A Walk to Remember

Updates

2011-06-14T01:24:00.000-07:00

It has been about 1.5 years since the last update here. Since those of you who tried the link below probably found out that it is broken and has been broken for a while now. The reason is that the blog/newsletter has been moved entirely to mainstreeter.blogspot.com. The reason is that the objective of the newsletter has been expanded to include discussions on investments apart from comments on economics.

For those of you who missed volume 2, there were 26 issues and the summary of the articles are contained here.

Volume 3 started with two sections, one called Two-Cent Economics and the other, Intelligent Investing. Up to date, from 1 January 2011, it has amassed a little more than 3,000 visits since the revamp.

Last but not least, thank you for your visit and I hope the above sufficiently explains the lack of updates here.

Economics @ Home © Volume 1 Issue 14

2009-12-07T07:26:00.000-08:00

Patience

Those of you who frequent this site should know two very obvious things. First, my posts have been less frequent of late. Second, the layout and the look has changed tremendously.

There are several reasons for this change. As 2009 is drawing to a close, I am looking to end Volume 1 of Economics @ Home. With the new year, Volume 2 will begin with, hopefully, a vengeance.

Also, I am testing out this new look for the new year. I will also be changing my site name to EconAtHome.blogspot.com. So far, nothing is ready yet. Please don't get overexcited. The reason for the name change is so that I don't mix business with pleasure. A Walk to Remember will be reverted back to its old use, which is for personal blogging.

Economics @ Home will start anew on 1 Jan 2010. Why the need for such a change? On one hand, many things have changed in my life, and changed significantly they have. I have been working on several other projects as well, and this will be discussed further on another more auspicious day. Nonetheless, with so much going on, I have found it much harder to post regularly.

I read somewhere that the reason for the lack of performance is usually not because of the lack of motivation. Usually, it is due to the inability to remove the obstacles that are in the way. 24 hours a day can sometimes be too little. But now, I have readjusted my path and hopefully I will be able to sidestep whatever obstacles that I was facing before.

Going forward, there may be a few changes to Economics @ Home other than the outlook and the volume number. What started out to be an ambitious weekly newsletter has proved to be somewhat unrealistic at this point in time with my work commitments. If the earning potential of Economics @ Home has the ability to keep me fed, there would be no doubt that I will focus more energy on it instead. However, this is clearly not the case, and so, my work commitments still come first. So, for 2010, I intend to reduce the frequency of the posts to once every fortnight, still on Sunday. This comes as a very difficult decision because my honour, pride, and everything good is at stake when I lower my standards for myself. Trust me, it is still my goal to produce a weekly newsletter. I am in the midst of searching for a part-time author to fill in the gaps when I run into time hurdles. If you are interested in applying for he co-author position, please drop a comment or your contact in my C-box and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

I also intend to continue updating the Lean and Mean Machine. To keep the long story short, the Lean and Mean Machine is still very much alive. It has been somewhat dormant for the past two months because its sole client, i.e. me, temporarily ceased to use the services of L&M, so there was zero monetary activity for the company.

There has also been no change in terms of the stock portfolio of the company. You can bet that I will release a full disclosure for the year ending 31 Dec 2009 by the end of January. Hopefully I can get it done sooner, but of course, I like my margins of safety.

So with that said, I urge you readers to stay patient, and look forward to the new issues of Economics @ Home in Volume 2. Remember that the site will change from 1 Jan 2010. You will only be able to access the old issues from the new site.

More sneak previews will be provided as I finalize some of the finer details of the launch of Volume 2. Until then, I thank you for your continued support and I hope that you continue to follow Economics @ Home.

The NeXT Years: Steve Jobs before His Triumphant Return to Apple

2009-07-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

I have posted a story about how Steve Jobs was fired from Apple and what he did after that. He subsequently returned to Apple as its CEO after a long detour.

Please check out my other blog for the complete story. I assure you that it is a story of a real fanatic.

Here is the link:

inspirational-doses.blogspot.com

Please feel free to comment.

I did not write the article, but as Picasso said,

Good artists copy, great artists steal

Greatness

2009-07-15T07:44:00.000-07:00

Ever since I started working in my new company, I feel more and more like I am on the right track towards this path of "greatness". I am not so foolish to believe that I am great or will definitely become great some day. Nonetheless, today I discovered that in order to even be on the right path to greatness, the minimum requirement is to be a fanatic.

You have to be crazy about what you do. For example, there are people who eat football, sleep football and most definitely talk football. These people are destined to be great football commentators. However, being fanatic is only a necessary condition and is definitely very far from being sufficient. Perseverance is another irreplaceable ingredient. But that is a story for another day. I did blog about perseverance once (Perseverance). Maybe I will extend that another time.

Nonetheless, if you look at the people who have achieved greatness, well, let us begin with Galileo. He died trying to convince everyone that the earth was NOT flat. The name still resonates with the world of science today. Greatness is not limited to the field of science. Another familiar name would be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The musical genius who cared more about music than his health. Technological geniuses, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (of Microsoft and Apple fame), both of whom did not graduate from college, pursued their passion til no end. Steve Jobs was even fired from Apple (refer to Stay Hungry Stay Foolish), but started NeXT and Pixar even though he was already a millionaire by then. Why should he bother? Now, what about Warren Buffett? He is 79 years-old with an estimated net worth of USD39 billion (should be more if he had not donated the money to the Gates Foundation). Why is he still investing? He can retire and build a time-capsule with his money and fly himself to the next galaxy or do something exciting like that.

I can only think of one reason why these people are successful. They are simply fanatics in their very own fields. They are just so crazy about what they do for a living that no matter what adversities they faced; death, illness, age, being a college dropout, or being fired from the company you founded, if you are crazy about what you do, you will definitely be on the right path towards what the abovementioned people have achieved.

You can call this attribute other names such as passion, love, interest, but those are just milder words for what they do for a living. Imagine if you forcefully prevent them from doing those activities, they would simply go berserk.

So, with this, I urge you to be crazy about what you love doing. Be a fanatic! You'll most probably end up being great, or at least, on the right path.

Effectiveness

2009-07-07T07:26:00.000-07:00

So today I learnt something so crucial that I must share with all of you before I forget. I only wish that I have the full article for you to read, but it comes from my workplace and I have no way of sharing it with you unless you have a subscription to the i Capital newsletter.

I must admit that I am guilty of assuming that having a brilliant mind is an achievement. Maybe for all my life, I have been striving towards that. Today, I feel proud to say that I was rocked to the core. I cannot remember the exact contents of the article but what really struck me was the question, "How do you make yourself effective?".

Now the article admits that there is no shortage of brilliant minds and able people in this world. What separates the good from the great is their effectiveness. The difference is in the "doing". All this may not come as a surprise to you. In fact, it was probably common sense.

It is probably very difficult for me to elaborate my feelings when I read the article. However, now, I feel a sense of responsibility and pride in executing my ideals instead of plainly expounding my ideals on everyone. Forgive me for being so naggy in the past. Hopefully it's not too late for me and more importantly, for you to "Just Do It"!

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2009-06-30T02:48:00.000-07:00

So my project and my life as we know it begins :) I have posted my first, and hopefully not last inspiring contribution which I sincerely hope may move even the smallest molehill. Please visit my other blog:

inspirational-doses.blogspot.com

I hope that you will enjoy the reading and video.

Eat Your Own Cooking

2009-06-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

Since the beginning of time, actions have spoken louder than words and it is because things are easier said than done. Lately, I have been talking a lot but not actually doing. Who am I kidding? Only myself. Everyone around me seems to buy into what I preach.

Who trusts a cook that does not eat his own cooking? Most people would have known by now that I am currently self-employed. By that, I mean that all income and expenditure are borne by yours truly. As I have told some of you before, in some parts of the world, I would be classified as unemployed. Who am I to argue with that?

It will be foolish to assume that I have been biding my time killing mosquitoes but of course unwise to believe that my time is optimally occupied. While I keep myself productive for the most part of the day, there is also a certain lack of challenge in my life. This has been continuing for a while now, in fact, for too long. What is worse, it has continued for so long that I don't even remember what real challenges are like.

Just the other day, I repeated the words of wisdom that I have taken for granted for a long time. Long have I preached that it is challenges that bring out the best in people. Have I been avoiding challenges of late? That would be very unlikely. Nonetheless, the opportunity to challenge myself again has once again arrived at my doorstep. It is time to let the best be brought out in me. It is time to eat my own cooking.

Inspirational Doses

2009-05-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

These are troubled times. Doom and gloom has become such a cliched phrase. Nonetheless, troubled times call for great heroes. If you have read carefully on the side bar on the right, you would have noticed what I wrote about heroes. They are just normal people who acted extraordinarily under ordinary circumstances.

I choose to dedicate my blog to all the troubled people in this world during these troubled times. If my capacity would enable me to share an inspirational story to motivate you, I would. Given my dire circumstances, I look to all you faithfuls to share your stories with me, and with everyone who visits my blog.

Please send your stories to inspirational.doses@gmail.com

From today onwards, I have created a new site under inspirational-doses.blogspot.com to cater for all the inspirational stories you can provide. Of course your stories may or may not be edited for public viewing and originality is encouraged. I really look forward to being inspired and motivated by you. Thank you in advance for your contributions.

For those of you who have totally missed what I wrote in the side bar, here it is in full font size :)

There comes a time when life simply refuses to grant you a breather, puts you down in the hollows and in many occasions drive you towards madness. I hope that you can indulge in my sharing and cherishing of the little things in life that provide us with that glimmer of hope to go on, to pass this day, in hope that tomorrow, we will be called upon to answer our calling. You see, "heroes" are not born extraordinary people. They are ordinary people, given an extraordinary circumstance and acted extraordinarily. This may happen maybe once in your lifetime, and for that one time, you will know that "life" as we call it, is forever worth living.

NBA Chess

2009-04-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

The playoffs are on. For those of you who know me well enough, you will know that I am a Spurs fan. No, I do not support Tottenham Hotspurs and don't try to talk trash to me about their 5-2 defeat at the hands of the lucker team (also the worst team on the planet).

In the NBA, the Spurs refer to the San Antonio Spurs. I think the video is very well made in many ways. The narration suits the on-screen events. Nonetheless, to the amateur eye, the kings of basketball may appear to be masters of the black and white jungle. But to the trained eye (like mine), they are so amateurish. One glance at the way these ballers hold the chess pieces tells me that they probably have never played chess in their lives.

You're probably thinking that I am taking this too seriously, but you are the one who is taking it too seriously. I just meant it as a joke. The late Eduard Gufeld would have said that their basketball is better than my chess.

Anyhow, as to how I obtained the video, I use some backdoor software to rip it off the Chessbase website. I don't believe I am infringing copyright laws as this video is made for advertizing purposes and I am merely serving the same purpose.

P/S: I am disappointed they did not include Tim Duncan.

He's Just Not That Into You

2009-04-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I reserve the right to spoil your movie experience should you choose to read this without having watched the movie. For those of you who have already decided not to watch it, please proceed without caution. I also reserve the right to spoil your blog-reading experience taking into full consideration of your kindness and generosity in visiting my blog. I also reserve the right to deny you the privilege of enjoying the contents of my mind-blowing piece of work. Last but not least, I hope you will run to the cinema or download the pirated version or do whatever it takes to watch the movie really soon so as to not disrupt your blog-reading experience in this site. I thank you for coming and hope to see you again soon.

When I watched this movie yesterday, I find it inevitable to think that if what happens in the movie really applies to myself, and to the people around me. Maybe to a certain extent it's true. I have not been involved in the dating scene for a really long time now and I don't really recall what it feels like to wait for someone to call you back.

But the movie certainly points in the direction of what I wrote about women in "Empty Promises". When you like someone, it's so hard to not think about them. Even when you try not to think about them, you're still thinking about them. Do you find yourself pacing around waiting for your date to call you? Do you check your phone every 15 minutes for your special someone to call you back or text you?

With the vastness of the world being squeezed by the tight electronic net, more and more relationships are e-based. People dwell on actions like, "Oh my gosh, he superpoked me, does it mean he likes me?" or "He didn't reply my wall message for him, what's taking him so long?" or "Why hasn't he uploaded that picture we took together? He promised to do it as soon as he got back home." and 1001 many other things you can imagine yourself thinking with regards to facebook (apparently the new "in" thing).

Anyhow, I wouldn't classify this as the best movie ever, but for those of you who enjoyed "Love Actually" will enjoy this as well. The chemistry between the comical star-studded cast is pretty amazing. The movie contains many of my favorite actors and actresses and they played their role well. There wasn't any head of the cast or anything like that. All of the co-stars blended in and didn't exaggerate the motive of the film which made the ideas completely accessible and easy to relate to. Nothing was made to be more than what it seems.

At the end, all I could say is that I tried to express the same ideas, but they simply did it better. Kudos to the makers.

Financial Explosion

2009-03-01T00:56:00.000-08:00

I first saw this on Cheng Teik's blog... so credit to the man. I am re-posting this on my blog just because I feel that too many people talk about the financial crisis without knowing what they are talking about. If you feel that way, here is a way to educate yourself. The animation in this video is pretty cool as well. It's pretty instructive and the diagrams make things just so much clearer. Hope you enjoy!

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Impossible Is Nothing

2009-02-28T00:52:00.000-08:00

I did not sign a contract with Adidas to promote their slogan and what not, and not that I am being paid to pass their slogan around. For the few chess enthusiasts who visit my blog, this is a tribute to all of you, with many hopes that you will return for more. I have posted a beautiful chess puzzle and I sincerely hope that you will return the favor by giving your all in solving this problem.

Here is a little background on the problem which I found in ChessBase.com:

A game begins with 1.e4 and ends in the fifth move with knight takes rook mate.

This may seem like an easy problem at the beginning. However, when you have tried it for a while, you will soon realize why I chose the title of this blog. Furthermore, when you find the solution, all things will become even clearer. Here is what Frederic Freidel, an author for ChessBase.com has to say about this problem:

This is the starting position. All you have to do is enter some legal chess moves, so that the game ends on move five with the stipulated knight takes rook mate. Easy enough, don't you think? Maybe not. When John gave me the problem originally, he sealed the answer in an envelope and asked me to return this unopened, with the solution written on the back. Together with Ken Thompson, one of the people behind Unix and C, I spent many hours trying to solve the problem (and Ken spent at least an hour trying to read the contents of the envelope over a bright light). In the end we tore the thing open and admitted humiliating defeat.

There is a nice story about this problem. In 1986, during the turmoils after Kasparov had won the world championship and was forced to face an immediate rematch, both he and Karpov went to Lucerne to meet with FIDE president Campomanes. I was with them and we had a long car journey together from Zurich to Luzerne. To entertain them I gave the two top players in the world John's puzzle. It kept them busy during the ride and for the next couple of days in the hotel. They couldn't solve it.

Before we parted I did the Nunn on Garry: I sealed the answer in a hotel envelope and told him to return it unopened with the solution. I didn't hear from him for many months. Then one day I came home and found a number of messages with a phone number where I should call Kasparov urgently. I did so and found him in a distraught state. "You are a dead man, Fred," he said, "you have put me in a very embarrassing situation." Turns out he was running a session of his chess school, together with Botvinnik, and he had given the problem to his students. When they couldn't solve it and asked him for the answer he had told them to try for another day. Meanwhile the hunt was on for the envelope, which unfortunately could not be located. When I told him the solution on the phone I could hear Mikhail Botvinnik gasp in the background. And Garry, who was convinced I had stated the problem incorrectly, couldn't believe that he and his students had missed it.

Another little story? I was telling the above to Vishy Anand and Vlady Kramnik two years ago in a little restaurant in Wijk aan Zee. They were listening bemused, thinking that I was probably adding a lot of journalistic dressing to the whole thing. But then suddenly a Grandmaster sitting at the adjacent table turned to us and said, "Are you talking about the problem which Kasparov gave his students back in 1986? Well I was one of the students!" The Grandmaster was Boris Alterman, now grown up and one of the seconds that has helped Garry in some of his matches.

- Frederic Freidel

Empty Promises

2009-02-10T06:14:00.000-08:00

After hunting high and low to find a decently interesting topic to talk about, I have decided to settle on the juicy topic of women. Believe me, I tried to look for something else. Ideas that crossed my mind were:

1. Cars

I wanted to do a comparison between a BMW 7-series vs a Mercedes S-class but then I realized that my knowledge was not only very limited, but I haven't even been in any one of those cars. All I can tell you is that the BMW looks cooler than an S-class. The S-class has a more mature feel to it. Basically, it's meant for old men in their midlife crises. One good analogy that comes to mind is the Mac advertisement. It is obvious that the Mac guy is the BMW while the geeky, serious looking dude who dresses smartly is the S-class. I shall leave this discussion at that, and perhaps continue it another day.

2. Politics

What can I say that hasn't already been said? In today's newspaper, an MP passed away while another quit his position. The past few weeks have seen frogging like nobody's business and everyone has said their piece. Those people who have not kept quiet about are still telling the same stories about things that other people pretend they want to hear. The first step to solving all problems is to admit there is a problem. Everyone knows that. Everyone wants to blame someone. Once again, this discussion is simply overheated and probably a no-brainer for me. By talking about it, one can pretend to feel good about being superior to the party that he/she is blaming but we all know nothing can come out of it, not just by bitching.

3. Economics

Doom and gloom is around every corner. Keep badgering the US banks. It's all their fault. The Americans. They want to pump in another what? How many zeroes is that? Yeah, yeah, once again, everyone has had their chance to speak. We should feel a sense of relief that the new president has first world thinking. He acknowledges the problem. Step 1 complete! So now you buggers out there who are still pointing fingers and bitching about how the money should be spent and how it should not be spent, or how silly the financial allocation is, or how they are wasting it to banks that no one in the world can trust, well, please give your solutions. I would like to hear something that no one can refute. In bad times, every step you take is going to look bad. Every one wants a piece of the blaming finger.

On that note, I proudly say that I have no viable perfect solution. Reform is necessary, but I don't think I know enough to claim in what areas should the reform be in. So, maybe on another day, we can continue this discussion upon hindsight and you can hope that you were right and you can say "I told you so" in my face. But for now, let's just hope for the sake of the citizens of the world that you are wrong.

4. Sports

So I've pretty much gone through all the current issues that most people can talk about. Among other things such as the sacking of Scolari and the Steelers winning the Superbowl and the Spurs pwning the Celtics, sports will always be sports. Somebody always beats somebody else and the winner is remembered, the loser is forgotten.

5. Women

Well, women are number 5 on my list of important things to talk about? I remember when I was much younger (half my age!!), my classmates and I used to productively utilize our schooling time (in between classes, of course!) to chatter about what was deemed the most important things of our lives at that time, girls!

Fortunately for you and for me, this will not be idle chatter. Let us hope that at the end of the day, one of us leaves this site with at least some sense of awareness of what I am about to share with you.

Please be advised that I do not write this as a closet pervert, not that you should have any reason to believe I am one, but I write this with the intention of banding the men with similar experiences against the evil clutches of women-kind!

What is so evil about women? This question reminds me of a mathematical proof once showed to me by a classmate. At that point, I thought it was clever but it has been completely overused and underappreciated since then. That said, let us be clear about one thing, it is impossible to understand women (as men).

I have never attempted (never is a strong word, but I say it WLOG (Yeah, yeah, bet you can't use WLOG in a regular sentence like I can)) to understand women. Things women do that drive most men nuts:

OK, I had actually prepared a long list of silly things women do, like taking long showers, spending ridiculous amounts of cash on vanity products etc. but I decided to discard it for the simple reason that who hasn't heard it already?

I'd like to share a fictional story about Adam and Eve (forgive the biblical reference)

Eve texts Adam at 11.03 am one Saturday morning,

"Hey Adam, how are you doing? Just wanted to wish you good morning! I love you!"

2 hours and a few minutes later, at 1.08 pm, Adam finally struggles to get out of bed, no thanks to his Dota buddies who insisted on "One more last game" for the 6th time at 4 am. Adam drags himself to the bathroom, brushes his teeth, shaves (and do all the hygienic things that most men do :P) and then jacks off while he takes a shower, steps out, puts on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, grabs his cell phone, parks his butt on that magical sofa, flips the TV on with his well-trained clicking finger or thumb, looks down on his phone and then finally sees the message that Eve sent him about 3 hours ago (It's 1.59 pm now). So Adam opens the message and thinks to himself, "Aww, that's sweet..." (Adam is a nice guy by the way, he is just nocturnal).

"Hey baby, I just woke up not long ago. I'm starving. You've had your lunch, right? I think I'll just stop by the cafe outside to pick up some food", Adam unsuspectingly replies.

Adam heads out the door, gets a call from his good friend, Chuck, who invites him to go for a movie. Having no prior plans, Adam accepts, grabs a quick lunch, heads out with Chuck and the guys to catch Saw V. Little did Adam know that 30 seconds after he replied and slid his cell into his pocket, Eve had replied:

"Hey you! I was thinking maybe we could catch a movie later. Maybe some dinner afterwards. What do you think?"

If only Adam's cell was not in "Silent" mode. He had classes on Friday and forgot to switch the modes. One knows too well how the vibration doesn't really feel like anything when you are walking with the cell in your pocket. Girls, if the cell is in your handbag, you wouldn't notice a vibrate right? Especially with that arsenal of "goodies" in your bag.

Unknowingly, Adam sits through the 2 hour movie that started at 3 pm, and ended at 5,36 pm because of advertising. Guys being guys, went on to get a few good rounds of Dota going at the nearest LAN shop and before they know it, it's 7 pm, and time for dinner. Now, hold your horses, you bet that Adam didn't check his cell and went to dinner with his buddies, right? Wrong! Every guy checks his cell phone after walking out of a LAN shop. After all, they have to check if their girlfriend texted them. To his surprise and panic, Adam sees 2 unreplied messages and 1 miss call and replies immediately:

"Hey, I am so sorry. I didn't see your message earlier. I was out with my friends. We went to watch Saw V. I know you're not really a big fan of horror movies. It's kinda late to pick you up for dinner now, but I will make it up to you another time. I'm really sorry".

Perfectly honest mistake by a perfectly honest guy who really cares about his girlfriend. While some girls may understand that and accept his apology, but it is all too common that some girls may start giving a guy like Adam a cold shoulder. Reason?

Well, at 11.03 am after Eve texted Adam, Eve goes to freshen up, gets all dressed up (which by then is already 12.30 pm), hoping that Adam would have replied by then and he could swing by, pick her up for lunch and catch a movie (She was planning to watch Saw V with him because she knew how he loves horror). Thinking that she might appear too desperate or being too clingy towards Adam, Eve decides not to call Adam and bug him. "He's probably taking a shower". At 1.30 pm, Eve begins to think, "He's taking an awfully long time to reply. I wonder what he is up to." Another 29 minutes of see-sawing goes by, not knowing if she should or should not call Adam, thankfully Adam replies. "Phew". Eve jumps in shock of her ringtone, opens the message immediately and smiles. "Finally, he replied". She quickly replies his message, hoping to at least catch a movie with him later.

The rest as we deem to be history happened. Now, in between the hours of 2.00 pm to 5.30 pm, she texted Adam:

"Hey, are you back from lunch yet? I haven't heard from you. What are you doing? Did you get my message?"

Another 40 minutes goes by. Eve calls Adam. But his cell was on silent mode. Apparently the vibration wasn't that great either. Perhaps it was off because he was in the cinema. Who knows...

Now Eve is beginning to get really frustrated. "What is Adam really doing? Why hasn't he replied my message? Why didn't he pick up my call? He must be playing computer games with his friends again. Is he out with another girl? I guess that's quite unlikely. He's not the cheating type. If only I could see him. I made sure I left my schedule open this weekend just to see him. I even decided not to go to Jenny's birthday party because it was the premier weekend for Saw V. What is he doing? Where could he be? Maybe he is watching the movie with his friends. Why didn't he invite me along? Is he embarassed about me? Does he think I am too clingy? Am I too clingy? Should I give him more space? Why am I so frustrated? He probably just didn't see my message. But why would someone own a cellphone and not be reachable? Might as well not own a cellphone".

As you can see, this thought process can go on and on and on. This is called "dwelling". To the unsuspecting guy (I guess he may or may not be innocent, but he would in no way suspect he was doing something very wrong), he will wonder what he really did wrong. All he did was just being late in replying an sms. Besides, his girlfriend has been late in replying his messages before too.

On the other end of things, Eve is all worked up, decides to give Adam a cold shoulder and demands to herself that she deserves to be treated better. So now, what is seemingly a small situation had been blown out of proportions because of an innocent mistake. Eve continues to give Adam the cold shoulder for a few days. Adam still wonders why can't Eve forgive him for replying an sms late. Eve has replied more texts late than he has, as far as he remembers. But of course Eve's reasons were "completely valid".

Now, boys and girls, at some point in our relationships with our significant other, we would have encountered a situation similar to this. So it is my hope that we ponder about this story with an open mind and stay aware that some mistakes can be innocent. The best way to avoid a cold war like this one would be to communicate. Talk to your partners. Be clear and honest.

All this could have been avoided if Eve had said in the first message that she wanted to watch Saw V with Adam. She wanted to "act cool" by not being the clingy girlfriend, or so she thinks and thus played a small role in building this mountain out of a molehill. Adam on the other hand, piled on the dirt by not checking his cellphone every 15 minutes, but can he really be blamed? Maybe... If he was the kind of guy who puts his girlfriend ahead of everything he does, he might have checked his phone sooner.

So, once again, communication is key. I guess I take back my point about women being evil. Nonetheless, the mathematical proof is concrete. Hope you liked the story...

10 000

2009-02-09T07:05:00.000-08:00

Nothing like a post with only numbers as titles. NO, silly, it's not a binary code for something. I am not that complicated. It has come to my attention that traffic has dwindled down drastically in the past few months due to the lack of interesting topics published by me. This is mainly because there seems to be a severe lacking of interesting occurrences surrounding my (what is simply termed as) life.

So instead of waiting for things to happen to me, I have decided to go out and find them. Maybe I will take a slightly more proactive stance towards experiencing life. Just the other day, I read a blog of a friend who made it his goal to visit the best food places in town to try out the food and show pictures of them and critique the food etc. I mean, he's not the first person to do it and I am no copycat, but I will work on something equally appealing and hopefully manage to decorate my blog with a few more pictures (so far, I only have Ellen Page).

As for the reason for using the title, I hope to achieve 10 000 hits by the end of this year. Maybe I can put my knowledge on life to good use. Who knows... So, those of you who still read my blog, if you find something worth studying, please let me know, I will look into it and post opinions (my own, if possible) and I assure you that it is guaranteed to be interesting (people who know me know that I most certainly have an interesting take on life. I am a born conspiracy theorist:P ) So, come back soon for more!

Same Old Brand New You

2009-01-02T05:15:00.000-08:00

Two days into the new year and nothing much has changed yet. I wrote down my goals for this month/year. Still working on them. Got through five pages of the book that I am supposed to finish by Chinese New Year. Decent productivity.

Because of the insanely long break last month-end, the back-log of the work that wasn't done is catching up to me. Still lots to complete for PnL due to poor system administration. Six more months to bear with this nonsense. After that, the system will be completely revamped. Sweet...

Wasted 45 bucks on Christmas Eve on Sims 2 and a bunch of the expansion packs. The game was fun, while it lasted. I meant the fun. Nonetheless, "Woohoos" are always a good thing. Somehow it is rather sad to enjoy virtual woohoos enacted by virtual characters who are mere figments of my imagination. I created a bunch of characters who are parts of my flawed being in hopes to figure out which part of me is the biggest contributor to my success or what my biggest motivation is. I am still in the testing stages of this project, but so far, I realize that I tend to lean towards financial independence quite a bit no matter which career path I am in.

So I have only confirmed my money-mindedness. Nothing new... yet. I will update my progress if there is any. Stay tuned!

Here We Go Again

2008-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

Perhaps some of you may remember what I said about the New Year. To refresh your memory, (I know that all of you visit my blog all the time and I totally understand if you don't remember everything that I have written) here is a link to that post:

Refresh Memory NOW!

Now that you have re-read that post, take a few moments to think about what I said. Does it make sense? Do you agree or do you not? Well, here's some food for thought. Throughout 2008, I have come to discover why people make resolutions. I mean, just last year, there was no reason for anyone to wait for the New Year to make changes in their lives. I mean, if you really wanted to change, you could change today.

That was last year. I still have not changed my mind, I am not as wishy washy as most of you would like to believe. But the reason that people hope to change is because they feel they can do better than they are currently doing. Usually, New Year's Resolutions consists of cutting down on sinful (I refuse to go into a discussion about what sinful really means, because of the vaguely defined word "sin") habits and exercising more discipline. But usually, sinful pursuits involve a great amount of pleasure. Hence, we would always prefer to delay its abandonment. Some things are just so good that you can't leave them behind, year after year. So we just put them as one of those things that we call New Year Resolutions, EVERY YEAR!

No one likes a whiner in these festive mood. Why the hell am I blogging on New Year's Eve. Should I not be out partying? Who knows, I could get lucky... I mean, it would take a lot for that to happen, but... this could actually be my year.

Nonetheless, believe it or not, I have made my own resolutions this year. Not because it is this time of the year, but because I understand that to live the life that I hope for, I must certainly make a lot of changes to the way I currently go about daily. What are my resolutions? For people who know me well enough, my goals are always simple. For people who know me even better, they know that I am very complicated, yet, I seek simplicity. So for next year, I seek the little things in life that are just missing right now.

There are actually two factors on my side for this. Firstly, little things are easier to obtain and secondly, we know that if we take care of the little things in life, the big things will take care of themselves. So, with this, I wish all of you a splendid year ahead, and may all your little changes come true!

New Tools

2008-12-20T09:05:00.000-08:00

As it happens not so frequently, I like to update my blog, not only with posts, but give it a new look, and add some new funky toys to it (I added the Sushi game the last time) just to breathe some new life into what other people might deem as dead.

So, if you have visited my blog recently, you will notice that the color schemes have changed somewhat. I find this more lively and in preparation for the spring, which most people are looking forward to in this cold winter. The freezing bear is no longer in the header. It's been a year since I left him there.

I also added a Google Calendar at the bottom. This basically records the things that are happening in my life, albeit not all the events, just those that I wish to make public. I might even bother to record some birthdays down if I am up for it. If you don't see your birthday down there, please don't feel insulted. Maybe it's just because I think you're too special to carelessly divulge this private information to the eyes of anyone prying.

I removed the Sushi program just because I think it has been there for too long. I also added a link that I highly recommend. It is labeled "Financial Heaven" for appeal's sake because I think that the site which is maintained by a good friend of mine, is definitely worth great study. For those of you who are more observant, you may notice that I do not advertise for other bloggers. It is simply a policy of mine to treat everyone equally. Since adding every single blogger I know is not entirely feasible, I decided not to add them at all. Seeing that, you may think I am hypocritical in adding this "Financial Heaven" site that is maintained by my friend, but I assert that it is not really a blog. It is more like a site for financial education.

Financial education is a huge trend these days. More and more people are aware of the necessity of investing their money. "Investing" is a very broadly defined term which I think if you require more information on, you should definitely visit the site. Hope you like the new look. Enjoy!

Remember Remember... the 5th of November

2008-11-05T07:23:00.000-08:00

This will always be a special day, not because some random dude in a Guy Fawkes mask blew up the British Parliament or anything of that nature. It is also not because the premier of the Matrix: Revolutions ended disastrously on the 5th of November 2003 in the Shaw Cinema, Singapore.

This post is more for myself than for anyone else, well, except for that special someone whom this day might matter the most. I am writing this because I hope to steal one wish from your special day, wishing that you would have moved on, hoping that you are not reading this, dreaming that life will treat you well, whenever and wherever. Perhaps I will never talk to you again, or I will never see you again. But at least on this auspicious day, I can celebrate the existence of someone who has changed my life in many different ways, forever.

I also want to show you that no matter what you say, I will always remember, this special day, the 5th of November. I sincerely wish you all the best, even though I know you will probably never get this wish, but that would just mean that my wish would come true. How ironically ironic. I am also doing this because I know that there is no way I can say it to you personally, but as we all know, it is the thought that counts. I know that even though this message is not given to you personally, but somehow I know that my thoughts will reach you. Perhaps you are sneezing right now :)

Once again, you will always have my best wishes. Life has great plans for you and I hope that when you're ready, our paths will cross again. Til then, bon voyage...

Unfinished Business

2008-06-11T12:08:00.000-07:00

By now, many of you have already figured out that I graduated about a month ago. 18th of May to be exact. I am not going to dive into the cliched, "This marks the beginning of a new chapter" or "The end is the beginning is the end" or anything typically typical like that. It is also true that I miss my friends back at Bucknell but that is not what this post is about.

This post is about the unfinished business that I had set out to do a few months ago up until today. Basically, it's like a to-do list that is possibly not going to be completed, but we'll see.

1. So, a while back (the first thing that I set out to do that I did not complete, at least not yet), I intended to write a post about how skill is not enough to win in chess. The idea was motivated by the "poor" showing by some of the Penang players in the National Age-Group Chess Championships. Not that their results were poor, they were by all means acceptable... by everyone else's standard but not mine. Some people say I am harsh, but I like to think I that I have more faith in the abilities of the players to do better. Nonetheless, I started to write that post and did not complete it. I promise to continue to work on that in the near future.

2. Since I returned from the US, I was supposed to zip the photos that I took at TN and send it to all my friends and I haven't got around to that. That is minor because I haven't even taken out my camera since I got back. Rest assured that I will send the pictures soon.

3. I also intended to keep in touch with my friends back at Bucknell who are very dear to me: Rachel, Jon, Amy, Matt D, Matt S, Ellis, Jim and a few others that I might forget to mention (sue me!). One thing that kinda bugs me still is that Rachel and I parted ways without really saying goodbye but I am starting to get the idea that I just have to live with that ;) So, I was going to write a few of you personal emails, while sending a general one out to everyone to let you guys know how I am keeping Malaysia safe and such (true story). I am like an unsung hero here, no one ever knows what I do to keep the country safe, but trust me, it is better that you do not know. That's also one of the reasons I haven't got around to emailing you people.

4. I also started a post just a few days ago to talk about the things that need to be done and I even had a clever title for it. I shall save it for another day.

5. The final two things are probably the most important of all in my list. I need to figure out how to apply for a work permit in Singapore because it seems that's probably where I am headed. The reason why I am going there will be omitted for the employers to ask when they interview me. Not only do I need to figure out how to get a work permit, I also need to know if I can apply for a job without a permit, or do I really have to be a PR, or anything funky of that sort.

6. Most important of all, I need to find a job. Not that I am in need of cash or anything like that, but I think that typing blog posts like this one is probably not the most productive activity in assisting the development of my skill set at the moment. However, my intention is to get into sales of financial products (the details will also be left out once again for the employers to ask). Also, once I find a job, I also need to find a place to stay in Singapore. It seems very exciting and all, and I am looking for two other people to share something like a HDB flat with me. That way, the total rent per person is probably around SGD 500, which by many means is a decent amount to pay to get a whole house with your friends.

Now, the dilemma is that if I go get the job now, I will probably have to leave Penang already and Ern is only returning on the 25th of June. That's in two weeks time and if I am gone, there is no chance for me to see her at all for the next two years (threabouts). Can we survive? On the flip side, if I wait longer, the window of opportunity will close down on me. People will grab up the jobs, clients and such. So what do I do? Compromise? Again???

To throw it down, this is a battle between doing what is right, and what I want, which may or may not be right. Dare I take the risk? Should I take the risk? Can I wait one more month? Will I wait one more month? Well, maybe I shall just pray that they will take one month to process my work permit. That kinda solves all the problems doesn't it?

The praying shall begin. Well, I meant you guys, pray for me. LOL... It's time to redeem yourselves, for all the wrong that you have done, towards me or otherwise. Repent! Okay, too late in the night (too early in the morning) for me to think coherently. Good luck to me! (wishing that preparation meets opportunity)

I Hate The French

2008-03-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

OMG... I hate the French. I've always wondered why they call it the French Defense. For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, the French Defense is a chess opening that is usually passive with the strategic aim of sitting back while waiting for the opponents to over-extend themselves and awaiting the opportune moment to strike back. Sounds kinda sneaky, like Jack Sparrow.

Nevertheless, ever since I quit playing serious chess, I have forgotten how much I hated the French until recently. I have added the Facebook Chess Application and have been playing "correspondence" chess since then. I call it correspondence chess because there is almost no time limit to make your move, and you basically have free reign on who or what you want to consult over your moves. In real chess tournaments, this is not allowed. As an aside, I have played some pretty cool games and managed a decent record of 12 wins, 1 draw and no losses. However, the point I would like to bring up today is that among all the games I have played, I have encountered the French Defense at least 4 times and I am now being reminded of how much I hate it. There seems very little possibility to seize an advantage in the early game if your opponent plays correctly. So that's why I have decided to play 1. d4 for the time being to avoid these ridiculous encounters that simply pisses me off. If you have a way of killing the French Defense, or know an Anti-French System, please, I beg you, let me know about it!

Juno

2008-03-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

Many of you may have already watched Juno and most probably loved the movie. While it is only obvious that I loved the movie very much, what I would like to talk about today extends beyond an appreciation of what is one of the wittiest films I've ever seen.

I am by no means a hardcore movie critic and will never pretend to become one. After all, being a professional movie critic just means that you would be jobless, if not for your "great" ability to talk about movies. My goal today is also not to talk about the movie, but about Juno MacGuff. There is a secondary goal to this post, but I shall explain later.

If you haven't seen Juno, let me give you a brief introduction to our protagonist today. Juno is better known as the bored and consequently pregnant 16 year-old who searches for the "perfect" couple to adopt her baby after it is born. In her journey, she is confronted with what was under-exaggeratedly portrayed mature decisions while ultimately and obviously altered the course of her life completely. However, among all the qualities that can easily be observed in the movie, the best thing that I love about Juno MacGuff is her witty sarcasm.

"Juno?"
"No. It's Morgan Freeman."

But now I shall venture onto a path that has long been left behind; a discussion about looks. There will be at least once in your lifetime, if you're a guy, even if you're a girl, it is possible, that all you could think about are hot girls. Sexy, beautiful women, big kahunas, long legs, Asian-soft skin, or whatever it is you prefer. If you're a girl, and you cannot imagine what the heck I am talking about, maybe Brad Pitt, or for those of you younger girls, Orlando Bloom, or those of you who prefer Asian men, Wu Zhun, can help you clarify this idea.

So why am I bringing this up? It may seem obvious that Juno is not the sexiest woman/girl alive, or the most beautiful by any means. But there is this attractive aura about her that I just can't help but love. All you have to do is look at the picture on the right and it is clear that she seems like your Average Jane. To me, that is the cool part about Juno. The sweet innocent eyes, the lack of the need to look beautiful to society, doing whatever she wants, saying whatever she wants, being whoever she wants. This is not about Ellen Page. This post is about why I love Juno MacGuff. The slightly messy hair, absence of make-up (or apparently so), and not having to put on fancy clothes to please the world. All this because she is happy to be who she is. I love that she filled Bleaker's mailbox with Orange Tic Tac, I love how she walks around with that big belly, absorbing the stares without a care in the world. Once she decided to have the baby, she was determined to see it through, regardless of what she might face along the way.

In many ways, this reminds me of myself. Maybe some of you may contend that I am not as witty as she is or whatever it is, but I feel like I can really relate to Juno MacGuff because that is pretty much who I am. This part about me may seem obvious to you people who have known me for a long time, or who have suffered from your acquaintance with me. I doubt there is really much more to this about me. I like being simple, yet I know I am not. But one thing is for sure, I like to be happy and I do what makes me happy. And that is why I love Juno MacGuff.

I did not forget the 2nd objective of this post. I mentioned I will talk about this later and I am going to do that right about now. If you have been an ardent reader of my ever-meaningful blog, you will know that I have never posted any beautiful pictures, in fact, I have never posted any pictures with my blog (I hate it when people call their blog "useless ramblings"and feel that they do not deserve to be read. At the same time, they are ever so dying to let other people read it. How useless!?) So my secondary goal today is to post some beautiful pictures to decorate my blog, seeing that I have never done it, and also to show that I am not all talk (or type), but I do believe in the appreciation of graphical representations as well, and in today's case, simplistic beauty.

Birthday Bullshit

2008-03-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

Lucky Color:	Amber
Personality Strengths:	Compassion, Savvy
Personality Weakness(es):	Impatience
Successful Career Path:	Fashion
Sense of Humor Style:	Slapstick
Adjectives to Describe You:	adventurous, enterprising

Description: A hip non-conformist who truly stands for his/her beliefs - you are out to make a difference in this world, and you have a realistic chance of success. You have always been self-driven and derive your inspiration from those close to you. Ambitious - and why shouldn't you be - the sky is the limit for you!

Election Madness!

2008-03-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

Ever since the end of the election, it has been madness. There have been rumors about riots all over the place. People being unnecessarily paranoid. Therefore, to teach them a lesson, and also because I am too bored, I have conducted the following experiment. It's pretty self explanatory if you read it.

The Gullibles:

Shihong says:

hey.. riot... got explosion

Shihong says:

damn insane

Jason says:

riot where?

Shihong says:

butterworth

Shihong says:

damn insane

Jason says:

wtf?

Jason says:

penang posers?

Shihong says:

haha.. jus kidding

Jason says:

wtf???

...........................................................................

Shihong says:

hey.... riot... got explosion

Shihong says:

damn insane

Zhi Zhi says:

in malaysia?

Shihong says:

butterworth

Shihong says:

damn insane

Zhi Zhi says:

holy crap

Zhi Zhi says:

cos dap won?

Shihong says:

yeah

Shihong says:

damn insane

Zhi Zhi says:

woww

Zhi Zhi says:

that's nuts

Zhi Zhi says:

what was their purpose?

..................................................................

Shihong says:

hey.... riot... damn insane

はん　ぶん says:

what riot?

Shihong says:

in butterworth

Shihong says:

got explosion

はん　ぶん says:

where do you get the news from?

Shihong says:

serious la

Shihong says:

damn insane

はん　ぶん says:

do you have the link to the news?

Shihong says:

not in newspaper yet

Shihong says:

tomorrow

はん　ぶん says:

shocking election results

Shihong says:

yeah

Shihong says:

damn insane

はん　ぶん says:

the Prime Minister should step down

Shihong says:

got explosion leh

Shihong says:

wtf

はん　ぶん says:

whereabout in Butterworth?

Shihong says:

not sure leh

Shihong says:

haha no lah

Shihong says:

im jus kidding

はん　ぶん says:

so there's no explosion?

...........................................................................

Shihong says:

eh... riot... got explosion

weng soon: loving my Yonex Ti-10 says:

you serious ?

Shihong says:

yeah in butterworth

Shihong says:

damn insane

weng soon: loving my Yonex Ti-10 says:

omg...

weng soon: loving my Yonex Ti-10 says:

racial riots start already

...........................................................................

Shihong says:

hey... riot... got explosion

shin.yi the slacker says:

huh? u mean in malaysia?

Shihong says:

in butterworth

Shihong says:

damn insane

shin.yi the slacker says:

oh really?

shin.yi the slacker says:

what kind of explosion?

Shihong says:

some vehicle

Shihong says:

dunno wat they do

Shihong says:

but exploded

shin.yi the slacker says:

wow

Shihong says:

madness

shin.yi the slacker says:

what do u think? should the opposition have not won?

...........................................................................

The People Who Just Can't Believe Anything:

Shihong says:

eh... riot... got explosion

Seng Jiann... says:

? huh

Seng Jiann... says:

serious?

Shihong says:

yeah in butterworth

Seng Jiann... says:

u sure or not?

Seng Jiann... says:

not on malaysiakini news worr...

...........................................................................

Shihong says:

hey...riot.... got explosion!!

ohy~ying....aihh says:

wher?

Shihong says:

in butterworth

Shihong says:

damn insane

ohy~ying....aihh says:

how u nie?

Shihong says:

siao liao

Shihong says:

they blew up a car

ohy~ying....aihh says:

harh?whenn was this?

Shihong says:

yesterday only

ohy~ying....aihh says:

news oso din come out/

Shihong says:

maybe too late to print in the newspaper

ohy~ying....aihh says:

ooo...how did u noe?

Shihong says:

ppl tell me

Shihong says:

madness!!

ohy~ying....aihh says:

ooo...ppl spread rumours....

...........................................................................

The Numb Ones:

Shihong says:

hey.... riot.... damn insane

∞§∞£ǿя∂¼½∞§∞ says:

where

Shihong says:

butterworth

Shihong says:

got explosion

Shihong says:

eh... damn insane

(after 20 minutes trying to look for the news in the paper and TV)

∞§∞£ǿя∂¼½∞§∞ says:

crazy wan

...........................................................................

Shihong says:

hey... riot... got explosion

baby, you can turn me says:

in msia ah

Shihong says:

butterworth

Shihong says:

damn insane

baby, you can turn me says:

u mean where ure at?

Shihong says:

butterworth is in penang

Shihong says:

wtf!~#~!#

baby, you can turn me says:

how i know man

baby, you can turn me says:

butterworth sounds american

Shihong says:

not really

Shihong says:

only brits are so dumb

Shihong says:

madness!!

Shihong says:

got explosion!!

baby, you can turn me says:

then how

baby, you can turn me says:

can anot

baby, you can turn me says:

everything ok?

Shihong says:

they blew up a car

Shihong says:

wtf

baby, you can turn me says:

never happened before huh

Shihong says:

may 13 1969

Shihong says:

that was the last riot

baby, you can turn me says:

hey my birthday

baby, you can turn me says:

ok so how anyone hurt etc

So you see, the reactions weren't as interesting as I have hoped. I was looking for someone to go "Where do I sign up?". It just seems that most people are happy about the opposition's "victory". But maybe that's just because I didn't poll any Malays. These results bore me even more. Nevertheless, I had some good laughs for a few seconds.

No Child's Play

2008-03-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

Who ever thought teaching chess to 8 year-old kids can involve difficult decision-making and carefully chosen words? There are two issues that I would like to address today.

I think we should all understand that kids like to win. I have in my life only encountered one exception, but I will talk about this later. But let's just accept the generalization that kids like to win. So one of the kids that I have been "teaching" to (out of 8 other kids), is what seems like a beginner among beginners. Just to note, I don't like to use the word "teach" because it's more like sharing to me. It is obvious that he is trying hard and is willing to try hard, but just can't seem to beat the rest of the kids. So on this fine day, his father pulled me aside and told me that he is really trying and asked if I could give him some encouragement. So that troubled me. Firstly, now the parents have expectations on me. I hate it when people tell me how to do my job, at least when I am supposed to be good at it. I don't claim to be something like a Grandmaster or anywhere close to that, but I can say without boasting that I am pretty knowledgeable when it comes to chess. Now to say that I hate this situation would be an exaggeration because he didn't tell me what to do, he just asked politely. So I am just mildly troubled/irritated. Irritated because of the above-mentioned preference, but troubled because I don't know what to do. You see, even years of practice in encouraging girlfriends who needed to be encouraged did not train me to encourage an 8 year-old. How do you tell an 8 year-old who hates to lose, loves to win, that it's OK to lose, and our goal here is to get him to improve so that he can win in the future. For an 8 year-old, the end of the one hour chess session IS the future. Anything else that happens two hours from his arrival at the chess session is a new day altogether. I am not belittling a child's mindset, but merely stating their thought process. Because to him, being better 6 months from now is simply not worth the effort. He wants to start kicking butts now. I mean, if the we invented instant noodles and other magical thingamabobs, who can blame them for expecting instant results?

I tried to think hard about the time when I started chess. What was it like and how did I overcome losing? Maybe overcome is not the right word, because obviously, the way to overcome losing is to win. Hahaha... So how did I accept losing? Why did I get better? How did I get better? This ties back to the earlier point I made about what Kasparov and Abraham Lincoln were trying to say. It is very important to understand ourselves and where we are. I don't mean to preach but some messages just cannot be said enough. I remembered my first tournament. It was the PFS Open 1992. Back then, I could only watch in the sidelines the games played out by Chuah Heng Meng, Eric Cheah and many other "untouchables" who were always playing in the top five boards. To be honest, I didn't even bother watching because there was no way I could have understood the games. But I remember this one game. I was playing against a girl's MSSM U-20 champion. At that time, I was definitely no match for her. I was down a lot of material. With only a queen, bishop and a few pawns left, I set up a mating cheapo on White's g2 square. While barely staying alive, I managed to finally place my queen and bishop in that holy diagonal and got the checkmate that I was pining for 5 moves before that. A cheapo indeed! But of course, before the game, I had no idea she was an MSSM champion and my dad was very surprised that I won. Everything might have changed if I had known. My whole life would have taken a completely different path. I might have played the game knowing that I would lose, and would eventually lose. I would then go on to be an average player not knowing that I have a tricky mind, even as a kid. Or maybe my chess development was fated... Who knows? I'd like to think that it's little moments like these in our lives that are significant, and that we won't realize it unless we think about them.

I was 8 years-old when that happened. Why is it that I can remember only that game from 16 years ago. I don't remember any other game from when I was eight. That game was by no means brilliant. Upon hindsight, the only thing that can explain this phenomena, other than my powerful memory, is that for some reason, I was encouraged by that game. I can safely say that before I came to university, I have received no encouragement or a "well done" from either of my parents. I remember in National Age-Group 1999 where I squandered a half-point lead going into the final round. I drew a game after losing my queen because of the "touch-move" rule. I got over-excited over the idea of winning the tournament with a 10 move combination and in style. What was more devastating was that I could have won after losing my queen but I took a cheeky draw offer. I was so excited about winning that I played the wrong first move of the combination. A perfect lesson on "counting your chickens before they are hatched". Nevertheless, the point of this story was to say that despite this devastating loss, I did not even get "It's OK, you can try again next year". Did I wish I got a word of encouragement or two? I don't know. Would I have been weaker? Because it definitely wasn't OK to lose in a tournament of such importance. By the way, I tied for first place and lost in the blitz playoffs. No "Congratulations" for second place, no "It's OK" for not being first. How did that affect me? Did that make me stronger? Wiser? Most probably so. But I was already 15 then. Half of that lifetime ago, did I think that winning was everything? I loved to win. No doubt about that. But what I am trying drive home is that my experience has not taught me about giving words of encouragement. You lose, time after time, you think about why you lose, and you fix it. That's the kind of education that I got and was expected of me.

So back to the point of this issue, which is, if you can remember, how do you encourage an 8 year-old kid who is trying hard but not getting the fruits of his labor? As I write this article and think about it, the only words of comfort that I can come up with are "The other kids have been playing much longer than you have, and if you keep working hard the way you do, you may well become better than them in no time". Does that even sound honest? Because I hate telling lies, especially to kids. I hate being lied to as a kid. Maybe that's where I get my lying abilities from. Because I get lied to all the time. But that's another story for another day. So if any of you people have any ideas on how to deal with this kid, let me know.

As for the second issue, which is kind of similar to the first, and has the same underlying problem. Another kid in the group who also loves to win, repeatedly asked for my permission to play against the aforementioned kid. Now the reason is obvious because he will get to win all the time. He went so far as to lie to me about not having played against the other kid yet. So this kid is by no means close to being the weakest player in the group. If anything, he is one of the better players. The key difference here is that he does not need encouragement. But the trouble is, how do I explain to him that winning is not everything? To him, winning IS everything. Can I, dare I, should I dash his dreams and desires at a tender age of eight? We all want kids to dream big, be all they can be and all that good stuff. I can't just send the roof crashing down on him and tell him that in life, we cannot beat everyone at everything.

So I did not allow this kid, Brad, to play against the previous kid, Aaron. See the problem when parents try to interfere with my job? Now I don't want Aaron to keep losing, so I told Brad that you can't shouldn't keep playing Aaron if you want to improve. I tried to explain to him the concept of "It's OK to lose" and the main purpose of our chess sessions is to help them improve so that they can win more in the future. I think that even though he understood the message deep down inside, he kept it inside him that he didn't like my decision to not let him play Aaron. I can deal with a kid not liking me or whatever. But how could I have avoided the situation? What could I have said to appease a kid who loves to win, and yet help him to improve? That answer was the best I could come up with, so if you have better ideas, let me know.

That marks the end of the two issues that I had, and now, as promised I will return to the exception of the generalization that I had asserted, which was all kids love to win. So a third kid in this group, Chuck, who in the previous week, intentionally lost to Brad to make him happy. He said to me that well, he would rather someone else be happy since it's not a "real" tournament. By the way, the background story is that I organized a tournament for them and put a prize up for grabs. So Chuck doesn't feel like this is a real tournament because it's not officially organized by some recognized group or whatever. So he decides to let Brad win and I saw him intentionally throw a won game. It wasn't an excuse he gave for losing. I knew he saw how he could have won. I have the ability to see what moves other people are thinking about. When you have played chess for as long as I have, these things just come naturally. I just couldn't understand why a kid would do that because as we know it, "Winning is not everything, it is the ONLY thing!"

Anyway, it's just something to leave you people with. Dealing with children is most definitely no child's play. Man, I can't wait to get a kid a torture him with all kinds of psychological tricks. But that's just me. I am not saying I am ready to raise a kid. I just wanna see how messed up they will become. Hahaha...

Say What You Need To Say

2008-02-28T23:50:00.000-08:00

Say What You Need To Say - John Mayer

Take all of your wasted honor.
Every little past frustration.
Take all of your so called problems,
Better put 'em in quotations.

Say what you need to say (x8)

Walkin' like a one man army,
Fightin' with the shadows in your head.
Livin' up the same old moment
Knowin' you'd be better off instead

If you could only...Say what you need to say (x8)

Have no fear for givin' in.
Have no fear for giving over.
[ Say What You Need To Say lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ]
You better know that in the end
It's better to say too much, than never to say what you need to say again.

Even if your hands are shaking,
And your faith is broken.
Even as the eyes are closin',
Do it with a heart wide open.

(Wide Heart)

Say what you need to say (x7)

Say what you need to, Say what you need to...

Say what you need to say.

A Lifetime Inspired

2008-02-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

Not many people can say they know what the purpose of life is. Most people go through a lifetime not knowing what they live for, or what we should be living for. From my experience, there is no need nor reason to seek for a purpose in life. We spend our time asking questions for a reason to live, in vain, I believe.

The most important aspect of living is to make our lives as meaningful as possible. Since a while ago, I have stopped asking myself what the purpose of life is. We go through challenges day in and day out, we get tested by "god" or "nature" or "life" as we call it in our different beliefs and we inevitably question our faith, and reason for being. Someone asked me, why should there be a reason for living? Why must there be a purpose? In relation to my post about the "New Year", I would like to restate that it is of utmost importance to know "whither we are tending". If there is no purpose, then there is no need or desire to go anywhere, and we would just be floating entities of nothingness. So I argue that there is a purpose, unknown as it may be, and probably unseekable.

Coming back to the purpose of this blog post albeit not the purpose of my life, I would just like to share a little something about what makes my life more meaningful. We can go through life doing what makes us happy. In fact, that is probably the happiest you can make yourself to be. To obtain a larger degree of what is termed but undefined as "happiness", yes, there can be more happiness than what we can conjure, we must notice that other people can become the source of our very own happiness too. One obvious example you might come up with would be your loved ones. But that is not the point I am addressing today. I am talking about the greater happiness that the world can bestow upon us, how making other people happy, can make us happy.

Many people are easily disillusioned by a grandeur of an ideal. I am humble enough to believe that I could be one of these people. But I have always been happy to be able to inspire people, to help people maximize their potential, to be all they can be. I feel the joy in the joy of others. I may not be employed, or working in a back office somewhere in the outback, or anything, but I will make it my reason for being to inspire people, to show them what they are meant to do. I say this with confidence, yet humility, in hopes of not being ridiculed, but in the spirit of sharing and good faith. It will be my purpose, to help you find yours. How am I going to do this, in this world of more than 6 billion people? One at a time, my friends, one at a time.

Blow Your Mind

2008-02-05T10:37:00.000-08:00

Many of you might not even come close to understanding what this is about. But I just witnessed a masterpiece today. Definitely one of the best games of Warcraft ever played. This will fucking blow your mind. Many of you won't even know who Grubby is, but he is definitely one of the greatest champions of any sport. He may have only won the WCG (World Cyber Games) once, but his attitude and character is exemplary, top notch, and definitely admirable. Here is some background info on Grubby:

Manuel "Grubby" Schenkhuizen (May 11, 1986–), is a Dutch professional player of the real-time strategy game Warcraft III (his primary race is "Orc"); he is currently signed to the top electronic sports team: MeetYourMakers (MYM). He was rated the #1 top Warcraft III player in the World by SK Gaming and WCReplays.com on February 2006, going up from the second place (first spot was held by Grubby's rival Jang Jae "Moon" Ho he received when the ranking was first conceived 3 months earlier). Now Moon and Grubby are team mates at MYM.

Grubby is primarily a solo competitor, but is well known for being one of the best 2v2 team players in the world. In the past, he has formed strong teams with former 4Kings members such as Myth, Yoan "ToD" Merlo, and Olav "Creolophus" Undheim, achieving great success in clanwars and team competitions such as WC3L. It awaits to be seen whether Manuel will play in MyM's 2v2 team.

Showing consistent strong tournament finishes since 2004, together with Moon he is the only player in WarCraft 3 history to have at least one major tournament every year since 2004. To be more precise: he won the World Cyber Games in 2004, the Electronic Sports World Cup in 2005 and the World Series of Video Games in 2006.

His total prize money earnings exceed $160,000 USD. Additional incomes over the years have come from various sources such as a salary received from professional gaming team 4Kings and offering Warcraft 3 lessons.

In the web Mockumentary, Pure Pwnage, the main character Jeremy receives a phone call from "Grubby", a reference to Manuel. Jeremy notes on his inability to beat "Gosu Night elf players".

As of January 22, 2008 Grubby's previous clan 4Kings disbanded, and a few days after that Grubby was offered a place in MYM. The team MYM which contains Moon and Lucifer and other top players now acquired yet another powerhouse, making the team seemingly indestructible.

- Wikipedia

Grubby is a player that is wanted by most teams, not just for his Warcraft skills. He is a positive influence to his team mates, a great motivating force, and a good friend to all. A few posts ago, I posted one of his articles and for those of you who did not read it, please do! It's titled "Fickle Balance". Ignore the technical details of Warcraft and you shall witness your common misconception of what a "geek" pro-gamer is being blown to smithereens. His eloquence is obvious and exhibits thoughtfulness and maturity despite playing "Orc" which is deemed to be a disadvantage at the highest level of gaming.

But today is not a day for me or any of us to glorify Grubby. I doubt it will be the case any other day. In about 10 years, many of us would have forgotten him. Nevertheless, this game of his will remain. For those of you who have a copy of Frozen Throne 1.21, I assure you that your time will not be wasted in watching the imba-ness that is exhibited in the game that is downloadable below.

Click Here to download "THE GAME"

If you do not see what is amazing about this game, please let me know, ask me questions, and I will give you what I hope will do justice to the great masterpiece, an explanation. As someone who watches replays all the time, I can say that I have watched hundreds of Grubby's games and never before have I seen him play like that. He was truly in the zone. With all being said and done, I hope that you can enjoy this as much as I have and if you think I am being a geek for thinking so highly of what is "just a computer game" to you, as they say in New Jersey, "Suck my balls!"

New Year? New Day? New Beginnings? Pssfftt...

2008-01-27T11:23:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest jokes of the year is the New Year. People begin the new year saying things like "This is the new year, I have a chance to start anew" or make ridiculous resolutions that they know they won't keep. The new year is just a new day. If we are ever begging so hard for an opportunity to change, why wait for the new year? To push it to the extreme, why even wait for a new day? If you want your 6-pack abs, or that elusive 24-inch waist-line, or the discipline to be a "good" student, or sleep with at least five guys this year, or find your dream guy, or to save enough money to travel the seven seas, why do you have to wait for a new year?

Nevertheless, all this is way easier said than done. But as usual, the first step to big dreams is self-awareness. Abraham Lincoln said in his "House Divided" speech in 1858:

If we could first know where we are going and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it

Simply, it means that it is important in every decision process that we know where we are and not just where we are going. We can only know "whither we are tending" if we know where we are. So for those of you who still think you are in your lofty worlds with all these big dreams, I hope that after you have read this, you will re-think where you are, and not just about where you want to go. It is pointless to know where you want to go if you don't know where you are.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a multi-talented writer from Germany in the late 18th-early 19th century added:

What you can do or think you can do, begin it.
For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.

To translate, in the words of Nike, "Just do it".

Some of you may also remember Celine Dion singing about a new day and NOT a new year. I know that's lame but I am going to use it as an example to drive my points home. Here is a link to that song for those of you who were born too late to know who Celine Dion is:

A New Day Has Come - Celine Dion

If you try to see beyond the mushy lyrics of the song, I think it can be applied out of the context of love as what was intended by Celine. Anyway, here are the lyrics:

A new day has...come

I was waiting for so long
For a miracle to come
Everyone told me to be strong
Hold on and don't shed a tear

Through the darkness and good times
I knew I'd make it through
And the world thought I had it all
But I was waiting for you

Hush, love

I see a light in the sky
Oh, it's almost blinding me
I can't believe
I've been touched by an angel with love
Let the rain come down and wash away my tears
Let it fill my soul and drown my fears
Let it shatter the walls for a new, new sun
A new day has...come

Where it was dark now there's light
Where there was pain now there's joy
Where there was weakness, I found my strength
All in the eyes of a boy

Hush, love

I see a light in the sky
Oh, it's almost blinding me
I can't believe
I've been touched by an angel with love
Let the rain come down and wash away my tears
Let it fill my soul and drown my fears
Let it shatter the walls for a new, new sun
A new day has...come

A new day has...come
Ohhh, a light... Ooh

Hence, we don't have to wait for a new year to make changes in our lives. All we need is a day. My best wishes to you in your future endeavors.

Full Circle

2008-01-19T21:10:00.000-08:00

This post is probably long known to be inevitable. My final semester at BU did not begin with a bang, nor did I expect it to. Life as I have come to know it, is only as exciting as we make it to be. It's not that I am not excited about what I need to study for this semester, in fact, I have the three most interesting courses that I have ever taken in my college life. They had to wait until the last semester to give me what I really love to do. But then again, maybe it is because I have only discovered what I love to do during my later college career. Anyhow, my college career is approaching its end and I'd like to think that the first quarter of my life is coming to a close. When I look back at how I have spent my college time, it is inevitable that there are a few kinks here and there. But I think I made the most of the opportunities that were presented to me. I had fun, made some cool friends, did everything a college student is supposed to do. Could I have done more?

Anyway, this is also a period for job hunting and my hopes seem slim. It would seem that the harder I try, the more I have come to realize that the chances of me being hired are not too good. Nevertheless, I have zero doubt about my abilities as a person. I just have huge doubts about how the system works. How can they send a representative and talk to you for about 30 minutes and then they get to decide if you should be recalled for a second interview. Well, but that's how life works and I just have to live with it.

My plans now are to secure a job in Melbourne. I will go there after I graduate and check out the companies and see where I end up. It will be exciting. Life is actually beginning! I have to find my own place, pay for my own food or cook, and pay bills etc. As intimidating as it may seem to some people, it actually sounds exciting and fun. The only thing that is left for me to desire is to be able to do something that I will enjoy. I don't have to love the job or anything, but to be challenged and to enjoy the challenge would be pretty ideal.

I have also realized that I have saved a decent amount of money now and I can afford to buy myself a few presents before I go home. I have also sold off some of my textbooks, some of them even at a profit after using them. I am just that good at sales pitching. What can I say? Hahaha... So my plans are to purchase a camera, a long-term investment for me. I also recently purchased a suit, which cost about 200 USD. According to the people I talked to, that's a good price to pay for it. In fact, it's a bargain.

You could say that I am on a kind of a splurge right now. But after four years of "hard" work, I think I deserve slightly more than a pat on the back and a "Job well done". Besides, I think the camera is more of a shared property between Ern and I.

With all that said, and a quarter of my life gone, I can foresee that this will be a good life. I just know it. Now let's go fall down so that we can learn all the ways to climb back up :)

4K.Grubby: Fickle balance

2007-12-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

Fickle balance

Some useful definitions:

fickle adjective 2. liable to sudden unpredictable change; “erratic behavior”; “fickle weather”; “mercurial twists of temperament”; “a quicksilver character, cool and willful at one moment, utterly fragile the next”

balance noun 1. a state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.

fickle balance 1+2. a state of equilibrium liable to sudden unpredictable change; “fickle balance”; “a quicksilver strategy, strong and unbeatable and one moment, utterly fragile the next”

Metagame: the strategic analysis of a single strategy, or the most commonly played strategies in any given region of the country, in the hopes of creating a strategy that will be more likely to beat strategies of the original type when played in a tournament environment.

One of the most debated and controversial issues in the Warcraft III scene, is that of balance.

We humans have an irresistible urge to categorize everything that we see. In order to understand new data that we come across more readily, we put these pieces of information in boxes with fitting labels. In this way, we build a vast library in our brains concerning all topics, especially those topics that we are concerned with most in our daily life. For many of us, a game has become part of our routine and often these games require us to study and learn great amounts in order to advance. By organizing the information in our head, we create new neural pathways in our brain for actions we do repeatedly. Calling upon our memories and skills for certain actions will go increasingly faster as we repeat these actions more often. Hence the saying, ‘practice makes perfect’.

We are intent on creating ranks for everyone and everything. I myself have noticed that the majority of people have a strong desire to know at any given point, all year round, exactly who are the top 10 players for each race and which Country produces the best players.

Last but not least, we are obsessed with finding out which race is the strongest and which is the weakest. Game balance comes in to play in our community when people attempt to use facts based on balance to produce a ranking of the races, which they at heart feel most comfortable with.

If Rick’s favorite player is the Undead user FoV then it is unlikely that Rick will be willing to accept arguments that support Undead being the strongest race. This is because FoV’s accomplishments will appear far more convincing to Rick if Undead was the weakest race. FoV would lay a spanking despite the shortcomings of his race, which would then be all the more impressive to fans. Some spectators take this one step further by also attempting to convince everyone else that FoV is constantly fighting against the odds because Undead is the weakest race. However, this attempt is most likely futile as usual (since everyone plays a different race and has different favorite players); it would be good to remember the basic motivation that people crusade against each other on forums.

People are very good at deluding themselves to obtain peace of mind. We do this when faced with concepts we aren’t comfortable with. For example, believing in resurrection to help us accept death is similar in a lot of ways to believing that orc is imbalanced so that we may accept loss, without being forced to admit that the other player is more skilled. Personally I have no problem allowing people their reasons so that they may find peace of mind, so long as people don’t mistake these arguments for irrefutable proof of their claims.

The greatest wisdom can be found by considering all points of view before coming to a conclusion. Which strategy is balanced and which is imbalanced? It seems there is an opinion for every grain of sand in the Sahara Desert and like the sand; they are blown away just as easily with every gust of wind. Indeed, I find that the balance in Warcraft III can be viewed just so: waves ripple through the community with a fresh wind every few weeks and completely shatter our previous suppositions. Those people that stick with their earlier conclusions find themselves outnumbered by the ones who ride the wave, unless their mind stays unchanged until the next wave when a strategy becomes imbalanced – for the second time.

A good example of this wave theory is the Druids of the Talons strategy. It was early 2005 when Moon had chills of despair running down the spine of every Orc player with his unbeatable DotT strategy. Those who did not have the misfortune of meeting the father of the DotT strategy Mr. Moon, would meet one of his many followers attempting to replicate his strategy, and with great success. Orcs were helpless for a year, or longer, against the DotT’s, winning only when the Orc apparently out skilled the Night elf by a huge margin. With no new patch at all, there was a sudden shift of power. A new wave rippled across the WarCraft III community, not because the balance had changed, but the balance as we perceive it.

Was it not after I defeated Moon 3 to 1 in WEG Masters (on Night elf biased maps, no less) that it seemed the DotT strategy had lost its once dominant appeal? It was shortly before the WEG Masters semi finals that players had begun to pick up on playing Druids of the Claw instead. This was a notion that would become all the more attractive after the conclusion of WEG Masters. Orcs were starting to counter DotT strategies all across battle.net, now claiming ‘it’s not hard to play against’, and ‘bears are much more difficult’.

I find that the balance of confidence is often a large influence on the outcome of matches. Don’t be overconfident, but have a firm resolve and believe that you can win as long as you play it right. The confidence of all Orcs increased after I beat Moon in China.

The confidence of Orcs would once again decrease after the figureheads of the race start to lose matches yet again (you’d be surprised how quickly this wildfire of despair spreads if you haven’t seen it!). It is certainly no boost to the morale when I watch Satiini or Satiini clones defeat Lyn 2 – 0 again and again or how Zacard tries to hold his own with the mass of experienced Chinese Night Elves.

Some players become desperate when their fellow race users start to lose; to them it seems impossible to win.

It was only a matter of time before a talented and hard working Night Elf player would pick up the DotT strategy again and play it so effectively that it would create a new shift in the meta-game.

HoT has started playing DotT’s again, not like Moon once had – but a new way. With subtle nuances he has reshaped the strategy just as so many other players reshape existing strategies time and time again. In the end it’s not about an arbitrary truth of how the balance really is. It is in fact a constant shift and waves of the meta-game which has players always trying to stay one step ahead of everyone else.

Many people ask me how to make it to the top. The most important thing is not to get carried away on the waves, on waves of opinions of other people. Only your own opinions matters when you are determining your own luck.

The first step is to get to know your equipment well, your utensils and all the hotkeys of the game.

Secondly you must follow the example set by others, so that you understand the meta-game. Thirdly you must be stubborn, because being on the top means not being just another sheep in the flock.

Lastly I’d like to mention that the real challenge is not the climb to the top, but staying on top once you are there. This is not a static position, but an ever-moving one.

It doesn’t get any easier once you are there.

Source: http://www.esportsglobal.com/articles/1

Afternoon Delight

2007-11-25T18:31:00.000-08:00

This is the song of the day after I watched Good Will Hunting :)

Afternoon Delight - the Starland Vocal Band

Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight
gonna grab some afternoon delight.
My motto's always been; when it's right, it's right.
Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night.
When everything's a little clearer in the light of day.
And you know the night is always gonna be there any way.

Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.

Thinkin' of you's workin' up my appetite
looking forward to a little afternoon delight.
Rubbin' sticks and stones together makes the sparks ingite
and the thought of rubbin' you is getting so exciting.

Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.

Started out this morning feeling so polite
I always though a fish could not be caught who wouldn't bite
But you've got some bait a waitin' and I think I might try nibbling
a little afternoon delight.

Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.

Please be waiting for me baby when I come around.
We could make a lot of lovin' 'for the sun goes down.

Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.
Sky rockets in flight. Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight.

Can't Take That Away From Me

2007-11-15T10:22:00.000-08:00

I have two job interviews tomorrow and even though there is a small chance that I am going to get the job, I will not accept the fact that I am not good enough to be hired. It just can't be true. It is a high chance that I won't be hired because I am a foreigner, and also because I am not a genius. What I can say for myself is that I know I am above average, and I will, unlike many other people, contrary to popular belief, work hard and do my utmost best to get to where I want. If all else is lost, I know that I will always have my desire, the burning desire to be all I can be. They just can't take that away from me.

Can't Take That Away From Me - Mariah Carey

Mmmmh
Whoaaa

They can say,
Anything they want to say,
Try to bring me down,
But I will not allow anyone to succeed hanging clouds over me,
And they can try
Hard to make me feel that I,
Don't matter at all,
But I refuse to falter in what I believe or lose faith in my dreams

'Cause there's,
There's a light in me,
That shines brightly,
Yes, They can try,
But they can't take that away from me
From me

No no nooo

Oh they,
They can do
Anything they want to you,
If you let them in,
But they won't ever win,
If you cling to you pride, and just push them aside,
See I..
I have learned,
There's an inner peace I own,
Something in my soul that they can not possess
So I won't be afraid and the darkness will fade

'Cause there's,
There's light in me me,
That shines brightly,
Yes, They can try,
But they can't take that away from me

No oh oh,
They can't take this
Precious love I'll always have inside me,
Certainly the Lord will guide me where I need to go

Woah, woah
They can say
Anything they want to say,
Try to bring me down,
But I won't face the ground,
I will rise steadily sailing out of their reach,
Oh, Lord, they do try,
Hard to make me feel that I,
Don't matter at all
But I refuse to falter
In what I believe or lose faith in my dreams,
'Cause there's a light in me,
That shines brightly

Yes, They can try but they can't take that away from
Me
From me
No no nooo
Me

Ode To Joy

2007-11-12T21:51:00.000-08:00

There are just days where no words can explain them. They are just what they are. Nevertheless, we have the opportunity to celebrate life, hence, I have decided to give you guys Mozart's Ode To Joy, no words, simply an ode to joy.

Mozart - Ode To Joy

Life Soundtrack

2007-11-12T10:25:00.000-08:00

One of my professors, Karl Voss, wisely said that one of the greatest shortcomings of life is that it lacks a soundtrack. You should have happy music playing in the background for happy times, sad music for sad times, romantic music for romantic times. I tend to agree with him. So from today onwards, I will start a project, of creating a soundtrack for my life, and I will post a download link for the song that basically describes the general outcome at the end of each day, and I take no responsibility in justifying or confirming what you may think or deduce about my life from the songs that I post. I just hope you celebrate life with me, in a more melodious way.

I posted below the song "Had a Bad Day" by Daniel Powter, not because I had a bad day, but because some other people did and I wish them well and hope that they can bounce back and exhibit their true worth eventually, of course, better sooner than later.

Had A Bad Day

2007-11-11T21:17:00.000-08:00

Had A Bad Day - Daniel Powter

Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
You tell me your blue skies fade to grey
You tell me your passion's gone away
And I don't need no carryin' on

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You're faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life's been way off line
You're falling to pieces everytime
And I don't need no carryin' on

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don't need no carryin' on

You had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don't lie
You're coming back down and you really don't mind
You had a bad day

(Oh.. Holiday..)

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I'm not wrong (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeeeah)

So where is the passion when you need it the most
Oh you and I
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost

Cause you had a bad day
You're taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
You've seen what you like
And how does it feel for one more time
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

(Oh, yeah, yeaaah, yeah)
Had a bad day
(Oh, had a bad day)
Had a bad day
(Oh, yeah, yeah, yeeeeah)
Had a bad day
(Oh, had a bad day)
Had a bad day...
Had a bad day...

Mutatis Mutandis

2007-11-08T10:25:00.000-08:00

Change only what needs changing. This Latin phrase is usually used in mathematics to save lazy mathematicians (FYI, all mathematicians are lazy) but for some reason, this phrase keeps playing in my mind. Isn't this how we approach life? Maybe "life" is too big a word. How about relationships? More specifically, relationships that we wish to retain. I mean, why bother about people that we have no intention in developing relationships with? I am not talking about couple relationships, but just relationships in general, platonic, business, and of course, sexual. I venture to claim that people who have "perfect" relationships, and by this, I mean the ideal, unconditional relationships, in their dreams. For example, guys play ignorant and claim that they are who they are and girls should never try to change them, or the more ridiculous, "I have a girls' night out with my friends and this is what girls do". Well, sad news, guys and girls, in this life, we always have to have priorities, something must be done before the other, just because time is irreversible. So if you place more importance in your relationship with a particular someone, you have to change your priorities to fit with that person's wants, and sometimes needs. This doesn't go so far as to say that we have to change our lives completely for the sake of someone that we deem is important to us. Hence, mutatis mutandis.

From my personal experience, change is vital in maintaining a strong relationship. I used to be very stubborn in being who I am. I didn't care what other people thought about me, I didn't care if I hurt someone else's feelings, not because I am mean, but because I felt that they should just get over it because there is more to life than just "that something that was troubling them", usually something I deem as very trivial such as "my cat died", or "I think I might get a C in my mid-term test", or "I can't find my notes". That must have been the longest modifying clause ever. So anyway, when someone means a lot more to you than anyone else does, things change. I was ready and willing to change my ways, to try to be gentler, and more sensitive, and in a more metro-sexual context, not detest shopping. But then again, people then say, "but, but, but... that would mean you're not yourself anymore". Well, I say, "mutatis mutandis". Change only what needs changing

A Walk Worthwhile...

2007-11-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about this for a while now and I never really got around to answer it myself. Why do people keep blogs? Specifically, why do bother maintaining my personal blog? I mean, it is one thing to share my thoughts and feelings with the world, but is that it? There just has to be more than this. I even titled my blog, "A Walk To Remember". I guess that really says it all for me, or so I thought. I am not known for ranting about whatever shit that happens in my life, in fact, I am very seldom in a sharing mood. Why do I keep a blog if I don't intend to share? Well, it's not that I don't like sharing, I actually love to share my thoughts and feelings and especially experiences. But just not in a blog. But just as the word share would suggest, I'd like sharing to be a two-way exchange. I'd like some feedback every now and then. But I digress.

So why is this "walk" worth remembering? I think about all the posts that I have written thus far, and I don't remember all of them. Maybe that's why I need to write them down. But why let other people into my private thoughts? Or are they really meant to be private? Am I just letting off steam? Am I just expressing the pent-up frustration that resides within me most of the time? Do I have anger-management issues? I'd like to think that I am actually a pretty laid-back guy. I work best when I am relaxed. My mind works like magic when I feel no pressure. Maybe that's why I suck at exams. But the funny thing about all of this is, my mind refuses to work at all if there is no impending deadline. This is pretty ironic, but this is what America does to you. The lack of challenge in my final semesters at college is just dulling my sharpest tool (Fuck you, Kok, not what you're thinking about).

I can't wait to go out to "the world" and be who I am meant to be. As Philip Zimbardo put it, "Every one of us has the capacity to be a hero... a hero is not someone extraordinary, but someone ordinary put in an extraordinary situation doing an extraordinary deed." Maybe, just maybe, if you believe enough, at some point in our lives, we will be put into a situation when you know was you were just meant to be there, you were born for that moment, and that is when you know your "walk" was worthwhile, a walk worth remembering.

A New Cause

2007-10-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things in college life is that your professor brings a movie to class and lets you watch it during class time. One of the 25 000 wonders in life. Just the other day, Professor Kirby, who is my Geology professor, brought Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to class for the students "pleasure". Now, I am not going to go on a rant about what the movie is about, or praise how good it is, or criticize how bad it is, but what I would like to point is not that global warming is a fact, but the movie has inspired me to pursue a cause. Not that, all of a sudden I am going to be super environment-friendly or anything like that. What I am saying is that I believe that by pursuing a cause, will definitely give me, and most probably you, a more fulfilling life. I stress the phrase, "... a cause...", not Al Gore's cause. I mean, it's not like I had no aim in life or anything, I have always wanted to reduce world poverty and all that good shit, but that is where the difference is. The difference is between having a cause, and "pursuing" a cause. I had a cause, but I never really tried hard to do anything about it. I kept telling myself I am not ready, but we all know it's an excuse. The pursuit of a cause requires motivating people, other than myself, to have a common goal, to work and contribute towards an ideal. So anyhow, I just wanna comment that Al Gore did a good job motivating people towards the common goal in reducing global warming. I stress that it is not that he single-handedly reduced global warming, but I think that he has successfully put across the message to the general public that global warming is coming, whether we like it or not, and it's coming fast. So, in short, pursuing a cause is about leaving messages, messages that induce thought and awareness, which is always a good start, which of course, should always be followed by action, otherwise, nothing would happen anyway. So as I have preached (overly so), it is very important that the world needs to know how to be financially intelligent, so that they can stay rich and not squander their money away through debt and interest payments. So, hopefully, after you read this, you will think about what financial intelligence means and what you can do to be financially intelligent.

HARD Talk

2007-09-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

Check out the video on this link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/6992908.stm

You need Real Player, but if you don't have it, it will be worthwhile to get it, especially if you are Malaysian.

I like the way how the reporter schools Syed Hamid Albar, but her research was not enough to finish him off and let him escape at the end of the interview with some good comeback punches. If only I was the one doing the interview... Hmm... but you guys would probably have to apply for a visiting pass to prison to see me then.

10 Things I Hate About...

2007-09-16T15:49:00.000-07:00

This marks the beginning of my "10 Things I Hate About (Something)" series. What inspired this? Well, you are about to see that real soon. In this episode, we are going to discuss the 10 things I hate about life. So, here we go:

10. Computer viruses

Ern's computer caught a fucked up virus that freezes her computer at the "Welcome" screen of windows. I spent about 2 hours trying to fix it to no avail. Oh how I hate computer viruses.

9. Computer viruses

OMG, did I say I hate computer viruses? I REALLY REALLY HATE COMPUTER VIRUSES!!

8. Liars

I can stand liars. I mean, I lie all the time, but we all know it's in good fun. But real liars are intolerable. People who say one thing, and then behind your back, they change their word, and some are just worse; they don't even bother to do it behind your back. But I guess that's in some ways better than those who do it behind your back. At least they come out in front of you. But I still detest liars.

7. Pretenders

Why are pretenders worse than liars? Or rather, why do I hate pretenders more than liars? What is the difference anyway? Liars just speak things that are not true. But pretenders, they live it. Why is living a lie worse than telling lies? Well, it's pretty intuitive, don't you think? I guess if you really want to look on the bright side from my perspective, at least they are cheating themselves.

6. Leechers I

The first kind of leecher is more of a geekspeak kind of leecher. In the world of file-sharing, leechers are people who download from others and never let others download from them. Oh wow, you can't even share free stuff. What the hell is wrong with you?

5. Leechers II

The second kind of leechers that I hate, are those that leech off of my abilities. Now, I am not boasting here because I don't have many abilities that people can leech off of. But I really hate people who never talk to me for over two years and all of a sudden, they want to know why the government or the central bank can control economic activity through open market operations or want me to vet some report for them. Don't you find this ridiculous?

4. Whiners

Everybody hates whiners. 'Nuff said.

3. Sore losers

Wow, there's a limit to being bitter about losing. You can suck it up, go home and wait to fight another day. You don't need to insult your opponents after you lose.

2. Idiots/Assholes (many other names for this group)

How can you ever skip this in a hate list, right? I can't stand people who just do ridiculously ridiculous things. I mean, they are not stupid people, I have nothing against the ill-informed, but I just despise those who keep doing stupid things over and over.

Now, for number 1...

1. Computer viruses

Did I say computer viruses already? HOLY SHIT, nothing has ever pissed me off more than computer viruses and idiots who keep sending them to other people and infect other people's computers. Seriously, if your computer has been infected, please get it repaired AT ALL COSTS, not ignore it and deal with it while it kills other people's computers as well.

This Cannot Be It

2007-08-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

This cannot be it. Yet it is.

For many people, the year ends on the 31st of December. For me, the year ends when a new one begins. For many people, their senior years will seem to be the most significant of their lives up to that point. For me, I just felt like I already had the most significant year of my life up to this point. My junior year was full of ups and downs, and most definitely filled with lots of character building experiences. The first semester of junior year seemed to last longer than all other semesters because of a very special vertically challenged, yet horizontally inclined woman who tried to teach me Statistical Modelling. Plus, I was suffering (I like to think that it was induced by this special woman) from what one of my other professors referred to as "senioritis".

Senioritis: Senioritis is an imaginary syndrome attributed to students nearing the end of high school and college in the United States and Canada. Its symptoms can include laziness, procrastination, apathy toward schoolwork, and truancy.

Well, just to clarify, I was most certainly not truant, and definitely not apathetic towards school work. But I was lazy, and I procrastinated. I felt like I needed to get out of college, and do something more practical. But after the long Fall semester ended, I had the great fortune of being able to study abroad in Melbourne. That would probably be the best time of my life, with almost no problems and stress, and also filled with what I reluctantly claim to be, happiness.

However, towards the end of this year, I suffered (not sure if this is the right term, but I will use the word in accordance to what normal people would feel if they had the similar experience) a pretty significant setback. I managed (somehow) to fail my Financial Mathematics final exam which meant that this was my first fail in the history of my life. I am sure many of you feel sorry for me, even those of you who don't know me that well. The trouble with this is, I may have been disappointed for a short while, but for some reason, I can't seem to think of this as a setback. It feels more like an achievement. Mainly because when I keep thinking about why and how I failed the exam, I realized that I have done so much more in terms of my life. I had given my priorities to things that were more important in my life while putting less effort into the exam. I did not expect to fail, don't get me wrong. I did not even give up. But I sure as hell did not study hard enough. I know that for sure because I felt that I needed more time during the exam. This can only happen because of the lack of practice. I know what I lacked. But that was not why I failed, at least not the root of it.

I think I took the path less traveled by. I know many people have read Robert Frost's poem and thought that taking the path less traveled by simply meant choosing the path that is less taken, making an outrageous decision that is contrary to public opinion. But I was later informed that Frost was talking about having two very similar choices, not a choice that fits the norm while another that doesn't. He was talking about making a choice that is less chosen among two very similar and difficult choices. Basically that was what happened before my final exam. I realized that even though doing well in my final exam was very important for my future, I decided that I could afford to not do as well while placing my priorities on where my heart was. I guess Ern's happiness means so much more to me than just a grade on my exam.

That being said, I still feel disappointed about my failure. Many people are shocked, so was I. But in a more positive light, this feels more like an achievement than many of the As that I have throughout college. Not only is this a humbling experience, but it is most definitely eye-opening. Just as Bruce Wayne's father used to ask him when he was a boy,

Bruce, why do we fall? Because we can learn to pick ourselves up.

So I cannot say that I actually fell, but in the eyes of many, I probably did. I am not one to dwell on what others think about me. I just know that in light of such events, I realized that by trusting my heart, no matter what happens, even in the face of the darkest hours, I still feel strong and brave and march on.

It is still a black mark in my otherwise clean history. But as they say,

People who have never failed in life have never really succeeded either.

Is it as simple as that? The justification of my failure? This cannot be it. Yet it is.

Internet Explorer... you pathetic piece of shit

2007-04-17T21:58:00.000-07:00

Okay, I haven't posted anything in a while, but that's because there isn't much to post at all. It is not that there's nothing interesting worth sharing in my life, rather, it's just that there's nothing that I want to share or can share with the public at this point. However, I just tried to access my blog using IE from the Math Library in the University of Melbourne and my blog looked like crap. So I tried accessing with Firefox and everything was completely fine. This clearly shows that IE is a piece of garbage and if you are still using IE, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE go download Firefox before you come back to my site again. Or else, I will ban you from visiting my site.

Too Fast Too Furious

2007-01-30T10:57:00.000-08:00

Immediately our mind races over to the engine throttles and the smooth gear shifts as well as the breakneck speed or the weak drifting, depending on which movie you watched. However, recently, I have discovered something that goes even faster than the nitro-charged street-cars (barring planes and shit), that is, my haste.

Time and again I have failed to think before I speak. Often times, I hurt people and sometimes I infuriate them without realizing what I have done, and what is ultimately worse, without intension. For the better (in terms of length and quality) of my life, I strive to think before I speak. Or so I think. Several events of late have in some sense, humbled me, and in a larger sense kick-started a process of self-reflection and transformation.

Without going into detail, I feel that I have been very careless with the way I speak to people. My sense of humor, albeit sensational (self-praise is no praise), is usually derived at the expense of a certain someone and in most cases, towards the person I am speaking to. Now that I have thought about it more carefully, some of those people must have felt hurt or angry because of my nonchalant comments. In the past, I have always disregarded the feelings of others, mainly because I was ignorant, but also because I couldn't be bothered. Furthermore, I excuse myself by thinking that some people just can't take jokes.

Fortunately, I am an advocate of personal change. For too long I have hurt people without caring. For too long I have let my speech exceed the speed limit, and what's ultimately worse, for too long I have pissed people off without realizing or intending to do so.

Old vs. New

2007-01-11T04:27:00.000-08:00

This is a blog about almost absolutely nothing. I would just like to highlight a few differences that I have discovered between the old Windows XP Pro and the new Windows XP Media Center thus far. Needless to say, I could only figure out these differences because I just bought a new computer.

1. The new Office 2007 is uber (for those of you who use Equation Editor, Office 2007 comes with it, even the pirated version). You no longer need to original version to get the plug-in. However, you need SP2 to install it. Hence, I couldn't install Office 2007 in my old computer because the XP Pro is pirated and is stuck at SP1. For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, damn, it's time you learn about computers!

2. Windows Movie Maker has "fixed" some bugs. In my old computer, I could convert *.rm (Real Media Player) files to *.wmv format. One wonders why I would want to do that, but just for your information, some people don't have and don't know how to download Real Media Player (You know who you are!). The new computer, however, no longer supports this conversion. Clearly, monopoly at its peak!

If you have any funky differences to share, please do comment!

Escape artist

2006-12-22T17:00:00.000-08:00

I am an escape artist? I never knew that! But it is good to know that I am a rare species. Go take the quiz. I know you have time.

Dreams

2006-12-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

We've got to have a dream if we are going to make a dream come true.
- Denis Waitley

What you choose to focus your mind on is critical because you will become what you think about most of the time.
- Noel Peebles

After reading Jerry's MSN nick, I kinda have this sense of revolt. I mean, who is he to say that, "Who am I to dream? Dreams are for fools, they let you down". Clearly he has never had a dream come true :) But then with a name like "Peebles", he doesn't seem to have too much credibility. But it's still better than Jerry.

Always stuck in second gear...

2006-12-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your jobs a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.

It's like you're always stuck in second gear
And it hasn't been your day, your week, your month,
or even your year
but..

I'll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there for you
Like I've been there before
I'll be there for you
'Cuz you're there for me too...

You're still in bed at ten
And work began at eight
You've burned your breakfast
So far... things are goin' great

Your mother warned you there'd be days like these
Oh but she didn't tell you when the world has brought
You down to your knees that...

I'll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there for you
Like I've been there before
I'll be there for you
'Cuz you're there for me too...

No one could ever know me
No one could ever see me
Seems you're the only one who knows
What it's like to be me
Someone to face the day with
Make it through all the rest with
Someone I'll always laugh with
Even at my worst I'm best with you, yeah

It's like you're always stuck in second gear
And it hasn't been your day, your week, your month,
or even your year...

I'll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I'll be there for you
Like I've been there before
I'll be there for you
'Cuz you're there for me too...

I'll be there for you
I'll be there for you
I'll be there for you
'Cuz you're there for me too...

- The Rembrandts

There is only one God

2006-12-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

The Muslims and Christians were right. There is only one God.

This is an ode to you, Monsieur Thierry Henry!

Midterm Grade Report

2006-10-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

"It appears from your grades that you are experiencing difficulties which, if continued, could compromise your academic standing. Let me encourage you, therefore, to make every effort to find ways of improving your academic work. Your advisor, this office, and the university counselling personnel are available to help if you wish. Please do not hesitate to seek such assistance".

Margaret E. Kastner, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

My closest thing to a D in college, ladies and gentlemen. What happened to the freaking genius who always aced math classes? Spare me the sarcasm. I got a D in my statistical modelling exam. As much as I can blame the teacher, it is as little as it is my fault that I got a D in the exam. It wasn't that the exam was extremely difficult. It was just the way the the marks were allocated. Some 2 line answers were worth 10 marks, while some 7 line answers were worth only 15 marks. It didn't make sense to me. But most of all, the material in the course is seriously taught poorly. I was told by the professor that the class average was lower than my grade. What the hell does that mean? The average is a fail? I am not even angry or frustrated. I feel ridiculed. Alright, I did get a B- in Real Analysis, but Jesus Christ! It's Real Analysis. How does that compare to stats modelling? I don't know. I need someone to freaking convince me not to drop this course. I don't even need this course at all. But I am not one who gives up... and it's not that I don't work hard enough. I've never worked so hard since JC days. Man....

You Know You're a Mathematician When...

2006-10-07T16:19:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: This is not a joke about mathematicians

Just last week, my Cultural Anthropology professor gave us a list of about 50 words to study for the exam. We were required to pick 5 words out of the 14 that he will choose from that initial 50 and define them. You know you're a mathematician when you spend your study time calculating the minimum number of words you need to study to be 90% confident so that know at least 5 words. It is obvious that to be 100% confident you know at least 5 words, you just have to study 41 words. What? It's not obvious? OK, for those of you who are slower, studying 41 words meant that you miss out 9 words. Assuming that ALL 9 words you did not study were in the professor's list, the 5 remaining words in his list would definitely coincide with yours. Of course being 100% confident is not the most efficient and practical thing to do from a statistical viewpoint. So 90% is good enough. For those of you lazy bums who choose not to work out the answer, and are dying to to know what is the minimum number of words that need to be studied...

Well, I never calculated it. I don't know if I am a mathematician.

Evariste Galois (edited)

2006-09-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the edited version version of my paper. I corrected a lot of the errors as well as simplified the mathematics for those of you who are slower.

One of my assignments this week was to write a short paper about a deceased mathematician who contributed in the field of abstract algebra. The mathematician of my choice was Evariste Galois (pronounced "Gal-wa"). Some of you may not have heard of him, but the most famous of his discoveries is to prove using group theory that there is no formula in which polynomials of degree 5 and above can be solved as opposed to quadratic formulas that most of us are familiar with. There are formulas for polynomials of degree 4 and 5 and these can be easily researched in some advanced mathematics book if you decide to explore them. Anyway, here is my short paper on Galois. Hope you enjoy it.

The Life and Death of Evariste Galois

We know that Abel’s death was caused by poverty, but Galois’ death was a consequence of the stupidity of others. “Galois’ short life serves as a great example of the triumph of crass stupidity over untamable genius. Throughout his life, his magnificent powers were shattered before the mass stupidity aligned against him, and he was beaten by one unconquerable fool after another.” [1]

Galois was born on October 25, 1811 and lived a happy life until he was twelve. The only teacher he had until then was his mother. She taught him Greek, Latin and religion where she imparted her own skepticism about religion to her son. Galois' father was an important man in the community and in 1815 he was elected mayor of Bourg-la-Reine. [2]

At the age of twelve, Galois started formal schooling at the Louis-le-Grand in Paris. The school was like a prison. The intolerable conditions led to a strike among the students, leaving those involved expelled. Galois was not one of them. Because of his mother’s excellent instructions, he won many prizes. He also gained something more lasting than prizes. He gained the “conviction that neither fear nor the utmost severity of discipline can extinguish, that is the sense of justice and fair dealing in young minds experiencing their first unselfish devotion. [1]

Even though Galois’ school experiences were tumultuous, it was his first exposure to mathematics. February 1827 was a turning point in Galois' life. He discovered the splendid geometry of Legendre and was greatly inspired. Later on, he read Abel’s works and absorbed the masterpieces of algebraic analysis at the mere age of fifteen [1]. He quickly became absorbed in mathematics and his director of studies wrote

It is the passion for mathematics which dominates him. I think it would be best for him if his parents would allow him to study nothing but this. He is wasting his time here and does nothing but torment his teachers and overwhelm himself with punishments.

Galois' school reports began to describe him as singular, bizarre, original and closed. It is interesting that perhaps the most original mathematician who ever lived should be criticized for being original. [2]

In 1828 Galois took the examination of the École Polytechnique but failed because he did not know some basic mathematics [3]. Commenting on his failure, Terquem (editor of the Nouvelles Annales de Mathematiques) remarks

A candidate of superior intelligence is lost with an examiner of inferior intelligence. Because they don’t understand me, I am barbarian [1].

In 1828, at seventeen, Galois met a man who could understand his genius, Louis Richard. Richard recognized Galois’ talents and proclaimed that Galois should be admitted to the Polytechnique without examination. Richard also said that “This pupil has a marked superiority above all his fellow students; he works only at the most advanced parts of mathematics.”

At eighteen, Galois wrote his important research on the theory of equations and submitted it to the French Academy of Sciences for publication. The paper was given to Cauchy for refereeing. Cauchy promised to present this, but he forgot. Worse still, he lost Galois’ abstract. That was the last Galois has ever heard of Cauchy’s generous promise [1].

He failed the École Polytechnique examination again in 1829 shortly after his father’s suicide. The priest of Bourg-la-Reine forged Mayor Galois' name on malicious forged epigrams directed at Galois' own relatives. Galois' father was a good natured man and the scandal that ensued was more than he could stand. He hanged himself in his Paris apartment only a few steps from Louis-le-Grand where his son was studying [2].

His disturbed mental state after his father’s death was part of the reason of his failure. He also did mathematics almost entirely in his head and this annoyed his examiners [3]. This examination has become a legend. During the oral part of the examination, one of the inquisitors ventured to argue a mathematical difficulty with Galois. The man was both wrong and obstinate. Galois lost his patience. He knew he had officially failed. In his rage, he hurled the eraser at his tormentor’s face and hit him.

Galois sent Cauchy further work on the theory of equations, but then learned from Bulletin de Férussac of a posthumous article by Abel which overlapped with a part of his work. Galois then took Cauchy's advice and submitted a new article On the condition that an equation is soluble by radicals in February 1830. The paper was sent to Fourier, the secretary of the Paris Academy, to be considered for the Grand Prize in mathematics. Fourier died in April 1830 and Galois' paper was never subsequently found and so never considered for the prize [2]. After these series of misfortunes, Galois exclaimed, “Genius is condemned by a malicious social organization to an eternal denial of justice in favor of fawning mediocrity” [1].

Galois then spent most of the last year and a half of his life in prison for revolutionary political offenses. To make matters worse, he received a rejection of his memoir in prison. Poisson had reported that “His argument is neither sufficiently clear nor sufficiently developed to allow us to judge its rigor”. In March 1832 a cholera epidemic swept Paris and prisoners, including Galois, were transferred to the pension Sieur Faultrier. There he apparently fell in love with Stephanie-Felice du Motel, the daughter of the resident physician. After he was released on 29 April Galois exchanged letters with Stephanie, and it is clear that she tried to distance herself from the affair. The name Stephanie appears several times as a marginal note in one of Galois' manuscripts.

Galois fought a duel with Perscheux d'Herbinville on 30 May because of his political beliefs [1]. The night before the duel, Galois spent the fleeting hours feverishly dashing off his scientific last will and testament, writing against time to glean a few of the great things in his mind before his death. He wrote in desperation and time and again his thoughts broke off and he wrote in the margin:

There is something to complete in this demonstration. I do not have the time.

Galois was wounded in the duel and was abandoned by d'Herbinville and his own seconds and found by a peasant. He died in Cochin hospital on 31 May 1832 before his 21st birthday. His last wish was for Chevalier, his dearest friend, to send his papers to Gauss and Jacobi. It had been Galois' wish that Jacobi and Gauss should give their opinions on his work. No record exists of any comment these men made. However the papers reached Liouville who, in September 1843, announced to the Academy that he had found in Galois' papers a concise solution “...as correct as it is deep of this lovely problem: Given an irreducible equation of prime degree, decide whether or not it is soluble by radicals. Liouville published these papers of Galois in his Journal in 1846. The theory that Galois outlined in these papers is now called Galois Theory.” [2]. His only enduring monument after his death is his collected works that filled sixty pages [1].

Significance of his work:

During the Middle Ages, mathematicians believed that unlike the quadratic equations, the algebraic formula for solving cubic equations was not possible. In the sixteenth century, Cardano, an Italian mathematician demonstrated that both cubic and quartic equations were solvable by radicals. With Cardano’s publications, mathematicians began in search for algebraic solutions for quintic polynomials. Abel built upon Lagranges’ work and managed to prove that for the general polynomial equation of degree 5 and above is not solvable by radicals. We know this from our ERES reading for Problem Set 4.

Galois extended the question of solvability by radicals in his Memoir on the Conditions for Solvability of Equations by Radicals. The memoir not only provided a theoretical framework for answering the solvability question, but also developed a framework for mathematical theory with far-reaching applications. He translated the problem of solvability into the language of field theory using a primitive form of the idea of an extension field [5]. Galois introduced the idea of what we refer to today as the Galois group. Using the Galois group, Galois was able to analyze a particular splitting field for a given polynomial. His results completely characterized the situation: a polynomial is solvable by radicals precisely when its Galois group admits a certain sequence of normal subgroups.

In solving this problem, Galois founded abstract algebra and group theory, which are fundamental to computer science, physics, coding theory and cryptography. Today, a "Galois connection" is a way of solving challenging mathematical problems by translating them into different mathematical domains, making the original problem amenable to a number of new solution techniques.

*Note to reader: For an example of a quintic polynomial that is not solvable by radicals, refer to page 559 in our textbook [3].

Conclusion:

Like Abel, Evariste Galois did not have a chance to live a full life and to witness the success of his works. Through a series of unfortunate events and wild coincidences, his talent was not duly noted. Cauchy had lost Galois’ abstract while Fourier passed away before he could judge his paper for a prestigious award. Today, Galois is not only remembered by his works, but also by the legends that were created about him. One can hardly forget the image a young talented mathematician throwing a chalkboard eraser at an examiner because of the examiner’s stubbornness and stupidity. Another legend about Galois was that he tried to write down everything he knew about group theory during the night before his duel which caused his tragic passing. To sum his misfortunes accurately, I repeat the quote from Galois:

“Genius is condemned by a malicious social organization to an eternal denial of justice in favor of fawning mediocrity” [1].

Bibliography

[1] Bell, Eric Temple, Men of Mathematics, Simon and Schuster, 1937

[2] The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive,

http://turnbull.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Galois.html

[3] Gallian, Joseph A., Contemporary Abstract Algebra, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002

[4] Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois

[5] Gellasch, Amy and Jardine, Dick, From Calculus to Computers, the Mathematical Association of America, 2005

The Big 400

2006-09-12T08:47:00.000-07:00

Wow, ever since I started the Web Counter thing, I really didn't expect my blog to have so many visitors. For those of you who have constantly checked up on my blog, I thank you. Not because for boosting my number of visitors. Not because you visited my blog. I thank you because you feel concerned about me (OK, I will take your curiosity as concern). It is an honor for me that you, my friends, have shown the care to even take a look at what ramblings I have. OK, they are not ramblings, I make meaningful posts and my intention is so that people can learn from my thoughts and mistakes. You have played a part in my noble cause, one way or another. You may choose to extend your part by sharing the lessons you have learnt here or forwarding your friends to my blog. Today is a special day because at this instant, my blog has had exactly 400 visits (not all of them from different people). A big thank you to all of you, for being my friends.

The Bucknell I Know

2006-08-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

For some reason, this year feels so different from the rest of the years I have had at Bucknell. So far, I haven't played a single game of Warcraft on BattleNet. So far, I am still very focused on getting things done. So far, I am still in the mood to do work. So far, I feel so energized. I remember just last year, I wasn't really all that into Bucknell. Maybe because I was leaving a large part of me behind in Malaysia. Somehow, this year feels different. Even though I did leave a large part of me behind, it feels as if I am not going to be away for long.

I am really looking forward to getting things in motion, going out there to do my best. Last semester, I thought I was going to score a 4.0 GPA or something, but within a few weeks, I realized how foolish I was to think that I could. Number Theory killed me. Even without that, I had Modern Development of Philosophy and that, even though wasn't too hard, it was almost impossible (for me) to get an A. I ended up with an A- and a humbling experience.

But once bitten, not yet shy is what I say. I am aiming for a 4.o all over again. This is in view of the fact that I am taking 5 subjects and "easier" ones at that. Computer Science (Java 5) should not cause too many problems, while the 2 Math courses really depend on my effort. Econ 258 sounds difficult, being a W2, and also especially since I have 2 W2 courses this semester. Finally, I have this Intro to Cultural Anthropology which sounds fun. I mean I just came back from our first class and the teacher seems really great!

Good start to a hopefully good semester, even though things just don't feel the same at Bucknell anymore.

V for Vendetta

2006-08-16T22:50:00.000-07:00

Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.

I am still figuring what this really means as I post this. If you do that before I do, please enlighten me. As most of you would realize from the title, if not having watched the movie, I took this from the movie V for Vendetta. If this quote alone is not enough to make you watch this movie, I don't know what is. It's just cool just to hear him say it. You will be like, "WTF?". Don't say I didn't warn you.

Our Deepest Fear

2006-08-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Marrianne Williamson -

Time of Your Life

2006-08-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

- Greenday -

I can't talk about my holiday and about where I just went or what I did in the past few weeks. But I most certainly did have the time of my life. This is the kind of happiness that can never be bought. Thank you for this chance.

Remember The Name

2006-07-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name!

- FoRT MiNoR -

These words keep ringing in my ears for some reason. I think if you read it enough times, it should inspire you. Or if reading is not your thing, try the song. I think it's great.

History Repeats Itself

2006-06-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

I have never been one to believe that history will ever repeat itself. In fact, I am one to believe that lightning would never strike the same place twice. Today, the hand of the divine has once cast it's flashing bolt of lightning through my mind, my heart, my body and my soul. Lightning has struck on me again.

Approximately two years ago, my ex-girlfriend, MH broke up with me because she believed that she had no feelings for me anymore. One of the main reasons for this lost of love was because I had made the decision to study in the US, one which I am coming to regret at this point in time. I blame my childish dream of wanting to go to the "promised land". The hurt and pain I have to go through today will never be compensated by whatever little knowledge and exposure that I might gain from my short stint in the land of freedom, the land where "all dreams come true".

Back to the story. During the time MH broke up with me, I felt so lost, so confused. I don't even feel like I did anything wrong. I tried my best to hold on to her, I tried my best to give her whatever meagre attention I could during my time away, but nothing beats the intimacy of physical presence. How naive I was for underestimating its significance. It was a pity that I would lose the girl that I would have given everything for. But I guess promises are just never enough.

Anyhow, two years after my sad story, I am staring at history straight at its face yet again. The same familiar story is unfolding itself right before my very eyes and just as it was two years ago, I have no way of stopping it. Just a few hours ago, Ern told me that she doesn't have feelings for me anymore. Initially, I felt my heart dropped, it wasn't like it was sinking slowly like Titanic to the bottom of the ocean, but it was more like the screaming people who jumped from the ship, falling into the sea of darkness, the sea of abandon. Then before you realize the true impact of the situation, the pain and hurt of being rejected, the pain of being betrayed, not by love, but rather, the lack of it, sears through your heart, shredding it like a piece of glass into a million pieces. The deafening sound of breaking glass echoing through the air, and it's the only sound you can hear because you are drowning, alone in the sea of darkness, the sea of abandon.

Some people may say, I am the one asking for trouble. I was fully aware of the risks of having a long distance relationship, yet I chose the road less traversed. Not only did I choose the road less travelled by, I chose the winding road, the road that I know will lead to a cliff and only with a leap of faith shall I realize the rewards of a true believer. I have come to this cliff now. There has never been turning back in life, and there never will be. I have come to this cliff.

I have two choices. One: to take the easy way out, to jump, and wish that at the bottom of this cliff is a great big ocean to cushion my fall, and to wish that hopefully, at the end of this fall, there will be a new road for me, a road to another life, another love, another dream. Two: to take this so called "leap of faith", to go with the unknown, to jump, and hope that I reach the other side, or rather, to hope that there is another side. Or perhaps, I shall fall into this bottomless pit, where I shall keep on falling, forever, never to find out if there was another side, never to find out if I could have reached the other side, never to find out if there was another life to lead at the bottom of my fall, stuck in the sands of time. For those of you who are slower than others, basically, my choices are to get on with life, in search of someone new, OR to hold on to this dream even though as hopeless as it may seem, faith will keep me alive (hopefully). The only drawback is that I shall never find out if there would be another girl, a better one, waiting for me, or another life.

I don't know if I should feel sad, or if I should feel angry, or if I should feel depressed out of my mind, or if I should feel betrayed. I guess I am feeling all of that at the same time. I could never understand how someone can just stop loving the person that they most love just like that. All I can think of is just the lack of effort to think about your partner, the lack of effort to stay in touch... and with all this lack of effort, it just shows that he or she was never really in love all that much in the first place. This just pisses me off. I don't want to be pissed off. Should I feel "oh-so-sad" for my sorry ass? What's there to be sad about? Some say good riddance. But what have I lost? You can't lose what you never had.

Well, there's nothing like having a blog. You can always spill your beans to the world and then retract them later. Looks like I am not going to get any sleep today. I am surprised that I haven't even shed a tear. I guess I already chose my path. The power of hope has the ability to hold a million pieces of glass together, the ability to silence the deafening sound of breaking glass, and best of all, the power of hope allows us to give ourselves a second chance. When our situation is dire and when all avenues seem to lead to certain death, hope can take us out alive.

"Only hope can shine the brightest light in the darkest of hours" - Shihong

You can only have it once

2006-06-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

It is so cliched for people to say that we often watch life go by without finding time to stand and stare. In other words, people oftentimes do not show enough appreciation towards the great things in life that they have been blessed with. This sounds so boring. They then add that "We don't know what we have until it's gone". How naive!

I had it. I held on to it as hard as I could. I appreciated every single moment of it. I would love to just have it for one little moment once again. It's not true. I knew right from the start what I stand to lose even before it was gone. It's not true. The reason why we don't find time to stand and stare, and to appreciate the beautiful things in life is that we have found a special something so beautiful that everything else just seems to pass us by. Nothing else really mattered. Some people get it, and get to hold on to it forever. Others, they get it, and lose it forever. Whatever it is, you can only have it once. I had it once.

Sometimes...

2006-06-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

I'm just feeling a little nostalgic. Just posting songs that talk about my life in the past and also the lessons I've learnt.

But there's a danger in loving somebody too much,
and it's sad when you know it's your heart you can't trust.
There's a reason why people don't stay where they are.
Baby, sometimes, love just aint enough.

Too Serious Too Soon

2006-06-21T13:05:00.000-07:00

I wonder where you where
I wonder what your thinking about tonight
I wonder
Maybe your alone
Maybe you’ve been crying just like me
I wonder
I don’t know why I lost your touch
Maybe I wanted to be loved too much

Too serious, too soon
I wanted you to love me
I wanted to be there for you like no one else before
Too serious, too soon
I wanted you to love me

It’s been a rainy afternoon
Now I’m staring at the moon
Thinking we got too serious, too soon

I told you every day
I told you every night in every way
I love you

Maybe you got scared
Maybe I have nothing else to say
But I love you
So baby now my life’s a mess
Cause i’m
Cos I couldn’t love you any less

Too serious, too soon
I wanted you to love me
I wanted to be there for you like no one else before
Too serious, too soon
I wanted you to love me

It’s been a rainy afternoon
Now I’m staring at the moon
Thinking we got too serious, too soon

Too soon
It’s not right
It’s not fair
It’s in you baby cuts like a knife
What if you were the love of my life

Too serious, too soon
I wanted you to love me
I wanted to be there for you like no one else before
Too serious, too soon
I wanted you to love me

We got too serious to soon
I wanted to be there for you like no one else before
Too serious too soon
I wanted you too love me

It’s been a rainy afternoon
Now I’m staring at the moon
Thinking we got too serious, too soon

To that special someone. You may never realize who you are, even if you are reading this, but this song says what I have always wanted to say to you. It's been a pleasure.

No Restraints... But Regrets?

2006-05-31T12:48:00.000-07:00

Now, more than one person has said this to me: "You are so confident about what you think that you do not care about what others feel. You do not give a damn about what other people think about you. How do you expect people to listen to you?"

The first time I heard similar words was from the mouth of my girlfriend. I always thought that we should be ourselves as we should be accepted as being who we are. When I heard that phrase the second time just this morning, I realized that I have never hid who I am. But that was just an excuse for me; an excuse to hide my inability to restrain myself. Why do I always feel that I am so right? Because I am? Well, that's not the important question. Why can't I ever learn to listen to people? Why do I not have the patience to play along? It's not because I do not care about how other people feel. It's actually because I do. The problem with me is that I expect everyone to think like me. I am the kind of person that gets things done. If I have a problem, I find out what I can and cannot do, and I do what I can and leave the rest to fate (another way of saying that I am satisfied with my efforts, especially if I did my best).

Some other people, like to dwell on problems. It is as if they love the misery. But in reality, it's most likely that this is not the case. I apologize for saying what I did to you (you know who you are). However, apologies are always too little too late. I have promised Li Ern never to succumb to my rashness, but I have done it again. But at least this time, it's not towards her. Apparently she approves if I do it against other people. As long as she doesn't have to face my wrath (is it really that scary to hear the truth?)

The cons of knowing someone like me is that you hear things you don't want to hear about yourself. I am a straightforward as I come. No restraints. I used to believe that I have no regrets. Wonders of having a love life. Life-altering experience. Sacrifice, patience, perseverence: it takes more to love someone than to make Powerpuff girls. The only moments in life that can make you happy and sad at the same time. That's when you know you're in love (That's how I tell, I guess).

Anyways, enough about the cheesy stuff. Back to reality. Change is in accord. I have a previous blog regarding promises. The rules of promises. Never make a promise you can't keep. I promised I will change. I promise to keep my promise.

About Teaching How to Fish...

2006-05-30T11:05:00.000-07:00

I have been gone for 2 days, well, gone as in, gone from the on-line world. I was away at a chess camp for the Penang State Team. My duty there was to coach the Penang state team in preparation for the coming MSSM. One of the hardest questions that I am asked quite frequently is, what subject matter should you touch on when you coach the elite of the junior chess players in Penang.

Last year, I gave a lecture on "How to plan?". I used Stephen Covey's idea of "Begin with the end in mind" to help the students think of plans during their games. I do not believe in teaching students about where to move, and where you should put your pieces, etc. In short, I do not believe in giving the fish to people. I believe in teaching them how to fish. Hence, by teaching them how to plan, in a way teaches them how to think in chess. Now, instead of just having moves to follow from chess books, the students will be able to formulate plans for themselves. Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish, and he is fed for life.

So this year, in accordance to my believes in improving as a chess player, I decided to talk about "How not to lose a losing game?" What a fascinating topic. One can almost believe that I can perform miracles. I just used a catchy title but my most important point is that even though it is frustrating to play in a losing position, we can try to make it very difficult for the opponent to win. It is more frustrating not being able to win a won game than to play a losing game.

In addition, I also believe that there is more to my teachings than just about chess. I believe that my lessons can also be applied in life. Stephen Covey's idea clearly functions as one of the seven habits of highly successful people. Also, the idea about making it difficult for your opponent to win is a way of overcoming tough situations. Even though we might face tremendous odds, we should still perservere. Even when frustration kicks in, patience will give us a chance to overcome the odds.

So, if you are reading this, you have just learnt 2 important lessons about life. Pay it forward!

Decisions

2006-05-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

Decisions are never easy. The more choices we have, the harder it is for us to decide which path we are going to take. This is simply because there is no turning back in life. If there was a "rewind" button to life, we could just pick any choice we want and just rewind to the juncture where me made a decision that led to an undesirable outcome. But it is obvious life's not like that. So here's a dedication to Jerry, who has to make, what is possibly, in many people's eyes, the decision of his life. Cheers, mate. All's well, end's well.

If a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man - Anthony Burgess, "A Clockwork Orange"

Although every man believes that his decisions and resolutions involve the most multifarious factors, in reality they are a mere oscillation between flight and longing - Herman Broch

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter." - Lewis Carroll

When choosing between two evils, always choose the one you haven't tried yet - Mae West

Decisions usually aren't between good and bad, they are between bad and worse, and it's often not clear which choice is worse - Mark Stosberg

May all your decisions be swift and deadly - Shihong :)

There is always more than one way to get to where we want to be. If we miss a turn, just take the next. See you at the top, buddy!

Why Do I... ?

2006-05-23T00:50:00.000-07:00

I believe it is safe to assume that any rational human being will at one point or another question him/herself "Why did I do this?" It is only natural that we question our intentions on all conscious acts. I mean we don't ask why do we breathe and ponder over it for hours because we simply have to breathe. But on occasions, we ponder our intentions and wonder if things would turn out differently if we had done something else. Sometimes, we ponder our intentions and wonder if what we are doing, makes sense. By this, I mean, we naturally wonder if what we did has any meaning in it. It's probably synonymous to asking "What is the meaining of life?"

But rather than asking yourself this never-ending question, you can try asking, "Do I like what I am doing?". Does why we do what we do really matter? Why am I so engrossed in such a philosophical matter? Because I am retarded. When I am done with this, you will think I am hilarious.

As some of you might know, I quit Warcraft some time ago and decided to pick up new hobbies. That was the period when I started questioning my own actions. I figured that I should focus on doing what is good for my life and my future. I decided that playing computer games was not good for me and that I should be focussing on straightening my life, studying, doing my resume, focus my energy on getting an internship and hope that I land upon a great job opportunity. Basically, I asked myself, "Why am I playing computer games?" Should I be playing computer games, now that I am close to being 22 already? So I quit Warcraft and all other games.

But recently, I started playing Warcraft again. Is it a bad thing? No, I am not asking you. It's a rhetorical question. When I started playing again, especially AT (Arranged Teams), I felt the adrenaline rush all over again, a feeling I did not have for a long time. AT is all about quick decision-making, fast reactions, and most importantly, the competitive spirit. All teams are motivated by their desire to win, to overcome the opposition, to achieve a sense of victory that is probably lacking in their lives in other areas :) So I am glad I have found the rush again. I have no regrets.

So now you know what my philosophical argument with myself is about. It's just about Warcraft 3. Perhaps it's more than that. Perhaps it's what I have just chosen to do with my life. I have decided to live for the moment, and decided to do what excites me, to do what makes me happy right now, than to focus on what COULD make me happy in the future. Warcraft rules!

Pulp Fiction

2006-04-24T19:16:00.000-07:00

If you've ever seen Pulp Fiction, you'd say it's an awesome show. Here are a few funny quotes from the movie.

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee - Jules

If my answers frighten you then you should cease asking scary questions - Jules

That's how you're gonna beat them, Butch, they keep underestimating you - Butch

Jeeez... Am I that good??

2006-04-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

Just a few minutes ago, some girl asked me about crystallization of salt. How many moles of water is in the crystallized form of CaSO4? I mean, I haven't done chemistry for 5 years. But why was I able to solve it? It's all thinking. People NEED TO THINK! She told me that she read the formula in the book and didn't understand what to do. Man, that just pisses me off. Why do we need formulas in the books. We live in this ridiculous culture of education. The teachers teach you something, show you the example, then you follow the exact same way to solve the problems that they assign you. What have you learnt in the end? TO FOLLOW EXAMPLES!! I am not saying that's a bad thing, but people should really think about how to solve the problem before reading the example. In real life, usually, when you face a problem, there isn't going to be a textbook for you to look at the examples, and by following steps 1,2,3 and 4, problem solved! That's just absurd. There's no handbook to life. You've gotta figure everything out for yourself.

So how do you solve the abovementioned question? Think mols. I mean someone who asked that question should at least know what a mole is. So guess what, I asked her what a mole is, and she gave me all that crap definition about the Avogadro number and all that crap. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. What is your idea of a mole? Most people's mind just jump to, Avogadro number... Avogadro number... NO, YOU FREAKING ZOMBIES!! A mole is THE AMOUNT OF SUBSTANCE... gosh... My dad always told me that the most important part of the definition of something is always after the word "IS". So there you go, AMOUNT OF SUBSTANCE. So in order to solve that previous question, you figure out the amount of moles of CaSO4 you have, and that's precisely the amount of crystallized CaSO4 you have. Why? Because the amount of CaSO4 in CaSO4 did not change, since of course, we assume there is sufficient water to crystallize all of the calcium sulphate. So by figuring out the amount of moles of CaSO4.xH20, we can easily figure out what x is via the ever famous ratio of mass and molecular mass. Despite not doing chemistry for 5 years, I was still able to solve this problem, all through deduction, that the amount of moles of CaSO4 cannot change.

My critical thinking skills amaze myself sometimes... If you want to survive in this world, stop depending on your textbooks, coz you ain't getting any help in the real world.

House MD

2006-04-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

I know I am crazy. I just watched 17 episodes of house in less than 48 hours while attending classes and the like. But it's just so addictive. I find House's sarcasm interesting and highly entertaining. I kinda have a feeling that I might actually grow up like him. Anyways, here is a quote I would like to share that I picked up from the show:

"If you're a jerk, you're either great or unemployed"

This is my new inspiration. I know I have been a jerk to many people in my life. I AM a jerk. I can't help it. So within a few years time, if someone does employ me, you know what that means. No, it doesn't mean you have to bow down to me. All I ask is, just accept the fact that I am a jerk.

Quotable Quotes Part 2

2006-04-16T22:22:00.000-07:00

If you love something, and you let it go, you're fucking stupid

Effort is not about how much you speak for your work, it's how much your work speaks for you

These are actually 2 original quotes from me. I give you people full rights to quote me. Cheers!

Quotable Quotes

2006-04-15T01:06:00.000-07:00

Most people panic, those who don't are those who fail - Ern

The trouble with trouble is that it always starts out as fun

You can't lose what you never put on the table, but you can't win a lot either

Against overwhelming odds, you will lose

Never test depth of water with both feet

These are just a few of my life's principles. Something that I thought would be interesting for you chuckers to ponder about. I know barely anyone reads my blog, but at least I get shit off my mind. Someday, this (my blog) could be worth a lot of money. The insights to MY mind.

Perseverance

2006-04-14T08:31:00.000-07:00

per·se·ver·ance (noun)

Definition:
determined continuation with something: steady and continued action or belief, usually over a long period and especially despite difficulties or setbacks

Brooksbank (my Math 311 (Number Theory) professor, who happens to be British; all the engineering girls think he's cute, no idea why I gave that information but get on with it!) just returned our Number Theory exam today and I got a B- on that. I am resigned to getting a B- at the end of the semester, and in fact, I would be very surprised if I got anything higher. Am I disappointed? Not really. I thought I would end up doing worse. It was an insanely hard exam and to be honest, I think he was rather lenient with the marking already. I would have been killed if he had picked on my proofs very strictly. For example, I claimed that the GCD (10, n) = 1 (for you math noobs, GCD (10, n) is the greatest commond divider of 10 and n) just so that I could use Euler's Theorem to make my proof neat. But then, GCD (10,n) was not necessarily 1 and that I could have done the proof through the methods of reduced residue sets, which is one of my weakest areas. My understanding of reduced residues and primitive roots are very shakey. But after the exam, I felt like I understood them more. I had to study them, work on them, over and over again, just trying to prove the stuff that was required of me.

Upon hindsight, I saw myself giving up. The exam was due on Wednesday and on Wednesday morning itself, I woke up at 9 a.m. just to work on it. My classes start at 12 p.m. so I had 3 hours. I turned off my computer, and just sat there and focused really hard. But at 10.45 a.m. I resigned to my fate. I gave up working, turned on my computer, and started procrastinating. I played some computer games, even though I told myself that I already quit. But the essence of the situation was that, I gave up.

BUT, here comes the big BUT, as I reflect upon it, right here, right now, did I regret not working harder? I don't. I think I did my best, and that's the best a man can do. That was my vow to Ern, and I think I should stand true to it. When I looked at the solutions of those problems, there was no way I would have figured those out to that detail. I could never have escaped my fate. I had no regrets. But when I think about it right now, even though I gave up, I persevered. I tried and tried.

per·se·ver·ance (noun)

Definition:
determined continuation with something: steady and continued action or belief, usually over a long period and especially despite difficulties or setbacks

DESPITE DIFFICULTIES AND SETBACKS...

Anger Management

2006-04-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

I think I need some form of anger management therapy. Have you people watched Anger Management? There are 2 kinds of angry people. People who vent their anger and lose their temper on almost every setback and there's the quiet angry people. These are the people that keep all their anger inside and these are precisely the people who end up bringing a 9 calibre to school and blow everyone's brains out. I am the latter.

I tell other people and myself that I do not get angry easily. In fact, I don't appear angry at all. No matter how bad things happen to me, it seems that I always remain calm. But in actual fact, when I think about it, I am an angry person. What triggered this self-reflection? This morning, the morning I was looking forward to for the past week, I was supposed to wake up at 8 a.m. and call Ern, and after calling her for 4 times, she finally picked up. To my utter disappointment, she forgot that I was going to call her and she was out for supper with her friends. I was pretty sad about the whole thing and I told her to message me when she got back to the room. At 10 a.m., which was 12 a.m. where she was, I called her again and this time, she only picked up after 15 times. I know, I know, I am desperate. It's past midnight and I was afraid she wasn't OK, since she didn't message me.

Anyways, our conversation wasn't really pretty. She was still out and she was only heading back. What can I say? She will definitely be tired when she reaches back to her apartment and she refuses to wake up early the next day. So she told me to wait till she gets back to Penang and we will talk on Sunday. Well, this seems like a minor issue, but when she hung up, I got so angry that I chucked the phone. I did not vent my anger on her. I was just pissed about the whole thing. Is it even possible for you to forget that your boyfriend/girlfriend is going to call you? Man, this pisses me off. Since I have no other avenue of venting my anger, other than almost breaking my phone, I decided to blog my piss out.

Man... I just realized I am an angry person. I need help.

Another Beginning

2006-04-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Another chapter of my life has ended and another has just begun. Quitting Warcraft was maybe the hardest decision I have made so far. I know, you think I am crazy. You will not understand if you do not take Warcraft as a religion like I did. I have been playing W3 ever since it was released in 2003. Then I moved on the Frozen Throne (TFT). We played all kinds of custom games e.g. TD, AOS, RPG, and almost everything downloadable under the sun.

For the past year, we (Kok and I) have been training hard in AT (Arranged Teams 2v2). We played almost everyday and at almost every opportunity we had. Also, throughout my W3 carreer, I have watched over 150 replays from various professional players and was inspired by great players such as Madfrog, Grubby and Satiini, all of whom have great strategy and skills.

Why all this nostalgia? Do I miss the game? Definitely. What comes as a surprise is that I did not feel or show any signs of withdrawal. I am perfectly comfortable with getting on with my life without W3. I have moved on. W3 was like a 2nd gf to me (Haha.. kidding). Why did I quit? I don't know. One day, I just felt like I wanted to quit computer games and get my act together. I quit ALL computer games; uninstalled all the games on my computer and now, I have so much space on my computer to download movies.

Well, no reason to fuss about quitting W3. It was a big decision. No regrets. Life goes on. Just felt like getting my shit together.

The week after

2006-03-22T14:16:00.000-08:00

What lies ahead after Spring Break? For starters, no, I did not go to the beach and oogle at hot babes in bikinis cut out of handkerchiefs. Though, now that I think about it, why didn't I do it? Well, of course, $MONEY$. If only I had money. *Daydreams*

OK, I snapped out of it. Well, this week is the week after Spring Break and everything has been going well so far. Light work load, post Spring Break catch-up by the professors (not that they are tired, just that they are letting the students get back on their feet). But good news all the way... so far.

For starters, something bad (REAL BAD) happened over break and of course, since this is a public blog, I will not go into details. But, I managed to resolve whatever the problem was, and hopefully, life can continue normally, now that all parties involved in this issue are relieved that the problem is over.

Next up, taxes. I just did my taxes (Yeah, I actually have important stuff to do!). During the course of this, I found out that the US government actually taxed my scholarship. How ridiculous!!?? What is the purpose of a tax on scholarships? It defeats the purpose of the scholarship. Retarded Americans. Anyways, it is also my fortune that I can reclaim this "substantial" amount from the government, although I will only receive the money god knows how long from now. Well, at least I get the money back. I feel richer.

*BONUS* Well I didn't really expect this, but my class has been cancelled tomorrow and I do not have to wake up at all. But the problem with me is, I wake up anyway. The good part is, I just got done with episode 13 of season 1 of the TV series, Numb3rs. So, that means, I might finish it by tonight or tomorrow, depending on whether Matt is kind enough to send me the rest of the episodes.

Oh well, life is sailing smoothly. About 2 more months and back to Malaysia I go, and in about 3 more months, I'll get to see my darling again.

Inspire me... Inspire me not...

2006-03-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder how does one get inspired? I don't mean motivated as in... motivated to do work when you are procrastinating, but actually inspired... when you feel like you really want to do that something that you know will make you feel great for the rest of your life. You ever had that kind of feeling?

Well, one way we often get inspired is through the experiences of others. It could be as simple as watching a movie, where you see how someone had to go through hardships to achieve the extraodinary, the feel good kind of movie where the ending is always happy. For example, a movie like "Miracle", where the US Olympic Ice Hockey team defeated the Soviet Union in the 1982 winter olympics when it was thought to be impossible. Anyways, watch it and you will understand. Another such movie would be "Remember the Titans". That is about American Football but the idea is similar.

But what I am trying to point out today is that, recently, I have been inspired by numerous people just by what they have said to me. As mentioned, I am not talking about mere motivation here. But the professors at Bucknell, make an effort to know your work and try their best to inspire you to do the best you can. That's what makes Bucknell different. A lot of people never spent the time to get to know their professors in universities. We tend to regard our professors as just mentors who are there only to impart knowledge upon us. However, at BU, the professors are more than just teachers. They are your friends. I will not go too far as to explain what exactly did some of my professors say to me that inspired me. But when I think about it further, I realize that it is not just the things that they say, but the way they say it. It is kind of gesture, the kind of sincerity and the kind of expression in their face that shows you that not only do they want to help you succeed, but it is their pleasure to see that you actually get where you want to go.

In other words, the professors at BU help you realize your dream. By realize, I do not mean help you find your path, but actually guide you along it. I have not been to any other university besides Bucknell. Hence, I cannot claim that Bucknell has this edge over other universities. However, having such great professors at Bucknell makes me honored to be here. In addition, in the Spring of 2007, I am hoping to study abroad at Melbourne University, one of the top universities in the world. I look forward to the difference in experience, and enrichment that I will get over there.

Ain't No Mountain Low Enough

2006-02-25T19:10:00.000-08:00

What the hell am I talking about? One of my friends actually asked me, "Shouldn't it be ain't no mountain high enough?" C'mon! I know what I am saying. I am not retarded. What I am trying to say is that there is nothing in life that is easy enough for my liking. Everything is just so damn hard at the moment. I thought I was gonna get a break with this easy semester, well guess what, God or whoever he is has a funny way of getting back at you. I have 12 hours of classes a week, a schedule that is the envy of every engineer on campus (I would say every student but then we have management majors here:P)

But I had to take Number Theory (Math 311) which is hard as heck. There's like so much crap that I don't even know and I thought I was done with proofs after Real Analysis (Math 308), but NO NO NO... I was far from done. Now instead of proving stuff about real numbers, I have to prove stuff about positive integers. How fun is that?

Another disappointment is Mathematical Statistics (Math 304). What the hell is this insanely difficult assignments. There are more proofs in that class too! Why, why, why me? Dammit... who in the world needs to know the maximum likelihood estimator of the sample distribution parameter? Do you even know what I am talking about? Gosh... Save Our Souls!!

The Big Debate

2006-02-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

The biggest debate in Bucknell right now is, "What do you do when you have to inbound the basketball when you are up 2 points with 2.8 seconds remaining?" Naming no names *ahem* DB *ahem* one of the guys in our men's basketball team chucked the ball right to the other end of the court with no one in sight. No one managed to even come close to touching the ball and hence the clock did not start. Northen Iowa inbounded from under Bucknell's basket and scored a 2 to tie the game. Bucknell eventually lost in double overtime.

How pissed are you as a Bucknellian? Some are pissed while others are disappointed. There are 1001 things anyone could have done. But due to time and space constraints, I shall provide you with my personal top 5.

5. Call a timeout (Bucknell had 2 remaining timeouts)
4. Chuck the ball up wherever and cause a free for all on the ball. (It's only 2.8 seconds)
3. Bring all your men up court and chuck it right there and cause a free for all. (Even if they get it, they need to bring the ball up court before they shoot)
2. Chuck it straight at an opposing team member and let it go out of bounds again
1. CHUCK THE BALL REALLY REALLY REALLY HARD at an opposing team member. (There's no way he can catch that)

All in all, a disappointing loss for Bucknell. Bye bye top 25.

Sick and Twisted

2005-10-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

Has anyone ever watched the movie "Saw"? If you haven't, you should! It's one of the sickest and most twisted movie I have ever seen in my life. I can still feel the chills down my spine as I speak about it. Imagine waking up in a bathroom, chained to a pipe with another stranger chained at the other corner of the pipe, and a dead man who shot himself in between the both of you. Your kidnapper leaves clues for you to escape and that's how the game begins. One of the given tools is that both men are expected to saw their ankles off so that they can escape from the chain. How sick is that? I leave the other sicker and more twisted things for you guys to find out. Saw II is coming out on October 28th 2005. So go watch the first part before you visit the cinemas this Halloween.

On another note, a continuation from the previous blog, the goals are set. All I have to do now is carry them out. I am falling far behind in Real Analysis Challenge problems. I dedicate this week's free time to clearing up some of the challenge problems. Back to work I go. Signing off...

On A Mission

2005-10-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

Well, I have finally come to my senses. After obtaining a B in my Real Analysis exam, I have finally decided to sit down and get my priorities straight. I have been relaxing too much, and distracting myself, procrastinating and postponing my work, all because I know that I will still get them done when I want to. This overconfidence/cocky-ness has to STOP! I have finally deleted all my computer games, except Warcraft, which is my mental gymnasium, and I have decided to get ahead in my studies, finish all homework at least 2 days before they are due. The most important step I feel in my evolution is that, I have classified my group of friends in my MSN Messenger. It is getting too distracting when I keep seeing people appear online and the temptation is really strong to message them especially when I haven't spoken to them for a long time. I decided to split them into three groups. The first group consists of people whom I need to survive, therefore essential to keep in touch with them, and the second group are the people whom I say hi to from time to time, but not vital to my survival, and of course, the third group are my very special fair-weathered friends. It's the "I don't need you, and have never spoken to you, but you sure as hell know how to find me when you need me" kinda people. So I hide the latter two groups of friends so that I have no idea who is online and hence am not able to message them unnecessarily. Such simple moves create such big differences. With that said, I am off to work. Signing out...

Storm before the calm...

2005-10-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

It's been two months since my last post.

Rule No. 1, never make promises you can't keep.
Rule No. 2, If you have to break promises, try not to do it too often.
Rule No. 3, If you have to break promises often, well, it's like how they say it, "Promises are meant to be broken".

What am I talking about? Well, I promised to update my blog really often and well, I kinda laid off for two months already. Life hasn't been going easy for me. If anyone of you ever consider taking Real Analysis (What the heck is that?), be prepared for a tonne of work, seriously, a tonne! For those of you who are wondering what the heck is Real Analysis, it's a mathematics course, you dumbo! Basically, it's a study of real numbers. We deal with functions and limits and stuff like that in the world of real numbers. "What is this guy talking about? Real numbers? As opposed to fake numbers?" No, once again, you dumbo, the converse is IMAGINARY NUMBERS! Gosh!

Anyways, I just had the worse day of my life this year followed by the best day on the next day. Funny how life works out ain't it? On Sunday (October 2, 2005) I managed to piss 2 people off (OK, maybe not piss, but break their hearts, disappoint, irritate, you name it, I did something bad, that's the bottom line) and one of them is someone who is very dear to me. My best friend, maybe not anymore. Well, that led to a horrible day because I could not concentrate on my homework at all. Being a Sunday, concentration was vital because the next day was a school dat and that means I HAVE to complete my homework. So I decided to take a nap and let my thoughts go to rest, but I still woke up with the same bothering thoughts. So what can I do? The obvious answer is to knock me head on the wall. NO! You silly! You actually thought I knocked my head on the wall.

The next day, however, proved to be the best day yet this academic year. I cannot say it's the best day this year in terms of a Gregorian year (Why doesn't this idiot speak proper English? What the heck is a Gregorian year? A Gregorian year is a calendar year, i.e. from January to December) because on many occasions during the summer (prior to the academic year) I had a number of great days with my beloved girlfriend, but that's another story. Anyways, why is Monday so good? Well, for starters, I got this surprise letter in the mail. No, my girlfriend did not write me, hmm... my day would have been better if she did, but I digress. What actually happened was I received a letter from the Office of Provost (What the heck is Provost? Sounds like a kind of cheese... NO! Dumbo! That's Provolone!). Well, they said I am the recipient of The Professor George Morris Phillips Prize for the student with highest standing in mathematics during the first year. The weird part about this letter was that it sounds so weird! Hahaha... Lemme explain. The sentence after they congratulated me reads "You can be very proud of your fine accomplishments, and I hope you will enjoy the good feeling that comes from knowing you have accomplished much". What the heck does that mean? It sounds as if, "Oh you CAN be proud, but I recommend you not to be, and I HOPE you enjoy the good feeling, because it won't last long... gosh... Doesn't even sound like a letter from the Provost. Haha...

Anyways, the second piece of good news is that the Intercollegiate chess tournament is back after being off for a few years because some universities cheated by offering "temporary scholarships" to Grandmasters. It will be held in Miami, Florida and I will definitely try my best to form a team to play in such a huge event. This is just so exciting!

Well, that's pretty much the good news for now. Rule No. 1, never make promises you can't keep. I promise to post again, soon.

What makes Malaysia, Malaysia

2005-07-26T23:45:00.000-07:00

1. Price of Proton in Malaysia is about the price of a Hyundai Sonata in the US

The price of a proton Gen-2 is about RM 53 000 (USD 14000) while the price of a Honda Sonata in Malaysia is RM 113 000 (USD 30 000). The price of a Hyundai Sonata in the US is just about USD 14 000, less than half of that of the price in Malaysia. I remember the reason (or excuse) given by the government was that our automobile industry was an infant industry and needed goverment protection. It has been 20 years (since 1985) since we assembled our own car (Proton Saga). I believe that by now, we should have become more efficient and manage to lower the costs of production. This will definitely allow Malaysians to enjoy lower-priced cars.

2. Shortening of passport live period during renewal (NO EXCEPTIONS... I think)

Just yesterday, I tried to renew my passport which had the expiry date of 27 July 2006. I was doing this because I might decide not to comeback to Malaysia next year. If this was the case, I would have an expired passport the next time I try to come back. This was precisely the reason I gave to the Immigration Department when I tried to renew my passport. They had refused to issue a new passport for me starting from my expiry date but only agreed to add six months to the date I renew my passport, which was yesterday, 25 July 2005. So my new expiry date is 25 January 2011 when it could have been 27 July 2011 (a six month difference which is worth RM 50). What is the reason for this?

These are the two things that just passed through my mind. If you have any "Malaysian" experiences you'd like to share, feel free to post comments or email me.

Life is a game... Chess is serious

2005-07-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

The annual Penang Chess League has recently been completed with my team, the Old Frees ++ (Plus Plus, not double check) winning by a margin of three points. This is by no means an amazing feat. But during the third week of the tournament, we had a scared as we only managed a "meagre" 3.5 point haul in round five and six. This was a horrendous result, watching our 2.5 point lead being cut to only 0.5 by the Mind Chess Enterprise Tutors who blew away OFA Balls2U and PACL A. Both Heng Meng and Cheng Teik could have performed better and we would have a secure final day of the tournament but it was not meant to be. Heng Meng drew both his games against Eoh Thean Keat (OFA Balls2U) and Tan Eng Seong (PACL B) while Cheng Teik drew with Chan Kim Chai (OFA Balls2U) and squandered a completely winning game to the eventual reserve board prize winner, Lim Chin Teng (PACL B).

Despite being only half a point ahead going into the final day, we still pushed on with full confidence, knowing that the Tutors now had to face two tough rivals while we will have a relatively easier time. We swept the last two games 3-0 against OFA D and Renesas A. I managed to score a perfect 8/8 as a bonus and hopefully a morale booster to continue playing chess. I have said time and again that I have quit playing chess for fun and will only play for money. Greedy as it may seem, I still believe that there are more productive things I can do with my time: like playing Warcraft III and talking to Baby.

So anyway, the 1st prize of this tournament was RM 1500 but we have to split it among four people and the way in which we decided to split the money is of course not pulicly disclosed. But I can assure you guys that I can now afford an MP3 player and perhaps buy something nice for my baby. As you can clearly see, chess has been my only source of income this summer. Four Sundays of leisure led to a net revenue of 300 bucks or so. Not too bad for a lazy bum like me.

Life... Oh Life...

2005-07-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

Things have been going on amazingly well for me this summer break. I have a wonderful girlfriend and I am working on a very relaxed schedule. This allows me to spend maximum time with Baby and also gives me a sufficient amount of stipend to survive over the summer. The remainder of the money I earn, I get to bring to the US, which will only mean my money will become quartered by the exchange rate. How horrible!

Anyways, I have been practicing a tiny bit of Warcraft, just to maintain my skills a little. It doesn't really help when I can't play on Battle.net. So all we do is play against pathetic AIs. However, I must say I was surprised when we (Kok and I) beat 3 Insane computers the other day. For those of you who wonder how computers can be insane, do not worry. These is geekspeak.

Another major event of my summer holidays is the Penang Chess League. It's an annual chess league held in KDU Penang and about 40 teams take part every year. The team event consists of 3 playing boards and 1 reserve. My team comprises veteran national player Chuah Heng Meng, former MSSM Champion Lim Cheng Teik, former state player Chan Kean Sheung and myself. We are once again, the top seeds of the tournament.

So far, after 4 rounds of play, we have lived up to our top billing by scoring 11.5 points out of a possible 12. This is an amazing feat as we managed to beat the Mind Chess Enterprise Tutors who had the likes of Khai Boon, Swee Leong and Ing Kiat, by a score of 3-0. Furthermore, in the next round, we also managed to beat PACL A in a convincing fashion by a score of 2.5-0.5. Hong Ghee, the unbeatable player from PACL drew with our first board, Heng Meng, while Cheng Teik and I managed to beat our opponents: Wong Kam Loong and Choong Yit Chuan respectively. Wong Kam Loong was a state player while Choong Yit Chuan was once a National Champion.

With 11.5 points after 4 rounds, the Old Frees ++ are leading by 2.5 points, a huge margin considering we are only halfway through the tournament. This Sunday, we are paired against PACL B, who are probably out to avenge the defeat of their A team. Hopefully, we don't get too cocky and I hope we can at least maintain our lead but ideally, we would like to win 3-0 to show our domination. *I am getting cocky ain't I?*

Oh well, this is pretty much it for now. I will update you people on how the tournament goes and tell you more about my job in the future.

Price of all things...

2005-06-23T05:24:00.000-07:00

Boy Meets Girl... $ 500
Boy Meets World... $ 1 000 000
Boy Gets Girl... Priceless

Boriii.... Yawnz......iing....

2005-06-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

I swore to myself I wasn't going to have such an idiotic holiday last year. What do I mean idiotic? Last year, after the A Levels, I did practically nothing for nine months until I went to the US. It was so boring and absolutely unproductive.

The cycle is repeating itself. It has been a month ever since I got back and I am glad to announce that I have been almost equally unproductive. The only productivity I have contributed to society ever since I got back was coaching Baby's sister in chess. That's a new challenge to me as I have neither coached a girl nor an under-12 kid (no offense to kids). Anyways, I feel that she is making good progress but just like all other forms of training, it must be incorporated with self-practice.

Well, other than that, I will be playing chess again this Sunday. As I have told people time and again, I have retired from playing chess for leisure. I only play for money now. It's the only way to make it worthwhile. Also, I have an ulterior motive. Haha... scheming bastard... Baby is also playing in the Chess League and we are just there to see each other. Sounds pathetic, but hey, we take what we can get.

Anyways, I have started writing a short horror story. I am going to make it so creepy it will make Stephen King cringe in his seat when he reads it. Haha... counting the chickens before they are hatched. Oh well... I shall take my time and see how things go.

Right now, I am going to clean my desk and make myself look like an efficient person. Yes, appearance is the first thing to achieve before we become who we want to be. If we want to be a businessman, we have to look like a businessman. If we want to become a lawyer, we have to look like a lawyer. That's life... Cest La Vie...

Sweet 21

2005-06-20T00:24:00.000-07:00

No, there is no pattern. I am not intentionally posting on even numbered dates only. I was dead tired yesterday. One of the happiest days of my life, and definitely the best birthday I have ever had. I went out in the morning to help Baby complete her folio and we went out for lunch at Saint's Alp. Had the best chicken bolognaise in my life while Baby had some pasta with virgin olive oil which left a serious olive oil taste in her mouth even hours after we had lunch:P

Well, we then watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith, in Gurney. It was an average movie I'd say, filled with snippets of humor and definitely does not warrant an 18-SG rating. One wonders who rates these movies. Well, this is the second time Baby has eluded the ticket collectors for an above 18 movie. Must have been my old look:(

After the movie, we went shopping for Baby's white shirt for her choir performance. Heck, one cannot imagine how hard it is to find a decent white shirt for a girl. Well, we had to deliberate for over 40 minutes in the fitting room over the shirt that she eventually bought. Yes... you heard me, we were deliberating.

Dinner was superb at Fish n Co. We ordered a Portuguese Chilli Crab each and I must say, dinner was delumptious. Aside from Baby splattering the chilli on her birthday present for me, I'd say everything was great... until Baby insisted on paying the for the food.

Here is a question for you. Should you, as a guy, pay for dinner on your own birthday or should you allow your girlfriend to pay for you? I mean, my manhood is being questioned here. Well, beside the fact that I have treated her to lunch and dinner and the movies the past few times, but isn't giving a girl a good life a man's job? Well, I'd like to know what you think about this.

We went to shop even more after dinner. I don't understand why guys hate shopping that much. Haha... I am not a pussy but seriously, there are fun things about shopping. Anyways, I drove her back to her housing area at about 9.30 p.m. and dropped her back at her house at about 10.20. At the end of the day, I can assure you, it never felt better to be 21:)

Livin' La Vida Loca

2005-06-18T04:46:00.000-07:00

Living Good Life. Living Crazy Life. Today was perhaps one of the happiest of my life. I was treated to perhaps one of the most expensive lunches of my life by my girlfriend's mom, and I got a really nice red Nike t-shirt from my Baby and her sister. Lunch was a semi buffet. I ordered the main course of spicy chicken with mushroom sauce and that was super:) But it was perhaps one of the few times in my life that I got the opportunity to taste fresh salmon.

You must understand that I am from a modest upbringing. Luxurious food has never been my staple diet. I cannot help but feel touched by Baby's mom's kind gesture. This is beyond my wildest imaginations. I also had insane dessert. 3 pieces of cake. I got this mousse that Baby told me to get and it sucked so I didn't finish it. Yuck! Haha...

Oh well, in short, it was a great day. Except for the fact that I have to finish off Baby's PJK Folio just so that she has time to go out with me tomorrow. Cruel life. Oh well, if today was great, I can't wait for tomorrow. I am gonna be freaking 21!

A New New Beginning

2005-06-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

New Blogs. Every new blog brings new promises. This is my latest blog and it seemed so much easier to update compared to my previous one just because I created everything myself in the previous one. So I had to manually add the links to my previous posts and they were becoming a real pain.

As I was saying, new blogs bring new promises. I am more or less an organized person and I like to keep track of my life. The last blog was a mess. However, I have decided to keep a few of the links that I am really proud of in this page. Those include pictures and my ever magnificent map of Bucknell. That was one heck of a project. Those of you who don't know what I am talking about, check the link out.

A lot has been going on with my life. Some things happen that can't even be described in words. Hence' I will not try. But I will add more gibberish in the future. Til then...