In two weeks and three days, my finals will commence. I feel so damned unprepared. Before I cross that hurdle, there's still a project left to tackle. Hopefully, I'll emerge unscathed next month.
Side Note 1: Ken, if you ever read this, I find the fact that you are having a scuba diving weekend extremely disturbing (and, lol, disgusting), especially when my mountain of work is staring at me in the face. Nonetheless, have a good trip. (If I am ever on exchange, I swear to top you. This is just a "purging" side note to cleanse myself of the envy within me. Heh.)
Side Note 2: Ah Bien has done it again. Taiwan is again the laughing stock of the world. So is the "gifted" assasin who cannot shoot to save his life. Stomach and knee? C'mon! My 14 year old brother can do better! If anything, this latest fiasco proves that Taiwan's current "leaders" are not fit to lead Taiwan into independence. It'll be interesting to wait for Washington's reaction. KMT supporters, I feel for you. Chen does not deserve a second term.
Side Note 3: I shall revamp this website when my exams end. The white is getting to me.

I'm convinced they are the inventions of people who want to see saner victims go insane. If you have no clue about what I'm talking about, count yourself lucky. Heelys are innocent looking sneakers that sport hidden wheels underneath so that idiots who prefer not to walk can "skate" around and terrorize other pedestrians. I have no problems with people doing that away from other people, but those who skate about in crowded places are a different matter. Inevitably, they all happen to be little kids (mostly spoilt, considering the price of those shoes, or little pirates wearing fakes) who zip around acting cute. They ram themselves into you, then have the sheer audacity to glare. Nowadays, I have this impulse to stick out my foot whenever one of them steer close to me. If the parents aren't looking, I'll even add a kick or two for good measure. Yeah, yeah, I'm the type of guy whose photo you'd see plastered in the Wanted section of the Straits Times. So if you see me there one day, just remember the root of my downfall. Damned Heelys.

Went out (for once), and splurged on two pairs of shoes. That concludes the business of shoe shopping for the next 1.5 years.

Side Note 1: Finished reading Foreign Bodies. I thought Tan's second novel, Mammon Inc., was better. Even so, Foreign Bodies was quite well written and thought provoking. In one particular section, the author put her finger exactly on the topic of my previous entry. Travel, new culture and experiences, ennui. The feeling of being stifled, of needing to escape for a while, despite the knowledge that I will be an outsider and that I will return home in the end.

Side Note 2: Have been giving some thought to continuing my studies after graduating with a Bachelor's. Have my eye on University of Waterloo, University of Arizona, University of California (Irvine) and Carnegie Mellon University.Those who know me well enough will probably be shocked, considering I can't even tell what I'm going to do next weekend (outside of studying of course), and postgrad is still two years down the road. Oh well, for the time being, I'll just concentrate on my studies.

Side Note 3: Added this after my reading my last entry. Can't believe I talked about loosening up yesterday, then went ahead and searched for a postgrad uni in the same day. Ugh. My plan to have a carefree and hip lifestyle is so not working out. Permanent geekdom, I have arrived.

Yesterday, one of the exchange students left for a weekend trip to Mt. Ophir (which I climbed in 2002... but that's a story for another day). The other exchange student Mike, has been to so many other places that I can't even finish browsing the photos.
The wanderlust bug bit pretty badly the past few days.
It's a little more than that though. There's also this inexplicable urge to experience life in a different culture. It must be nice, different at least, to experience a culture where I can drop studies and midterms without a care in the world and just go traipsing off for a weekend trip. Something in me balks at doing that in Singapore, whether its dropping studies or work in future. I need to loosen up and have more fun (my last movie was LOTR last year, last date was V. Day). Else before I know it, my life will be "Life: 70 years. Studies: 20 years. Sleep: 20 years. Work: 30 years. Fun: Priceless and absent.". How sad.
To work towards that (work towards having fun. ironic.), I shall begin saving up for a Europe/U.S trip when I graduate. If I'm strongwilled enough, 14 days of travels could be 31 instead.
In the meantime, my project and tests are calling for me.

Finally, one project is off my hands and there's nothing else I can do about it anymore (except maybe cry). I've come to the conclusion that the only possible way to prepare for and submit a project without extreme rushing is... not to be in computing. Somehow, over here, the road to last minute work is paved with good intentions. Either scripts suddenly stop working (its not my fault dammit. They were working just fine before something snapped. The server probably.) or you discover new, top secret requirements 45 minutes before the deadline. There's nothing quite like an invigorating rush after school to correct codes and reports to shorten your life span by oh, ten years or so. The bit about early preparation and stuff? All lies. There'll always be something left to work on, whether you start one week or one year (the technology's probably changed) before the deadline.
Side note 1. Simply love the feeling of standing close to the edge of the train platform, and feeling the rush of the train and wind. Gives me a high. Stop rolling your eyes. I get my thrills wherever I can, MRT or computer labs...
Side note 2. The word "Model" once evoked mental images of luscious and leggy babes. Now that I'm taking CS3250, this word makes me want to run out of the room, pulling out my hair and generally going apeshit. So if you're taking this course and you see a guy doing just that one day, you'll know why.
Side note 3. The Prudential salesmen have now invaded the Tampines Mall lobby. They're an insidious force that are slowly creeping into our streetlife with their "surveys" from hell. "Please sir, may I have one minute of your time? I think you need our fabulous insurance". If I got a dollar everytime I was approached by this breed of people, I'd be a millionaire by now. Some are annoying and run, yes run, after you. Others act like you're a long lost friend. One guy in his 50s tried to be hip and called me "brudder". If I let them, they'll be insuring even my sperm count.
Side note 4. How ironic is it that NUS (whose credo is so corporate like) fresh grads get lower pay than NTU (not a full U, with a more philosophical credo) fresh grads? Computing is still in demand though. Hopefully I won't have to be based in India when i graduate.

1) Knowing 20,000 arcane UNIX commands won't land you a date on Saturday night.
2) You can't fix things that are "Out Of Order" using quicksort. Or any other sorts for that matter.
3) Just because you like circular linked lists doesn't mean all women will form them with you.
4) If stack is shit and heap is fan, then when there are memory access violations, the shit has basically hit the fan.
5) The radiation from the monitor screen does not tan you.
6) Coding 200 hours straight will not make you an adonis.
7) You cannot ping a pong.
8) If you find proving Fourier's series a pain, use proof by obfuscation (randomly insert Greek letters, sequences, series, partial derivatives and complex numbers) or bovine excretion (just BS).
9) Saying "127.0.0.1 Sweet 127.0.0.1" will render your family members speechless.
10) When in doubt a) obfuscate b) pretend you are an artsie c) 5P34k l337!