Day Of Reckoning

You there! Do you know what day it is tomorrow? Why, it’s the day of reckoning! Results day! Yes, the day when poor, harmless students cower in fear, quiver in fright, shiver in despair. Lovely day it will be! Unless you happen to be a student, in which case you ought to prepare to cower and quiver and shiver, like me.

There’s always something strangely faceless and terrifying about checking your results online. You just punch in your account information and click. Before you can even hope for the best, all your results pop up in front of you like a summons. That is, assuming you don’t sometimes have a connection like mine. (I imagine it will in that case be somewhat like a Hitchcock film.)

I suppose the good times are almost up. Time runs away like Usain Bolt with the baton when you’re not looking. I excel at bad metaphors.

I’ve still been at my chores. Yesterday, I tried to pack up my music library a bit. I cleaned it up quite properly, if I dare say so myself, but it’s still incomplete, so I’ll have to get back to it. Shopping has been going fairly well, but it too is incomplete. I’ve made inquiries about the various things I’ve got to sort out, which is all very dandy, but I’ve yet to actually sort them out. So everything is in that sort of stasis, reluctant to be completed. But it’s getting there.

Although we don’t have much of the holidays left. But who knows what will happen tomorrow anyway? Wish me luck.

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Times Of Change

The End

On Friday, I took the last paper, which went reasonably well. As well as could be expected, I guess. And with it came the end of the term, which was a strange term, to be fair, but I suppose I should be glad that it’s over. Except that I’m not. Not really. Things will change from here, more than they’ve ever changed from semester to semester in the past, and it’s a little frightening.

Certainly, there are specific personal reasons that I didn’t want this term to come to an end. Sometimes it feels as if I’ve got things I’ve to say, and have yet to say, and I’ll never get a chance again.

All To Do

In the meantime, the holidays are here, and in this very brief break, I’ve a plethora of things to do. I’ve got to meet friends; I’ve got to work on a new project; I’ve got to plan stuff; I’ve got to get a haircut; I’ve got to go photographing; I need to see the dentist; I need to buy presents; and on and on. I started with a list of five things and that’s since exploded into an enormous litany of obligations.

Hard Work

Speaking of writing, I tried to write a bit over the weekend. It’s hard. It’s harder than I remember it. Part of it is probably because I’ve not been writing very much; and it usually takes a bit of work to scrape off the rust on my imaginary writing joints. But I think it’s also how I’m writing in a fashion (and with a setting) similar to The River, except I’ve changed quite a bit since then and I’m finding it a bit hard to go back into the same sort of groove. It doesn’t help that Bukit Merah was a complete departure from the tone and style of The River, so I’m as far removed from that approach as I possibly could be.

I don’t have anything concrete now, so I’m really just putting words together in the hopes that I can unify it when I get a better sense for what it is I’m doing. In the meantime, I can only keep at it until it sorts itself out, or until I get a better idea and change my mind.

Shopping Suggestions

If you missed it, I put up my Christmas gift suggestions up there.

Now, I better start on my list of obligations and start packing my room.

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Final Countdown

Today’s exam was very exciting. It is always exciting to flirt with death. Sometimes, you succeed in your numerous flirtations and actually die. Die in an incredibly bad way. Not that there are many good ways through which you can die. But some are better than others. And some are simply incredibly bad.

However, experience is a good teacher and it teaches us that the exams that are the worst tend not to turn out too bad; the good exams usually turn out good, unless they feel like surprising you; and it is the ones in the middle, the unassuming, friendly-looking things that turn out to be the most evil of the bunch. Like dolphins. You know dolphins. Neither awesome nor powerful, they rely on their friendly facade to lure you into their traps unspeakable.

One more paper left. I kind of get the feeling this will be a dolphin paper. It all comes down to the mood of the examiner, I guess. Nevertheless, it is the finishing line, and that’s always good to see. The last boss, the final reckoning, the thing before the credits roll. All right then, have at you!

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Monday Morning

Studies

Revision proceeds. Not well. But it proceeds. I’m starting to have a fair idea of what’s going on. Which is in fact being more optimistic than I should be. Still, no point worrying too much about it. I’ll just give it a shot. Wednesday beckons. Let’s just get it done with and everything will be fine.

After Wednesday, the final frontier awaits. The showdown will occur on Friday evening. And then we’ll all be free.

I just really want to get it done with and start working. I think I know what I want to do, though nothing is certain, but we’ll find out in the month-long break, won’t we?

Slow

I’m still uploading photos from Japan. I suddenly thought yesterday that these are more than a year old. In fact, they’re nearly a year and a half old. That is rather distressing. I hadn’t realised how long I’d been taking. It’s worrying. I better get a move on. It’s like one of those things in your life that you just make a note to do but set aside because of other ‘priorities’ and one day you look up and you find that you’ve failed to live up to your promises. And it makes you sad. And sometimes a little scared.

Soccer

How FIFA 10 was made. [via Kotaku] I thought that this was a great article; I wouldn’t have thought that that much work went into making the game. Brilliant stuff.

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Half-Time Whistle

Sorry for the late post. Cleared another paper today, so it’s down to two of four! Of course, that’s if you don’t count the project subject, which doesn’t have an exam.

The mantra still remains. The worst is yet to come. But for now, I’m blasting Idioteque on my speakers with no apparent concern for the health of my eardrums. It’s this sort of time when the finish line begins to appear over the horizon.

But what a strange day. Had trouble sleeping last night. For some reason, I had a billion things on my mind and none of them had to do with the exam. (One of them was Lovely Rita. It kept on looping and looping in my head.) But the exam was okay. I’m sure other people found it okay too, so I think I ought to say that there isn’t much in the way of encouragement to be found there.

Also, my Facebook page has climbed slowly to 100 friends, which surprises me a little, but is good to see. At the same time, I still have no idea how some things work. And I realise that one of the problems now is that I know the birthdays of so many people. That will surely not be too friendly on my piggy bank.

For a period of time yesterday, I only talked to people in Chinese. I don’t know why I did that. It was fairly entertaining. I shall do that again soon.

Wow and just as I typed that, my Firefox swapped places with my Songbird for no apparent reason.

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Three To Go

One Down

So, the first of the exam papers went by without incident last Saturday. That leaves three. Hey, the worst is far from over, but… one problem at a time! The next paper is materials. I spent half the day trying to work at it today. A lot of memory work. Not good for people like me. It is however fair to say you’ve just got to give it a shot and make the best of it. Those words do sound extremely hollow right now, though.

In any case, one thing at a time. One thing at a time.

Phasebook

For reasons quite unlike what my friends might make you believe, I actually have a Facebook account now. Of course, being both unpopular and I reckon quite introverted, it is hidden in a number of privacy options and does not accept friends easily. I suspect that it will take on an increasingly private nature as time goes on.

I think I was always very paranoid about some things, which explains my initial reluctance to get an account. Although the Web Walrus did suggest that part of it might have had to do with trying not to jump onto the bandwagon in a silly adolescent sort of way, and I imagine that’s probably partially true. And at the end of it all, I think that in some things I’m just a slow adopter.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s what, and I realise it’s less intuitive than I thought it would be. I’ve also tried to set up some rules of my own so that the place doesn’t end up in a giant mess. Things like no random quizzes and no random games. Well, I’m sure my weak willpower means that I’ll eventually buy into these things under peer pressure or the like. I’m also trying to figure out what interesting things I can possibly do with the simple apps. Like. Uhm. Notes. And I’m looking for handy apps too.

But otherwise, it’s been an interesting first… say… 3 days? As I was telling my friend, now everyone gets to see just how unpopular I am.

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Plungers

Almost Saturday

Then the first paper comes and goes and all of this just gets kicked into some kind of overdrive. Or it won’t and I’ll be desperately wondering why. I don’t know. We’ll see. Revision hasn’t been going well or poorly. It just goes. It happens. It is an odd sensation.

It is also odd because this semester is the first one I can remember where I don’t feel entirely lousy. I’ve also been working as hard as I can remember. And yet, in spite of it all, I find myself trying very hard to smother the notion that it’s all been extremely ineffective.

I’ve also been stricken with a slight flu and sore throat. At the risk of making this slightly disgusting, the phlegm has been proving particularly irritating, if for nothing else then for its unfailing tendency to make me feel faintly as if I have to vomit.

It also makes it feel awful whenever I wake up, when the sore throat always seems twice as bad, the nose feels like it’s got plungers punched in, the head spins, and the feeling that I have to vomit is not so faint. Though all that usually lasts for three minutes before it all goes away.

Solar Telescope

Ctein writes an interesting article about his solar telescope. [via The Online Photographer] And it seems we’ve all just learnt that he’s had a picture of the sun both on APOD and on the cover of Science! He just can’t stop being awesome.

Van Gogh Letters

The Van Gogh Museum has put up all of his letters online. [via The Van Gogh Museum] Take a look! It’s free and pretty! There is also a beautiful book edition that I would love, except that it costs about 1000SGD more.

Munro

A look at Alice Munro’s new short story collection, Too Much Happiness: Stories. [via Barnes & Noble]

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Revision x Jukebox

It’s Not Working

Revision is going great. In fact, this is probably my best revision period ever. I’m studying more and further ahead of time than ever. And yet, paradoxically, it is also not working! I’m quite unable to explain this unusual phenomenon, but I will just chalk it down as something I’ll have to deal with quickly. I’m sure if I keep at it, it’ll sort itself out eventually.

My papers are on the 21st, 25th, then the 2nd and the 4th. Almost in increasing order of difficulty. Well, maybe you could swap the one on the 2nd and the one on the 4th around, but it’s pretty close.

Jukebox

I’ve been listening to:

• Kid A. Over the years, I’ve grown to like this more than OK Computer. I suppose it’s a change in sensibilities and aesthetic values. Kid A just feels more refined and immediate to me, though both are exceptional pieces of work.
• In Rainbows.
• Some Duane Allman. Random stuff from all around. Gone too soon, as they said, but every time I listen to his work I find myself quite astounded at the level to which he takes things. He has no brakes. He just jams the gas and creates things quite extraordinary. There are many reasons he’s my favourite guitarist, and sometimes it’s nice to be reminded of them.
• Selected bits of The White Album. I find myself liking songs that I didn’t used to like. Rocky Raccoon, for example. Also, yesterday, the visceral impact of Yer Blues punched me in the face. And here is where I throw in a superlative in the lame hope of impressing it upon you.
• Some Dylan and some Springsteen. The notable tracks are the extremely vicious Hurricane and the very cinematic Thunder Road.
• Cream. Lots of Cream. It had been a while since I last dived into the Cream catalogue, and this recent endeavour has left me quite surprised at the tremendous breadth and range of material covered by the band. I think when I was younger it was always easier to be impressed by the White Rooms and Sunshine Of Your Loves, to the point that I’d missed everything else.

Not being very good at staying awake, this playlist has been working so far for me in this revision period, though I imagine I’ll have to swap things around very soon and remove the stuff I’m more acquainted with so I can replace them with less comfortably familiar material.

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Moonwater

Study Week

It’s the study week. I feel immensely numb. As if they can’t hurt me. Well, I suppose after that storm of a semester, that’s sort of true. The exams are spaced out like nobody’s business, so I get the feeling that it’ll be a slightly different exam period. We’ll take it a day at a time, I suppose, but now that it’s the third year, I don’t think that it’s going to be causing any major states of alarm.

My study plan is actually quite simple. I’ll just be cycling through the things over and over until we reach D-day, and then it’s basically an amusement ride on rails. So, here goes.

Space!

Water found on the Moon! [via SPACE.com]

The Lovely Bones

Boneworms are a relatively newly discovered genus (Osedax) of worms that eat bones.  They live in the sea. [via ScienceDaily] Most of them haven’t been named, but their story is immensely interesting.

Moorcock x Doctor Who

Michael Moorcock should be penning a new Doctor Who novel. [via Moorcock's Miscellany]

风声 Trailer

I want to watch this movie.

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Results Get

All Smoke, No Fire

So the results are out and the rest of the world gets to do the whole I-told-you-so routine again that seems designed precisely for me. No, didn’t fail my Math or anything (I had that dream about a week ago, just before the Richard Feynman one), but it wasn’t spectacular either. In fact, I think that’s the best that could be said about it, that it wasn’t a spectacular success but also not a spectacular failure. It panned out as a B-, B+, B, B, A-, which adds to 18.5 points, and Math was actually one of the Bs. Also surprising was the A-, which came in what I initially thought was my worst subject, and with the other B I was hoping for an A.

So, you see, results just like to mess with your brain.

Expectations

On the topic of expectations and messing with brains, I did mention, I think, stepping into high gear for Bukit Merah a couple of days ago. (Forgive me if I didn’t. I’m an old man and my memory isn’t what it used to be.) On my Wednesday break day (and the unintentional Thursday semi-break day), I tried to sort it out and a few ideas came through. I’m now kind of stuck on one of the ideas which is oscillating between a proper brain-messing and something a little more orthodox. While I’ve always happily pushed ahead with the brain-messings, this one runs the risk of not fitting at all, and that leaves an itchy feeling in me that I think is basically my common sense telling me no.

So, I’m pretty sure that’ll be adjusted, though in what way doesn’t seem all too clear yet. I’m pretty sure about sticking to challenging expectations with this one idea, so we’ll just have to wait and see, and hopefully something interesting will emerge.

In the meantime, there’s still quite a bit to work on before I actually get to that point, and I mostly have everything before it figured out, so I’m more or less set for the next couple of weeks. (Assuming that I keep up with the fairly tremendous pace.) I’m almost at the halfway point, though, that said, I don’t know how long the thing is, so saying that is kind of pointless.

Coupling

Here are a couple of links. You can click them.

David Tennant to reprise Hamlet for BBC Two. [via BBC] I’m still waiting for the RSC DVD of the stage production. Which reminds me that I was talking to Jolie the other day and I realised I just don’t watch theatre alone. In fact, I can’t do a lot of things alone. The only things I can safely say that I prefer to do alone are work and writing, which tend to become the same thing most of the time. I’m just a companionship person.

UC Berkeley Classics Department’s 2009 commencement address by David Mendelsohn. [via UC Berkeley]

“And so, I would ask you this: when you think of what it means to be a classicist, don’t think only about your deconstructive readings of Homer, or post-structuralist approaches to Plautus, or Freudian readings of the Euripidean romances, or Marxist interpretations of the Peloponnesian War, the iconography of red-figure vases or the prosopography of the late Roman Republic. Think about Mrs. Begley; think about the people in Kraków, who, when they had very good reasons to believe that civilization had ended, felt that the first thing they needed to do was to put on a play by Sophocles.”

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