While I Live, I Learn

If it doesn't rain tomorrow morning, I should be cycling to PJC. Soap, shampoo, shoes, towel and a change of clothes are waiting for me at my desk. I think I have socks there, but will bring a pair just in case. Oh, and will bring along a cheap little raincoat. I hope there isn't something I've overlooked! A belt!

They are still having their mid year examinations, and I've just completed my share of the marking. Lessons start next week, so I'm looking forward to interacting with them via mechanisms other than through the exchange of scriptons, which are a type of virtual particles mediating the force of subject mastery.

There was an RI reunion last Saturday, which was pretty fun! The two conditions for proper reminiscence are people and place, both of which were present on Saturday night. A very respectable turnout from 4F. Question on many people's minds was "Where is Ruimin?"

I really need to make sure I keep fit. After all, I need to take IPPT this year. I should set some target for myself, like maybe 10 chin-ups. My latest triglyceride levels are good, but my LDL cholesterol levels are pretty bad.

40 Minutes

That's the time it took me to travel the distance from my place to Pioneer JC by bike on Thursday. Moderately brisk pace with minimal load. It's roughly 10.5 km according to the street directory.

This is comparable to the time it takes for me to walk to the Boon Lay bus interchange, wait for and take bus 180, then walk to PJC. The one time I took that bus (which goes along the same route as the one I cycle along), the journey was about 25 minutes. If I don't take a feeder bus, it's still a 10 minute walk to the school from the bus stop.

Will try to cycle to school when I can, once I figure out the necessary (where to park my bike, where to shower, shoes and clothing arrangements). Traffic and timing might be tricky. Should avoid rush hour. Weather needs to cooperate. Cannot be carrying much stuff when cycling.

Exercise is good for you. So is the feeling of overtaking a car.

New Bicycle

Aleoca Crossbreed X.5 700C 21 Speed Hybrid Bike, from Carrefour (Plaza Singapura).

Raison d'être: occasional commute from home to work and back so I have one more way to incorporate exercise into my daily routine.

Friday

So, met Boon Tat and Andy for lunch and for a run after work. They're still wearing the same army uniform from 4 years ago. As you may remember, I don't fit anymore. I wouldn't survive a day in OCS.

Came home then went to meet Jasper, passed him his laptop. Installed OpenOffice.org for him. He says there are now 3 "the one"s.

Going running again tomorrow morning. When I have to go around the MINDEF building I take the stairs whenever possible. So I get to office quite out of breath. Vertical marathons are insanely difficult. Not that horizontal ones are any easier...

Think I caught a glimpse of Ruimin as I was going into the lift with Yinglan. He has quite an unmistakeable gait.

Eugene had a hot date tonight, wonder how that went. I miss my lovey... still about 3 months before I see her again...

The department has some very old laptops that are probably to be condemned. They're cool. Very thick compared to the ones nowadays, but got cool stuff like a carrying handle built in! Then the battery pops out when you release the catch because there's a spring inside.

I hope failing IPPT won't mean having to do remedial training during the weekends...

What a Day

Very interesting day. Felt a little high when I was by myself at J8 after having dinner after the run, going home, walking to the bus stop. Singing about the Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

It was a royal pain getting up this morning, as it always is when I need an alarm clock. It's not as difficult when I'm seized with the fear that I've overslept. It's like I'm weighed down with the ridiculous robes of royalty.

But it's such a difference riding a bike with properly inflated tires. I just pumped the tires 2 days ago, and the pump is quite defunct now. When the tires are almost flat, pedalling is such a chore, I push with my legs but the wheels refuse to turn.

In the afternoon I got an unexpected call from B00n T4t, and more unexpectedly, he said he was being posted to MINDEF. Turns out B00n T4t and Andy are both posted to same unit! They commissioned last Saturday, and are attached here for 3 months (not in my unit lah).

Seems they were posted to Amoy Quee camp, which is very near my house, like gz, but they're now attached out. They both live in the west, which is where MINDEF is, I think.

I get to wear civilian and they don't get to knock me down. B00n T4t tried but I guess it didn't work, probably because I'm not tuned to that mentality. It seems B00n T4t saluted an LTC (he doesn't need to) and so Andy turned away. That's pretty funny, the two of them.

Going to meet them for lunch tomorrow and go running in the evening again (at least that's what B00n T4t wants to do, maybe we can negotiate... or it can rain), then probably go for dinner.

I went to a Mac shop in J8 just now, the Mac Mini looks cool. It's a really tiny desktop system, about the size of my external Iomega USB CD writer. Imported CDs from China are quite common, because Sembawang music store (in J8) carries them. Can get the Avril Lavigne CD for $10!

Been taking CO's car a lot lately, since I went for dinner with him last night and went running with him tonight. And he lives in bishan, so it's convenient if he drops me there.

Last night he asked me why I took up a scholarship (the primary reason was to study overseas, and it's a good deal because you get a job after that!), then tonight he told me about his experiences today in the board interviewing SAF scholarship candidates.

We discussed the reasons why there's so much difference between those applying for local scholarships and those applying for SAFOS. He wondered if it was that the education system in Singapore was so diverse, which I guess is so: some schools certainly have more resources than others.

I said I felt it was more upbringing, the influence of parents. For some reason, some people keep in touch with current affairs while others are more interested in neutrons and magnets, for example. And of course SAFOS is more competitive, so people prepare much more.

How to bring up kids? That's tough. Need to guide them and need to let them be. I think the general principle is to give them space to explore their interests and talents.

I'm taking off on Monday, going medical in morning. Also taking off the following Wednesday, again got medical in the late morning.

There's a WITs project I saw that basically said it'll cost X dollars to develop software to do this thing, and we don't really need to do this thing anyway, so let's not do it, thus resulting in a cost avoidance of X dollars. It won $500.

Did some coding for the website today. I might be done with the requested features in a week, though I was given a month; breathing space is always good. I'm glad I managed to reduce a lot of fragmented code duplication by storing the web server path as a variable. I guess I should have thought of it earlier, but at least I have it now.

Gave a brief overview of Excel macro coding to Sam and Yinglan. Ben did an attachment at IBM, remind me to ask him how that was like.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 is in beta. I've installed version 1.1.4 for Jasper. It's really great that OOo has a one-touch conversion to PDF feature. I think that's awesome because it's very necessary.

Wah, got cute screensaver of a little ant with a little lamp that illuminates a small patch of my screen. The screen is warped like it is a flat surface in perspective, and the ant is shining its lamp on the ground.

apt-get update

I want to post but there's so much accumulated things to say and I'm lazy. But I guess starting is the hardest part, so I'll go on a little more.

Didn't actually run today, it was drizzling. Stayed back late, well, there was work to do too, then went for dinner with CO and another officer from the other branch. Planning to run after work tomorrow.

Anyways, I really didn't have to worry about not having work to do. Showed the website to bosses and now there's more to code.

Going to play basketball next Tuesday after work, yay. My boss casually mentioned today that I can look into clearing off if I want. Will ask about that tomorrow.

Reinstalled WinXP for Jasper on his laptop. Had to manually load device drivers, and somehow the install didn't complete cleanly, I suspect something wrong with the CD that NEC provided. Because I tried it more than once, with the same results.

The laptop looks ok now, still have to install some software and stuff. Can also try out the wireless since Aaron's got a new wireless router at his house. One other thing about the NEC CD was that it provides no options at all, I tried to fdisk before install but that seemed to screw it up.

Last night's CSI was the first episode I've seen that was "To be continued...". It was really disturbing, seems this couple would lure another couple for an orgy or something, then what would happen is that the guy would kill the girl, and then the guy would get killed. Something like the guy is made to slit his wife's throat otherwise they both die, or to slit her throat to prevent her from dying horribly. But turns out the guy doesn't get to live either...

Had a weird error with Excel macros, turns out it was because I had a UserForm and added some controls that referenced some libraries. When the control is deleted, the reference to the library persists, so when the file is ported to another computer, there's an error message about a "missing project or library" when a macro is run. Solution of course is to remove the unnecessary reference.

At dinner at Adam Road, a group of perhaps JC students were there after hockey training. Used to go there last time also, after training at SPE (School of Phys Ed). Seem to see people carrying hockey sticks quite a lot. Wish I could play but it's difficult because you need several people, and it's not even like soccer where most people can play...

It's quite fun to do a little dribbling in my room, though. The space is pretty limited, but still ok.

Jiahao was mentioned in the New Paper on Monday. It was a second page feature on bond breakers, the who and why. PSC certainly screwed him over big time.

I got quite sunburnt on Sunday at the pool. I think I kinda fell asleep for a while in the water (with my head and hands resting on the edge).

April Fools' Day was pretty fun, that was last Friday. We went for breakfast in the morning, then left work early to go for high tea at Marriott. The food was good, especially dessert, as always. There was a chocolate and nut cake that was just divine.

Went shopping after that with the guys, to kill time before we went to watch Miss Congeniality 2. The movie was OK, not bad. But what made the day so great were the stories Eugene and Sam told over tea. Very funny. Laugh like crazy.

The week is whizzing by. I need to start working on my poems again. Soon I'll be flying to LA. Yay!