45 days in India

As my title suggests, I’m flying off to India later today for a whooping 45 day holiday. Been looking forward to this trip for quite some time. To put very generally 4 weeks in South India and 2 weeks in the North.

Til the next time I lay my hands on a computer with an Internet connection..

Something you probably didn’t know about NTU

When I first thought of studying at an university back in high school, I had envisioned something like this in mind.

Huge old buildings of historical significance with lush green sweeping gardens and a lake for students to relax around and with preferably a river running through the university for water sports. What comes to mind is the typical and rather cliched photo where several students are relaxing under a tree and discussing something.

Well, I didn’t end up in a school with a history of several hundred years with castles and lakes and forests as surroundings. I eventually went to NTU, a school with a history of 50 plus years and with a garden campus to boot. (Or atleast that’s what the prospectus said).

Not that I’m complaining, life has been interesting for the past one year.

Some claim that NTU is a ‘dead’ place with ‘no life’. As compared to high school, ’school spirit’ is definitedly lacking as well. So most people just go thru life in NTU without finding more about the history of the school or even exploring its huge campus.

To digress a bit, I kind of like to look back at the history of the schools I’ve been to. Not too sure if this is prevalent in most people, but I think people want to relate to something great. It is like imagining that your grand-dad was a big shot general back in WW2 or you descended from a line of a great figure in history. Cool eh?

But back to the point. The reason of this post was because of a ’structure’ I stumbled across in a not so private place. Meaning it was placed in quite a prominent place, but most people have no idea what it is or really bother about it.

I guess only NTU students can actually apply to the rest of the post.

How many of you guys have actually walked to the Student Service Centre? At least once for everyone.

Now the question is: How many actually noticed the sundial there? Yes, haha, there is actually a sundial right in the middle of the carpark.

Looks familiar? Yup it is actually a sundial. And a working one too.

This is the front, which gives some infomation of the location of the sundial and the inscription reads “when the shadow is line with the North-South axis and it happens to be full moon, the sundial will open up to give access to the Chamber of Secrets and release the monsters hidden in the depth of Nanyang University. Erected on May 27 1969, 13th Anniversary of Nanyang University.

And this is the back. Giving more infomation about the sundial and stating it was built “in commemoration of the 150th year of the founding of Singapore”. I guess the english words are below the chinese characters due to Nanyang University being a chinese-medium school back then.

I took this picture around 7.15am. Since the inscription asked to make a addition of 35mins to the scale, it is pretty accurate. When I tried googling for more infomation, just couldn’t find anything at all.

So I might write about more ‘interesting structures’ I notice around NTU, but til then, let me continue my search for the Chamber of Secrets which houses the serpent which roams around Nanyang Lake.

Talking a walk

So I was just rotting doing something very interesting and exciting at home. I started meddling around with my camera and decided to take a walk, just to test how evening and night shots will turn out.

So I took a walk along nearby Potong Pasir, mostly thru the bicycle track that sort of runs through the centre of Potong Pasir. And just because I had a camera in my hand, suddenly everything seemed like a good photo opportunity.

Yup, everything.

It is actually very interesting to learn about photography. Even though I still consider myself one rank below newbie, it’s nevertheless still quite fun to experiment and play around with different settings. And the thing about the Nikon D40 is that it is very user-friendly for a newcomer. Just got to put the settings to the ‘Auto’ mode without flash and the camera will automatically adjust everything else for you. And you slowly learn how to adjust other settings from there.

Taken around 7.30pm. Looks like a image from some Egyptian postcard, or at least that’s the thought that comes to me.

Ok now you fiddle around with shutter speed a bit and this is a shot about 30m down the track. But got to have very steady hands with the shutter open for 4.5 seconds, explaining the slight blur.

Looks as if this was taken before the previous photo right? But thats the beauty behind it. You can choose the length of the duration of the exposure, in other words choose how much light to enter yout photo. Haha, I dunno all the technical terms.

Anyway to digress, I think Potong Pasir is a very peaceful place, one of the last ’sleepy-quiet’ town in Singapore. True enough the nearest bookshop or supermarket or entertainment complex is more than a walk away, it’s residential blocks last in line for lift upgrading services, and with little covered walkways linking bus stops, but it is like a small and peaceful village where everyone seems to know each others name.

And there seems to be sudden change in the areas under the opposition-held territory and nearby Toa Payoh. For example along the Kallang River in Potong Pasir, it is surrounded by big trees and a bit of residential areas. Very quiet and great for a stroll.

Then, once you cross under the expressway which is sort of the unofficial border, you come across an industrial estate, a heavy vehicles carpark, a bus depot and further down a train depot. And slightly more residential areas in the Bishan area. Not so nice for peaceful walk then.

Thats maybe why Potong Pasir has been an opposition held area for past 20 years plus. Yeah, you might get a spanking new mega-mart but seems like the residents value other things more.

And to digress even further, I decided if one day I should retire, I want to live in a house by the river side. Quiet and peaceful. Or at least with a view better than this.

What if?

Reading the newspapers is always a very demoralsing affair. Earthquakes in China, cyclones in Myanmar, bomb blasts in Japiur, violence in the Gaza strip, oilpipe line explosion in Lagos are just few examples of the scenes of disaster that strike you everytime you open the newspaper or watch the news.

Being in Singapore, I am very sheltered; very little chance of a natural disaster striking due to strategic geographical location, unlikely to have any forms of riots or violence due to strong (some say heavy-handed) government, and a very quick and responsive Civil Defense to accidents such as the Nicol Highway collaspe.

I live my life thinking that since i’ve grown up in a place where peace and stability is the norm, these above mentioned disasters are from another world altogether and that I am somehow immune to them.

But, imagine if the Chinese quake had struck 5 months earlier in December. Same place just another time. I would have been there. The epic centre of the quake was less than 100km away from the villages I visited. As the dead toll rises you can’t help but wonder what would have been your fate if the quake did indeed strike 5 months earlier.

Then imagine if the bomb blasts in Japiur had gone off 2 months later, some time in July. I would have been there too. Especially so because the bombs were placed at areas frequented by tourists. What if?

The world is indeed a scary place to grow up.

too much..

From my last entry, I think one can see that I got myself a Nikon D40.

(If you came to this site googling for a review of the Nikon D40, check this site out. Pretty comprehensive i think)

So far i am still at the point-autofoucs-shoot stage. Just started playing around with some settings. I realise there is still a lot for me to learn about photography when I recall this conversation I had with Kelvin, my aerospace project group leader, the-guy-who-knows-alot-of-things-about-things-most-people-do-not-even-know-they-exist.

” Last time I only used to shoot with the M and A selections out of the M,A,S and P choices. blah blah Aperture blah blah Shutter speeds, blah blah macros, blah and blah.”

He went longer than that, but I pretty much lost him after the first line.

I think buying a dslr is like buying a car. I say this even though even though I don’t own a car because just like how one ‘zhngs’ or ‘upgrades’ his car by adding spoilers or neon lights or fiddling with the nozzle to get a more racecar-like sound, one can also add so many gadgets to the camera body until it looks like some alien ship.

Lets see, I can choose to add on a UV filter, a hood, an additional flash unit, a tripod for night shots, an extra pair of lens, a dry box to store the camera, a screen protector, carry case and etc. Seems like buying the camera was only half the battle.

Now the thing is, when I bought the camera, the shop assistant said it was very important to buy a UV filter as a protection for the expensive-to-replace lens. Then you go home and search online, you get differing opinions on how UV filter is a big no-no and how this person has used a camera for 30 years without a filter and how a filter is useless in protecting the camera during a fall.

It’s like a ping-pong match, with me not knowing what to choose. But i guess the next time i walk past a camera shop, i’ll just pop in and get a UV filter. Cheap insurance, whether it works or not, at least you feel your camera more protected now.

My new toy

Who says men do not need toys?

101 Romantic Ideas

Since I happen to know quite a number of guys trying to ‘chase’ some girl or sorts, decided to post this list of romantic ideas I found online.

Some of the ideas are very sweet, some are so sweet that they have to be classified as saccharine sweet. Have listed few of the ‘nicer’ ones below.

Idea 3: On a special occasion, buy your partner 11real red roses and one artificial red rose. Place the artificial one in the centre of the bouquet. Attach a card that reads, ‘I will love til the last rose fades‘.

Idea 16: Buy a small decorated cardboard box, a sheet of coloured tissue paper some massage oil and a blank card. Line the box with the tissue paper, place the massage oil in the centre and write the following message on the card:

I know a great masseur, for an appointment ring (your number)

Wonder how of many of these ideas will actually work. Full list here.

Living without the Internet

Is it actually possible? To live life without the Internet and/or the World Wide Web. Or have most of us become slaves to this technology that we cannot imagine how life without it was? (haha, that was a typical GP opening line)

I had initially thought Internet penetration worldwide was somewhere like around 50% or more. Actually the penetration rate is much lower at 20% or about 1.35 billion people worldwide. Only.

Comparatively, the penetration rate in Singapore is about 66.3% based on 2006 estimates.

As a student, I need to use the Internet to access to my lectures and tutorials posted online. I also need to use my email to send correspondence to my project group mates. And on the side, a bit of indulgence in chatting, online games, forums, reading blogs and just ’surfing’ around.

I cannot imagine a life without the Internet, just as I also cannot imagine how people searched for information before Google and how they watched videos before YouTube.

So the premise is set; I or the typical Singaporean tertiary student cannot possibly live without Internet.

But for how long can I ‘resist’ the temptation? So I decided to test it out to see how long I could ‘tahan’. Since my exams were over, I could safely do my experiment without too many detrimental effects.

So after I logged off on the 29th April, I told myself to last as long as possible.

Initially it was a bit sucky because I couldn’t get up to date football results (ever since the soccer channel was taken out, I had resorted to soccernet.com for updates). Plus it was Champions League semi-finals as well double the agony, so had to depend on newspapers and television.

Didn’t miss chatting or blogging too much though because simply I can live without either.

Didn’t miss my email stocking up either, because I’m of the impression that it doesn’t really matter if reply several days late to an email. (Might be a bad habit of mine)

So what did I do instead? Run, swim, read books, sleep late, watch TV, buy a new camera, fiddle with new camera, go school for meetings, explore Chinatown and Little India, camp out at the National Library, camp out at Borders bookshop, buy books, clean my room, add new clothes to wardrobe.. etc etc…

It was quite fulfilling and actually felt a sense of satisfaction. Some may call this ‘Stopping and smelling the roses’. I just call it ‘doing the things I’m supposed to do if I’m not distracted by the internet’

I lasted for 5 days without using Internet. And guess what? The world did not stop revolving and life goes on. Maybe some of the pompous idiots who think they are so important should try this as well. (Referring to some people I know)

So conclusion: Try it and make one yourself.

Just a side note: The Internet and World Wide Web are not the same. Remember having this argument/discussion several weeks back. Internet is something physical, computer networks linked by copper wires, fibre optic cables, wireless connections etc. Whereas the Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. The Web, simply, is one of the services accessible via the Internet, along with e-mails, file sharing and online gaming.

Blood Donation

A lack of posts, reason being I’ve been busy with other projects and committments.

I went to donate blood at the Blood Bank last Sunday, my 8th time. Still quite a long way from having one’s name on the donors’ board, which requires a minimum of 25 donations.

I think the concept of donating blood is rather interesting. I mean interesting because you get to see the different ways different people react to the concept of donating blood.

For one, I know of a someone who is absolutely against donating blood. The reason given is that the person whom your blood might save might go on to do other ‘bad’ things. And thus the bad karma will bounce back to you. Hence no blood donation no bad karma.

Another person whom I know is very tough outwardly, strong, muscular and a typical alpha male. But he refuses to donate blood and avoids the topic when someone brings it up. Maybe it is fear of injections or blood.

Many of my friends say that they have a fear of injections, but personally, after 8 times I think it’s comparable to a mosquito bite.

Blood contains many life-saving components that can help to treat different illnesses and injuries. For many people, blood donors are their life-line.

Your blood donation could help save the life of an accident victim, a patient with severe anaemia, a person undergoing major surgery or even a newborn baby.

The platelets found in blood are used to treat leukaemia patients. A single patient often needs platelets from 10 or more donors, all within a short period of time. Add to that the short 5-day lifespan of donated platelets, and you can understand why there is a constant need for platelet donors.

Every hour of the day, 12 units of blood are used in Singapore. We need to collect at least 350 units a day, as a whopping 83,000 units are needed in a year, just to meet the transfusion needs of patients in Singpaore.

Taken from the Health Sciences Authority website.

And there is even a ‘Blood level meter‘ available, which gives you up to date infomation of which blood type is at a comfortable and which is not.