I've tried a few more practice papers. CS1101 is tricky but still ok, physics was a disaster, I'm giving up till tomorrow. The maths 04/05 paper was much easier, but I still took way too long. Sigh, and the maths test is on monday. I haven't even done the taylor series practice questions.

mastering physics is currently not working properly. I can't access the questions, but it does let me logout very quickly, haha.

This week has really passed quickly. I managed to get some revision done, but as expected, it's not enough to do the past year papers. I've been doing mastering physics by clicking on the hints too. The tests are next week. Oh well...

Went to the airport to send william off yesterday. Saw ZQ there with the whole dsta gang. Should have expected it when he said he had to go off so suddenly. The UK bound people are all flying off these few days. Won't get to see them for a year.

It's now friday and I just spent 3 hours doing a 1 hour maths paper. The test is on monday, this sucks.

After a couple of weeks of continuous nightly work, followed by two intensive marathon session over the past 2 days, our group has finally finished the Swingers 'signboard'. We've built the frame, sawed the boards, nailed the boards to the frame, sawed out the letters, joined the 2 frames together, painted the boards, painted the letters, and finally wired 18 light bulbs and 9 light ropes in 3 parallel circuits per board. The wiring was quite fun to do. Just like old times in Taiwan, when we had to keep stripping insulation off wires. I really learnt quite a lot doing all this. The feeling of satisfaction when our circuits all worked the first time was great. We had a scare when one of the light ropes wouldn't light the first time, but it turned out to be a loose connection in the rope itself. I'll post pictures when I get them.

Come for RH concert, haha.

It's now the the middle of the mid term break. After the break I'll have 5 tests, haven't finished studying for any of them. Ugh.

I just downloaded windows vista from Microsoft's website and installed it onto my laptop. It's in a separate partition, so I now have a dual boot system. So far, it seems to work pretty well. The eye candy is cool, and the new windows sidebar replaces the function of the yahoo widgets I installed on my xp system.

There are a few teething problems, like my folder icons for My Music and My Pictures becoming default vanilla folders in xp, but so far it doesn't seem to have affected much. The audio program also crashes everytime on startup, but the sound still works, and it can easily be disabled in msconfig.

OpenOffice 2, adobe reader, secure shell client and live messenger all work on vista. The volume and brightness function keys on my laptop still work too. However, the application buttons at the top seem to have stopped functioning. I'm currently writing this using vista.

As a result of this, I haven't managed to do any work this weekend :( Have to start studying, and still haven't done the vectors tutorial.

The holidays are here. Don't seem to have the holiday mood though. There's a maths test as soon as term starts again, and I have to go back to school during the holiday week for sets. We still have to work 16 hours, but we're trying to pack it all into 2 days.

Saw a letter to the Straits Times today. The title is "Old hands at driving booked 5 times in a month". First of all, I shall state some of the implied assumptions which were made.

The writer suggests that with their combined driving experience of almost 40 years, it's an outrage that they were booked 5 times in the past month. Their offences were speeding, crossing a double white line and trespassing in the bus lane.

They were incredulous to learn that some traffic police roles have been outsourced. Personally, I don't think it makes a difference. You don't have to be a specially trained traffic policeman to note down the number plates of cars driving in the bus lane during bus lane hours, and I don't think you need special training to note down the numbers of vehicles crossing double white lines. Also, there's a suggestion that this benefits the companies, when the writer states that the $3 million in fines for bus lane violations is big business. She failed to state that the company in question is paid $300k to perform this role. I assume that the fines go to the government. Thus there is no incentive for the company to do a dishonest job, unless they pay their officers by the number of vehicles they book. If they do, then they should change that system.

It's true that driving in Singapore is not as easy as going in a straight line at a constant speed. However, that's no excuse to break the rules. I cannot see how veering suddenly in and out of lanes can prevent an accident. Of course, you avoid the immediate threat, but an accident was only avoided because there was no car in the lane you veered into. The safer solution would have been to avoid tailgating in the first place, then no veering would have been necessary.

Why do you need to be extra alert and look out for traffic wardens?? You only need to worry if you're doing something wrong. If you're following all the rules, you can drive past a traffic warden with no anxiety at all. Why do you need to keep a special lookout for them?

The writer also mentions that they did not realise that they had infringed the rules. Obviously, 40 years of combined experience have made them forget what the road markings mean. They aren't drawn there to make our roads look pretty. Perhaps the two of them should take the basic theory test again. Double white lines, bus lane timings, what a speed limit sign looks like, and the speed limits of roads with no explicit signs are all covered in the test.

Her conclusion is just as absurd. Both of them have been safe drivers for many many years, so how can one explain the summonses they got recently? Well, the answer to that is simple. It is obvious that her definition of safe driver is one who has not had many accidents. However, our roads weren't designed to be a free for all. There are rules to be followed, this is for everyone's safety. She must have been breaking the rules all this while, and now that she's caught, she's complaining about it.

So what if everyone speeds? You're caught for the offence. It's not going to help if you go outside and tell them everyone is speeding too. Just because everyone does it doesn't make it right.

It was Friday. I didn't go home because of interviews for hall activities, plus there's touch rugby training in the morning. I planned to study in the evening, but ended up playing foosball after tea, all the way through to dinner. After dinner, I played some more foosball. Went for an interview, played some piano, then went for another interview. Went back to my room and started reading a storybook, when a few others showed up and we played bridge, then mahjong. We just finished, check out the time, haha.

Oops, basically played the whole night away, but really don't feel like studying at the moment.

Just finished helping out at a 3 day bazaar which was outside LT27 at science fac. After doing 8 hours, I have half an aux point. Those who want an explanation of the points system can ask me. It was quite an interesting experience. I got to sell curry puffs, second hand books, 3rd party ink and computer games. I also gave out flyers for the UOB Campus Card. Actually I originally put my name down for the curry puffs and some other food vendor who pulled out, then I was supposed to do UOB. In the end, I just went wherever they needed manpower. That made it a lot more interesting.

We just chose hall activities. The tryouts and interviews have started. Tried out for touch rugby, but the commitment is quite serious, and they even want us to buy jerseys and boots. There's Saturday training too, which is really irritating. My life will be just like NS before the 5 day week was implemented. Not sure if I should still join it, but there are only 15 trainings or so till IHG, so maybe can still cope for these couple of months.

Preparations for concert are still going on. We started building another stage decoration. Already been at it for 12 hours, it's still not finished, but it's taking shape nicely.

I'm still barely keeping up with tutorials, but it's starting to get more difficult. Hmmmm.....

My dad is letting me drive alone more now. So far it's only to fetch my mom around, but it's nice to finally be allowed to make 1 leg of the trip by myself.

It's now week 5 of the uni term. Next week is the last week before recess week. After that are the mid term tests. My only hope is that everyone is as clueless as me. That way the marks will all be moderated and I'll stand a chance of getting a decent grade. The EG lecturer has totally lost most people. That's the problem. There're probably quite a few who know exactly what's going on. PC is like doing another maths module. So much integration. Maths looks messy. There seem to be many pros in the CS forum, and there are those who seem to have tried all 36 questions in the latest tutorial. I've only done the 3 or 4 compulsory ones. FNA seems easy enough for people to score. That would make it difficult to get a good grade. Argh, how???

I'll have to choose hall activities soon. Need to join 3. I'm already in concert, so I'll need 2 more. That means even less time to study. Concert bazaar starts tomorrow at science, outside LT27. Do go down to support us. I need to man booths for 8 hours in 3 days. That means all my free time between lessons is basically gone, and I still have to go for sets at night. It's going to be tough to keep up.

Haven't managed to sign in to messenger for the whole day. Now using web messenger. Is anyone else having the same problem?

Ok, driving took up a very minor part of the day, but it was an interesting experience, so I'll just put it up here.

Today was the off day for Sets group 1, but a few of us had to go around to collect wooden pallets and buy wheels so the other groups can continue working on their parts. We rented a pickup to carry out these tasks. During one of the stops, I took it for a spin around the carpark. It was quite fun. The clutch is very easy to control, and the engine is very powerful. It also has a very tight turning radius. The mirrors are nice and large and I can see the rear wheels clearly when reversing.

Actually I spent most of the time in the back sleeping while we travelled all the way to paya lebar. We also got lost, which meant that I had to go home by myself today :( I did get to park the pickup after we got back, haha.

Been working on the props and stuff for the past few days. It's been pretty interesting so far, although the working hours of 8-12pm every night means that all studying has to be done in the day, and I miss the most active MSN chat hours. So far, my subgroup, which gets an off day on Fridays, has modified two beds, cut out 6 poster frames, modified and painted two sets of bookshelves, and built a "futuristic" table from scratch out of what looks like old wardrobe doors. It's quite interesting playing with all the power tools. Got a chance to use a power drill and an electric saw. The electric saw really makes things much easier. It's easier and faster to cut the wood in a fairly straight line.

The table was much harder to make. The "futuristic" design is a little unstable, and it was difficult screwing the metal L bars into the wood to hold the whole thing together. We managed to finish the first one just now. Will be making a mirror image of it during the next session, which is this coming night.

Comex 2006 was over the weekend. I went down to take a look around. Chris bought a laptop there, zq and kenny bought printers. I bought an mp3 player for my dad, who was looking for something that could record voice, had a line in, can record from FM radio, had at least 10 hours of recording time and didn't cost too much. Chanced upon the Creative Zen Nano Plus 512MB for $84 and got that.

I played with the new Sony T10 camera too. It's a very slim point and shoot camera. Didn't really check up the specs. I think it's 7.2MP, can do up to ISO1000 (maybe more), has a steady shot function, but doesn't allow any more customisation of settings as compared to my current 4MP camera which cost $280. Anyway, nearly all my pictures are taken at 3MP. You really don't need a 7.2MP camera. It's pointless. How many pictures are you going to print at huge poster sizes anyway?

Saw a demo of the Olympus waterproof camera too. It's a point and shoot as well, but it's waterproof, which is a cool thing. You can snap pictures underwater, but I think the flash range will be severely reduced.

Went to celebrate zq's birthday with the usual group on Sunday night. We ate at some chinese restaurant at cine. It was kenny's suggestion. The food was pretty nice. After that we just walked to taka. Wanted to throw zq into the fountain and take a picture, but he wasn't too keen on that. Being the nice people we are, we wandered around and just decided to take our group picture outside some shop in the basement. zq was telling us how he had trained himself not to blink when his photo is taken. Guess what happened? On our first attempt at a group photo, he BLINKED. He claimed the photographer didn't give any warning. Excuses excuses. We asked someone else to help us, and luckily he didn't blink this time. He says he'll upload the pics to his blog, so I won't bother. You can find them there, though he probably won't put up the one in which he blinked. He really has an uncanny ability to do that.