Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Ye Virtual Oath

And by this blog entry, i hereby swear an oath of dedication to completeing my CS1102C C++ Programming Lab. It can be done, and it will be done ... by night or day, sun or rain. It matters not that the notes are unclear, nor does it matter that the lecturer mumbles through his lessons. Shall I fail myself in my self-assigned tasks, may I be cursed to ...

1) eat at Buisness Canteen's noodle shop for the rest of this semester.
2) find my parking space at home to be kopped by other people more often.
3) avoid Ben & Jerry's ice cream for the next 2 months.
4) not get my $80 claim back from Ken Tan for buying cloths from Spotlight for the PRU booth.
5) have my Honda Civic transformed itself into a Proton Saga.
6) have Gavin puke on my car.

And thee shall bear witness to the sealing of this oath.

Cheerio

Monday, August 22, 2005

Driver Issues

It's a bad day. Or rather it's going to be a bad day.
I just knew it, i knew it even before my day officially started. I made the conclusion at about 8am while driving to school for my 8.30am lecture. Everything felt wrong, straight from the moment I got out of bed. The feeling amplied once I fit into my Honda's driver seat. I dun feel as comfortable as I should, for some reason. Usually Id steer with just one hand on the normal roads, my left usually, with my right hand propped up against the side window ledge. It's just habit i guess, perhaps my brain registered it as the most comfortable orientation in the dimensions available to me. Often i wouldn't even notice my posture until I've driven for quite a distance. Today, however, i drove with both hands instinctively right from the start. I do not know why. This is coupled by a gloomy feeling within, as if indicating an omen of some of sort. I kept shuffling about in my seat uncomfortably... until i reached the AYE. It's jammed, as i would expect at this time of the morning. I drove along the outermost lane, which i assume is the fastest.

Then it happened...

The BMW in front of me started to brake, indicating a slowing down of the traffic. I followed suit. The next moment, the darn BMW reduced from around 40 mph to a near halt, apparently the driver made a sudden harsh step on the brakes. The bumper of the BMW, for a while, seemed actually to speed towards myself. I braked instantly, bringing my car to a near halt as the BMW did. And from my rear mirror, I saw the Toyota behind made a dangerous emergency brake due to the folly of the drivers ahead, the car body bouncing drastically upwards from the impact of the spared kinetic energy. I did not see what happened to the cars behind the Toyota, I dared not even imagine what could have happen.

Jesus! That could have caused a bloody accident! Had the drivers behind the BMW been less observant, a line of vehicles all the way to the back could have crashed into each other!!

I wondered if it was my fault though ... that i tailed the BMW too closely behind. A part of me told me otherwise... I do not know, and I do not wish to know.

******

Many of my friends had often mocked or suanned me for being a lousy driver, reminding me of my follies or near misses on the road in my early days of driving. Initially i laughed along, as I too registered that view when I've just acquired my license.

Much time has past, however, since my period of negligent behaviors on the road. I cant help but feel distrusted or even pissed when more often than not, I kept being "reminded" of my "substandard" driving skills in front of my friends. I know I'm not the best driver on the road, but I do feel that I do not deserve the repeated taunts on the issue. A few times is tolerable, we all suann-ed each others in our social life. When it becomes too repetitive, however, it really became what sounded like a nicer way to say "Man, you suck!". I too have feelings, though perhaps some may feel it's more sensitive than average. I know I'm confident on the road, and I know I can drive, and I know that I am skilled in one way or another behind the wheel. I've always potrayed myself as a safe driver, or at least I tried to be one, although I too have my moments of folly.

To err is only human, which I am one.

Fark, I did it again.

I've done it again.
I've bummed my weekend thru. Assuming that I rightlfully deserved the study-break which I gave myself on Friday, I've got a total of 48 hours to accomplish my task of finishing some readings and 3 tutorials dued in the coming week. The former has been briefly touched on, while the furthest that I've gotten to with the latter would be to convert them from softcopy to hardcopies. Even as I am typing, I'm trying to restrain myself from tearing my hair. Once again, I've managed to waste my weekend without achieving much productive efforts. Recollecting on the non-academic activities that I have engaged in, on the other hand, one would have readily thought that the holidays are still ongoing.

Over the past 2 days, I have glued myself in front of my laptop playing some dumb game from miniclip.com, downed a tub of Ben and Jerry's and finished my Warcraft Novel while massaging my legs with my Mom's OSIM massager. Precious time wasted in engaging in meaningless activities ... maybe I really need to hire someone to be around to discipline me. A consolation though, that I have actually TRIED to attempt of Programming tutorial (CS1102C), though with no much results. The notes the lectures covered made no sense at all, as agreed by a few of my friends, and the textbook was of little help to the tutorial questions. Somehow I felt that it was more of the lecturer's fault than mine. Hmm, but maybe its just another one of my psychological consolation.

Well, perhaps the next best thing to do now will be to head off to bed. At least that way I'll have more time to sleep before my 8.30am lecture later, and thus lowering the probabilty that I'll doze of during the lecture. But If I do doze off, perhaps it's the lecturer's fault again for failing to make his lesson interesting and understandable enough to keep our attention going.

Well ... whatever ...
If you are interested to apply to be my personal discipline master/mistress, do drop me a tag.

Thursday, August 18, 2005

心声:第二篇

月亮总爱调戏人们的心情,往往在人们心情最暗淡的时刻显得最明亮动人。
仿佛是大自然给于人们的提醒,告诉大家希望总是存在的。
天色越暗,头上的星空就闪烁得越耀眼迷人。
即使眼前的状况是多么的恶劣,多么的悲惨,别忘了无望之中还是有希望存在的。

=)

Stiff Neck

Apparently my sleeping posture last night isn't the best that can be achieved. That explains why i am having a stiff neck today. Im undergoing a passive ache on the right side of my neck just behind my ear. Ack, it's horrible!! My neck won't allow me to turn my head more than a few degrees of angle towards the right. Whenever i tried to do that, it hurts!!! AHHHH!! It sux, yes it does ... It sux to the core, though it does not suck as much as CORS. Ok that's a lame one ... but you get the basic idea. Everyone definately went thru this condition before, at one time or another. You know how it feels, it doesn't feel good. It isn't even orgasmic. I've tried getting a friend to massage it non-stop for like 5min, and it just doesn't help. Perhaps a neck brace might work, relieve the aching a bit ... but I do not own a neck brace, and neither is it sold in NUS Co-Op bookstores. Im pretty sure NUH has some, but Im too lazy to walk or even drive there for it.

I believe I do not have to explain too much to everyone what a stiff neck condition is. From my experience, it will not go away until the end of the day when you tuck into bed. Somehow the neck unstiffens after a good nights sleep. How that happens remains one of the unsolved mysteries of the world. Don't listen to what the doctor say, they're usually too professional to even bother about mortal conditions such as a simple stiff neck. It's just there, and it won't go away until you sleep it at night. Cheerio.

Sometimes ... it's conditions like these that reminds us that we have been taking many things in life for granted. With this passive pain in my right neck, my ability to glance rightwards is impaired. I drove to school, and only in the midst of traffic did I realise that it's too painful for me to even check my blindspot. I mean, i still can find out what's on my right view, but I'll have to turn my entire body rightwards to achieve that. My mobility is affected, my flexibility and my freedom of motion. It truely sucked ... and i crave for it to go away. In other words, I hope I can get back to my normal mobility status again. Only when I have a function impaired, do I then realise the benefit of being normal. My neck wasn't like this before today, I can look around me freely without any pain limitation. However, in the past, I took this freedom for granted. It never crossed my mind at all before today, that one fine day my ability to look rightwards will be greatly imparied.

Perhaps its a human thing, that we only cherish and appreciate what we already have, when we lose it. When we are still enjoying its benefit, we simply take it for granted, and assumed blindly that it'll be there forever. That applies to everything and everyone. Come one day, the thingie is taken away from us, and only then will we realise how precious and important it is to us. For the first time in a long while, we will grieve for its loss, and then crave for its return. If it doesn't return, we'll perhaps be basked in eternal regret. BUT if it does return, the whole cycle usually repeats ... we thanked for its return ... remain grateful for a while ... and then forget about it altogether.

ah ... the mysteries and complications of the human mind.

sk