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Nerd

I had 6 hours of free time just now.

I spent 5hrs doing work. And i enjoyed it.

It's the end of the world. Just like the weather forecast shows.

Illogical logic

Had my first mechatronics lab yesterday. Almost died. haha. Had no idea what was happening for most of the time.

We just ended up with a bunch of wires configured to count pulses.

Didn't help that one of my group members kept messing things up. Haha.

But it was tough no doubt. I ended up with a massive headache, and slept at like 8pm. We didn't even finish the assignment. But the tutor wasn't expecting us to anyways. haha.

Despite myself, I'm lagging behind in my work. I'm not the only one though, everyone is. /shrug.

 

You don't get weather forecasts like this back home. Looks alot like 'stay home and hang on to something' to me. haha.

So work has been piling up. And I haven't really went ahead and done much of it.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME!?

I can't let the workload creep up on me. Even though the work won't be graded.

I'm sure that alot of people generalise students who work so hard as nerds or guai kias or all that sorta stuff. Heck. I even call most of my friends nerds because they study alot.
But is it really that bad? Obviously the answer is no. This ain't no secondary school days where we can slack and pretend that we are invincible. This is university. The life defining time. Do well, get a good job. Suck, and get a... well.. sucky job.
Yet my work now seems so meaningless. Who cares if i can approximate the values of a function by an infinte series? Who cares if i can calculate the forces on an ideal object? Life isn't ideal at all.

Yeah. So I guess I'm hitting a lack of motivation part of my studies. Everyone gets it.










BORING WALL OF TEXT. DON'T READ. I'm serious this time. It's no where as interesting as the last long post. This is only a rant to motivate myself. Cheers.











[Start wall of text]

DELETED. Too long and boring. I left the summary intact so you guys can see roughly what I've been going on about.


Okay. You can see I've been going in circles for awhile. I really cannot emphasize it enough.
A few lines of hoobastank's "without a fight" sums it up pretty nicely

Wake up, our life is calling

Snap out of indecision
Have we been hypnotized
To think that everything's alright?

We must pick up the pace
No time to play it safe
Before you know it's much too late
[End wall of text]


Time for me to start my work. It might not be as relaxing as slacking, and not as fun as watching a show or playing a game. But I know it's for my own good.

P

P for Procrastination.

today i was supposed to study, and input some data into my study database.

I ended up watching one movie (twister, which was written by crichton) and 3 episodes of 24.

crap. haha.

P for PAIN.

I dunno how, but i've injured my hip socket, or hip rotator or something.

My hip hurts whenever i rotate my left leg anti-clockwise. Not very much. It might cause me to miss a step, but not very pain.

Until i hopped onto my bed just now. It REALLY HURT

Like seriously. I cried out in pain, my vision went blank for a moment, and i had to lie on my bed for a minute or two before i managed to move. Then it took me abit of limping around my room to start feeling comfortable.

Now my hip is really numb. and sore. weird feeling.

Anyway. time for work. cya.

A lil' update

SOoooo... What's been going on with me?

Well... erm. Nothing interesting really. I guess work's been piling up.

I was at the drawing room from 12-5 doing a STUPID drawing. lol. I hate design classes. People in the room were going nuts. Making weird sounds and singing to themselves. It's that mind-wrenching. haha.

On the upside, I went for my gym orientation just now. The gym is a lot smaller then i imagined it, and it was filled with cardio machines (or hamster machines as i like to call them). A GYM SHOULD BE FILLED WITH MORE WEIGHTS! hello! i can run outside just as well.

Or maybe not. The treadmills and stuff are soooo cool. kind. They have an audio jack to plug in your earphones! lol. The screen is touchscreen and big. It's a tv or you can listen to radio. Holding the handles allows you the machine to measure your heart rate.

Cool huh. Much more entertainment then your sergeant yelling in your ear "OPEN UP YOU STEPS!". But much less motivation I guess.

I'm no fan of hamster machines. but the sheer geekiness of them might make me consider. Haha. Either way, it feels good to have access to some more ways i can keep myself fit.

I'ved decided that i should buck up and start organising my notes so that i can start studying for my exams. Which are in like almost half a year. Which is most of the academic year. lol.

I'm making a full database with all my notes in them. I can't hold on to my hard copies. I lose them in like less then a day. In my 1month and 8 days that I've been here, I'ved already finished on foolscape pad. haha.

Ok I'm really tired now. Don't expect updates regularly for now. Busy with school, my notes, and ewb. and maybe the gym. and maybe top gear. and maybe nba (games are at midnight here!)

Thanks

Honestly I never expected anyone to actually read the entire thing. Let alone feedback that they enjoyed it.

So, thank you to everyone who has shown their support for my writing skills. Lol.

Don't expect me to write alot more of that kind of things. Haha.

Enough about people who died thousands of years ago. More about me.

I have been eating this everyday for the past week.

Tastes fantastic. It's oatmeal with peanut butter(chunky)(not that it being chunky really matters). (actually crunchy gives it a nicer texture, so it does matter) honey, and raisins.

Covers alot of nutritional ground. Fibre and carbs from the oatmeal, protein from the peanut butter, and fats from my tummy. lol. Okay. It's lacking healthy fats to become a complete nutritional meal. I'm looking for flaxseeds, but it's kinda hard to find around here.

I've also gotten dried prunes and apricots to give it some variety. Lol.

Work is coming along fine too.. Relatively I guess. I try to do the tutorials by myself, and find myself completely stumped. Then I go to class, and find other people even more stumped. Haha. Two wrongs make a right in this situation. lol.

I've decided that it's time for me to be a bigger man, and start helping others.

Maybe these things are pretty trivial or whatever, but at least I'm doing something. Lol.

Okay. The first thing I'm doing is called distributive computing. Basically, research projects send work to our computers, and our computers...well, computes. Haha. These kind of things take massive amounts of computer work. Xuan knows. We talked about engineering software just now. Haha.

Ok. So here's my contribution so far.

I've donated 18days, 19hours and 34 minutes worth of computer runtime so far, to aid in three projects. Namely, FightAIDS@Home, Help Conquer Cancer, and Nutritious Rice for the World.

Doesn't seem like much, just running a program in the background. But every little bit helps.

Also, I'm going to get involved with Engineering without Borders UK. Basically its a non-profit, student run organisation that well... helps out with development of developing countries I guess. I can't really comment since I'm not exactly involved yet.

But my sister is! Haha. She is so involved that she is even on the website. haha. For me, I'm just dipping my toe in for now, trying to see how I can help. Basically I'm kinda like my sister's assistant now. I've volunteered to help her with some of her stuff. I won't go into it. It might bore you guys to sleep. Haha. If you guys wanna know, you can ask me.

Oh no. Another long long post.

I better not make this a habit. Bye.

A few thoughts.

First of all, RIP Michael Crichton.

I was a HUGE fan of his books. Actually, I still am. Just look at my writing style. ( well, i don't write much, but you should be able to see it in this blog.) It's heavily influenced by Crichton's. The short paragraphs and sentences, moving the 'plot' along at a quick pace.

The world has lost one of the greatest story tellers of all time.

Okay. I won't rave about him anymore.

On to my next point.




Note. This is going to be a long boring rant. Sort of like a lecture. Yeah. The sort 'philosophy' I always talk about. Like the lectures I always give zy when I send him home (lol. sorry dude).


So if you are really narrow-minded, or you are the type that just enjoys complaining everyday. Time to close this window.


Alright. Let's go. HUGE wall of text warning.


What separates us from the greats of the world?

Just a note, most of my knowledge of the following, comes from books by Conn Iggulden. He writes historical fiction. But he does include notes on where he changed fact to fiction, to accommodate the story telling.

But okay. So I'll be telling the story of the great Gaius Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan. At least the points that amaze me.

Let's start with the most amazing feat (in my opinion) of Julius Caesar.

To put it briefly, he was in the military, far in foreign lands. Here, he and a few others were kidnapped by pirates. Now the pirates would send a ransom back to Rome. If the families paid, they would be released. Much like the kidnappers of now -.-
The pirated wanted to ransom Caesar for 20 talents of silver. But Caesar said no. He demanded that they ransomed him for 50 talents of silver, and assured them that he was rich enough and that his family would pay. I think he was trying to make a point to them. That they were messing with the wrong person.
He wasn't kidding. He promised them that if they let him go, he would hunt them down, take back his money, and crucify them.
Well they did release him. On foreign soil. He kept his promise. He raised a fleet, and... kept his promise.

Now think about that for a moment. He raised a fleet on foreign soil. How would you go about, in another country, getting men to risk their lives for you, and fight for you? And I'm sure he didn't have anything to pay them with.

Imagine I asked you to go to Orchard road, and ask say.. 3 people to risk their lives for you. How retarded is that? Yet this man managed to raise an entire fleet. In a foreign country.

I don't need to tell you how great the man was. His surname even became a title which essentially meant emperor.

Genghis Khan.

This story is much shorter. Don't worry. lol.

Temujin(Genghis Khan's birth name) was the son of a Khan(Chief of a tribe). To cut a long story short, his father was killed when he was 9 or 10?
Anyway, the tribe did not allow Temujin to lead, as he was too young. The new khan, fearing that he might one day rise up and take control again, cast him and his family out to die.
I won't talk about how harsh the environment was in Mongol.
To cut a long story short, how does a young boy, struggling to survive and support his family, when everyone else left him for dead, end up as the ruler of the Mongol empire?

Just take a look at these two people. They hit the lowest of lows, where the only thing they had was their lives, and even that was in danger of being lost to them.

Yet they ended up as the most powerful and influential men the world has ever seen.

It just puts everything into perspective for me. I keep hearing people complain about how crappy their food is, how poorly other people treat them(like how their sgts tekan them.lol) and well, some people can even make it sound like the end of the world for them.

Another inspiring person to me that I want to mention, is Ghandi.

He inspired and united a nation through the sheer strength of his character and his spirit. Instead of all the propaganda crap we see nowadays.

What separates us from these greats? Cut me, and I bleed. Cut them, and they bleed. Why aren't we doing anything great with our lives? If we tried, can we do something great?
I'm not saying that I want to be some great dictator and end up being stabbed to death. No no no.
I'm saying that we are a privileged lot. Shouldn't we have all the tools at our disposal to do something good?
No need to change to world. Just change our own world. And the worlds of the people important to us.
So stop whining, and do something about it. I'm sure if we all tried, we could do so, so much more. I'm sure we can all make a difference for ourselves and our loved ones.

Who knows? You might just change the world.

Good sleepless nights.

I had good sleep these few days. like great sleep. I wake up feeling energised and all that.

The only problem its not enough.

Like last night i couldn't sleep until 12plus. then i woke up at like 5 completely awake. o.O

Then i go to class and can barely keep my eyes open. lol.

Anyway when i wake up, USA elections will be over.

how does this concern me?

it doesn't.

Well looks like my ban from the internet is finally over. lol.

Pretty much slacked the whole weekend. Damn. And i thought with nothing to do, i would actually be motivated to study. lol.

Anyways I had time to set my priorities straight. So here they are

- I am going for a first class honours. Nothing less.
- Maintain my fitness! I doubt i can even do 3 chinups now.
- Erm.. maintain healthy relationships with my friends? lol. If I've been neglecting contact to anyone back home, please drop me an email and scold me. thanks. lol.

Here are the stuff which are NOT on my priority list.

-Full Metal Alchemist
-Bleach
-Fairy Tail
-Pushing daises
-Top Gear
-and all the retarded shows and comics and whatnot.

Watching every episode of heroes is still on my to-do list though. lol.

So if anyone thinks i'm slacking off from my priorities, please put in back in line. thanks.

Time flies. Seriously.

It's been almost a month that I've been here. And i feel like it's only been like 2 weeks. lol.

I'm not even having fun yet.

Yeah. I'm a self-declared antisocial guy. So i'm making friends slowly. lol.

Some pics of the london eye. I have loads more. but mainly focused on the engineering bits that i'm supposed to draw. So i don't think anyone would be interested in that.

Other then that.. I've been pretty bogged down from work.

why

why do i always give in to people?

Do things for people even though i don't want to.

heck. sometimes i don't even like the person.

sometimes i don't even know the person well.

I don't know why i do these kind of things for these kind of people.

i guess i'm too weak-willed or what ever. too easy to manipulate.

damn. this gets irritating more often then it should.