from each OG face off again each other. Then for next segment, the station masters wanted the smallest girl from each group to participate in a one vs one tug-o-war.

So… I choose you. Drusilla!

Drusilla desperately trying to secure a win for Play² in a tug-o-war! Go Drusila!

We’ll root for you… with our battle standard. XD

Of course, not to forget. Our cheers. “Oi oi Samuleh!”

Playing Captain’s Ball in the waters.

Here’s a decent shot of Sim trying to defend!

Playing Charades by drawing on the sand.

Play² about to do a Kallang wave!

After going through all the stations, there was still one last final game to attempt. But this is no game is no single OG effort. It’s a inter-house war game! I really enjoyed myself in this one. Unfortunately, mostly everyone was involved in this game so I do not have the photos for this part. Here’s how the game works, every house has their marked territory. Inside the territory stands a tall ‘flag’ made of a hula-hoop wrapped with newspaper. There is also a huge pool of water bombs inside each territory. Yup you guessed it. Each house is supposed to protect their ‘flag’ from attackers while also attacking the opposing houses as well. The house whose flag is the least wet or damaged is announced the winner.

Here’s Ong trying to defend our territory from enemy bombers!

It was indeed war. After 20 minutes of endless running and shouting, the committee put a stop to the catastrophe. And after going through the ‘flags’ of each house, our house, Four Play, was announced the victors! Hooray!

Finally, the beach games were over! We went back to the pavilion, grabbed our beach party wear and headed off for a real nice shower! It was time for the Special Partner revelation! Everyone was excited about it so some of them took longer to doll up. After bathing, we all gathered back and our OGLs handed the guys a paper with our Special Partner’s number on it. This is a bit random but I was thinking, “what if some of them didn’t actually have a mobile phone?” Anyway, so the guys had to go to our own private corner and call up the girls. My Special Partner told me to meet her near the basketball court. To make sure that I wasn’t alone in this, I asked my OG guys whether they are headed off for the same area too. Guess what? Turns out I was right, our OG guys had to go to the same area. So off we went. It was a pretty long walk there and when we finally reached there, we were gretted by a line of girls. Hmm, now this is getting tricky. Apparantly, we had to go up to the girls and call out their nicks. Whoever nods her head in response to the nick, that’s your girl. Okay, so I went up and did that from girl to girl, only to be faced with rejection. I was surprised to be honest because none of the girls said yes to it. So I turned my back and went to inform my OGL that my Special Partner isn’t there, to which I was surprised again. So the deal was, the girls were supposed to make things difficult for us and we were supposed to recognize her based on FEELING… I KNOW RIGHT.

So I went back like a desperate guy and repeated the routine. This time, a group of girls were already laughing at my sillyness. So I concentrated on that group of three. In the end, I picked the one whose voice resembled the one I’ve been hearing for the past 2 days. Turns out I was right. We greeted each other and shortly after an OGL had to make things more difficult by coming over and taking photos of the new lovebirds while uttering rubbish. It wasn’t soon before awkwardness caught up with us.

My Special Partner and I. And I’m blushing. Right. Obviously, it’s the sun burn XD

We had to exchange gifts and she got me a nice box of Hershey’s Chocolate. Okay, here comes the most embarassing moment, she was expecting a gift from me and I DID NOT have a gift for her. When I broke the news to her, she replied with a little repugnance in her voice, At that moment, I swear I was thinking, “can somebody just shoot me now to save me from this ridicule.” But honestly, I got scammed by my OGLs. They told me that I could actually buy something from Sentosa. But the problem is, there wasn’t even any time for me to get her something. After that long tortuous moment of silence, we still had to walk to Wave House hand in hand. I’m almost certain that incidencet left a very bad impression of me. BUT YOU ALL KNOW I’M NOT LIKE THAT RIGHT!!! :D

At the wavehouse, we seperated and went back to our OGs. There, we witness the much anticipated Union Camp Pageant in progress! Jiajun from our OG is one of the contestants!

Here’s the Pageant in progress.

All the pageant contestants. Spot Jiajun, the fourth girl from the right!

And again. The pageant contestants!

And in case you’re wondering who won! Ronald Koh and Jiajun won Mr Union Camp 2010 and Miss Union Camp 2010 respectively! Congrats to them! :D If you really want to see them. It’s actually the guy in orange (on top of the girl in red top) and the girl wearing colorful top in the center. Anyhow, you’ll see them reprising their roles again in Union Camp 2011.

After the whole pageant, it was time for party! We all had a free drink and we were supposed to ‘club’. But honestly, how did you expect us to club without getting high. In the end, our OG spent most of our time watching a repeated telecast of a World Cup match while the other OGs went to had fun in the bubble bath and swimming pools.

We headed back and during the journey, I remember Aaron and I having a talk about his National Service. After which, both of us fell asleep without knowing. And back at our rooms, most of us just crashed.

Day 4, 9th July 2010

It was the last day of Union Camp! To be frank, I was actually more relieved than sad because I can finally go home, have a nice warm shower and sleep on my cooling silky bed. But before that, it was time for some pool games so off we headed to Jurong East Swimming Complex!

Here’s Leonard posing in front of Jurong East Swimming Complex!

And here’s a shot of the swimming pool.

For one of our station games, we had to climb up this long flight of steps to reach the top of the slide. During the ascension, there will be cards of words pasted in the most ridicule places so you really had to find these papers and memorize the words. It’s no easy feat. There were easily about 20+ words to memorize.

The mega slide!

Here’s me happily(?) walking over to the slide!

Heres Play²’s attempt on the game.

Play² celebrating our close victory over the opposing team.

Finally, we managed to catch the waves at this wave pool!

As the sun set, it was also time for us to part ways. We, except a few of us including me, changed into our OG tshirt and took a final group photo before segregating… or not? Of course not! After the camp, the OG went for a dinner at IMM Shopping Mall. See! That’s the spirit. XD

In all perfect honesty, I feel that this entry doesn’t do enough justice to all the gratifications I’ve experienced during Union Camp 2010. But still, it’s the least I can do to write the entire episode down in its purest form. I truly enjoyed myself during the 4 days and 3 nights. I guess it was more of the people that made the camp feel so everlasting! I still remember having doubts on making new friends from a camp that is filled from people with different interests and backgrounds. Not to mention building a new friendship over a span of 4 days. But seeing how bonded we got just after the few days and how I did enjoy the company of them. I made a promise to myself that I’ll definitely keep in touch with most of them after the camp. I also made a little note at the back of my head that I should join Union Camp again the following year… not as a freshie, but as an OGL. ;)

So there you have it. My fond memories of the epic 4 days 3 nights Union Camp saga all condensed and immortalised here on text and photos.

In this post, I’ll share with you guys my routine of uncovering new songs that are dominating our speakers nowadays. Also, I’ll show you how I maintain my music collection.

Step 1: Discovering new songs

1. Billboard Top 100

2. The Top Charts from iTunes Store

Unfortunately, the music that gets blasted on speakers nowadays are seldom to my liking. So I often have to find other means of discovering music.

3. Last.fm

Last.fm is a paid service that costs $3.00 USD (aprrox $3.80 SGD) a month. In return, you get rewarded with gobs of new music. In short, Last.fm offers an excellent database of music and the ability to network with other users. What it essentially does is that it recommends you songs based on the kind of music you like to listen to with its customized radio. The customized radio makes smart choices based on other users’ input. For example, searching for Piano Rock music yields me many songs that are tagged Piano Rock by the community. Pretty cool, huh? And if you’re using a mobile that utilizes Android or iOS, you can download the Last.fm app for your mobile devices. That way, you can use Last.fm’s services anywhere you are ;)

4. Shazam

Finally, an app that can regonize the song that is playing in the background! I’ve been waiting for such an app since I was a teenager! Shazam can identify the name, album, and artist of a song just by hearing it over your iPhone’s microphone. You’ll have to hold the iPhone mic close to the speaker for a few seconds as a song plays – on the radio, in a coffeeshop, or at a party. More often than not, Shazam will accurately report back with the song’s name, and (if available) and other useful details. In case you’re wondering, it does work for songs other than English and soundtracks as well… although sometimes it can fail terribly.

Step 2: Downloading the songs

There are almost countless different ways you can go about stealing songs. But I’ll still show you my method of downloading music anyway. In all humbleness, I believe that my method is the most efficient and the most reliable way of downloading particular tracks. Therefore, after reading through this, you should just forget your old method and follow my method XD

Floating in the vast waters is a talented software named after its creator. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I present to you SciLor’s Grooveshark Downloader.

Don’t be deceived by its simple design. This nifty software can fetch you nearly all mainstream music you ever come across, all nicely tagged and transcoded into high quality MP3s. Unfortunately, this is unique only to Windows. Sorry Mac users :(

Now the reason why I said this method of downloading particular tracks is the best is because of its source of music, Grooveshark. In case you’re wondering, Grooveshark is a popular online music search engine and music streaming service. Think of it as Youtube, without the videos and high quality music. Coincidentally, the music player featured on He’s Blog is fueled by Grooveshark too. But wait, I haven’t said why it’s the best yet. You see, because Grooveshark has a strict uploading policy like ensuring that the songs uploaded by users have to be of at least 128kbit/s and properly tagged. So you can be rest assured that the songs you download from Grooveshark are the real deal, unlike some trash you get from using your own method. C’mon, you jolly well know what I’m talking about. Afterall, Grooveshark’s primary goal is to provide you with free, high quality music streaming. Without a doubt, Grooveshark has fulfilled their goal. So now do you concur that my method is the best? ;)

Step 3: Managing your library

Warning: This step can be a serious pain in the ass.

Here’s how my iTunes look like:

Click to enlarge picture.

Personally, I sort my music according to their Date Added. All my music are properly tagged, of high quality and contain their album art and lyrics. Not sure about you guys but I find this step extremely important, especially when you own an iPod because without proper tagging, your iPod will look really messed up. When that happens, my OCD acts up and it makes me wanna pull all my hair out and /wrist. But obviously, it’s a huge pain in the ass to do this manually. Trust me, I tried doing manually tagging for about 1 year before finally giving up. It consumes way too much time. That’s when I told myself that there’s got to be a software that does this kind of tedious task. And I was right. After much googling, I stumbled upon Pollux - software that automatically tags the song name, artist, album, album art, genre, year, and lyrics for you.

Regrettably, it’s not free. It costs $10 USD per year, but it will be worth the buck especially when you have a huge library of music to be tagged.

However, I do have to comment that it’s not foulproof. Here are some of its flaws:

1. Wrong tagging. Sometimes, it tags some songs as being live or part of a “Greatest Hits” album. (about 10% of the time)
2. Lyrics are left out at times (about 40% of the time)
3. No album art at times (about 20% of the time)
4. Does not tag at all (about 10% of the time

In summary, there are still certain tracks that you have to tag yourself. But considering that I had 1k plus songs to tag, it’s pretty worth the money. But I won’t be continuing my subscription after this year since I find manually tagging more reliable in tagging the newest additions as compared to using a simi-buggy program.

So there you have it! Now go pimp your music collection. ;)

Signs off,
He

I’ve been thinking about this observation for quite some time since secondary school but I never had the time to formulate an ideal explanation. It’s only until recently that I had time to sit down and pen down my thoughts. Thinking back, I am really amazed by the fact that not many people have pondered about this observation. I remember trying discussing with some of my peers about this finding only to be ridiculed. I remember one of them raising his eye brow mocking, “Jacky, if you don’t look like how you do in the mirror, then how do you look like? LOL”. Still, I will attempt to dish out my thoughts on this manner.

Now. When we look at ourselves in a mirror, our image is reversed on the z axis. It’s universally known that if we raise our right hand in front of a mirror, our reflection will be raising his left. So here’s the smoking gun, when we look at ourselves through a mirror, we see a reversed image of ourselves. But when people see us, they don’t see a reversed image of us, do they? So what sense does it make for us to rely on a mirror to accurately assess our appearance?

You see. Our faces are not perfectly symmetrical. There are asymmetries. Hence when we see ourselves in a non-reversed way say through the means of a photo or a video, we might appear lopsided only to ourselves but not to others. On the other hand, when others see us in a mirror, they actually see a deformed image but to us it’s not. This happens because the asymmetries appear on the side others are not accustomed to seeing. As a result, we are more used to seeing ourselves in a mirror, meaning our mirror image, than in a photograph so our minds automatically perfers that perspective.

Our minds are naturally finding the faults in the photograph because we are not used to seeing ourselves in that perspective. Recall how many times you see youself in a photo and then asked around if you looked different. You may think you look bad in a photograph, but when someone else sees it, they don’t see the asymmetries and flaws. Similarly, that is why when you see others in a picture, you think they look the same in person. But to them, they probably don’t.

So now you know. And in case you’re wondering, there are indeed mirrors that show us our real side. They are called the “True Mirrors”. ;)

P.S. Named this post after a mind-blowing realistic first-person perspective action game of the same name.

Laters!

Signs off,
He

Eargasmic. I swear.

Taking the night off along with a couple of classmates after today’s paper. We reflected upon our previous two semesters in NUS and it was nothing but filled with bursts of laughters of the fond memories we’ve garnered over the year. So I decided to take some time off to write my heartfelt words down to thank a lecturer who has played a substantial role over students’ course of learning.

Personally, MA1301 and MA1521 have been the best experience out of all the modules I’ve taken in NUS. After studying arts for 3 years in poly, it was a difficult task persuading my brain to use its left hemisphere again. I remember vividly dreaded days of me pulling out the old, torn and tattered A.Math textbook in preparation for my new tertiary life in NUS and going to school filled with anxieties over not being able to get in tune with the new frequency. But your steady pace, skillful teaching and understanding in different students’ progress, have inspired me to pick up a pen and start doing Mathematics all over again.

In all fairness, I think you’ve set a very high standard for NUS lectures and I dare say this will be uncontested for a long term. To date, I’ve seen no other lecturers going the extra mile in assisting the students in their learning journey. Your consistent efforts in ensuring that every student are on par with your pace and your endless commitement to aiding students outside of lecture hours are very much appreciated. Not to mention, your witty jokes cracked during lessons that made the each and every single 2 hour session so enjoyable and entertaining for the students.

And while it’s sad news that MA1521 has finally come to an end, I do sincerely hope that one day, I will have to the chance to learn under you again.

Thank you Mr Ng for making MA1301 and MA1521 such wonderful rides. It’s such a great disappointment to hear that you will not longer be teaching these two modules. But nonetheless, I wish you all the best in your future modules and hope you continue making lectures fufilling, shining your light upon those learning to fly under your wings in the subsequent semesters till ∞!

ALL HAIL MR NG, BEST LECTURER IN NUS!

A very satisfied student,
Jacky.

Tell them they matter.

Update: Attached below is an annoucement my lecturer posted before he closed down the module website. He mentioned my name in his post. I am truly honored.

FIGHT!

Signs off,
He

I’m thankful enough to be given another chance in life to prove myself.

I shall not disappoint anymore.