Thoughts from a Techie

Just finished my lunch and got half an hour left to a group project meeting. Figured I could squeeze some time for a short story. Not entirely NTU-related but I'm still tagging it as such. So the other day my friend and I were having a group project meeting (not the same project as half an hour later). It's a paired assignment for Engineering Communications where we are required to submit a technical proposal. Being the Microsoft Office expert I am, I showed her how to use the APA reference features in Word, which I learned during my Project Work days in JC. And the conversation subject naturally switched to my PW project. And when it comes to a PW project, the most representative document would be the Written Report. Of course all my PW materials are long gone from my hard drive so I relied on my 5 years and counting of Gmail archives. Sure enough it was there. Written report 18 Oct OFFICIAL.docx. Turned out the structure of our WR has much in common with the structu...

It's been an insanely busy few weeks thanks to what happened during part 2 and assignments & projects starting to kick in. It's university life, deal with it. Still need to keep writing nonetheless. So far the series have been delayed by 2 weeks and counting but anyways here's part 3. Part 3: Cooking. Another cost cutting measure. Since I started living in NTU when meals were concerned I had always followed this schedule: breakfast at home - 4 slices of bread with jam/ whatever bread spread I had available & a cup of milk with cereal; lunch at school canteen wherever's convenient; dinner at Canteen 1/2, depending on whether I needed to get supplies afterwards (which often includes bread and spread). Not too shabby at all. Breakfast was full, lunch was enjoyable especially when I could afford the time and effort to get to NIE canteen and enjoy the $3 specials from the Chinese store plus friends are always awesome; dinner was replenishing. But it didn...

7h sáng ngủ 11h dậy. Ăn sáng đến 12h thấy trời man mát đầu ngao ngáo lại lên giường ngủ tiếp đến 3h rưỡi chiều. Thấy bao nhiêu người tag ảnh & tag mình vào các post và comment sến, máu sến nổi lên, mất 1 tiếng đi liên hệ lấy con lenovo bị bỏ rơi ở LKC hôm qua về chỉ để viết mấy dòng... sến. Phần 2: 2/9. Thực ra thì cái series này mình phải viết xong trong vòng 2 ngày kể từ bài đầu tiên (posted chủ nhật tuần trc). Đã plan sẵn mọi thứ từ trước rồi mà. Nhưng ở đời thì mấy ai theo được plan. Thứ 6 là làm 2/9, mà đã làm 2/9 thì phải rực rỡ =)) Thế là gần như ngày nào cũng thức đêm. Mà thức chủ yếu là vì log comm. Nói thật mình yêu anh em log comm vl. Em yêu anh Hùng Fly vl. Mặc dù là cụm trưởng phải đi lo cho toàn bộ các công việc liên quan đến 2/9 của cụm nhưng anh vẫn dành thời gian đi làm log với em. Vẫn còn nhớ ngày hôm ấy đi mua đồ làm log quên cả thời gian về muộn không đến được meeting của team liaison gọi điện xin lỗi chị Bình xin chị cho em đến muộn một tí không ngờ res...

This post is a significant one. Why? Because this is the first one I write on my shiny new laptop. More on that later. As the title suggests, lots of things are going on in my life at the moment. Everything is in full swing: studies, ECAs, even the "other" things. Extremely busy. Much of the development, however, happened in the span of the last 4-5 days. I'll split my post into many parts, each part on a certain development. Part 1: Cycling. The most significant development in my opinion. I have always wanted to get a bike. Two main reasons: good exercise; and the more important one, my pocket - my need to travel costs me quite some money. Imagine just a simple task of grocery shopping at Jurong Point takes me .77 a leg (or 1.54 a round trip). And I make such trips every other day. Then a good soul saved the day. A good friend/ senior sold me his (largely) unused bike for $80. First ride is always the most memorable. This first ride had the distinction of bei...

Shake It Off is one of these songs... The first time you listen to it, it sounds like shit. But then you keep listening. The 13th time you listen to it, it actually feels like an okay song... Then you keep listening. The 131st time you listen to it... THIS IS DOPE AS HELL!!! Of course this kind of stuff doesn't happen to all my Taylor Swift songs. Not even many of them - just 2 years ago for example, Never Ever was an instant favorite of mine. I have to admit this song is one hard to swallow because it's so much different from anything she's ever put out (true for every new release, but none as profound as this one. Again compared to 2 years ago with Red already considered a giant leap towards pop). But then it still has the quirkiness that made Never Ever so likable. And it was accompanied with a music video. And a brilliant one. I have to wait for more songs to be released and most importantly for HMV to carry the physical deluxe album with gifts so...

Was trying to forge new $1 coins for laundry. Put an old $1 coin into the sandwich machine (somewhere near Canteen A) & pushed the coin return button. And nothing came out. I pushed the button again and again and again... and nothing came out. A few people have already passed by the machine since then & they all noticed 2 weird things: one, there is one guy walking back and forth around the area looking like an idiot, and two, there is $1.00 displayed on screen... but no one decided to buy a sandwich. COME ON PEOPLE $1 DISCOUNT TURN DOWN FOR WHAT while I'm thinking hard on how to get back that $1... Okay so there are a few ways around this problem: 1. Put a $10/5/2 note into the machine, buy a sandwich and take the change. Tried my $10 notes, rejected. Changed my $10 note into 2 $5 ones, put one in the machine, also rejected. $2 notes are useless because $3 - sandwich = $.70 which kinda defeats the purpose of forging $1 coins. And basically wasting money on ot...

This is an awesome place. Well that's what people who belongs to that institution (almost) always say about it. I'm not officially an NTU undergrad until tomorrow after online matriculation exercise & medical check-up result, and I've just checked in on Saturday. Regardless, it's still an awesome place. 1) The pioneers of Pioneer Hall (from now on referred to as "18" because I want it that way - probably because it sounds like the way Hunger Games districts are referred to). Being a foreigner, staying in a hall is an obvious and simple choice. Even when I've already been in Singapore for more than 4 years, I obviously don't have the confidence and the money to go out there and rent a HDB flat. But when the actual results came in and the new 18 popped up, I was disappointed, for they assigned me the most expensive double aircon room out there when I explicitly stated my intentions for a non-aircon room together with my roommate (teaser: he...