“For it is written, I [God] will destroy the wisdom of the wise. and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?…Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” 1 Cor 1:19-20, 25.

I forgot what I had in my mind when I was reading this but I remembered this urge to share it. No matter how rationale Christianity can brand itself to be, one still require a certain jump in thinking or a certain change in paradigm to actually accept the notion of Christ death and resurrection. Some call this jump or leap a blind faith. Be it blind or be it nonsensical but I think this leap is necessary before you can fully understand or experience the spirituality of God.

“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Cor 2:14.

Sometimes I really wonder if I have actually taken the leap or have I been taking God’s divine intervention in my life for granted. You got to take a step back at times to appreciate what actually has been going on.

 

A very recent conversation I came across - 

A: I bought some snacks today and stock up in preparation for my exams.

B: What did you buy?

A: I bought cereals, lots of them…and peanuts…and biscuits…

B: oh be careful about the biscuits, remember the recent health scam? brands XX and YY should be avoided

A: orh… btw one more thing! I bought some pancake mix and maple syrup!

B: wow! what’s that for?!

A: duhz. for me to make and eat when I’m hungry lor. Like say in the afternoonz or in the middle of the night.

B: *sigh* i thought you were going to make them for me.

A: oh. erm… well I can make some for you if I have any left overs after the exams. 

AHAHahhahahaha. When Charles Darwin proposed the notion of evolution, he did mention the biodiversity evolved by natural selection or survival of the fittest. Perhaps that was when the phrase “every man for himself” came about. Obviously, woman was not included. 

I am A, a(n) ARSEH8L3 

When I was 5, my mother used to shout “越帮越忙” each time I offered my help in the kitchen. This is probably the best phrase to describe the messy aid that governments around the world is trying to offer to the economy. 

The housing boom fueled by the fake money from the feds dragged many structured products into the financial market. Talents poured into the industry and being in the financial industry became imprinted on everyone’s cover letter. I believe some will even tattoo it on their backs to remind them of the monetary driven ambition. You cannot resist the draw of the dollar and I was once a sad victim of it.

Now that the bubble has burst, central banks are called upon to pour even more money to prevent the economy from sinking beyond the tipping point of no recovery. The low interest rates and resulting credit was the cause of the trouble and here we go asking the banks to do the same in order to save the world. Weird.

So many people have gotten a job in the financial industry during the boom and rightly so they should be retrenched so they can be diverted to other segments of the economy for recovery to take place…no?

If we were to keep everyone’s job and try to pump in money to keep the housing prices high and the credit situation status quo in the industry, are we not trying to sustain a castle in the air that is inherently unsustainable?  The earlier we realise the truth, the sooner we can let the market start its healing process. Yes, the truth is painful but you got to let the industry go under and return to a level sustainable by the economy. 

Humility is something that I should really learn and demonstrate, especially in my conversations with others. I cannot remember who was it that I held the conversation with but I clearly remember commenting on the feasibility of renewable energy in Singapore in the future. While I can see solar energy being the main choice behind our push for alternative fuel, I did not expect it to be a major player in our manufacturing industry. Further, I dismissed the other party’s talk on wind powered generators and laughed at the idea of having wind turbines in Singapore. 

News that followed made me swallowed back every single word. Norway’s REC revealed plans to build the world’s largest solar panel manufacturing plant in Tuas while world leader in wind energy Vestas set up its R&D department in Fusionopolis. Expect the unexpected. Leave some room for these things to happen the next time you discuss something with others. Being assertive has its pitfalls.  

When the address bar does not prompt you for the wordpress link after typing the first few letters, I knew it must have been eons since I last updated anything. Rightly so since this semester has been my most busy or should I say will be my busiest semester ever. Yes. I am graduating and this breather cannot come any sooner. On top of my FYP, I had three lab reports to do, two term papers to write, one research proposal to submit and 3 grand presentations to make. Thank God for pulling me through. Not to mention the understanding girlfriend who was kind enough to relax our meetings to a frequency of once-a-week. 

You might ask the same question that has been bugging me for months: where do I go from now? While the prospects of further studies and earning the eventual “Dr” title seemed really attractive, I had to balance this beckoning calling with the more practical moolah. My inability to secure a better paying scholarship means that I have to suffer a $1000 paycut should I ignore a civil job and accept the default research scholarship from the department. That’s $36000 over the whole course, enough to get me decent car or a superb set of nikon lenses, bodies, Gitzo tripods… you get the idea. Frankly speaking, the main drive behind the consideration of the PhD is the incomplete project at hand and I believe that with a few more months, I can easily complete it. My sup told me that it is worthy of a Master’s Thesis so logically speaking, some additions to it can easily pass it for a PhD paper. I would say that’s easy money and great life at least for the next few years. Then again, to sacrifice more than 30 grand for this desire is really testing. 

What a time to graduate. Anyway, Keynesianism is again at helms with the calling for additional government injection. Recovery is going to be slow and I will be stuck till then. Hopefully things will be better soon. Hamilton is on the grid. *fingers crossed*.

 

Update! Dramatic finish for my man! In the final laps of the race, rain came down and forced the first five to pit for new tires. Timo stayed out and clinched a vital fourth position after massa, kimi and weird eyebrows came out. Vettel and lewis got caught behind the toyota man who chose to stay on slicks. On the second last lap, Kubica was on the tail of both vettel and lewis as he came out with intermediates first. Having gotten heat into the rubbers, the BMW asshole chased down the tail of vettel and tried to maneuver a crazy move to overtake the fifth and sixth car. What the hell was he trying to do with a lap down? Anyway, that sucka forced hamilton to slip wide, allowing vettel to pass with ease and Hamilton to chase for fifth position in order for him to secure the champsionship. Time was running out and the mclaren clearly did not have the pace in those conditions to close in for an attack on the monza winner (in wet). After massa passed the chequered flag, I thought all was lost as hamilton chased vettel all the way to the flag. Even the commentator was mourning the lost of the championship as the camera crew panned over to the ferrari’s pit to show the elated massa’s family. Suddenly it was announced that lewis was in fifth and the screen displayed the final lap times to confirm the announcement! Apparently, timo struggled for grip in the final lap as the rain poured heavily, slowing to a crawl on the final turn before the cars slingshot onto the straight, allowing both lewis and vettel to pass.

Yes. After all the wait. Take this you ferrari #*@(#*&!.    

The weekends came and went again. I used to mark the two days after friday with a different coloured marker in the past because they were the time I get to have some rest. Ever since my holidays started, the weekends have been marked with a skull symbol. I am even busier on the s-days than the usual weekdays! 

Nevertheless, I welcome back the saturday soccer session. It is always good to run around on grass (though synthetic) and breathe the fresh air (next to the high way). A moment to savour came at the end of the session when a high ball came to me and the defender let it bounce after I dummied a volley. As he turned his back to block the fake shot, I shifted my weight, turned and blasted one past him and slotted the ball beside the post passed the shock keeper. Let out a “woohoo” and was sure that I was about to press square during the instant replay, only to realise it was a real thing that I pulled off. Only a word to describe it - shiok ah. Ok that’s two words. 

Then came the fire works. R got a room again and V used it for the youth meeting. The agenda was simple but the focus of the group was really poor and we got interrupted rather frequently. Mini R was really cute when she referred the swimming pool to “miming pool” and she kept going on about it until I lost my train of thoughts. Ah I want to pinch her cheeks. It was also a day that I witnessed the true meaning behind the role “father”.  Someone thought W pooped in her diapers and wanted V to check. Without any hesitation, V brought W high up and put his face into her diapers, took a huge sniff and proclaimed proudly “no lah, not poop!”. Usually you would think that V has lost his manhood but no, he gained his fatherhood.

Fireworks came but the vantage point was not that excellent. Attached one at the bottom. It is not absolutely gorgeous nor acceptable by any standards, but give me a break! It’s my virgin fireworks shoot! 

 

 

The last time I watched a movie twice within the span of a week was almost ten years ago when Neo set the CGI trend of bullet dodging and high flying kicks. This time round, there was minimal CGI effects and even lesser actions that characterizes the genre of superhero movies. There were no metal suits, no crazy genes that gives your laser eyes or spider senses; it was that sense of justice and calling to be something that you did not set out to be - a silent guardian. The movie tracks the development of batman and showed his coming to terms with his existence in a city so desperate of justice. His role was meant to inspire people. to inspire good and clean up the dirt. He set out to save people but yet was condemned by the same people. To watch them criticize his acts on the tube is one thing, but to be present at the news conference and hear them publicly seeking his blood was another. He must have endured tremendous anguish to know that these are the people whom he tried so hard to protect. Fortunately, he did not give up. Not after deaths of innocent, not after the death of his love one, not after the death of the white knight of Gotham - he is willing to sacrifice and willing to persevere. Awesome.

It’s rather interesting to see how dense I can be during the show. Harvey said that “you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” and he was referring to himself and Bruce! Granted he did not know at that time that he was the batman but I knew and I didn’t catch that point at all. I guess we must thank the script writers who kindly put that same line back at the end.  

They come and they go, but few stay around for long. TLL from church pointed out a fact that is so easily understood we often missed it. She said, as you grow older, you start to devote more time to your family, your work and you only have 24 hours a day. Time spent with your friends will definitely have to be compromised so you will end up choosing your friends. Those that you are more comfortable with, you will spend more time with them. Those that are not, you will only go when you have the time. 

I guess most of us are already practicing that and somehow I already know who are the ones that I will stick with for the longest of time. I also know who are the ones that I will be inviting to my wedding dinner. =)

Friends are just a weird bunch of people. Long time friends are even a weirder bunch. You don’t see them often, some once in a few months, others once half yearly. Yet when you meet them, it’s like you have not separated at all. It was as though Christmas was yesterday and all of you were cutting up the overcooked turkey together. The tie that bonds us together is so strong that it cuts through both space and time. Take Eugene for example, he may be in Adelaide now but I don’t actually feel the distance between us. Weird.

You gain new friends every now and then but how many of them can replace those that have been with you for the last 7 years? or more so those that have been with you since you were of a tender age of 13? I find myself more willing to sacrifice for these people that I meet half yearly than I am for those that I meet week in week out. I love you people!

Having said this, I do hope that some of the new friends that I have made will last. Though it seems unlikely that we will stick together for long, it is always comforting to harbor the hope of a gathering 10 years down the road.  

If you have a long time friend and have not seen him/her for eons, drop him a sms or a ring. I always like that feeling even though I don’t reply sometimes (shame on me).  

Not surprisingly, a couple of people approached me regarding the module BN2001 and I must say that the department has done a less than satisfactory job describing it. So for all those wishing to take this module, I hope the following information helps. 

 You can use this module to satisfy your TE requirements OR convert it to a UEM and apply your S/U option in case of disastrous grades. The procedure is rather simple and I have attached as the bottom an extract of the email sent to me by the then administrator. It outlines the things that you have to know about this obscure module and I will elaborate on the practical tips that you require. Besides this module, another module is similarly unknown and that is the special topics in bioengineering. It has never been offered in all the semesters that I applied and the department refuses to let students map modules in NUS to it. It serves as a module for exchange personnel to dump any weird modules that they wish to map and also to lengthen the pathetic specialisation list that we have. Seriously, why offer a module when nobody can take it? 

The way to go about taking up an independent module is first to decide on what you want to do. The module is designed to be flexible; i.e. the course director had no idea what else to offer on the specialisation list that he/she came up with a space and let the students do the thinking instead. Perhaps it is part of the training to get students to be more independent and hence the name. Anyway, you can have some hands on experiment (not on cell culture work though) or purely a theoretical based coursework. If you are starting your FYP or heavily involved with UROP, I suggest you go for the latter. 

Read up on something that you are interested and find the professor in the department that is working on it.  Grab the papers published and read through them before starting to brain storm an idea. At this moment, you can sound out the idea of an independent study to them, probing for ideas as well as coming up with something original. I think we have to be realistic at times, do find something that is beneficial to his lab, something that can contribute at least to their literature review or sorts. Do not be so selfish as to come up with something that has nothing much to do with what he is doing and expect him to be thankful to you. 

When you have a solid idea (either from yourself or pitched by him), arrange a meeting and iron out the details of the project (see below). Give yourself a rather defined boundary and gather a general direction for the project. Also, find out who you can approach for help in case you need any (the professor is usually too busy to work with you, find a postgrad in his lab or a research fellow). When everything is cleared, write out a paragraph of proposal and send it to Dr Lee Tae Yong, the coordinator for this module. Let him sort out the administrative details with your supervisor.

When all is well between the two, inform the admin that you are planning to take this module and request them to grant the appeal through CORS under ‘others’. It should be a relatively painless exercise to get the things done, just loads of correspondence.

Some asked me about the grades. I think that no matter how good your paper is (i thought mine was fairly well written), you will probably not ace the module if nothing else is done. If your paper can get published, I am pretty sure you will get an A. If you work is awarded something by the university, I am sure you will get an A. If you work hard and pushed for some practical results accompanied by a fantastic report, who knows? You might get an A too. But if you do nothing for the entire semester but literature review, chances are you will get a B or B+. This is purely my opinion, a rather common-sensical one.  

Hopefully I answered most of your questions. Enjoy. 

 The purpose of BN2001 Independent Study module is to promote self-study, critical thinking and independent research ability. These activities are proposed by the students and must be approved by the Department Coordinator before they are allowed to proceed.

 

The students should identify and obtain the approval of any Division of Bioengineering staff member who is willing to oversee the projects before submitting their proposals for consideration.

 

Projects must contain significant bioengineering content and could range from design projects to participation in national/international competitions organized by recognized student bodies and external institutions.

 

The module in the programme is as follows:

 

BN2001 (4 MCs) will be awarded for the successful completion of work totalling a minimum of 130 hours.

 

Procedure

 

1.         Interested students can submit their applications to the Dept Coordinator (Dr Lee Taeyong; bielt@nus.edu.sg ). The application should contain the following details:

 

·         Title of activity

 

·         Organizer

 

·         Description of activity

 

·         Name of supervisor

 

·         Extent of participation and expected benefit from the project. For a team, the responsibility of each member will have also have to be stated.

 

·         Duration of the project and the number of hours to be spent on the project (for each member if team-based). The justification for this will have to be clearly set out.

 

·         Expected date of completion

 

2.         Once the Dept Coordinator is satisfied with the write-up, it will be submitted to the Deputy Head for Academic Affairs for approval.

 

3.         A 10-page report is to be submitted upon completion of the activity.

 

4.         The Department Coordinator will approve the award of MCs and inform the Division of Bioengineering Office accordingly. Projects that cannot be satisfactorily completed by the date specified in their applications will be deemed to have been terminated and no MCs will be awarded. However, the Coordinator will consider requests for extending project completion deadlines. 

Friday, I trekked more than 12km around the central area of Singapore and had a great time walking around the canopy of the forest. Capped the wonderful day off from work with a most superb movie, the Dark Knight. 

Saturday, had a long gossip session at work and then finished off the day with the usual socialising with the guys over the table at chiew’s. Seriously, I think her place has more or less evolved into a hole for the peepz. Perhaps we can start a cafe with her name and set up the place in a rather similar fashion; a square table somewhere along with couple of beds and tonnes of pillows. You know where I’ll be.

The sunday that just passed was pretty heavy though not as insane as Hamilton’s outrageous overtake move on Massa. That quick parallel drive and the subsequent defending by squeezing Massa out on to the curb drove me nuts. Completely shattered Massa’s confidence I must say and totally reshaped Hamilton’s odds on the championship. To put the icing on, he repeated the master stroke with Pique and gave him no room as he took first place after a bad decision from the pit during the safety car period. Yeah, it’s my year eugene. Kick Ferrari’s ass. Anyway, the day included rambutan plucking and back to the lab for work. Oh, like to share this photo I found deep in the drawers. The good old days…

 

By the way, those of you who were at the gathering already know that I got into dean’s list last semester. Seriously, I would have been happy, really happy if I done it the “right” way but like most people said, it’s a great honour in itself. Perhaps I can share with you my trick or getting yourself into the good books of the dean. In no particular order, do the following

1. Choose a semester where half of your cohort goes overseas, preferably one where the smarter ones are away; think the China scholars going to US for example.  

2. Take as few modules as possible, I took 4 modules + FYP. Did nothing for my independent study (only wrote a paper), did nothing for my FYP (started after exams), took a “overlapped” module where the prof repeated his stuff from a previous module. Effectively, I only had to study for one SS and one core. Pretty slack considering my previous workload. Moreover, the SS was much like a story telling session where half the syllabus was a repeat of the first half. Hmmm, thinking about it, I have been studying “repeats”!

3. As mentioned above, choose the right modules, i.e. something you already learned before, a singapore studies module or something like the independent study where you gain 4 MCs by writing just one paper.  I S/U-ed that anyway. 

There you have it, something that will guide most people into the dean’s list (I hope), but not many had the fortune of choosing the “right” modules and have the liberty of taking as few modules as I did. I felt like I was cheating (but Hamilton won it fair and square!). But a win is a win (yeah, Hamilton rocks!) and let me soak up the abuse and insults from my friends. I can feel them spitting at me now. ARGHZ.