Budget
It's that time of the year! April! Financial Year '04.
Expected income this year from NS = $350x12 = $4200
Current in Savings Account = $656
Target:
To save 50% of my income this year.
Expected amount in savings account at end of FY '04 = $2756
Expenditure per month = $175 or $44 per week.
Travel Expenses = $4x30 = $120 (subsidized by mom)
Phone Expenses = $80 (subsidized by mom)
Journey
Yesterday (or today) me and Porshee took a cycling trip from my house (Paya Lebar) to Sentosa. Cycled to the East Coast Park, the Indoor stadium, the Esplanade, Lao Pa Sat and finally Sentosa. Went into the Police Cordon off Nicholl Highway. Sometimes you don't have to go too far to realize a whole new world.
Sometimes when you're totally tired, just thinking... left right, left right, left right will get you home.
Sentiment
Someone just told me today that my medical entrance essay today was probably the emotional kind. She sat with me after the thing outside and told me I'm the sort that reads "Qiong Yao" and sobs away sort. For the record. I haven't read anything by Qiong Yao. But yeah, I believe her assessment was accurate.
I wonder why. I'm male.
The fact is, emotions is something that distinguishes my writing from anyone elses. What is written by me has a tempo, a flow. I try to keep a sort of wave feeling, like the vastness of the ocean as it nibbles at the beach. Nibble nibble nibble. Manipulating my metaphors, working with the raw of nothing. And just creating a beat, a pulse, a tempo.
What did I write about? Perhaps I wrote nothing more than the passing of dreams. While in that LT, sitting next to future doctors of Singapore, I was just thinking. Are you someone trying to be a superhero? Or are you just Superman, trying his darnednest to fit in with the rest of the human populace. Am I going to produce what people expect? Or produce what I expect of myself.
Life's not fair. Watch out world!
I admire those people who have a way with words. They speak little of what actually happens, but by the entire atmosphere of the language, by the choking sense of rhythm, by the choking sense of inevitability, what are but vapours coalesce to form a whole. A crushing anvil of inescapability.
A Little Love Story
Where does a story begin? Does it start when something changes so drastically, like when the sun rises over the horizon each day? Or does it begin more surreptitiously? The silent warmth of the sun shooting through the Earth, warming your limbs before you have even opened your eyes. The sound of traffic starting to build, the cold roads gradually warming up, like the warming up of your arteries as blood flows, and rushes around. And you wake as the sun rises over the horizon. At that exact moment, you open your eyes and see it in it's scarlet glory.
Who woke you up? Who brought you here?
Welcome in. Sit right down. Welcome to my mind. it's hard to find someone so willing to experiment with his own consciousness, but now with your help, this machine, might finally literally put ourselves in another person's shoes. Yes and now there are a few things I'd like you to do. Can you talk?
"I can hear you. This seems strange, like two voices in one head, too little space. Are you hearing me or are you understanding me or are you me? I'm confused at how this all works. Why am I me when I'm in you?"
You are you, and I am I because we both know who we are. The outline of our bodies, the very extent of our poise and our movement differentiates you from me, her from him. There is something I need you to do. Can you move around in my mind? Can you feel or see or experience what I've remembered?
"I see only flashes from the past. Moments of things you first fixed your eyes upon. A young girl. You walking to her, you giving her candy. She smiles. You throw her into your car. Lock the door. Drive off....."
Stop stop stop. That is something I've forgot.
"You pull over at the beach. The sun just set. Darkness and pleasure. Red hot passionate pleasure. For a whole night. For a long long night."
You have no right going into that. That was off limits. I am going to terminate the experiment now.
"Wait, what's the hurry? Let me share something with you."
The darkness. A malodourous scent. A weight suffocating. Restrained. Terror. Panic. Such wild panic. A hand in the wrong place. A sharp pain. A pain that wouldn't go away. A pain no amount of struggling could eliminate. Pain and panic. Pain and panic. Pain and panic... stop! stop! end this nightmare!
"How was that? Did you like that?"
The sun rises over the horizon. The light casts rays into the fogged up mirrors of the car. The car looks familiar. Push the guy off. Run away... Wait. That's me!
"That's right."
No don't. He gasps as the whole memory was given to him. He gasps as they share that one intimate moment. That small little love story. How does one live on when one has been violated? How does one live on when the culprit was himself?
And my wrist hurts. Fuck I think my playing just made it worse.
Suxin.
Boy walks down highway of dreams. Gets knocked down by passing car. Goes to heaven, judged by God. Sent to hell. Woke to a nightmare. Walks down the highway of nightmares. Gets knocked down by passing car. Goes to hell, judged by Satan. Sent to school. Wakes up to the sound of alarm clock.
Stop dreaming.
For the visually impaired student.
Atoms, molecules and ions
Atoms = glass balls of different sizes
Molecules = glass balls of different sizes stuck together.
Ions = Spherical magnets that attract and repel each other ( idea of charge)
Digestion
Eating food and tracing it as it goes down the food passage.
Hearing the sound of digestion in the tummy.
Understanding digestion as a chemical (saliva, digestive juices etc) as well as kinetic(movement of jaws and stomach) decomposition process.
Means of nutrition
Transport in living things
Feeling pulse and heartbeat
Osmosis tubes
Potato tubers
Diffusion of smell. Use of glass tubing to make scent maze, allows the sniffing of scent at different points as it travels down a tube.
Capillary tubes to show flow of water against gravity. Use of detergents to give soapy feeling.
Sexual Reproduction in human beings???!!!
Issues on Sex??!!
Energy
Flow of heat from hot to cold.
Hand experiments in basins of hot and cold water
Throwing a ball at a wall to show conversion of energy
Lighting a bulb with batteries to show conversion of energy.
Light and Colour
Try to make them feel differences in colour, especially those only mildly visually impaired. Use high intensity lamps to really bask them in colour and hope they can feel it through the skin.
Explain that it can only be seen and not felt.
Light travels in straight lines. Use a laser bouncing through glass prisms to show the point of heat is a straight line, no matter how far you put your finger.
How do you explain colour to someone who doesn't see?
It's a vibration, produced by individual objects by the collision with light. Like how certain objects have certain sounds.
Introducing electricity...
Same with a sighted person except with the physical objects instead of pictures.
Household electricity....
Mainly theory. Show them the meter which ticks. When a heat lamp is switched on, it ticks faster. when it's turned off, the ticking stops.
Interactions.
Show let them feel a mini pool table and the feeling of crashing balls.
Show the sympathetic vibration of a glass when a tone of the right frequency is played to excite it.
Things affect other things.
Changing matter.
Moulding
Science Discovery For Secondary 2 / 8th Grade text book
5 units / 15 chapters on:
Science as an inquiry
Solving problems in science
Models and systems
The particulate model of matter
Atoms, molecules and ions
Digestion
Transport in living things
Sexual reproduction in human beings
Issues on sex
Energy
Light and colour
Introducing electricity
Household electricity
Interactions
Changing matter
Sound
Living things in an ecosystem
Energy transfer in ecosystems
Cycles
Nutrient cycles in the ecosystem
271 pages
Science Discovery For Secondary 2 / 8th Grade theory work book
5 units / 15 chapters
60 exercises
151 pages
Science Discovery For Secondary 2 / 8th Grade practical work book
5 units / 15 chapters
47 well-designed experiments structured as follows:
Aims
Apparatus and materials
Skills
Procedure and observations
126 pages
Product benefits
Investigative approach
This Singapore Science text book focuses on developing a strong scientific foundation in your child, emphasises the basic concepts and understanding of science, making use of investigative approaches and critical thinking skills.
This Singapore Science practical work book provides ample practical activities specifically designed to help your child see and prove for himself the concepts that he has learned in the textbook.
This Singapore Science theory work book provides many exercises to enable your child to think critically and creatively, and learn how to gather information on computers and the web.
Attractive and colourful illustrations
These include photographs, pictures, cartoons, diagrams and charts, which together bring science alive and ease the learning of science.
Interesting activities
These Singapore Science text book and work books contain lots of interesting activities, experiments and suggestions for project work to stimulate your child's interest in science.
Thought-provoking questions
These Singapore Science text book and work books contain many thought-provoking questions that help reinforce your child's understanding of the science concepts, skills and processes taught, as well as develop his thinking skills in science.
Secondary 2 physics
My wrist is fixed.
What is it that makes people learn quickly or slowly? What is it that makes information so accessible sometimes, and so inaccessible in others? How can we improve human understanding and experience?
It's all in the interface.
Paragraphing is a form of interface, as is capitalization, punctuation, listing, bolding, italicizing. Language, in the written form is full of guides that tell us how to best read the material, how to best experience the material. All these techniques would be lost in braille form, and the text can rarely be conveyed with the same flavour. Phoenixes in the minds of those who have seen a Harry Potter book cover, or that of Dungeons and Dragons art, would be very different from the phoenix conjured up in the mind of the visually impaired. Simply, the interface is different. Information is lacking in the experience of the Visually impaired person.
Perhaps the failure to learn, is not about being unable to understand information, but the failure to recieve it in the first place. Examples are, people who can't determine emotions of a person from their facial expression, people who cannot determine mood from the tone of voice. What we need to do now, is to reinterpret the models we've held in our minds so far to bring understanding to those who cannot see.
Then again, the question is, can a person hold two models of the world in a single mind? Can a person absolutely believe in Christianity and Atheism at the same time?
Lethargy But Fufillment
It's been quite a while since I last blogged. Work work work, and fun fun fun! Now I'm at the JOPD, which means more use of the internet, and finally a role, and a job and a responsibility. My first meeting later, and I think it's cool. Wearing the RJ shirt though. with black pants.
Friday was amazing (Apr 02). Had my first dance lesson and had quite a bit of fun dancing with geri and shirlene. Felt the difference in dance styles between people, and actual personality differences as well. Some people are calmer, some people are more gentle, some people just move naturally to the music, some people have music flow through them like rapids, or white noise. Dance is an interesting experience, though it still hurts to see myself try to dance in the mirror.
Saturday was hectic as well from the very moment I woke up. Went out with my family for this wonderful lunch at Siglap. It's called the Noodle Place, run by China waitresses and a Chinese boss. And their best dish happened to be this claypot simmered chicken. We didn't eat their noodles, so I wouldn't know how good it was, it had strange decor, slightly like a cross between a coffee club and a cheap shop trying to look high class. It had like... 8 of the same piece of sculpture, and the place was ORANGE. Scary!
After that it was Music Songwriting workshop where these two famous songwriters had a good time telling us about chinese song structure, and how simple it is, and yeah, it lies pretty much on basic chord progressions. Still I guess it's great that even with such a limited vocabulary, it's possible to produce something as beautiful as ... yujian or fengzhen or xinbuliaoqing. It's not only about the music in chinese pop. It's also the poetry.
Then guitar lessons again, 2nd lesson. Learnt how to listen out for chords. Had some practice. My partner couldn't get it so... the teacher tried to teach him how to hear it. Think I can play most chinese songs now with a capo. After lessons went to grandma's house with my dreamcast, returning it to my uncle. Brought my whole collection of games as well. Had fun playing with my cousins but I was terribly tired by then. Got my uncle a chinese flute as well, and he was really pleased. Never owned such a beautiful flute in his life, he was gushing. Haha and he still could play a few tunes. So that's cool, heard he's going to play for us this sat. Once he gets that feeling back. It's been 20 odd years since he last played the flute.
Wrist died on Sunday morning. Couldn't close my hand with much force. Could play a few barre chords before the whole thing siezed up so gave it a little rest for one day. Went to porshee's house for games after lunch. Lots of fun playing winning eleven. now that I've read the FAQ, I can show them a few more things man the next time we meet. Also this beach volleyball game where all the guys oogled the virtual girls. Yeah. Virtual Reality is so much more beautiful.
Had Indian Vegetarian food with the bunch of guys and his family. Food wasn't bad, except that we ordered alot alot. I think it's a chinese family thing. My family ordered alot of indian vegetarian food the first time we ate it too. But we managed to finish it in the end. Really hated their sweets though, even though I wanted to buy them in the first place. They had like ginger in it, and tasted weird. and the whole piece was so sweet and gingery. so I ate like one mouth of each and just threw the rest away on my plate.
Great meal though. Porshee's family is very funny.
Firefly selection process part 2 on Monday. (5 Apr) Stressful time, not supposed to talk much about it, so I'll just list my accomplishments here. Managed to talk passionately on the arts for 2 minutes as an well organized monologue. Managed to get the group to have something done. Didn't manage to say anything during negotiations, but it was TERRIBLY messy.
Brings me to Tuesday. Went to new camp. Met all the fun people here, joined them for a birthday lunch. Met geri for fun. Bought her something pink. She treated me to a creampuff.
I realize I daze when I see pink. Especially if it's lots of pink. I don't know what to say and think and just freeze. I think it's because I hate the colour.
Met shihui again. She was her friendly self. I think she had alot of business that day. But with her bubbly character, I think it's pretty expected lah. I think she's bringing in the moolah. I must try bringing in the moolah too. Maybe give drum lessons, or quickly learn guitar so I can give guitar lessons. Oh but the silly wrist isn't good yet (Wed). Think it'll be fine tomorrow. Already much better. I think once you start working, you realize how much work is required to bring in moolah. Then you really try to get maximum satisfaction from your moolah.
Just thinking that men and women are always having this whole misunderstanding thing. Okay another generalization here again. Alert.
Women feel that their place in their men's hearts is directly proportional to the amount their presents cost. Whereas men feel that their place in a woman's heart is how stable the relationship is.
But men always talk about how much money they spend on their women, while women always talk about how much they love the man.
I think it's opposite.
Women love the gifts lavished on them. Men just love the company.
Lust Oestrogen Valentine Eros
Back to the same problem. The Earth orbits the Sun and revisits it once in a long while.
Always to have Lessons to learn.
1) Follow your heart.
2) Don't stare
3) Tell Her
4) Don't Tell Her
5) Make sure it's mutual
6) What if it's one sided?
7) What if it's unequal two sided?
8) He's the worst in class.
9) He's the best in class.
10) He's not for me.
11) He's weird
12) He's ok... but (insert reason)
13) Nobody likes him (so why should I)
14) He acts different in front of guys and in front of girls
15) He always sits next to me!
16) He doesn't sit next to me.
17) I'm not ready.
18) I'm ready would he just please please please ask?
19) We're together.
20) We're not together.
Then What?
