and i'm already getting tired.

it's v sad to see that the ppl who were once there are no longer around. what used to be 2nd years when we first came in - they're all gone. it's just all v sad.

i'm kinda glad to see tt many of my friendships kinda survive despite me not putting in too much effort to really keep in contact all the time - though to be fair every festive season i do call back. hope it'll stay tt way for some time to come.

internship has been fun with all the other interns from NUS - they've been fun companions.

trip was good, bcos of hostel locations and travel companions. for me anyway. and i would say it's as good as travelling alone. so yeah. says a lot if sth is as good as if i did it myself (for hongkings).

there was the may ball, which i thought was not value-for-money, but in any case i enjoyed myself more than i thought i would. what with a group pretending to be the beatles, and bouncy castles and bungee running and good dessert. enough to make me happy really, and i did allow myself to go slightly wild (not in the normal-ppl sense of say drinking and dancing and spouting nonsense - my wildness is in the form of doing shuttle runs in the bouncy castle or doing bungee running after heavy rain)

and then there was the come-to-hong-king's-room-to-seek-refuge (cos ppl have been kicked out of their rooms) and the come-on, the-storage-room-can-fit-my-boxes-too (it was fun trying to put the boxes in though). then today a big dinner with the college alumni (after singing just 3 songs - the perks we get as the college choir are unbelievable) and yes 3-consecutive-meals-of-italian-food.

will have one more service tml before i start enjoying cambridge as a tourist. and perhaps start packing. but quiet time is good.

i was lamenting abt the teaching in cambridge this time last year. To be exact: "i can say it's a mistake to come here to study the sciences", "i'm not happy, because the system isn't delivering what it is promising", "i dont believe that we (international students - it's true that we do get better results out of proportion to our population) are really tt much smarter, it's just that we simply have been prepared well by our edu system back home. (having said that if i don't do well in my exams, then shame on me bcos it's due to last-minute-as-usual revision) ".

what do i think now? i've been v interested in my subjects this year, and i've had a fair bit more of individualised attention this year, but i can say this of myself - i didnt put in enough effort to make full use of the almost one-to-one supervisions (though supervisors were sometimes quite confused as well, but that's alright)

basically i'm reasonably happy with cambridge bcos it's no longer the system that's at fault (which i believe was the case in the 1st year), but any dissatisfaction was due to my own lack of effort (apart from psychology which i did quite a bit of reading for). and i wasnt v dissatisfied anyway cos i loved my subjects. and if not for cambridge i'd never have touched psychology for sure.

but it seems that i'm not the only one who thinks tt teaching in cambridge is below expectations. many grad students from the states, whom i've spoken to, feel that they haven't learnt much here - it's all abt self-discipline and how much u want to read/research/findout for yourself - i quote a few of them "i could possibly have come up with the same thesis had i just gone to the new york city library every day".

i'm listening to dong dong ay si dong i lay and rutz ritz ka mikla maise abra (forgive my spelling) ... vel jeri gul, arzvaigzhem acis. illumine le rire et les pleurs...

do i want to see changes in myself, is that it? have my views on ppl, things, events, decisions, my identity, my future changed?

in a sense i havent changed v much indeed: some of my quirky bits still survive from the past, and there're still some basic principles behind hk's behaviour - aiming to simplify and clear redundant stuff away so that his comfort (clean) zone can increase; while at the same time overdoing other stuff so that the bare basics become common sense, second nature. and trying to (force)fit things into systems/unified theories. fascination with maps and systems.

and then the inadequacies (non-exhaustive):
my social inadequacies at times, leading to a tendency to prefer non-human interactions --> alone time, with nature, with animals perhaps. heh. am i a high-functioning autistic? [was just reading abt autism this morning] and variations on the same theme

my lack of determination / self-discipline / my passiveness, leading to my mere ability to do certain things but not master them. [though i'm really trying to improve this]

and there you have it, 5 simple descriptions and u pretty much can reconstruct a hong king. while things are fine at the moment (i'm enjoying life as far as i can tell), i wonder how life would be if there were total reversals in one of those items.

jap --> chinese
keizai --> jing ji (economics)

jap --> english
jin riki sha (ren2 li4 che1) --> rickshaw

chinese --> eng
si1 --> silk
gong1 zuo4 he2 zuo4 she4 (work co-op) --> gungho (meaning changed?)

*bored*

and men2 and hu4 are actually the same word (just that there are two "hu4"s in a "men2")

and what exactly is written chinese - why can't i write cantonese for example? i'm not an expert so i'm probably not totally accurate in my description, but my current understanding is this:

Although there were occasionally books (e.g. hong2 lou2 meng4) written in bai2 hua4 zi4 (written versions of contemporary spoken dialects. incidentally, confusingly, bai2 hua4 without zi4 means cantonese), most writing was done in wen2 yan2 wen2 (which mainly derived from what was spoken during the Qin dynasty, but modified over the centuries). It was only after 1919 that bai2 hua4 zi4 became more popular (due to some political movement - yuan shi kai?), and in particular, the mandarin version of it due to its eventual dominance across the country as the national language.

it still holds true. the amount of work tt has to be put in this time - i will be happy if i get a good grade. for the first time since o lvls (i put in work for eng/hist/ss). and am pretty proud of it in a way :)

as i revise i realise that the first and last few lectures were processed equally well. for diff reasons though. at the beginning, enthusiastic, returning with a this-year-shant-be-so-last-minute-any-more attitude (that-lasts-for-2-weeks). near the end, desperate, behaviour driven by the attitude of if-i-am-not-at-full-efficiency-i-cannot-make-it. heh. why can't it just be sustained throughout :D

it's so frustrating - there are certain things which just are not taught - e.g. what happens in secondary tuberculosis (all we know is how it's stopped in the primary stage) and so many descriptions just stop at "so the patient becomes infectious and coughs up the bacteria". and what happens?!? maybe i need to learn to use search tools properly.

herr! (johannes-passion, bach. haha i'm in love with it, only bcos of the fact tt i first heard it in dublin and the story was moving. esp with the main soloist's mum sitting next to me)

actually i happen to be feeling really stupid for not studying during the xmas hols - should have made my foundation in immunology much better. that way the rest of the year would have been much easier.

let me see. each exam cycle is effectively an instrumental conditioning trial for me. positive reinforcement. probability of me being last minute increases with each trial since my being last minute leads to the consequence of non-lousy results. actually, it's just common sense haha. now i wonder if there's an asymptote (e.g. probability of 1). also, if there is an equivalent of the Rescorla-Wagner in instrumental conditioning, then perhaps the surprise element (lambda - v) = 0. no more learning for me. hahaha.

it's really like allopatric speciation. we have a small group here (founder's effect?), and then we just continue with what was the norm just b4 we left sg. and we don't grow up as much, there's no "peer pressure" or "cultural waves" to push you along.

in a way it's good that "revision" remains interesting bcos (and it's quite amusing to realise that) much of it is new anyway. or, i have somehow gained some new insights and everything seems to make SO MUCH MORE sense. and it's so clear which supervisor forced me to work. clearly not pathology haha. without even knowing what a t helper cell does for example, how did i actually understand autoimmunity / hypersensitivities. so it was all ok-dont-ask-just-know-that-it-is-this-this-this. which, obviously, is not hk. so

have i mentioned? i'm prob doing immunology nxt year. back to systems :D + dynamics of infectious diseases obviously...

watching tony blair debate is definitely sth i kinda enjoy. feel fortunate tt i've actually seen him in real life. better than an hour of say e.g. anime.

haha tt's what i literally said when i came out of the shower. after a 2-hour+ punting trip. chasing chickens (if they were chickens - jungle redfowl possibly), views of grantchester in the gorgeous weather, rolling the punt down the rollers while staying inside (like a log flume), and finally, swimming. haha. not totally deliberately of course.

playing hard indeed, and it's just the simple pleasures of life. not anything more complex than deciding to go punting immediately after lunch (the spontaneity is what i like).

this time, playing hard is going to make me work hard. and the hoping to avoid another last-minute episode. even though i will survive it, i dont want it to happen. :)

contrast that to now when i'm quite free to do anyth i want (including not studying haha. discipline and me just dont go together), and doing things i like. and the important thing is i feel like i have control (which might not be true).

what will happen when i return to singapore eventually, for good? it will not be another 2+ years before that happens. now, i'm a singaporean-in-the-uk, visiting singapore every year as though it's a holiday destination with familiar food and friends and family. and i'm not becoming any less singaporean yet i do not feel like i feel out of place here any more. that there are differences between me and ppl here, i accept. that fundamentally perhaps the whites view non-whites differently, i accept. (what happened to me!!!?)

o well *shrugs* it's just not going to be easy/fun going back in 2009 and plunging straight back into NS i guess. much harder than coming here and adjusting to life here, because there was nothing to give up - i knew i will go back to singapore in a few years.

meanwhile, enjoy life?

in short, it was a good experience to travel alone.

as long as i keep myself safe (i usu look out for ppl in groups anw, so in fact i have less of a "burden", only disadvantage is i'm alone and thus a more likely target in some ways).

i am free from ppls' expectations, and can act as i like (but still be a responsible person/citizen/ambassador of chinese/singaporeans of course), because there's absolutely nobody ard me who will really have any idea of what i am / see me again after meeting me once. very much easier to speak to strangers.

no danger of feeling left out (which i admit, is still a weak point for me)

eating as i like - meals are usually a source of disagreement/compromise in groups.

higher spontaneity and pushing myself to the limit [time, physical stamina], though these were alright in the previous trip w jh/yijin/chris i guess.

overall, the benefits definitely outweigh the disadvantages. the lack of fixed social interactions, does not seem to be a problem over a short period of 4 days, provided i am kept busy with things i want to do (including relaxing and not doing anything). perhaps if it were a month, it might be disorienting to keep changing place/ppl. but if i keep writing in my travel-log/diary, it should be fine.

but travelling in grps obviously has its advantages as well. main thing is seeing diff perspectives. and with more ppl, there can be more fun.

why am i most alone when i'm in a group? whoever i can travel with v well must necessarily be(come) a good friend of mine. if it's without compromise, then it's a v good friend!

e.g. finally understood why jap kanji are halfway between simplified/traditional chinese. in fact, they did it first (first time in 1946). the chinese did it in 1956 / and later a second round in 1977 (which failed, officially stopped in 1986, the only things we see from it are e.g. the "can" in meal written as just the top left hand corner, or "dan" in egg written as the dan in yuan2 dan4. u will be glad however to know tt most of it was abandoned haha. the full list can be found scanned here: [http://www.pkucn.com/viewthread.php?tid=154573]

it makes me wonder, why we are the only place that followed china in the simplification process. talking abt singapore, here's a description of what is banned in singapore on a japanese site [http://hac.cside.com/manner/9shou/3setu.html], apart from spitting and littering: "men in this country are banned from having long hair. before entering the country you must cut your hair, otherwise upon arrival they will forcibly cut it for you". but haha apparently disneyland denied entry to men with long hair in the 1960s as well [http://www.snopes.com/disney/parks/longhair.htm]

and is it not equally interesting that, there are patron saints for many different things. for places, that's normal - st george for england for example. but, st dymphna, for sleepwalking!!!, st james e great, for rheumatism. hm. st honore for bakers (explaining the bakery in hong kong)

the college is almost uninhabitable. no dinner tonight cos there's compulsory formal, and then my staircase has kitchens tt have gas stoves (i have no lighter). went to another kitchen tt had an electric stove, but when it was turned on to the max, the thermostat switched it off before the water (which i had preheated in the kettle, mind you) even started boiling. rubbish bins (organic) that are not cleared. central heating that barely heats the radiator up. bikes that get stolen (not mine, yet, anyway). oh and drilling that starts at 8 in the morning cos they're trying to take the door knobs off our doors and also attempting to fire-proof the doors (even though there are huge visible gaps between the door and the frame which they're going to ignore - the contractor actually said, yeah i know, but...). n showers which are not warmer than 37 degrees.

save me! stop complaining!

i've had a pretty good time in london - going for westminster / st paul's services, parliament sitting (pm questions + gordon brown's final budget), going to canary wharf / tower bridge / etc. and had lots of pretty good food. but stupid lse students steal my food! hai.

museums coming up nxt.

don't i need sleep? i think the coffee's keeping me awake. zzzz

it does actually. it does. it's gonna affect my life hmm.

i think inevitably my mum is going to start pushing to go back to hong kong soon. and she should. and she definitely will be in hong kong in I predict, 10 years time? and oh god they'll be 60! years old by then. my dad doesnt have anyth really keeping him in sg apart from like maybe cpf money. it'll be easy to leave. so it's just up to me / or whether we'll be split.

i actually had to think abt this some 4? years ago after sec 4, and at that time i didnt think it would happen, though i did think tt i'd have a lot to lose if i left singapore. hmmm.

i had a good laugh during the "magic" show just now, not bcos of the magic, but bcos sb i know went on stage and was under hypnosis without being hypnotised? (don't ask me), and started scratching her nose whenever the hypnotist blew a horn. it was not funny, but my reaction was simply to laugh. bcos it's inexplicable (both her scratching and my laughter).

but now i'm grumpy. partially cos everyth's so rushed, and gone is the fixed schedule i've had for the past term - i.e. monday deadlines, tue/wed slack, thu start picking up perhaps, sunday start work proper. with all the choir in between. and sometimes acapella. and i dunno, lectures (extra ones).

n i've to move out of my room. i've to pack. and i've to start studying some time. and i know i will waste the holidays away because i will not have self-discipline, and there are no intermediate deadlines to force me into doing things. and i'm not even pretending to say i will manage my time well this time. or that i will read the i dunno, maybe 15 textbooks that i will borrow from the libraries. it's just such an overwhelming amt of information tt i've to go through, and process, and if i really want to shine, then special-processing. but in the end, is it really worth all that effort?

disillusioned. i realised i really do enjoy learning actually, and seeing improvements. in any aspect. not just academics, but sports/music as well. this term i worked hard for 1 thing - the kullervo (finnish) concert. i definitely did take pride in all the work i handed in, though that really wasn't a lot - a psychology essay each week and some practicals (psy/pharm). it's worrying that i've not had ANY work at all for path. *uh-oh*

what abt next year, what am i going to do? which subject should i do?

it's v interesting to think abt how many ppl actually know who i am, or perhaps everyone only knows what i present to them of myself. e.g. am i actually really a nice person [assuming ur impression of me is that], or perhaps, i might actually have ulterior motives for every single thing i do [consciously, or subconsciously]. etc.

i want to know what i want to do in the future. i've had the belief that i know what i want to do in the future in the past year or so but it's kinda under doubt again - what path should i choose, provided i really have a choice?

i want to be able to do sth well. or even better, do many things well.

i do not deny tt i still do want to be a doctor... hee.

eh, it's nvr too late to start getting into certain habits. e.g. looking forward to and listening in lectures.

my short-term memory is v bad. affects my absorption during lectures. probably at least 75% comes out unprocessed. and nowadays i sing the same things in choir so frequently (the words to magnificat and nunc dimitis dont ever change), that certain words automatically cue certain phrases from my memory. e.g. throughout --cues-- all generations

mm and path lecture is really good cos we (maybe 100 or less?) sit in a LT which has a capacity of maybe 400 or more? it feels as though the lecturer is talking to me personally cos his voice is no longer absorbed by the thousands of medics who used to come to the same lecture. i also feel less restrained and start sitting sideways on two seats, stretching my hamstring every now and then, basically doing things tt ppl (find/would have found) strange. Feels totally comfortable and while I seem distracted I'm actually listening to the lecturer intently.

anyhow, i was reading abt overcoming procrastination, and realised tt ppl actually come up with reasons - and apparently the more common ones are: perfectionism, fear of failure/success, etc etc. haha, for me - it's really abt pushing the limits. knowing how little time i can do the work in (and get away with it), i've no incentive to work during the rest of the week. e.g. this week for pharm i finished my work within the 30min before the supervision, for psycho i simply said i'm ill and i was sleeping most of the time [and i was, and usu i have to stay up to do it on the night before, so i was not telling a lie!]

so, it's the deadline which makes me procrastinate. anybody feels the same? i'm consistently no more than 5 minutes late because i can usually get away with it / i lose nothing (e.g. lectures).

somewhat related: i used to think tt my years in RI were kinda wasted [even though i know they might have been happy times. like i said before i tend to look back at things quite pessimistically] cos i didnt try to do many things, i pretty much just did things when they came along. holidays were spent at home doing nothing (literally haha), and it would be what i call a waste-of-time now. but hey, i was carefree, and there was no guilt to be felt. if i were to do nothing at all this easter, will i forgive myself? i dont think so.

i will not forget how i pedalled so hard on my bike to get across parker's piece the other day. the winds were so strong i could have literally been blown backwards if i didnt pedal. whooosh. finally get to experience the force of nature even though i missed those torrential rains in sg. mm, the crane just outside better not topple though, otherwise... n frisbee in the wind was crazy.

what i should do is i should make use of my last-minute training and use the skills during normal-times. then wo ho i will be all-powerful.

once again, i'm sleepily sleepy. "obesely morbid" was what i typed, and i also kept wondering what was wrong with microsoft word when it refused to superscript "rd" in "13rd". took me 5? re-tries (i.e. either backspace, retype, or simply Ctrl-Z, space) before i realised what was happening.

haha well i don't exactly know how they all work [actually i guess i do] but the whole point is, living here makes me realise hm maybe we ARE indeed screwing up the planet. yest the temp was 13 degreeees throughout the day! (average is expected to oscillate around 5/6 degrees or so for jan, for most years).

haha i like this:
Corinthus or ??? says:
well i'm not gonna say anymore
Corinthus or ??? says:
u save urself

i wasnt affected by the torrential rain or internet disruption, so in the future when other peers say wah u rmb that time when blah blah blah. erm, no.

i'm quite surprised that i didnt hear about the indian dam project which i'm guessing is equal in scale at least in impact to the three gorge's dam. media influence?

i like trams.

actually new year's day has less significance now than before. it used to be the last day of holiday before reopening of school. makes sense to celebrate it when calendar year is the same as academic year. not any more now!

just a final word abt the eastern-europe trip - my favourite place was eger in hungary, liked the not-too-big not-too-small feeling of the place. vienna was great too, definitely want to go back again. also realised that i was already indulging in sensual pleasures on my v first trip, to brussels (which is why i liked the place cos it was, as a put it, a "complete package" in terms of offering sth for all the senses kinda.), but not during italy, when i somehow felt lots of responsibility.

time to sum up this year. it's been a long long year [i've already forgotten how luang prabang and attachment at the vet was just last year, 2005], but i've already summed up once before going back to singapore, so tt makes my job easier :D

in a sentence, basically i was not happy with cambridge up till june, was determined to make it better when i came back, and i more-or-less achieved what i kinda wanted, even if during the actual process i was hesitant at times. things always work this way - when u're done with it, u are glad u did it.

i was basically kept v busy this term it seems, right from the moment i reached gatwick airport, till i came back 2 days ago. there were seriously no actual breaks in between. now tt i finally have nth to do, i hope i can believe in myself for once, to have the self discipline to manage my time. all i rmb of michaelmas is rowing, choir [+ acapella], sleeping, late nights, and late nights not because i really really didnt have the time, but because i just kept pushing the limit backwards, all the way until it was a case of telling the supervisor, sorry, i'm not handing in my work. obviously sth has gone wrong there.

i have actually interacted with brits + singaporeans in non-singaporean-only context more than with singaporeans in singaporeans-only context this entire term, the opposite of what more or less happened last year. i recall this is sth i wanted, but the thing i'm most glad abt the current situation is tt it's natural.

finally, think i might have gained a few friends, mostly girls, as usual.

funny how i was just feeling happy abt having the entire college to myself yest, and now feeling a bit lonely. i miss the routine of having sth to do once i wake up every day, and the luxury of being allowed to sleep the moment i'm off shift. bcos now, there's no shift or off-shift. i'm on duty all the time, responsible to myself for my studies, i guess. hmmm. maybe i can give myself shifts, tt's it.

while i was working i was thinking abt when it'll end [only towards the end though], when i finished i was happy, yet a day later i want to be working again. cant i just treasure whatever i have at the moment haha.

time is fluid, and we must allot it to containers, else it will flow away too quickly.

i'm, hm, looking forward to the day when i can be at peace within myself, for extended periods of time. what i long for, is acceptance. will i ever get it?

i've been telling myself i'm living to maximise experiences in my life, and i want to record as much of it as possible - and i do, ppl will be surprised at how many things i have records of (apart from normal emails - i delete them the moment i finish reading them), yet sometimes i wonder if i'll ever re-visit those records, esp when they're going to pile up as the years go by [haha i've been digitalising things as well, to save space kinda. but if my hard-disk should crash...] if i were to plough through everyth it's going to take lots of determination.

been building (more like trying the tracks out and fine-tuning) for sth like 2 hours but have only done 2 tracks (each one = a pair of satay sticks), though it's much more creative than the ones i used to build when i was younger.

the first pair opens out slightly into a V such that the marble drops down to the next track (below) when the distance between the pair is equal to or larger than diameter of marble. the marble rolls towards the right on the first pair.

the second track is balanced on a fulcrum and thus allows the marble to go both ways. the marble actually lands slightly to the left of the fulcrum, but depending on initial horizontal velocity, it will eventually cause the track to tip either clockwise or anticlockwise, causing marble to roll right/left respectively.

made me wonder, how do u stabilise something that's not meant to be stable? cos the second track on the fulcrum must be able to move relatively freely [yet not too free cos if it's total free movement then the track will only ever tip anticlockwise], yet i want the movement to be predictable as described above. and considering tt i'm working with the materials i have, tough!

and hmm what abt the blind ppl out there! poor them! they cant really go sightseeing can they? so sad for them...

btwn the hostels / on the way back, i also did v quick tours of bristol (a few hours) and cardiff (like literally 20 minutes, cos i was there for coach-transfer) but i'm hoping to return to these cities again. victoria & albert museum (london) is amazing btw.