Final Year Project

We finally managed to start our first experiment on my steel beam specimen today after going to the lab for the past 2 weeks to do the experimental set-up. Experimental set-up was not an easy affair as we had to adjust the steel frame which took almost a day and wore us out easily from screwing and unscrewing the nuts to hold the frame. Another day was spent on moving the concrete blocks and steel beam and aligning them to ensure that the load cell can sit at the position that we want it to be at. A good 2 days was spent on placing the necessary equipment and making minute changes before we can even start on our experiment proper.

Unfortunately, the screws holding the steel specimen gave way and we couldn't achieve the failure mode that we aimed for and have to do additional fabrication for my second steel specimen. I'm praying that the screws holding the specimen does not give away again in all the experiments as that will mean that we do not get the data that we want and will not be able to come up with a decent final report.

2008

2008 is coming to an end and I am not keen on celebrating the New Year for a few reasons. Firstly, I will have only 1 semester left before I join the workforce. I will also have to do job-hunting during the final semester to ensure that I have a job waiting when I graduate. Lastly, I will miss this place after I graduate. As much as I like to bitch about NTU not being my first choice for university and a bad culture being in place at NTU, I will miss the friends I have made at university as they are a different bunch of people from my Army, JC and secondary days. Some of them have made a far profound impact on me than they have realised and I'm thankful for that.

With the end of 2008 nearing, it is time for a resolution which I'm still working on but the resolution currently which I have in my mind will need a lot of time and planning before I incorporate it as my resolution as I want to go right into tackling the resolution and ensuring it does not fail. Failure will result in me giving up my Saturdays for the army. A thought which I'm unable to come to terms with.

Held hostage

I'm crafting this post at this time of the day at 1.40am, Monday to be exact because I have been waiting like an idiot since 12am to access the results through D. audit but it is not updated. The administration played me out big time after I dilligently settled my hostel bills and school bill and the payment for school fees was not reflected on my studentlink so I wrote them an email a MONTH ago asking them if they had cashed in the cheque and they wrote yes.

If it is not my school bill, it has to be hostel bill but the payment is reflected but I haven't settled my monthly aircon bill which is at $1.78 ONLY and the payment is due next month. When I access examinations link, I get this message saying that I'm barred from VIEWING THE EXAMS RESULTS AND NEED TO MAKE A PAYMENT. What the hell is happening? It's because of this I wasted 2 hours refreshing the degree audit hoping they will make the change but there has been no change. Exams link will have made my wait less painful. Thank you, SAO.

I'm logging in again at 2am to check my degree audit and if they don't update by then, I'm going to try to sleep and finish my experiment tomorrow and go to the office on the hill and give a piece of my mind.

Tuesdays with Morrie

I read this book when I was in the army. I borrowed it from my bunk mate and finished the book in 2 to 3 days as it was good from start to finish. However, I forgot the story and couldn't remember most of the lessons except the characters' names. I bought the book today and finished a quarter of the book.

My philosophy on books is simple- if you are going to read the book, buy the book as it cuts down your trip to National Library, saves time and helps you to appreciate the finer details of the book. Tuesdays with Morrie is one such book that I knew I have to buy because I know I will re-read the book. Not updated. Why must this happen to me?

Bad habits

It is hard to change a few bad habits especially when you are so used to it that you feel reluctant to change them. However, the bad habits have to kicked before they become part of my life. I’m still at my beginning stage and have made considerable effort and strides in being aware of these habits and making it a point to change them.

Experience has taught me not to tell people who are not close of what you are trying to achieve or overcome as this might lead to people either passing negative feedback or making you feel uncomfortable. I will rather keep my mouth shut than let the whole world know about what I’m doing.

Travelling

I just started on 2 tuition assignments and these assignments restored me back to my usual monthly fee I used to draw 2 years ago and I felt the pinch when I did not have tuition for the entire of this year. By God’s grace, I managed to get 2 assignments for this December and for next year and I’m settled for next semester. Though tuition makes me a richer and happier man, the traveling to the obscure locations can take a toll on me. Although the I-pod makes a good traveling companion and the books help me to get away from staring at aunties engaged in meaningless conversations, the traveling stretches the lesson to 6 hours if the travellng time is factored in.

I should not complain about the traveling as the time traveling is well compensated but time is time and it can never be a good substitute for money no matter how attractive it is. I usually will be tired from my tuition lesson. The best I can do is to make full use of the traveling time and work it to my advantage.

Obama

I borrowed my sister’s Obama book written by a Chicago political journalist who had the chance to monitor and write on the Senate race in which Obama contested. The book was an eye opener as it mentioned a few things about him which I will have glossed over in the mass media or will not have been mentioned in the mass media. Besides learning about how he was once a heavy smoker, stayed in Jakarta and Hawaii for a few years and did voluntary community service in a black neighbourhood, it also helped to deepen my understanding of the American political system.(Though it is still confusing). The book also showcased how naïve politics can be and how far people can go to attain power.

The book provided a few examples of the candidates in Obama’s Senate Race on how they will go to any extent to humiliate and use any words to get themselves noticed and trump their opponents. For example, there was this candidate who made the bad move of continuing to use offensive and strong words against Obama when Obama supported a Bill in favour of abortion and this was at a time when Obama was a crowd favourite and the opponent was soundly beaten in the Senate race.

Another thing I learnt about this book is that being in the public eye is not easy especially if you are popular and you have to make plenty of sacrifices. I wonder if I will have handled the media circus and the people fascination as well as Obama although the man was close to breaking point at times when it overwhelmed him. I will love to talk more about the book but I choose to end my post here as I will rather readers of this blog will read the book themselves firsthand unless you are not an autobiography person.

The promise

This will be my 160th post and I promised myself to put more thought into my blog posts and do a few rounds of editing before I post the blog entry. To improve, one needs to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate countless times on the task that one undertook so that the person can excel in that task. The standard of my blog posts has dropped considerably by my standards and this is due to the slack attitude I took in crafting blog posts. One of the reasons I started to blog was to improve on my writing style and what started out as a promise turned into a mediocre, pointless task and my writing style has deteriorated and it has to improve before it worsens into uninteresting, boring and aimless posts.

Discipline

Blogging is like any task. It requires discipline to excel in a task. It takes courage to take the first step but discipline to finish the task. Starting on a task is always simple but finishing the task is difficult as finishing the task encompasses encountering setbacks and difficulties and overcoming them. I made the first step to blog 2 years ago and I will have to gather the discipline to constantly improve on my blog posts and this will be the perfect time to work on my discipline.

Bad habits

In the past, I had promised myself to start changing a few bad habits. As always, I usually start out optimistically but will fizzle out shortly due to a lack of mental stamina. I have decided to be more conscious of a few bad habits and constantly remind myself to be aware of the bad habits so that I will make an effort to change the bad habits. I prefer not to talk about these bad habits in my blog as I find it pointless and a waste of time to tell the readers of my blog on my bad habits as some of them are BASIC.

Another reason for my failure in overcoming my bad habits is that I tell myself to change a lot of bad habits and the danger of undertaking many tasks is the loss in mental stamina and will power. I hope that I will not get back to my old habits before new year’s day eve as I do not want them to be part of my resolution. Now, I understand how a drug addict out of rehab feels as he usually finds the easy way out.

Resolution

I suddenly got reminded of my new year’s resolution and I have not come up with one for next year. For some years, I did not bother to come up with a resolution as I felt it was unnecessary and at times told myself not to cheat myself and come up with a resolution for the sake of just that one day. For other years that I came up with a resolution, I simply forgot about the resolution by the first week and will not feel guilty about following up on my resolution and promise. 2009 will be special and I hope to achieve to what I set out to achieve and start to give more thought for my resolution so that I will set my heart to achieve the goals.