205 CORS-ing

Perhaps the best word invented since "toothache"... the NUS Centralised Online Registration System (CORS), and its verb analog, CORS-ing (since I'm lazy to press the "Shift" button repeatedly, I'll spell it as corsing from here onwards), is something that drives one up the wall, and even to the ceiling. Especially if you're one of those people with short attention spans. I have moderately long attention span for figuring things out, relative to most Science Fac people, and I'm still quite glad that I wasn't tempted to reach for the nearest clothes hook, (for whatever purpose, I'll leave it to your imagination.)

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This diagram seriously looks more like a cross between a flowchart for chemical synthesis, and a Physics formula

After a while, corsing starts to make a little more sense, and you realise that it's like some silly application you'll find in some Facebook application, or Neopets, albeit that it's injected with a dose of formality befitting a programme coming from the Department of Mathematics... and also, it begins to dawn that the game you're asked to play in decides your future. And, I hate leaving things to totally random chances (I do so very hate coin tosses, and Rock, Paper, Scissors), and now the fate of my next few months of tutorials depends on balloting, which as effective as playing Russian Roulette.

And, we all realise that we were better off when we were playing to feed a cute blue Kacheek

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Being a student of the Faculty of Science, I have the privilege of declaring my first major till the very last day, but with the (dis)advantage of not having pre-allocations, i.e, I get all the fun of building timetables for myself, which is very exciting until you realise that you have as many clashes as a multi-car pileup on the North-South Expressway. After multiple failed attempts to clear the debris, I finally got one that works. And even after that, I had to tweak the table a little more to fit in my USP modules. In the process, there were various threats to my sanity, and some not-very-decent words were blurted out. But, that's the trouble a person attracts to himself when he attempts to do 6 modules in a semester, another of my infamous attempts at performing academic gymnastics. So, after experiencing a couple of days of trauma, I finally placed my advance bids, and wondering whether I will ever be able to complete the minor in Chemistry.

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So, here's to everyone, good luck corsing, and welcome back to the Land of Countless Acronyms and Persistent Bureaucracy.

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PS: Repeat after me: "Acronyms are good for us. They make communication so much simpler, despite the fact that the are initially confusing."

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PPS: Note to self: I will not work so hard. University life is supposed to be good for you.

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PPPS: Seriously consider getting a bike.

204 Silence and Sounds

It usually takes some time for this to happen. After all the hustle and bustle of moving into a new environment, saying hello and exchanging greetings and information, there this total silence overcoming the sounds we hear.

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The sudden silence and solitude when you're surrounded by new walls and new people is unsettling, and then you realise that they are going to be around you for quite some time. The unfamiliarity it emits is strange. It's not that we fear the change, we'll always try to embrace it, but the change reciprocate in a way that we can't comprehend. It's like they're trying to introduce themselves to you, but we just don't know how to accept it. There's a certain sublimity to new experiences, and it has the power to make you wonder what you've gotten yourself into. There's confusion, which is then followed by a period of catharsis (it's a difficult word, so I'll define it for you: it's a purging (washing away) of emotions), when everything else going on around you doesn't seem to matter anymore. It's just you and the suddenness of the transition. You lose yourself for a while, but when the unfamiliarity evaporates, it's replaced by an insignificance, or routineness of life, just like the feeling you have towards your own house, when you're at home after living there for the most part of your life. There's nothing new to learn anymore, and we live as such until the next significant change hits us in the face, and we go through it all over again.

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But sometimes, sometimes, we look back and wonder at what happened the last time we were in a new place, and we are puzzled, if not surprised, by the feelings we had back then, and we realise we are experiencing them all over again.

203 Here I go (again)

1 Day

24 Hours

1440 Minutes

1 Final Moment

Finally, home... for 24 hours, rather reminiscent of Ryan's return home after the Redang trip.

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Perhaps I brought this upon myself due to my rare over-enthusiasm about returning to Singapore, but starting the first day now, isn't like starting the first day of primary school. No crying children and new faces, and no parents looking through the window, wondering when their child will start crying, or notice they are missing.
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There is much to do, a very little time left at home, last-minute packing etc. Perhaps, me enduring 14 hours of train rides the last time helped, now I know what I have to bring and what to expect, which separates it from, say, McNair, when we really had no idea that there were 5 (6, initially, thank god there were MIAs) people in a room, or that there was a swimming pool, easily mistaken for a fish pond ( I will confess that I, too, initially thought it was a fish pond... really). But, beyond that, it's just another veil. One day, one room, that's how life goes.

A rather old picture of 202 I found in a folder somewhere, just don't ask me why the date is upside-down
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Yup, one day, one room, just yesterday I was in a totally different room, one with a dog, which hates it when I move the chair for the computer, thus effectively blocking me from using the Internet. And I found myself later that day sitting two steps above it in the stairwell, because I felt that it was lonely, and needed someone to accompany it. It seemed rather happy to find me sitting next to it, and let me pat its head, while wagging its tail. Or maybe it's just because I was eating an apple while sitting there. (I was told it's a cross between a Spitz and a Shih Tzu, so I coined the name Spitz Tzu for it, though it seems like it the Shih Tzu characteristics were lost in the genetic battle.)

A Spitz Tzu named Nike: One very, very paranoid dog. Barks at every suspicious looking object, including those big black bags you're be repeatedly warned to look out for in MRTs.

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In the end, I was given/paid a S$ 100 (yes, S$ 100, not RM, the epitome of practicality), for enduring the dog/repeatedly telling my cousin to study/teaching Chem, Physics and Maths/slacking around in the mornings/correcting "thank you for your patients " to "...patience" and for being the first in the generation to go to university. Between all that, there were plots to blow up a red spray paint can and "colour" the innocent children in the nearby playground, but I didn't stay for its execution. However, other pyromanic endeavours were successful, like using perfume as a liquid fuse. And, there was a lot of "Bones", which turned to be a great way to blackmail my cousin to not release the dog on me. As a result, I got out of there pretty much in one piece. OK, that was the last week, more or less.

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PS: I need to go figure out how to use the laser printer. Yeap, finally printing stuff is now so, so much easier.

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PPS: Got the printer for RM 385, not a bad price.

202 Hostage

I find myself in a less than comfortable position to blog, since now me being near a computer is a slightly rare occurrence. The irony is that I do have free access to the Internet, unlike my cousins, which I found out yesterday, who were subjected to the concealing of the modem adaptor plug. It's the dog, which is usually tied up in strategic areas that either prohibits me from going upstairs and downstairs freely, or using the computer, or both. So, here I am being able to create a small window when the dog is tied up outside, and I can blog in peace. But, it'll get annoyed soon, and create a racket, so this has to be quick. And sorry guys, I can't read your blogs or do much online these days.

...and I can sense its annoyance now, so I'll make it rather quick....

It struck me on the way back from Singapore the other day, that climbing a mountain does change a person. I realised that the thoughts I had while climbing Mount Kinabalu is actually applicable to a wider situation. Among them, was this interesting thought:

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"The main problem with any mountain, no matter how high it is, is that it has a summit. The climbing, as long as it takes, will eventually come to an end."
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It's common for people to equate life to climbing mountains. There was that speech during Grad Night on "How To Climb A Mountain", which was adapted from the Paolo Coelho book, "Like The Flowing River". But there are mountains that we didn't intend to have to climb, unwanted detours in a life that we wish that would be as easy to cross a field of dandelions. (I realised that running across a field of dandelions would be great fun, but that idea's probably from some movie).

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And so, think of troubled days as the days that you have to climb a mountain. There are easy mountains, and there are difficult mountains, but they all have one thing in common. As painful, as tiring and as depressing the climb can be, by taking it one step of the time, one day, the trouble, the pain and everything unpleasant is all over Bad things, like something we must concede about good times, are never permanent. I know that every field of dandelions will have its end, but every mountain, too, has its summit. And once, you get to the summit, rejoice, for you have conquered yourself once more, and all the sweat, blood and tears shed will be compensated by the triumph and satisfaction, but keep on walking and don't rest for too long, for tomorrow there may be another mountain to climb.

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PS: I know how to make friends with the dog, but I just can't bring myself to do it... it's far too scary

201 Detour

The number after 199 is not 201, unless it's a sequence of odd numbers, or an arithmetic progression with a common difference of 2. Hence, this is a detour post, while I gather to time and will power to complete the 200th post, and as we are waiting for that, an update after a long absence is certainly due.

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So, let's get on with it...

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I found myself away from home, with a dog that was barking at me all day yesterday. This morning, he decided I wasn't that repulsive after all. Its name is Nike, and its now lying on the floor behind, ignoring me. And its not my dawg.

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But wait, where am I?

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SS26, a real boring name for a place by any stretch of the imagination, like all the names of places in a city we all fondly call PJ, editing the English on a website that "Thanks you for your patients". Definitely normal, if not an extremely sweet notice for a hospital, but not very appropriate a computer website, since it's reminiscent of exploding laptops, or "farmer in the Dell"

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I should be in Singapore getting accustomed to my new room in Raffles Hall, or walking along the underpass to Yusof Ishak House, but I'll just leave that for next week, when I start the first day of the next four years. I realised that the double room isn't that small, but then again, as the cliched saying goes, "anything is larger than McNair". I've gotten most of my things ready to go to Singapore, but as life goes, sometimes we take unnecessary long routes just to get to the same point just for the fun of it. But teaching Chemistry and maybe Physics later can be rather fun, too, if you can still remember Form 4/Form 5 stuff... but mostly it's the satisfaction from being condescending, boys, I find, are less sensitive to my ways of teaching, and I daresay, they find it a bit enjoyable. Oh, that's the other reason why I'm in SS@6.

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PS: A laser printer is RM 490, Ryan! What wrong with this world?

199 Reminder

Information regarding the bus to Kuala Terengganu and other related stuff can be found in post 190 Redang Trip Part 4... just scroll down for a little while or click here, and I'm sure you'll find it. Thank you for your kind attention. The latest posts will appear below this announcement.