Email that made my day

Okie for my FYP, finally can take a short little break and conc for my exams.
report handed in 77 pages with 7007 words. 30 pages of programming
just did my demonstration today.
Thank God for his providence!
was really nervous today, last night i was still touching up the program till pretty late
bathed prayed changed
all went pretty smoothly
so now the very last part would have to be the FYP presentation!


wrote an email and got a reply

-----Original Message-----
From: #ONG KAI SIN#
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 4:41 PM
To: (Assoc Prof)
Subject: RE: FYP Project Demonstration

Hi Prof Soong,

Thank you so much for your time this afternoon. Sorry that i was a bit nervous as i did not know what to expect. May I know how i fared for the demonstration?

Thanks again.

regards,
Kaisin

Your presentation was quite clear so I understood what you were doing.

Regards,

Boon Hee

School of EEE, NTU

-----------------That Made My Day-----------------------------

Recent Updates

Been away from my blog for a couple of weeks and my tuition kids are asking for updates so here i am typing a few words due to popular demand.

Well, many things happened recently, some really good ones and some really bad ones.
Been so busy, giving tuition recently, every students want a piece of me, sometimes you do spend the whole day giving tuition and its pretty tiring.
Contrary to what my students would think, and i'm referring to mingmei and gang, giving tuition isnt as easy as it seems =) Oh yah, i owe you guys a treat. Shall discuss with you guys when we start tuition on Nov Week 2. Lets not waste the effort that we made for the past few months by continuing to maintain the standard

You prepare notes, your head is ever thinking and your mouth is ever talking. Try non stop talking for 2hrs and you get my point.

Your performance is based on how your students do in the exam. As what i can see, my sec class has done pretty well. All of you improved an average of 25 marks. All the hard work and multiple exam papers that we have attempt has not gone to waste. Amy, i'm proud of you that you managed to get a B4 from a U-grade, Mingmei and LimJing, its not easy getting an A1 from just a pass. So hopefully this coming one year will be a fantastic year for you!


Primary school results are still pending and by this wednesday, everyone would have finished their exams, except me.

Well, so many datelines to meet, for a start i got to submit my FYP report on 29th to the moderator, FYP presentation is on the 31st then, exams on 12th, 13th, 25th. Then i'm done.
Been so busy and stressed with all these, and am glad that MOE actually put forward the exams dates otherwise i would still be giving crash course now.

To all those that are reading and know that i'm going through a really tough family situation, pls keep me in good prayers. To those who dont, its ok not to know, so dont ask me here.

One more week, steven and limin will be getting married. So happy for them. Well, it would be my first time to be part of the brothers team and my 2nd time emceeing a wedding dinner. Really pray that everything will be smooth on Sunday. Haha, did their wedding video too, shall be doing some admendments on tuesday onwards and start on denise wedding video also.

many things to do with so little time,
back to my notes.....


Some Videos/Songs that i have been subscribing/listening to on youtube:
there's an awfully load of talents on youtube

**LOVE**

I Love You!

thanks for being the rainbow in my life. You never fail to brighten up my day. Its been a really nice 9+ months together. Thanks for being understanding all these while. Through this 9months, there were wild times, there are times when we

had our little adventure.
I know i have been busy lately
and Sometimes its just the littlest
understanding that makes you such
a sweet little pea,
so little pea
i just want to say I Love You =)

Crash Course

Just came back from Crash Course. Tiring....saw the students and somehow i got reminded of how gan chiong i was 9 years back. taught 2 class last week and cotutored this class, yeah no more crash course for me! =)

Tv Dramas

I quit watching Singapore tv channels long ago, they are basically lack of substance or poor acting skills. Variety shows are direct and lousy ripoffs from taiwan/korea. I was never into american dramas, having come from a chinese school and borne into a chinese speaking family, listening to 98.7 and watching american dramas just wasnt registered into me when i was in mommy's womb.

Even when ER, CSI, ALF, Friends, Baywatch was out, i never once thought of viewing them.

It all started with watching Prison Break which led me to other tv series on NBC, ABC, FOX, etc. As comparison to Singapore dramas, American dramas have better looking people with better acting skills, complicated plots, much higher production budget etc which allows you to have a cinematic experience even watching Tv. To compare american drama to singapore serials, its like comparing shark fins soup to fish soup. of course it wouldnt be fair as the singapore tv industry is still slowly growing and there are many red tapes that govern and restrict how the production can be made.

Prob many of us will even have problems naming one tv drama we watched for the past 3 years on channel 5/8/U. These are the tv series that i have been chasing

American Idol

The inital first few episodes will be interestign as the team goes around america for auditions. You get to see how different the various states in america is and the weirdest kind of people that get through. Sometimes, there would different people, weird, abnormal, funny that does things to send a message through. The later part of this reality tv show gets a bit boring as all the singers were generally good and one by one they get eliminated due to lack of votes. Excitment builds up as more and more get eliminated. I was rooting for brooke and archuleta in this season

America's Got Talent

Another Reality Tv Show which i caught lately, well this is different from American idol because its a talent contest instead of just a singing contest. People of all ages and different animals entered the contest, only to be judge by 3 judges and the 4th judge- the audience. With the regular buzzers in talent contests, the audience served as the 4th judge, given the rights to cheer or boo the guy off the stage. The winner gets to win $100 million dollars and a chance to perform in Vegas.

Prison Break

Well if you have nto caught this, or if you have not heard of this, where have you been?? This show led me to the string of tv serials. Every episode is like watching a short movie. 4th season running and is shown on every monday night at FOX. Basically, to sum it all, michael scoffield went to jail on purpose just to get his brother who was framed, out of prison. Many things happen in between, they escaped with some fellow prisoners who tagged along and it led to a wild goose chase. They got into trouble and got send into Panama prison which was a totally different prison to FOX RIVER. Season 4 talks about them, having escaped from Panama, doing things for this FBI agent for this company. You really got to watch it if you hadnt.

Heroes

3rd season just premiered few days ago, which left our dear tai in dilemia to whether to catch prison break or heroes. Basically, Heroes is about a group of people that do not know each other, having different special abilities such as 1. able toteleport through time 2. able to hear what people are thinking in their minds 3. a dual personality 4. melting metals 5. able to paint out the near future 6. able to communicate with machines 7. able to go through solids 8. able to self heal etc etc.

save the cheerleader, save the world

So you think you can dance SYTYCD

dancing reality show which shows a wide or super variety genre of dances. Imagine hiphop dancer doing jazz, or contemporary dancer doing the krump.
Season just ended

My Name is Earl

This show is super funny. Talk about this guy who won the lottery but yet got hit by a car accident, watched a tv programmer which talks about karma, which is you will be blessed when you do good and cursed when you done something wrong. Used to be an ang mo ah beng who likes to sabo and make people's life jialut, he came up with a list to make it up for them and strikes them off the list after he has done so.
he lives in a motel with a slower than slow brother and his friends are some trailer park white trash. Good to watch for a good laugh!
Out of running as for now, coming back real soon

Survivor

being a boy scout has left me marvelled over how the managed to survive and strategy and lose weight in this reality tv show. Coming back real soon and will be shot in africa.

Kid Nation

This is also a super nice show which stopped running after first season due to some problems. 40 children are left to take charge a cow-boy town in the middle of a desert and left to rule and maintain it for 40 whole days. every 2-3 days, someone can get to volunteer himself out of the game and the "senators" of the 40 can elect one kid to receive a gold star which is $20000. Funny to see how kids between 7 to 15 work together. They played interesting challenges which classify them into merchants, working class, chefs and servants which are the roles they have to embrace for the next 3 days.


Pimp My Ride

in short: lousy car zhng to ridiculously zhnged car
imagine cotton candy machine in car boot, skateboard ramp, touch sensor doors, lcd screen everywhere in the car, fish skin seats etc

Being a citizen in a semi-foreign land.

felt like typing this after reading kenneth's blog..

all in a day.....
you wake up
wander around the house
the Garungguni man walks by that shouts in the familiar "Garung-gunnnni" and he is from China
You take the lift down and notice that the Bangladesh cleaner is moping the ground floor.
you decided to walk to the hawker centre, feeling hungry
you decide to order a plate of hainanese chicken rice(i love white chicken btw)
the one that is taking your order and helping you cut the chicken is from China--well hainan is in china right?
you noticed that the people clearing the dishes in the foodcourt isnt Singaporean
but you have no idea where they are from since you do not really communicate with them
You decided to cut your hair at the neighbourhood
and realise that the young girl who is tending to your hair
left her KL hometown at age 13 to learn to cut hair (and she is 17 now)
You took a bus to jurong point
only to see a PRC man talking to his wife and girl at the top of his voice
in a dialect that we do not really understand
your bus uncle that knows your bus route well is from malaysia
handphone rings
its a foreign number and you wonder who it was
oh its a phonecall from prudential, asking me if i would like to know more about insuring my future
did i mention that the girl could speak tagalog as well?
you called up samsung call centre to ask about the dvd finalising problem
the one that picked up is a filip.
you walked into bossini at Jurong Point
the girl that greets you in a filip accent
you go back to school, significant size of the class is from vietnam and india
brought my mum to the polyclinic
and lo and behold, it's a filip doctor
from one of the unis in manilla
industrial estate at near st 64 is a sight at nights
groups of workers, dressed in their outdoor bollywood wear walks towards jurong point
those who like it alfresco style will picnic at HDB block outside Ah Lian Bee Hoon coffeeshop near the new yet to be completed Pioneer Mrt
urine stench and litter are strewn
with the usual worker sitting ard or just lying dead drunk on the floor


Employers know that they can hire at the lower rate
Government knows that foreigners fill up positions which are not filled by Singaporeans
Foreigners know that Singapore is a safe country with many opportunities
dont blame it on the foreigners, blame it on Singapore

this is Singapore....

Date to Our Primary School

Last friday was eve of national day and teachers were all given half the day off. So Adrena and I decided to head back to our primary school to visit our alma mater and see if we could get to see any of our teachers. Its probably been 11 years since i went back to Qifa.

This is how i get to school that time. School is 5mins wal from my place. We usually had to lift our hands to stop the cars
Adrena giving a negative demonstration on how you should not cross the road

When we reach school, we had to go up to the school hall for assembly. I remembered that i used to be called on stage to pull my ears on a couple of occasions. I think they dont implement this in schools now.

Then we had to go back to climb 4 storeys up to go back to class. Remembered queuing up after recess and placing a finger to our lips and slowly walking back to class.

Used to be in 6H which was the best class in school, considering that 80% of the class went to the top schools in Singapore. Many now have become successful in their own field and probably some are relocated overseas by now.

The rusty metal cupboard which my teachers would put their cane. I still remembers that some of the canes have scotch tape wrapped around at the tip to prevent from splinters from hurting our lil palms.
In an era with no internet/handphone/pager/lan game/arcade, we played good ol' one leg, marble, zero point, pepsi cola, 5 stones during recess.
Water cooler was implemented during primary school, and i still remembered my mum asking me not to drink from the cooler as its not that clean. haha. check out the height of the water coolers!
I never understand why we had to draw curls and curves to learn cursive writing. English textbook was called coursebook then and it includes characters like mr yaki and mr bala.

ladybird books during our time are still being used.

I used to need to lean forward to see whats downstairs.

The basketball court is still there.

This place wasnt covered up last time and it serves as a good drying place for mops. Someone would spill the water when they tip over their water bottles and he has to go and get the mop to clear up the mess.
I used to be in 4G with Adrena, now we have concluded she was 2nd in class and i'm 3rd after much discussion. =|


The assembly area for the early morning mari kita is now a basketball court, wonder where they do their flag raising now.

We visited some teachers too!

Mr Ambrose James was my primary 4 form teacher. Really left me an impression.
His children are all grown up, married, and staying in germany and amsterdam.

Mdm Wong Chun was my P6 Chinese teacher and she still keeps our class list!
Had a good talk with her in the staffroom and now she is a grandmother of 2!

Mrs Lim-tan was adrena's P1 teacher but i knew her as well. Super super soft spoken lady whom adrena's mum said whom she felt was the best p1 teacher around.

I helped out her preschool class when i was a student back then so she kinda know me.

Canteens now have a foodcourt setting. Wonder who came up with these names. haha
okie happpy daaaaayy for both of us

RV memories

recently rvhs alumni has a gathering. I must say that i am surprised that the alumni is pretty much established. Just happen to check up the website and realise that a couple of teachers will be there also! Other than its pretty costly at $40/pax, its really worth gg and see how the teachers who taught you have become.

Din know that Comedian Chen Jian Bin is from Rv. haha
Teachers invited are as follows:
Mdm So Kah Lay--science teacher but wasnt taught by her
Mrs Look Wee Choo-- caught by her a couple of times for spikey hair
Mdm Lim Kim Choo--discipline mistress for upper sec
Mdm Tia Minn Sim,
Mr Ng Hai Guan--my maths teacher
Mr Chng Heng Guan--my scouts teacher in charge
Mr Ang Mia Lee--My maths remedial teacher, yes i used to be in maths remedial
梁环清校长
黄利发副校长- Ng Lee Huat VP that time

退休老师：
张立权-- Teo Lip Kuang: HOD PE
何炳彪-- Chinese Teacher
黄循光 黄庭法
张荣泉-- Teo Long Cher--impacted me in many ways
张爱华
吴钟秀
胡鸿彦
连锡麟
伦蓬兴
郑春定
李瑞燕
李瑞莲
王保蒂
陈金松--tan kim song:my Geog teacher
黄瑞玉

wonder how many can u recall.

http://www.rvhsalumni.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=2&Itemid=7

Gave my comments in the papers. haha

Source: http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20080630-73673.html

Are university campuses here safe?

By Jamie Ee Wen Wei Avoid travelling alone at night. Use well-lit and busy sidewalks. Keep your mobile phone handy in case you need to call for help. These were among the security tips sent via e-mail by the National University of Singapore (NUS) to its students on June 20, two days after a sexual assault in Clementi Woods Park opposite the campus. On June 18, a female NUS student in her mid-20s was attacked at 10.40pm while walking along a footpath in the park, a short cut between the campus and the housing estate in that area. The police and the school were unable to release more information as investigations are ongoing. But it has since become a talking point among university students here. Many said it was the first time they had heard of a sexual assault involving a student on or close to campus. When contacted, NUS, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU) said they had no records of similar incidents. While the circumstances of the assault are unknown and the incident happened outside the school's grounds, two issues have surfaced from the current discussion: Are university campuses here safe? Are students complacent about safety? Going by what 60 university students told The Sunday Times, most feel their campuses are safe and are satisfied with the existing security facilities, though some think more can be done to enhance safety. NUS third-year economics student Preetika Gupta, 20, pointed out certain routes in her school which are not well-lit. One of them is the route leading from her hall at the Prince George's Park residences to the Faculty of Science building. Ms Choo Pei Ling, 20, a second-year arts and social science student at NUS, said: 'There are so many dark and deserted corners in the school; anyone can just come in and hide.' Students at NTU voiced similar concerns. Mr Ong Kai Sin, 26, a final-year engineering student, said: 'I always wonder why there aren't more street lights at NTU. It's probably even darker than some parks in Singapore.' NTU, which is located near Jurong West, is surrounded by forest and a military live-firing range. Some students were also wary of the increasing number of outsiders they see in their school. NTU third-year accountancy student Soh Xinyi, 21, said: 'There are so many construction sites in school these days; the school should employ more guards to patrol the campus grounds.' Students seemed to have fewer complaints about SMU, which is in the city. Third-year business student Jeremy Ching, 24, said: 'Within the school, it is very safe. The only dangerous spot near the school is near the Timbre nightspot where many people park their cars. It's rather secluded and spooky there.' All three campuses are open to the public, though there is usually restricted access to school buildings and hostels. Entry points are monitored by CCTV cameras while security guards patrol campus grounds. Besides the e-mail circular, it is not known if NUS will take immediate measures to step up security, although its spokesman told The Sunday Times that routes leading to the campus are generally safe. The school works closely with the police and neighbourhood groups to resolve safety concerns outside its compound. NTU and SMU did not say if they would further tighten security, although NTU added that its security framework is reviewed regularly. It also has no plans to make visitors register their names. Most of the students interviewed, however, said they would be more careful after the incident. This includes walking faster along deserted roads and avoiding studying in school till late. NUS first-year mechanical engineering student Chng Hui Min, 20, said: 'The latest I would leave is around 9pm. It is just good sense.' Additional reporting by Aw Cheng Wei, Becky Lo and Stacey Chia

Tribute to Randy Pausch

If you had one last lecture to give, what would it be

Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in Sept 2006.
In Aug 2007 , the doctors told him that he has 3-6 months to live.

But despite knowing that he was going to die, he stays a positive outlook in life and make the best of what he has.

He gave this lecture in Sept 2007 titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" or commonly known as "The Last Lecture", asking the audience "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?"

I have the chance to view the lecture in Oct 2007 and was deeply impacted by the video. To think a dying man could face death and yet remain contributing the youth and nation in such a big measure. Indeed the lecture was truly truly inspiring to have heard it from a dying man.

His contributions has led to many accolades such as

President Bush wrote him a personal letter
Person of the week by ABC
listed as top 100 most influential people by TIME
Nov 19th as Randy Pausch day in Pittsburgh
etc

Last Lecture Video(1 hr 16mins) :




Randy Pausch died on Last Friday 25July and he was 47 yrs old then.
Rest in Peace Prof Randy.