imperial college - a mental institute?

it's not because i'm gonna be mad.. but imperial college mech eng dept, or rather its "beautiful" exterior is being used by hollywood for a scene in the sequel of basic instinct. you know the one where sharon stone infamously showed some stuff between her legs whilst not wearing any knickers? so, the film people were here in imperial for two days, sat and sun to film whatever there was of imperial. anyway, i didn't see sharon. or see them filming, but apparently, according to suzi, imperial was being used as the backdrop of a mental institute. thinking about it, it does look a bit of a mental institute. not that i've been to one. but ya, the environment can look a bit mental.

yup, but the exams is making me go mad. power is driving me crazy. i thought it was simple. it looks simple in the notes. it looks short and sweet. until you try the problem sheet. and worse, the exam papers. knnbccb. it's like wtf. i'm like i dunno how to do lor. so i'm damn sian. but wah lan eh. if i cant do power, i don't have to do the paper since fields and devices are shit too. so.. i have to go on. i feel crap la. but wah lan. what else is there to say or do? but to study on.. and go on.. my heart will go on.. as if..

so anyway, i'm worried that maths will go down because of the exertion i have by the power, fields, devices paper. hope everything will go well. it's really annoying la. annoying that they put three consecutive papers. mental institute indeed.

its getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes

yeahyeahyeah. the hottest day of the year in london. a great big total of 28 degree celsius. it's really hot. not sacarsm intended. can't imagine being back in singapore. so anyway, today was my third paper. very nice. very delicious indeed. but before i do my analysis on it, shall talk about other stuff..

did you know there existed a blog by a singaporean that supposedly clocks 8000 hits a day? no? ok, i'll give you the link. www.xiaxue.blogspot.com
apparently, this girl xiaxue won some award for best asian blog or something. didn't know they gave such awards. and no, i didn't surf upon it randomly cos i was sadly surfing through the next blog function on my blog. i was reading straits times online and saw it. so there you go. anyway, this blog is quite entertaining. a lot of vulgarities, a lot of pictures, a lot of comments. so go read it. it's pretty pink too.

another blog that i highly recommend... "ok, i don't highly recommend the first one, but you should read it since it's popular"... is http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=nevillenah
my friend neville nah. not a very close friend. but close enough to read his blog. still, eewen who doesn't know him read his blog religiously. so, goes to show that it's a blog full of intellect and humour. i enjoy reading it. it's funny, humourous (ok same meaning), sacarstic, yet educational and rational. so go read it. neville's blog. not gary or philip. but nah's. now to control..

control paper

comments:
told the rest this would be alright. no stunners. just an allwright paper. standard stuff. very happy that i memorised the whole chunk of compensators. and also, thanks to the indian guy in the library, he made me go through nyquist diagrams a thousand times. anyway, special thanks goes out to lim and kai, who have helped me overcome the fear of nyquisting. i'm glad they taught me. if not, i'll be complaining now.

passability:
i'll still complain though. about not getting full marks. no, not being arrogant. just being truthful. quite alright paper set by allwright. so.. sad i failed to answer a few questions correctly. but anyway, it's over. very very passable. i'll demand for a re-count if i fail this. i'll be surprised if i didn't get an A. so, hope this pulls up my 2 previous papers. score at 30min: 2 - 1

next: power, fields and devices on tuesday. maths 3 on wed. maths 4 on thu. crazy week next week. may the power be with us. i need a lot of power to overcome the field of questions and devise some method to do the maths. weightage next week 25%. let there be life..

Amazing Comeback..!

44
mins
Liverpool have been completely outplayed in this first-half. Milan's front three have been breathtaking; Crespo and Shevchenko have made some fantastic runs, and Kaka has consistently found them.

45
mins
The Liverpool fans look stunned; they knew it was a tough task to beat this excellent Milan side, but I don't think they expected to get torn apart.

46
mins
HALF-TIME: Surely that's game over. Liverpool have been destroyed in the first 45 minutes, offering nothing going forward and being ripped apart at the back.

91
mins
FULL-TIME: We will have half-hour of extra-time after Liverpool produced a stunning comeback to get themselves in to the match.

120
mins
MILAN 2-3 LIVERPOOL: Shevchenko tries to be cute. He succeeds only in chipping the ball lamely at Dudek and making himself look like a fool. LIVERPOOL WIN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE!!!!

i might have shot myself in the foot..

yeah, delphi exam today. shot myself in the foot. i didn't think enough. not think about the questions, but think about scoring marks. first question was a giver. but i should have shown my methods of getting the answers for first few parts. now, if i've made any careless mistakes, my marks will all go down the drain. it was an okay paper. not easy, not difficult. but it's all about persuading the marker that you deserved the marks innit? don't think i did that enough and it's demoralising me a bit. oh, kai apparantly didn't do that well for 2nd part. but i guess, kai, you shouldn't worry 'cos you'll still do well for it. i hope the same happens for me. two papers and i feel totally drained. this is not a nice feeling. crap...

delphi paper

comments:
fairly ok paper as everyone would agree. nothing much to say about it, since if you've got it, you've got it.

passability:
very passable. A-able? i don't know. i keep thinking if i did alright-ish and the marker is happy, i'll get an A. but i should stop thinking about external circumstances and focus on what i can do. i'm becoming reliant on probabilites and possibilities that moderation is gonna happen. this isn't good. yeah, this paper is not about passing, it's about scoring high enough to cover my ass for the next 8. but looks like, it's gonna contribute very little to that. sigh..

next paper: control on friday. i have to stop sighing and start working again. this is not nice as i say it a second time. the feeling of ending one paper and having to start revising 100% for the next..

the start

i've decided i'll blog a bit after every exam i take. this way, i can take a break and vent all my frustrations before i continue studying for the next paper. doing ee in imperial isn't easy. this is of course not helped by the new lecturers coming into imperial. one particular one comes from stanford with cap 4.17. nabar the great. i have no issues against him and see him only as a step up for imperial ee. however, for my own personal well-being, his presence has led to a new "challenge" in our signals paper. before today, signals was an alright subject to take and pass. today..

signals paper

comments:
i'll stop a little short of using f-word-ing hard to describe the paper. everyone agrees with me i think. but you never know. some might have been able to overcome the "challenge"

passability:
really don't know. i'm believing in the power of moderation. i have to. i have to hope that everyone else did as badly as or worse than me. sorry other people...

tomorrow: algorithms and data structure or data structure and algorithms (depending on which is the tree and which is the child). in layman terms, computing language.. i'll be back..

a boy named chatura..

this is a short story written in admiration for a boy named chatura..
chatura is a boy living in the imperial college library.
as of what i know, he's a student in imperial.

a boy named chatura

there is a boy named chatura
it seems like he have lots of chakra*
tanned, broad-shouldered and 7 foot tall
he probably could answer kaileng's call

every day, he's present on the fifth floor
although it is quiet, stuffy and all
but in the midst of the sheer silence
chatura showed his great balance

he danced to the rhythm of funky rock beats
his robotic trances were no easy feats
his moves reminded me a lot of jacko
and he certainly was no ordinary wacko

the students were tired as the time went by
but dancing chatura was still very high
as the final burst of revision came to an end
what chatura was doing, i still can't understand

*chakra = energy of some form (naruto term)

nightmares..

wah lan eh. i just wanna be like junsheng and spout all the vulgarities here. but nevermind, i shall hold my breath and count to ten. this year's exams is really wah lan eh i tell you. it's the most wah lan eh ever. a levels was alright, studied like shit, but could understand most of the stuff and could do most of the questions. even had the time to go through the syllabus a few times. this time, it's really wah lan eh. go through at most one time. can't register anything can't remember anything and can't do anything. ok la, it's not that bad, but it's the worst exams i've ever prepared for.

no wonder, all of us are starting to have nightmares. i don't know if it's good or bad. i think nightmares can be quite good and useful actually. if i had a nightmare about flunking my exams, when i wake up, i'll probably be motivated to study harder. if i had a nightmate about not knowing how to do certain questions, at least it's only a nightmare and not a reality yet. so i guess nightmares are not too bad. since they're firstly not real. secondly, they can prepare you for the real thing. and of course, they don't usually come true. like dreams.

but what if, it does come true. then wah lan eh. i will wanna shout out like junsheng.

a morning of fun.. an afternoon of work..

it's 3.20pm now. and i've done everything but study. but i shall not whine about the exams anymore. i woke up fairly early today. then watched some naruto with suzi before cooking bak kut teh. i love bak kut teh. it's one of the best chinese food around. and, i can cook it fairly well. not that it's difficult though. haha. so we went grocery shopping and watched more naruto. i must say it's addictive, but annoying when they do the flashbacks so many times. still, it's a great anime.

so, now i'm here in the bio com lab. it's conducive because it has few people in it. no noisy sh*ts like in the library. a lot of space. and a lot of computers. it's not conducive because it has wonderful internet connection. it's too troublesome to explain why i chose to subject myself to computer temptation. anyway, it's two weeks to the exams. i'm just looking forward to the post-exam period. then, i can start worrying about packing up our stuff, moving house and returning to singapore, where all will be cheap and well. i need this break man. not that it's much of a break in the navy. but at least i can rest my brains for a bit. looking forward to meeting my family and friends. of coure, i'll miss you.. you and you uk people.

there's nothing else to blog about except..

exams. yeah, there's frankly nothing else worth blogging about. exams take centre stage in all of our lives at the present moment. people have been asking me out. but i have to kindly refuse their tempting offers, because it simply is not right to have fun at this moment. the amount of money we spent on food, fees, accomodation, transportation, fun.. the amount is gonna be justified by the end results of our exams. if we do well, money well spent. if i don't, then it's a waste of money. and time. yup, time is indeed precious when you have less than 3 weeks to your exams. it's disturbing, but exams have become our masters. we've become the slaves of exams. exams no longer serve their purpose of testing our knowledge and judging how much we've learnt in our course. rather, we've succumbed under the pressure of results and worshipped exams. everything we do now are for the exams. if we are gonna do anything other than for the exams, it might just haunt us in late august, early september.

on the brighter side of life, raj, marvin, suzi and me are gonna share a house next year. i expect to have loads of fun, hair-plucking, laughters and certainly, some unavoidable conflicts. after all, conflicts always occur when people live together. nevertheless, i'm sure my future housemates are mature and good people. so kenway's gonna rock!

watching liverpool and psv outplay their opponents in the champs league also proved something. talent is not everything. hardwork combined with some level of skill is the key to success. i certainly need that sort of luck the scousers had. lucky me.