whenever i was down with the usual cold, cough, etc, i was usually sick, period. medicine only served a psychological purpose, to reaffirm that i was being responsible for myself. but my down periods usually extended way beyond the dosage such that i no longer bothered and eventually crossed the blurred wellness line. i believe my family gp has much to do with this, given his part in making my system rather immune to antibiotics.

and during my down periods, i'd creep into my tired self, pseudo-introverted and mostly nonchalant. then i realised, my usual mood was mostly as such anyway. i was rarely in a high. life breezes past everyday without an interim meaning. we are forever working hard towards a future, and when that future arrives, we work harder towards another future. it never ends does it? perhaps when satisfaction has been achieved, and i look forward to that day.

so the holidays started. and ended. didn't have much of a holiday anyway.
so did christmas and the new year. hello twenty ten!
first day of school. second to most other people.
the return of the dreading feeling. maybe worse.
fourteen point five weeks to summer break.

the first thing i saw was that 3.55 was above the magic 3.4, then i saw that i didn't get C for econs, then i realised that the rest should be better. could be better. oh well..

i was in a relatively irrational mood today (see, econs is a fallacy), so i emptied the last entry on my long-standing wishlist by getting myself a new screen, yay! facebook in full hd glory is a bit overkill though. i'm writing it off as an advance christmas present to myself, since it concludes this crazy transitioning year. now that it's holiday month, i feel like rotting away after all that insane busyness during the term. then again, next term is only going to be worse, so i feel i should at least prepare somewhat. the payoff matrix seems quite even oh well, indulgence never concedes..

- the difference between fluff and substance. and how to bridge that gap by substantiating fluff to create compelling reasoning, however fictional.

- that good presentations are like miniskirts: short enough to be interesting, but long enough to cover the essentials.

- the number of logic flaws embedded in our everyday communications, and how to exploit them to gain an edge for argument's sake.

- that happiness can be measured. heck, there's even a unit for it: utils.

- effort is not proportional to results. it's mind over matter: if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

- that teamwork and friendship don't go together. a good team is one that disagrees, apparently.

- that how you do anything, is how you do everything.

- that sometimes, the process is as important as the outcome,

- but at the end of the day, a direction is all you need to get from point a to point b. screw ethics. it doesn't matter how you get there as long as you do. and if nobody is going to genuinely assist you, then you probably don't need to give a sh!t about nobody. 'nuff said.

self-explanatory title. as i continue riding on the fluctuating sine curve of busyness (its slightly low now), i occasionally contemplate writing something here but usually don't find the need to tell the world everything. like how econs still sucks, or how i stayed overnight to complete my ltb portfolio (which was awesome by the way), or how i did my ct film (if you haven't watched it on facebook yet), or how i think my is101 indiv proj was pwnage, or how i still procrastinate daily, or how i got all my bids for term two (with no morning classes ) and this is what my timetable looks like:

i'm doing only 4.0 CUs because my bidding basket is full and IS students are discriminated against not allowed to take other unicores or electives.

there you go. i've said everything i wanted to say. besides the dreaded wet weather. yesterday's straits times reported that bukit timah was drenched in half a month's worth of rain in about half an hour. that's 115 olympic pools down the drain. literally.

in tech news (the geek in me still lives): google maps finally supports live traffic data for singapore cna: "..marks the first time a country is working with google to provide transport options.." so at least you see LTA doing something constructive rather than digging roads and causing jams daily. see for yourself.

works on google maps mobile as well. no update required (:

and now, to finish my ltb journal and econs project, and study for exams. lots of meet-ups and shopping awaits in december (:

when you've been spending too much time working in school, you realise that the network gets congested (or restricted maybe?) from post-lunch all the way to dinner time. its when msn refuses to connect, and remote desktop suddenly fails, and live mesh stops syncing, and certain other [non port 80] websites decide to be not available. and then you start cursing at why you're paying for IT Facilities that don't work very well. working at home is another option, but then you'll find that the exchange server is unfriendly over a long distance, and vpn doesn't help either. blah.

and then you realise you've wasted time procrastinating when you should have killed the network and continued working on your econs problem set in the first place. oh well.

- just when you got that roadblock cleared, another one is straight ahead -

my is101 prof likes to remind us how close we are to suicide every week by starting class with a "Welcome to Week X !" and then all the assignments due in Week X come flooding into your mind and you start wtf-ing.

so anyway, i got my econs midterms back. my first C+ ever. i don't know if i should be disappointed that my grades will never be a reflection of poly, or if i should be delighted that i even passed in the first place. i guess its a wake up call, although i never really did sleep.

some assignments cleared, most are pending, and i should stop procrastinating. seriously. back to work.

so hamilton won. and alonso managed a third without another crashgate scandal. and there was that silly crash accident worth a $20k fine. and an almost repeat of massa's take-the-fuel-line-with-you. and lots of lame penalties from driving over the pit kerb and speeding in the pit lane and overtaking wide. and lots of car failures, probably from the insane heat and track layout. and there goes formula one from our sunny island. and after they're done fixing the roads, i can finally take my 14 to school in peace without being terribly late for is101.

and my re-entry into academic life has taken another negative milestone. with just about flunking my econs paper a couple of hours ago. i'm starting to imagine uni being a sadist, enjoying watching people suffer from being forced to work on what they suck at. i re-used my usual exam SOP of working through once, and coming back to what i was unsure of, then confirming answers. that SOP needs to be trashed. i almost didn't make it to the end, and going through again was quite pointless since i wasn't sure about every question, so i had to skip to confirming answers right before it hit 2 hours. ouch. this is where the average variable cost goes beyond price, and its time to shut down..

shredded lettuce. sliced cherry tomatoes. shaved ham. shredded cheese. sliced hard-boiled eggs. salad dressing. milo with condensed milk. and econs notes.

so its week four and saying that you're dying has become so cliché that not many are alive anymore. its the period where you realise you should have started on something, you better get started on something, and hopefully not that everyone has started on something except yourself. everything seems to be due either tomorrow or next week. and the future looks rather bleak. times like these, motivation is bullshit; you whack yourself in the head, welcome yourself to the world, suck thumb, and get on with clearing your backlog. C'est la vie.