Sudden Death

When tragedy strikes, it is often sudden and unexpected.

After more than a decade of using the computer, my hard disk failed on me for the first time. Was watching videos online when the BSOD suddenly appeared, which shut down everything, and the computer was unable to boot up anymore. The clicking hardware sound only meant harddisk death. The bewildering thing is, my com has been doing fine for the past several months. No sign of crash at all...sigh.

That means all my data is lost...

Luckily I did an unintended backup last year, while shifting from Windows XP to Windows 7. Unfortunately those files were deleted. I'm in the process of recovering these items now, though some might become corrupted. Hope everything goes fine...

However that doesn't change the fact that I've lost data after this period.

Luckily it's still the start of the semester and there is no ongoing projects yet. Would go crazy if my harddisk crashes in the midst of FYP or any major projects.

Other than purchasing a new harddisk, one thing I can do psychologically now is to convince myself that those files I've lost are not very important and needed.

Photos: It's the experience of being there that counts. Being able to see something with your own eyes is what that matters, rather than just capturing the image with a camera. I don't often look back at the old photos anyway.

School documents: The past semesters are over, so who cares? It's the grades that will follow me along throughout. I've no juniors to hand over my stuff anyway.

Misc pictures/music/videos: I can always download them again through the net. I hardly listen to mp3 (or other music files) anyway.

Misc documents: There are probably important ones within, like records, resume etc. But if I can't recall, they are probably not that important after all...


It's time like this when I realised there are lots of saviors around me, which helped to protect and preserve my files.

Camera: Although it gets really annoying when you are snapping away and the memory card becomes full, it was a good decision to have kept the important photos in the camera and not deleting them even after transferring them into the computer. Those that I've deleted can't be recovered, but at least I can still re-transfer the remaining ones to my new harddisk again.

Blogspot: Photos of my overseas trips uploaded in blog posts can be retrieved from the google albums. I wonder if there is any convenient way to archive our entries easily into the hard drive without using the brute method...just in case blogspot were to shut down for some reason or another.

Facebook: Uploaded photos remain there. Like blogspot, I wonder if there is an easy way to download all the photos in my album, as well as tagged photos, at one go.

Email: Attachments in sent and received emails can be re-downloaded again. I don't usually delete mails unless necessary (eg. mailbox full).

File sharing sites (Dropbox etc): Documents shared during projects among members can still be found, although there is little meaning in downloading them again...

Youtube: It feels pretty weird to download my own videos. The quality won't be there anymore, as compared to the original. (As if my videos are high-quality right from the start...)

Thanks to all these online storages, I could retrieve a significant portion of my lost files. But personal/private documents and photos are probably lost forever...

This incident kinda reflects how unpredictable things can be. Maybe one day I would meet with an accident and die just like that.

The Liberated Holiday

Hmm am I slow or something? After reading the papers last week, I realised that Children's Day is no longer 1st October from this year onwards.

Apparently this change came after parents complained that their children cannot enjoy the holiday, which always falls during the exam season. This is especially so for Primary 6 students taking PSLE.

Therefore Children's Day has been scheduled on the first Friday of October, which is 7th October this year. This is to let students (and probably teachers too) enjoy the long weekend. The PSLE exams this year have been pushed forward before this date too.

This is true for Teachers' Day, which will fall on the first Friday of September. Primary school students can look forward to two long weekends during this period.

This would mean that Children's Day and Teachers' Day will no longer be remembered as a fixed date. More importantly, my birthday is not Children's Day anymore. =( Though it's still China's National Day (for eternity perhaps).

Well, it's not that holidays without a fixed date isn't the norm anyway. Mothers' Day (2nd Sunday of May), Fathers' Day (3rd Sunday of June), and Youth Day (1st Monday of July) follow such system too, though they are often confused with other weeks. Ethnic and religious public holidays like Hari Raya Puasa/Haji, Deepavali, Vesak Day, Good Friday, as well as the coming Chinese New Year, do not fall on a fixed date, though some are more predictable than others. Non-holiday festivals like Mooncake Festival, Dumpling Festival, Thaipusam, etc are easily forgotten, while special ones like April Fool's Day and Valentine's Day are still very much remembered as a fixed date.

In generations to come, Children's Day won't be associated with October 1st anymore. There is still a small chance it will fall on that date. Ok at least the chance is larger than Mooncake Festival falling on that date.

Other than childhood memories I had for this special Children's Day, I guess it doesn't hold any much significance for me anymore. Whether it falls on which day, is no longer a great concern to me.

Then why am I still writing this entry? Haha...so contradictory.

"Spoonfeeding Theory" wins hands down

Whenever someone rants about how terrible a module is, some righteous person will come by and downplay the grievance with the 'no-spoonfeeding' concept.

"Die liao, I dun understand what the lecturer was saying."

"The notes are so lousy, so hard to read!"

"Wah lau the exam questions so difficult, all never teach one."

"Why no derivation for this equation?"

"Why no answers?"

"Why no webcast?"

The above complaints can be simply, or conveniently, countered by this powerful word called 'spoonfeeding'. Specifically, this 'no-spoonfeeding' concept argues that university students should study on their own and not rely on lecturers and classes for information.

Thanks to this mighty term, insufficiencies of lecturers and their lessons are being rationalized. Their approach, no matter how lacking, is being defended by the ultimate 'no-spoonfeeding' principle. Students are usually left to fend on their own, thus creating a dog-eat-dog situation at the ground.

On the other hand there are some lecturers who have no idea how to spoonfeed, although they are willing to. They think they are spoonfeeding, but are actually using a fork instead. The students end up suffering from the piercings, getting further confused by their unnecessary elaborations and haphazardly prepared notes.

It cannot be denied that spoonfeeding should not apply in universities, but there is no clear line drawn between 'spoonfeeding' and mere 'inadequacy'. No one can clearly define what extent constitutes to spoonfeeding and what extent remains as a fundamental obligation by an educator. Apparently this judgment is often left to the lecturers to decide.

Some believe lecturers do not teach, but act as facilitators. Like how parents give their children cash and let them buy their own food. Sometimes the problem is that the children do not know which food is nutritious and which is unhealthy. Parents try to guide them but they tend to make the wrong choices. If parents tells their children what to buy, is that considered spoonfeeding? How about buying for them instead? The answer is clear in this case, but when applied to the university context, it is hard to tell.

The underlying principle, which most will agree, is that students should do their best in studying while lecturers do their best in teaching. Students pay for tuition fees while lectures get paid by the university. It is a kind of service industry, technically speaking. If the consumer (student) does not receive the expected goods (knowledge) from the producer (lecturer), can a complaint be lodged to CASE?

Before you do anything rash, think again who holds control over the most important determinant in university education - our grades.

Copycats

At the start of the semester, the photocopying room in the library is full of people busy zapping textbooks and notes. Yea, I am one of them too, after I'm convinced that it's not very worth buying the costly textbooks that will only be used for one semester. Not all chapters of the textbook will be covered, and selling textbooks used by higher level modules with fewer intake might be difficult. With module syllabus spanning over more than 1 book, it seems like photocopying selected chapters is the only viable solution.

That's not really kind to the trees, but when are educational institutions ever environmental-friendly? Their paper usage is alarming.

Wonder which genius invented the photocopying machine. Just by having a single book in the RBR, everyone can have the same copy of materials. But the poor book has to suffer repeated treatment of being opened 180-degrees flat, and being pressed hard onto the scanning surface. Some stiffer-bound books, which can't bend so much, have some of their pages almost dropping out already.

Environmentally speaking, it's probably better to photocopy books than to buy it, especially if it's two pages to one side. I suppose more resources are being used in producing books. However, there is always this copyright issue that looms in the background.

Thanks to incompetent lecturers and poorly-made lecture notes, students often feel so insecure that they have to get hold of the textbook (or a copy of it), even though they might not use it eventually. In some cases it's as though the textbook serves as a primary material, while lectures are supplementary. Might as well abolish lectures and just provide a list of modules and their corresponding textbooks.

Apparently in universities of other countries too, textbooks are the main source of information as little can be gained from the lectures. This brings me to another point, which I'll talk about next time (hopefully).

Alone is OK?

Read the recent Straits Times article about NUS students trying to advocate that it's ok to eat alone in campus. If someone has to step out and address this issue, it tells about the scale of such problem.

My stand is, indeed, I try to avoid eating alone in the canteen. I think it's more of a personal preference rather than due to social stigma. It's like - everyone knows it's ok to eat spicy food, but some people just don't like to. It is not we will get cancer or die from eating spicy food or something.

When I'm alone and hungry in campus, I'll usually buy waffles, pastries, kueh, finger food and such, and eat along my way or find an empty bench. The bench is often clean enough for me to take out my lecture notes or tutorial sheets to read. I wouldn't do the same on an oily canteen table.

The great thing is, I don't usually have to settle my meals alone. Quite thankful for the companionship I have in school.

I wouldn't know how to reply if I were to be asked the survey questions as published in the ST article. "How often do you eat alone in campus? Never? Once or twice a week? Or always?"

I've eaten alone in the canteen before, but not as often as once or twice per week. In my two-and-half years in NUS, I think I can count the number of times I sat at the canteen table alone eating a proper meal, with my both hands. Unless I want to try something new, or I'm really hungry to the extent that mere waffles and pastries cannot satisfy my hunger, I would just settle for convenient snacks.

This bring me to another great thing - I get full easily when eating carbohydrates like bread and bakery items like cakes, pastries and waffles. Maybe I don't actually get full, but my stomach feels satisfied enough. No need for meat and vegetable dishes.

If I really have to eat alone, I would of course avoid the peak hours at all costs. Wouldn't want to weave through the narrowly spaced tables/seats and the crowded walkway in search of an empty seat, while carrying a tray with a bowl of hot noodles. Worse thing is not being able to find one after making a complete round about the canteen. Looking for a 'suitable target' to share seats with, can be a hassle too.

A simple solution for this problem. Takeaway lor. (But keep the study benches clean please!)

Thinking that those who eat alone have no friends? How superficial. Thinking that those who eat alone are losers? How ridiculous. If our supposedly well-educated university students have this kind of mentality, that's really deplorable.

Then again, other people don't really give a damn when they see someone eating alone. They will be either busy enjoying their food or chatting with their friends. Ultimately it's the self that creates such anxiety - "The only person who minds so much is yourself."

Unfortunately I've cultivated a bad habit of doing something else while eating at home, for example watching dramas, TV, doing homework, surfing net or reading newspapers. This explains my slow eating speed, for those who witnessed it before. So if I've nothing to do except just eating when I'm having meals alone outside, I would feel really really bored haha. I'm not particularly interested in people-watching either.

I remember bringing a lunch-box (contains bread only) to school during a semester when I had continuous lessons without break from 8am to 5pm. Rushing a meal during the 10 min buffer between lessons? Nah.

Eating in a restaurant alone? Nah too. Not worth to pay so much for the ambiance and comfort I don't need.

The Venerable Island

Sri Lanka is not a common tour destination. Most people would probably travel to India instead. If not for this trip, I don’t think I’ll ever venture to Sri Lanka at all. Would like to thank Deutsche Bank, YF and ZH for giving me the opportunity to explore this lesser-known country, fully subsidized.

Most of my knowledge on Sri Lanka comes from my Sec 3 Social Studies textbook, where the conflict issue between Sinhalese and Tamils is raised as a case study. Thanks to that topic, my understanding of the country is not totally zero (at least I know Sri Lanka is an island…). However this trip has changed my initial impression of the country from being a conflict-ridden land to an exotic and scenically beautiful place. The civil war has already ended FYI.

The food reminds me of the dishes I had from the Indian stall at Engin canteen. Curry and potato seem to be the staple for every meal. Since we had most of our meals at Western restaurants, the taste and spiciness of the food should have already been toned down. So the flavour is not really authentic per se.

Most meals were served in buffet style, so I shouldn’t complain much, though I felt their bread wasn’t very nice (too prata-ish) and the sushi tasted weird. The desserts were great, although some were extremely sweet. Also came across spicy biscuits, oily cake, boiled jackfruit which tasted like mashed potato, and drank a tea which had far too much sugar.

Other than a few designated tourist-orientated shops, there isn’t much one can shop in Sri Lanka. Street shops usually sell daily commodities and groceries. It’s common to see little stalls set up along the roadside selling things like fruits, fish, flowers and even toys. You can see these stalls even at remote mountain roads, where you’ll wonder where customers can come from.

We spent more than 90% of the time outside the more developed capital. There are no ‘expressways’, just major roads which don’t look very major as they have only one lane in each direction. Because of this, overtaking is very common, albeit dangerous. Bigger vehicles with more powerful engines keep on the divider line (the pseudo-middle lane), overtaking smaller and slower vehicles like the 3-wheelers and bicycles, and then swerve quickly back into lane just before the vehicle from the opposite direction zooms past. Near-misses which could possibly result in a head-on collision along the middle overtaking lane seem to be very frequent, but thanks to the locals’ superb driving skills, the accident rate is quite low (I suppose). I didn’t witness any traffic accident at all throughout the whole journey.

Traffic lights are non-existent outside the capital. Drivers often have to make their own judgement on whether to move or stop. Major junctions are either controlled by traffic police, or exist as roundabouts. If I were to drive there, I think I’ll meet with an accident every few minutes. And oh, cows will wander to the road and dogs treat the road as their sleeping ground, so motorists have to be very cautious of such oblivious animals too.

Thanks to the haphazard traffic flow, it’s easy to get nauseous as the bus swerves left and right, trying to bring us to our destination as fast as possible. Most journeys between towns were long, thus making bus rides an agony. Well, this is coming from a pampered city dweller after all.


Oh I've compiled a simple amateurish video on the trip. The clips I took wasn't particularly interesting though. Hope you enjoy it anyway.