Quite an interesting day

Haha, I had quite an interesting day today.
After my usual lecture which ended at 3pm and then my first PAL program for Maths 1 today, I was supposed to be getting dinner for some friends as I had planned. I had not seen them for some time and we thus decided to have dinner together at an arranged venue.
I had everything planned out beforehand. I would rush off after I was done with school for the day and take a bus a few stops down to a food court where I would be getting dinner for the guys. Unfortunately, some unexpected issues cropped up. Firstly, my hand phone started running low on battery towards the end of lecture. Knowing that I still needed to use my phone to contact my friends later in the evening, I tried to find some way to charge my phone a little hoping that whatever little battery my phone had would be enough to last for me to pick up dinner and to make the delivery. Moreover, the PAL session ended off half an hour later than it was supposed to, which I didn't plan for. Thus, I was really rushing after class finally ended.
For one, I didn't want to arrive at my destination too late cuz obviously it wouldn't be very nice to delay their dinner. Also, there was the problem of my almost "dead" phone and I still had not taken their orders for dinner. On top of that I still needed to make a trip to the bank!
Well, all my effort didn't go to waste though. I managed to get to the hawker centre just after 1830 with around 15% of my phone battery left. I made the call quickly and got their orders. There was even a request to pick up one of the guys' dinner as his mum works there so his dinner was somewhat already prepared. By the time the call ended, I had orders for two packets of fried carrot cake with lots of chilli, one bowl of fishball soup noodles, two packets of western chicken cutlet rice and to pick up the bowl of "bak ku teh" from my friend's mum's shop.
Haha... I am sure I had never taken so many food orders all at once before! From finding the correct food stalls to get the food from, to remembering what to order, to finally collecting all the food and making sure I got everything, it sure was loads of fun hahaha!!
I made the "bak ku teh" my last stop as I intended to just pick it up and leave. However, I certainly needed another three arms to carry all that food as well as my belongings. Thus, I stopped by my friend's mum's char kuey teow stall and place all my stuff on the benches to rearrange the items so that I could carry them better. Thankfully, my friend's mum saw that and offered me two much larger plastic bags so that I could place every thing in and carry them with my two hands. I also got myself some dinner too which was char kuey teow of course! Much to my surprise, my friend's mum fried a really huge packet of char kuey teow and refused to accept my money, saying that it was for me to share with the other guys. Wow... thanks! Hahaha...
After thanking her profusely for all her help, I left, my arms laden down with the food. After meeting up with the guys, we had dinner together and talked. It was only 1945 then! Efficiency much... hahaha! We had lots to talk about and I was too excited to sit down while eating... They saw that and commented that I was the same as before, always standing up when eating. Hahaha, such memories.
After hanging around for about half an hour, I then got up to leave. We were definitely going to meet up again soon.
The story doesn't end here though. It was only when I got all the way home and sat down to do some studying that I realised, much to my horror, that my whole folder was not with me!! Yes, I left it at the hawker centre! I had been so focused on getting the food and feeling so ecstatic about meeting my friends that I had totally forgotten that I was supposed to be carrying my folder. While the shock of my blunder and loss was still coursing through me, I had a brainwave! I quickly sent a few messages to my friend and got his mum to hold on to my file for me. That set my mind at ease. I would go over to pick it up tomorrow. It was a lost and found after all.
I am so shagged and tired right now. It sure had been a really long day.
Nights!

Mid autumn festival 2014

As said in my previous post, I went out with JL after the Stats 2 workshop today. Well, the main reason why we went out today was to visit the Gardens By the Bay and view the lanterns on exhibit there which were for the Mid Autumn Festival. But that was later in the evening. Before that, we had the Beef Samurai Burger as a late lunch/ early dinner at Marina Square Mac's which we had wanted to try since couple of weeks back. Once again, it was just a mess of a burger with lots of sauce overflowing and hardly impressive really. Lately, this has been quite common for Mac's new burgers -  too much overwhelming sauces on the burger, not to say all are bad though. Anyways, we left after eating and made our way to Gardens By the Bay for the event there. We walked there via MBS though which really caught me by surprise. I had no idea there was a bridge connecting MBS with GBTB.
We got to GBTB just as the sun was setting, just in time for the lanterns to be lit. We planned to follow the loop around the garden and see if there was anything interesting along the way. As we walked, I realised that there wasn't too big a crowd which was a relief. Then again, it might have been due to the large crowd being spread out over the huge garden. Once again, we were walking through rows and rows of LED-lighted structures and figures with absolutely no sight of any traditional paper lanterns, whether on display or being carried on sticks by the visitors. This was quite a dismay to both of us as we had been hoping to see some traditional elements at the event. Thus, it was pretty much the same as last year when we went to the Mid Autumn Festival event at Chinese Garden.
Having said that, I felt that this year's event at GBTB was slightly better than the one we went to last year. This is due to the few points as listed below,

- Firstly, we did not have to pay an entrance fee for this event at GBTB which was not the case for Chinese Gardens where we had to purchase tickets.
- As I had mentioned earlier, it was also not too cramped due to the huge size of GBTB which sure made the walk more relaxing
- There was some traditional element in the event at GBTB in the form of guessing of lantern riddles (灯谜) which was usually played during Mid Autumn Festival as people gathered around their lanterns, hence the name.
- There were also several other booths set up which featured some beautiful handmade lanterns which were winning pieces for a lantern making competition and some other games or talks.

We soon grew bored and tired of walking and left about two hours after we got there. We then settled down at a Starbucks to have a drink and rest our legs before heading home. Thinking back, I feel that the first Mid Autumn Festival I had with JL was still the most fun and memorable which we celebrated at East Coast Park and was totally planned by the both of us, from lanterns to mooncakes and the venue. Think we should plan the next one on our own again ya?

Clueless about Stats

As I had posted earlier this week, I went for a Stats workshop today which was meant to prepare us for Stats 2 lecturers later this year. Although I had already missed quite a few sessions of this workshop, I was attending today's session mainly for two reasons. Firstly, I have heard quite alot on how Stats 2 was of "out of this world" level of difficulty and that I would not understand what was being taught anyways so there was no point in attending the workshops. Thus, having done Statistics in JC, I just wanted to have a glimpse of how difficult Stats 2 really was and if there were going to be lots of new content being taught so I could prepare myself for them. Secondly, I was also hoping that since Uni lectures were known for going much more in depth than what we learnt in JC, I might gain some new perspectives which may help me understand what I'm learning.
Unfortunately, as I was sitting in the lecture theatre an hour after the lecturer started speaking, I was trying really hard to make sense of what he was saying, while the other half of my mind was already dozing off. My mind barely jolted awake at some familiar words like "Binomial" and "Poisson" but was otherwise unable to make sense of much else.
When break came one an half hours into the lecture, I was so glad to have an opportunity to get out of the LT that I actually thought it was the end of the session. I had no intention of sitting through the next session so I started to pack. I then realised the lecture was not over... Lol! Lucky I had not stood up with my bag over my shoulder yet or I would have looked really stupid.
It was also around this time that two guys behind me started a conversation with me asking how well I was following the lecture so far. I just told them that I could not understand anything at all. They then replied " You are not the only one." Indeed, I could see many clueless faces during the second part of the session and the guy to my right was already dozing off...
By the time the session ended, I came to the conclusion that I needed to put in a lot of effort to prepare for my Statistics lectures before they start November. Moreover, I am sure I would have no problems making new friends in my Stats lectures given that most of us would have something in common. Haha!

Stats 2 Workshops

Hi all. So I finally logged in to my school's student portal today and was met with a really cramped schedule for this week! Haha.... I know, it's already almost the end of the week right? Yupp, I missed quite a sessions of the Stats 2 workshop as a result. I had been procrastinating my logging in to the student portal to check on my timetable for this week, even though I knew there were several Stats 2 workshops going on this week. I guess I was just lazy...
I've heard that Stats 2 is on a whole new level from the usual stats that we did in JC. Whole new level meaning skywards... haha! Worse still, it is built on the foundation of stats we did in JC, which I never really got the hang of anyways. As such, now that I know the dates and venues for the few remaining Stats 2 workshop session left for tomorrow and Saturday, I am planning to attend the sessions tomorrow, as a last attempt to get a glimpse of Stats 2 before lectures begin. I haven't had time to read through the lecture slides for tomorrow's lecture though.
Well, and I'm heading out with JL tomorrow after the lectures. It's really late now, feeling really sleepy. ciaos!

Hitting the gym once again

Hi guys! I'm just back from the gym and I'm feeling so awesome! It's been a long time since a gym session went so well that I ended off perspiring. Hmm... in fact, this is perhaps the first time I perspired after a gym session, without doing any jogging. On most other gym sessions, I would leave the gym with my muscles aching but not perspiring, unless I spent some time on the treadmill. Somehow, that is not as satisfying a gym session.
It is most likely that I will be going for another workout or two later this week and hopefully I can keep this as a weekly routine haha! I'm also trying to add jogging and swimming into my weekly routine amidst all my studying. Hope the bright sunny skies keep up until I make time to head to the pool. Most likely will do so next week!

Sharks - What you may not have known

Heyyy, so I was watching a program on Sharks this morning on Nat Geo Wild, Starhub, which introduced some sharks with interesting features whether it is for hunting or self protection. Here is the list:

1. Wobbegong shark
This shark was introduced as one with a very huge gaping mouth which it uses to catch prey of course. It also has an outer covering of skin which is coloured just like the sea floor and with patterns and markings to help these fish better camouflage with the seafloor. As such, these sharks spend most of their time on the seafloor and are passive hunters, lying in wait and feeding on small fish which swim too close to their gaping mouths.
2. Thresher shark
Now, this is one interesting shark. It has a really long tail which can be as long as the body of the shark itself. Of course, that long tail helps in swimming but the shark uses that tail for hunting too. It "swipes" or "slaps" the water to stun prey such as small fish or even kill them. It was said that this "slapping" even splits the H and the O of the water. Haha, I dunno how true that is but it sure sounds cool.
3. Epaulette shark
Unlike most other sharks, this one is much smaller, growing up to about 1m at most. The only feature introduced about this shark was the black rings found behind each pectoral fin thus making it look cute. Hahaha... quite an innocent word to describe sharks but given it's size, I guess it might really look cute.
4. Sevengill shark
This shark, as the name suggests, has seven pairs of gill slits. I learnt that this differs from other sharks as most other sharks have only 5. This again is a relatively small shark, growing up to about 1.4m in length.
5. Nurse shark
Okay, here's a shark that actually sleeps. It was said that most sharks are active 24 hours of the day due to the need to be in constant motion to seek waters rich in oxygen. Otherwise, these sharks may die due to a lack of oxygen. Furthermore, sharks, as do most fish, need to be in constant motion to remain afloat and not sink to the bottom of the ocean. This would then be dangerous for the sharks as well.
So basically, the Nurse shark has the ability to respire by pumping water out of their gills even when sleeping thus having the ability to take a rest at the bottom of the ocean.
6. Horn shark
This shark has special features not to aid it in hunting but to protect it. There are large venomous spines behind its two high dorsal fins which predators will inevitably come into contact with should these predators attempt to devour the horn shark. Moreover, this shark also has a rather ugly look with a short and flat head.
More interestingly, the eggs of the horn shark are shaped like huge cork screws which the mother wedges into crevices or rocks to prevent them from being washed away by the ocean currents or to protect the eggs from predators. The female horn shark usually lays up to 24 eggs within 2 weeks.
Moreover, the horn shark prefers using its fins to push itself along the seafloor to move from place to place rather than swimming. Thus, it almost seems like the horn shark is walking. It is also able to store oxygenated water in its gills for up to three and a half hours.
7. Angel shark
Ooops... cannot remember what was special about this fish.
8. Goblin shark 
This one looks real nasty, much like an ugly goblin and hence it's name. Much of the reason for its ugliness is a long flat snout protruding out of its head. It also has long teeth which extends out of its mouth giving it a menacing look. It can grow to 3-4m or even larger which makes this quite a huge fish.
One other interesting thing about this fish is that its scientific name, "Mitsukurina Owstoni" is derived from two people, Alan Owston and Kakichi Mitsukuri, both who helped in discovering this shark.
Its snout is also covered with "ampullae of Lorenzini" which help it to detect electric fields so that the shark is able to find its way around, much like us using compasses.
9. Frilled shark 
The only thing I remembered about this shark is that the gills on both sides of its head extend out under its head and connect, looking sort of like frills hence its name.
10. Cookie cutter shark
This shark was introduced as one which has hardly been seen. This is likely due to its small size, growing up to around 50cm only. So little is known about this fish and much is merely deduction using scars on its victims.  Haha, what is interesting about this shark is its feeding habit. Basically, it swims up to huge sea creatures, be it bluefin tuna, or larger sharks or whales and uses its razor sharp teeth to take a bite out of them. Just one crunch, and the round shape of a cookie is carved out of the flesh, just like a cookie cutter. It was not mentioned whether the bite was deadly so I guess it just goes around taking bites out of creatures and does not finish its prey whole. Oh, and they are definitely not at the top of the food chain, given their size.
So if ever you are out there swimming in the sea and happen to have a round shaped wound... you might just have been bitten by a cookie cutter shark. Yes, they do bite humans too!
11. Great white shark
Okay, so the next few sharks are the more common ones. This Great White Shark is quite well known to many right? It is probably the most feared shark of all. Well, the only new thing I learnt about this shark was that it has the ability to keep its body warm even in cooler waters. Thus, this is how it keeps its energy level up and is thus so powerful in hunting prey.
12. Hammerhead shark
The only thing I remember about this shark, besides how it looks, is that a huge school of this fish gather together at a certain time each year. However, it is not clear whether they do so to mate or for other purposes. Still, it is really a majestic sight!
13. Tiger shark
I learnt something new about this shark too. Apparently, they eat any rubbish they can find in the seas and have stomachs which have really strong acids to digest all that "rubbish" too. It was said that these sharks have been known to eat everything ranging from metal signs to sea creatures and other sharks. They can even turn their stomachs inside out to remove all the excess which they do not need.

Having watched this program and another one about polar bears and their Arctic habitat which I had watched previously, I was once again reminded of how human activities have very detrimental impacts on the fauna and flora of this Earth. More specifically, air and water pollution caused by our mining and burning of fossil fuels has resulted in very toxic habitats for these other occupants which share this Earth, ultimately leading to the deaths and even extinction of these creatures. I do feel more needs to be done to minimise such consequences and at a faster pace too.
Phew, what a long post...

Uni preparations in a flash!

Okay, so I've been really busy with preparing for my new school year in University for around the past one month, I'm of course really excited ( a feeling repeated in most of my recent posts.... haha) and there have been lots going on really. Yea, that explains the lack of updates or posts for the past one month but no worries, I'm going to be putting up some updates here today. Actually... I have written about some of the things that have been going on if I recall. Still, here's a summary...

14/07 - Study Skills workshop 1
17/07 -  UOL Offer sent
18/07 - Registered for FOD2/ Enrolment Talk workshop
24/07 - FOD 2 0830 to 1800
30/07 - Enrolment Talk
31/07 - Morning did SSCE and editted my selections in the evening after a discussion with my Dad Realised I should have planned my classes such that I do not need to go to school every day,,, Oops.
Finalised timetable and submitted
01/08 - Preparatory Maths 1 workshop
03/08 - Timbre dinner with FOD OG/ Got selected for FOC2!!
05/08 - Preparatory Intro to Economics workshop 1 ( lecturer did not go through worksheet)
After this second prep course, I understood how it is possible to attend lectures and leave without making any friends. No one seemed to be talking to one another lol
06/08 - Was supposed to be Econs Prep workshop 2 but had to miss it due to FOC2!! It sure was FUN!!!
08/08 - End of FOC2
11/08 - Maths 1 first lecture
12/08 - Just to let you guys know, up until now I had not paid my school fees due to not having gotten my invoice. I was really frantic, worried, even desperate as to why I had not gotten it yet when lessons had already started. Thus I was really relieved to finally get my invoice today!
20/08 - Parents finally made payment of my school fees... A load in my chest was finally released.
Yupp, up until now this I pretty much most of what has been going on in my life. I will go into detail about some of these events in due course when I have had more time to blog,
Now. it's really late and I'm going to bed... so ciaos!