I watched this Korean drama last week, and this is one of those romantic dramas where you go through the ups and downs with the couple and see how they sacrifice for each other and then make you feel so sad and emo about it. The feeling of seeing them together is just like how one would feel watching Boys over Flowers, although I thought Boys over Flowers seemed to have more originality, perhaps cause the storyline came from a Japanese manga?

It feels really typical of dramas where you have a rich guy who usually doesn’t date the poor girls who are not those pretty doll-like type of girls. Add in the evil mother who doesn’t wish her son to marry downwards and keeps finding girls to matchmake to her son as she thinks that the marriage is like a business transaction. Sounds really like Boys over Flowers too huh. And that the rich guy has this obnoxious attitude that just puts people off but feels so weirdly cute when he finishes off his words with a very touching sentence? And add in the fact that the Korean language sounds so coarse at times, you wonder if you have met “My Sassy Girlfriend”.

But there are other less typical parts of the story. The main story revolves how their body swap actually made them learn more about each other and the people that the other half interacts with daily. It is not original but at least you have some fun laughing because the character totally changes and hence weird stuff happens.

The ending is a little cliche. Turns out that the whole body swapping thing is due to the firefighter who saved the rich guy’s life 13 years ago, and the poor girl is the firefighter’s daughter. What a coincidence but it would probably make the girls feel that it’s a really beautiful story.

Overall I thought it was still a great drama to catch. Fun to watch and it gave me many laughs too. Good for destressing and it is only 20 episodes!

The final hurdle towards Graduation came on 7.23am this morning. I had a restless sleep last night, waking up at 4am with my entire leg being bitten by mosquitos. A rather bad start to the day. Sleep was intermittent and the message tone woke me up at 7.23am. I refused to see it, choosing to sleep instead. 5 minutes later the reminder tone rang. I couldn’t go back to sleep.

So I prayed for good results and hope that everything went well. Then I looked at the sms. It was all a blur since it is so confusing. This is how it looks on my screen

xx114R; Semester 2
2010/2011; EE3501 B+;
EE4001 A-; E4213 A-;
EE4302 B; CAP: 4.53;
Status: 1st Class Hons;

I only read the last line first since the rest are so confusing to read. Then my day brightened and I felt a sense of calm enough to figure out what the other grades were. EE3501 is a B+, which is something I expected since I didn’t know how to do some questions, although a certain friend did mention that I should get an A in the beginning of this semester. EE4001 is my FYP, thankfully an A-, else it would have vetoed off my class of honours. EE4213 is Image Processing, my favourite module of the sem. I got an A- for it, which is the same as the introduction to image processing module I took last sem. EE4302 is Advanced Control Systems, which I got a B for after being unable to answer most of the questions in the exam.

Overall this is my worst semester since I have a SAP of 4.25, but I realize it was the heaviest semester in terms of the number of MCs counted. Nonetheless I still managed to retain my First Class Honours after so long, having worked so hard for it, even having to endure the entire year of FYP.

Here are my SAP results after each semester, just in case any aspiring future NUS student wants to see how a senior does. Perhaps he or she can gain some inspiration. You don’t have to always get > 4.5.
1 – 4.526 (19 MC)
2 – 4.405 (21 MC)
3 – 4.8 (Dean’s List) (20MC + 1S/U)
4 – 4.9 (Dean’s List) (20MC)
5 – 4.452 (21MC + 1S/U)
6 – 4.286 (IA) (7MC+ 12MC for IA)
7 – 4.5 (12MC*)
8 – 4.25 (24MC*)
Total: 164MCs
*FYP MCs allocated at the end of Sem 8.

Some juniors feel upset at the end of each semester and ask why their results are not up to standard. Actually if they wanted to, they could always reach out to their seniors and do a little review, or ask for tips. Or they could just google.

Sometimes it’s about luck. Which semester you take a specific module; which module you choose to take; whether you are good at such modules or not; whether you have friends who will do the module with you. Every factor depends on a certain degree of luck. Some modules have different lecturers and different exam formats for odd and even semesters. The lecturers are different too. What module you take is important as you might be really good at history modules, so taking a history based Singapore Studies mod might give you more advantage. Friends are also important for reminding you about critical deadlines as well as discussion about assignments and academic work. They accompany you to lab so you won’t feel so lost too.

But no matter what you have to have a certain percentage of hard work or talent. If you have more talent, you can put in less hard work and vice versa. But ultimately the question is whether you want the grades badly, and whether you want to spend the required effort on it. If you feel that the grades isn’t important then you won’t be able to go through the entire plan. You will give up halfway thinking “it’s alright”. The effort might be huge for people who cannot catch ideas and concepts easily. It might require some sacrifice on personal time. If one does not want to sacrifice on the time, then one cannot achieve his desired objectives. It’s just a matter of what you want more – results in university or personal time. There is no right or wrong answer.

Having walked this far in these 4 years, at least I have had some results that I can be proud of. At this moment in time, I can only wait for the 11th of July where I can attend my commencement ceremony and have my name written down under the title of “First Class Honours”.

I am currently in universal studios Singapore blogging using my iPhone while waiting for my friends to be done with their rollercoaster ride. Yes I’m looking after the bags cause I don’t like roller coaster rides, and I get giddy and I would feel like liking after I am done with such rides. Probably why I can never be a fighter pilot or a weapons systems officer. Haha.

The photo above was taken right below the roller coaster themed “Battlestar Galactica”. There’s two colours to ride on: red for humans and blue for cylons. Red is the normal roller coaster and blue is the suspended one where you can end up with your head pointing to the ground.

Perhaps you might ask, why go to universal studios when you can’t take part in the rides. I’m just here to see the place and take part in the milder rides or the performances they put up. Anyway I paid $46 for the tickets as there is this lady who is a staff there so she is entitled to staff discounts. No she is not so nice because I am handsome but because she wanted to exchange her $100 voucher for cash and we did it for her. We were originally going to use the NTUC discount which would result in $50 per ticket. So it Kwan additional amount of money saved I guess?

Universal Studio Singapore is a very small place, and there are not many rides, so it is not that interesting. I guess the Osaka one would be much bigger and better? You can finish walking the grounds in 1 hour if you take a leisurely stroll. More of the time is spent waiting for the attractions.

Perhaps, I am not a theme park kind of person as I don’t really like theme parks? I foresee myself coming very rarely and I would hate to come if there’s only roller coasters and nothing else. Haha.

There are a lot of people despite being a weekday. It is the last day of school for MOE students, perhaps their parents took them out of school? There are a lot of poly or uni students here; or people of their age I guess.

I’m looking forward to buying the popcorn outside universal studios and perhaps buying something from the Hershey’s shop.

Although I didn’t take most of the rides, it is an enjoyable day nonetheless. It felt like I’m a tourist walking about. It is a good feeling that is hard to feel in Singapore. Haha.

Ah well. The weather is so hot. Hope my friends come out soon. Haha. =)

I had been back from Taiwan for a very long time now, since Tuesday 17th of May. I had been slacking a lot since then. Every weekday morning before we go explore Taiwan, at 9am, one of the TV channels showed the drama Dae Jang Geum, which I watched a very long time ago. I caught snippets of it from time to time, therefore, I thought I should just finish it when I get back to Singapore, since I own the DVD.

Hence I spent my holidays finishing the remaining episodes. I had watched episode 20+ in Taiwan, and I continued from then on to episode 70 in Singapore. I had just finished the entire drama.

I had uploaded my Taiwan photos onto Facebook, so friends of mine on Facebook can go and browse the photos. I would be blogging about my short holiday as the days go by, perhaps when I finish my final shifting of host for the website. At the moment I have shifted my site to a temporary host account belonging to my friend. The previous host account is going to expire in a few days time, and the new host account would only begin on the 1st of June. I’m countering a little problem with the old host, hence the migration isn’t that successful. Ah well it will soon be alright I guess.

The holidays have started a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t really done anything. Time to start learning new things and starting new projects of my own. Still brainstorming on what I should do at the moment.

Will update once everything is good!

This is the second book I have read from author William Bernhardt, and it preceeds the first book I read titled “Strip Search“. It’s a continuation based on the criminal psychologist and the autistic guy.

This time, the book Dark Eye is about this very sick man who’s suffering because of an early child abuse. He believes that by killing girls and sacrificing them, he will usher in the end of the world and into paradise. He chooses girls properly, following the stories wrote by Edgar Allan Poe, and murders them in the way the stories said. One girl is caught because she dyes her hair, wears fake nails and makeup. She ends up like one of the stories where the person is buried alive, except she didn’t make it out alive like the story.

Another notable victim is a girl who works at a dirty bar giving lap dances and well, extra services.

Susan Pulaski, the crimial psychologist, was sacked due to a drinking problem, and now works instead under a contact based job for the police. Together with the Chief’s autistic son Darcy, she investigates the crime and tries to find out the motive behind, whilst struggling with her alcohol problem at the same time.

She eventually ends up getting kidnapped by the psycho, and had nude photos of her taken in lewd positions. Eventually she is rescued by Darcy who finds out a deliberate clue left by the psycho. The psycho had wanted to just teach Susan a lesson, and he considers Susan the perfect vessel to carry out his final act of “deliverance”.

Eventually as more and more girls go missing, the heat is on the police to do something, except that the police has no clues. With Susan’s brain and Darcy’s help, Susan eventually narrowed down the location of the psycho, and rescues 4 girls including her very own niece whose supposed to replace Susan as the vessel.

This book is an exciting book and it has made me look for William Bernhardt’s book when I go to the library. However I think I can only find Dark Eye and Strip Search that belongs to stories with Susan and Darcy. Older William Bernhardt’s books have a different protagonist, Ben who is a lawyer.

Note: Written on Jul 25, 2008

I realized the last post title was wrong since I was talking about my first day. Haha. But well the 2nd day has been quite fun, except in the morning because their departmental stores do not open until 11am. So there was nothing to do since all shops are closed and we can only walk around the hotel. They are more of a night-life kind of people I guess; in the morning there are not many people walking on the streets.

We went to this steamboat lunch buffet which was really cheap; considering the quality. It is about the traditional Marina Bay steamboat price, but the prawns are fresh. They are still alive when brought to the table. The taste of Taiwanese prawns is very different, somehow it tastes a little sweeter. There are also the bamboo clams which are very nice; ate 3 of it. Lobster salad which is basically the same kind of topping you can find on an inari sushi; except that it is a lobster inari.

Late afternoon we went to Sogo to shop. The place looks like Takashimaya; first floor is the cosmetics section with all the really pretty models having their faces as the endorser of each brand. The lift has this uniformed girl who will walk out and ask if anyone wants to board. Basically she is like the operator of the lift. Something not seen everywhere.

I saw something called the boyfriend jeans. Anyone know what it is? Well at least I think it’s for girls only. That much I can deduce.

The items there are expensive compared to the night market. We went to 一中街’s night market to look, having been full from the buffet. Oh ya a random cut in: We had bubble tea, which Zijuan told me via twitter that it is actually Koi; no wonder the taste is the same. We also had this thing called the 奶酪 which is really nice; wonder if they sell it in Singapore, perhaps it can be a product of a shop. Maybe I should learn it and sell it in my future shop. Lol.

Bought 500+ bucks worth of clothes. The salesgirl helped to mix and match, which is a challenge since I am so skinny. But it all turned out well. Thankfully I’m not in Japan else it would have been more expensive. And my budget from Japan can be used for the clothes. Ah well. And I was lucky enough to do the lucky draw. 5 times since I bought so much. So I got a 200, and another 200 so the sales girl said 手气不错. Then I got a 100, and then she said to try for the largest prize so I asked what it is. I took out a 200 and she said its a 500. So last chance and guess what? I got the maximum prize. So NT$1200 worth of vouchers. Slightly less than SGD$60. Probably going to the Shi-lin equivalent to redeem NT$1200 worth of clothes.

Didn’t have much appetite for dinner so ate a little and bought the ji-pa back. Wasn’t as nice as the Feng-Jia night market’s one. Then it’s back to hotel where we rest and sleep.

This novel’s central plot lies with this thing called “The Book Of Names”, and the religion behind it is closely linked to Madonna. Yes it’s Kabbala. Apparently, there are 36 special people in every generation, and the world will not end as long as these 36 people are alive. The thing is that the names of each generation’s 36 people have been written down since Adam’s time. It is through the good deeds that these 36 special people do that keeps the world from destruction.

The book has been found recently, but by evil hands. The Gnoseos, a group of people who wants to challenge God, has gotten it’s hands on the book of names, and is using the computer’s superior capabilities to find the names of each of the 36 people of this current generation, and the names are hidden in the book. At the start of the entire novel, The Gnoseos have killed 33 and only 3 remaining. They have to find the remaining 3 names and kill them to start the end of the world.

As more and more of the 36 are killed, the world falls into chaos. Natural disasters like wildfires start appearing. Think “The Day After Tomorrow” and you’ll be somewhat there. The mission now is to find out who the remaining 3 people are and save them.

David Shepard, a professor and the protagonist of the story, finds himself entangled in these whole issue when he realizes that the headaches he has gotten is giving him information. Everytime he has an headache, he writes down a name, and he finds out that these people are killed and did not die by natural causes. By talking to his priest, he starts a journey to find the remaining 3 names and save them, but when he does, he finds that the first non-dead name he comes out with is that of his step daughter.

Through the story, David has to evade the evil people, who have infiltrated many positions like ministers of a country or the ambassadors wife. He ends up having to find out the secret code to find out the names of the evil people from his diary, using the same method as how the evil people are finding the 36 names.

This book is pretty nice and exciting and it’s currently quite difficult to find it on the bookshelves because people are reserving it. The authors are Jill Gregory and Karen Tintori. When you search in the NLB website, search for Karen Tintori. I’ve tried searching for “The books of names” but it comes out everything OTHER than what I want.

Note: Written on Jul 25, 2008

Alright, the hotel has wireless internet, although it is a little unstable now as compared to yesterday. I’m in 台中now. I arrived in Taiwan at 4.40, took a bus to the Tao Yuan station, kind of like an mrt but much faster to almost 300kmh. Kind of like a small bullet train.

Took the train to Tai Chung station where my dad’s colleague drove us to the hotel. It’s quite a nice place, pretty spacious. The toilet’s big too and the hotel service is very nice. But there’s no porn on the tv. Did my army friends lie when they found it in their hotel?.

When I landed in Taiwan and got out of the plane there’s this one smell which instantly told me I reached Taiwan. I didn’t know how to describe it but it’s quite a unique smell; it isn’t nice smelling but neither is it smelly. It’s just Taiwan as it is since 2005, which is the last time I was here.

We went to Feng Jia Night Market, where we had dinner and ate some road-side snacks. The Ji-Pa (haha not vulgarity ah) was quite nice, except it wasn’t the same as Shi-lin, which is good since I’ll probably get sick of it if I keep eating the same flavour.

The girls are teh as usual, can imagine how they speak all the time with the 哦 at the end of each sentence.

Oh when we reached the night market the first smell I can small is the smelly beancurd. Haha. Funny in a way it didn’t feel smelly although I still didn’t want to eat it. It wasn’t nice the otherr time around when I ate the fried version. The steamboat version was milder and nicer. Not as smelly when you bite into it.

Oh ya, was flipping though SQ’s entertainment list and it was quite nice to see both Aya (Azumi) and Maki (duno what’s the title) inside. So nice. I watched “Little Fockers” and “最强喜事” on the plane. The music list had AKB48 (not very nice songs) and SNSD’s “Run Devil Run” CD.

Saw Aya’s endorsement of Kose in one of the “Guardian”-like stores near the night market. Taiwan girls just have many different styles of dressing, it’s quite nice to see. Kind of like a bugis street in every town; maybe they should propose it as one of the GRC campaign promises. Lol.

Ok all those were not really in chronological order and quite random, but it’s just some minor updates. Hee.

I’m in the Singapore Airlines lounge now, due to a happy “mistake” that allowed my mum to get the Gold status. So the three of us are allowed into the lounge where there is food, drinks and newspapers. And computers to use as well. I’m using the Mac, just for fun since the windows computers are all used, and it seems like a pleasant experience so far.

In about 2 hours time I will be flying off to Taiwan, where I will be until the 17th May 2011. Since my flight wasn’t delayed, I suppose the “prophet” who predicted the 14 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan is a fake one. Perhaps he should be detained under the ISA. LOL.

I won’t be online for the next 7 days; at most occasionally, so any Twitter or Facebook replies will not be replied and I might not see them since there would be 7 days worth of material to read; doubt Twitter is able to display 7 days of news feed anyway.

So there, enjoy yourselves while I’m away.

The Singapore elections has officially concluded. The only fun part of it was in guessing the final results with my friends, and eventually winning the prediction with no errors at all. It isn’t difficult to predict the result if you just think of it as a credibility issue; which parties are credible enough for the public to have confidence in choosing it over the incumbent.

Lately I have gotten really sick of all the election news around social media. I mean, it has concluded, and the fight should have stopped already. Never mind that people haven’t learnt to respect other people’s political views.

There’s a lot of little movements here and there, and it is really irritating to see people signing petitions being upset that the police came in to intervene based on the crowd present during the signing of the petition.

First off, the petition is an act against the very democracy those people claim to be protecting. On polling day, everyone has one vote and everyone has decided whether they want to vote for the incumbent, the opponent or void their vote. No matter what reason you have, unless there is fraud, the winner has been democratically chosen. Signing a petition is like not recognizing the right of everyone else to have their own decision. It’s like, my favourite politician just lost, let’s have a petition so everyone can re-vote again. Childish and shows a lack of respect for people who think the opponent is better.

What is the point of a petition anyway. Assuming a by-election is called, using the same two politicians, will the results change. If we assume that everyone voted according to their wishes, the results will not change. If the results change, then it begs the question: Which stupid idiot suddenly changed his mind and why. Why didn’t he/she respect her vote and give it to the person he or she thinks can best serves her interest?

Even if people do change their vote, how does anyone know who will win? Even if the people who voided the vote had to choose, would they choose the politician you are supporting or would they choose the winner instead? In that way, the result would still be the same, but with a bigger gap.

If you argue that, “There are people who choose to vote for the opponent thinking that most people would vote for the incumbent”, and since now they know the result, they would change it, then it can be applied to any place and we might as well re-poll the whole country. Some people would definitely argue that a by-election should be done due to “the small difference in votes”. Then I might ask, how do we know how many people would change their votes and truly vote for who they wanted? How do we know that the number is not more than the difference? What if this number is more than 10% of the electorate? That way, even Aljunied deserves a by-election.

Besides, I’m confused. If you know how people voted, and then a by-election is called and hence you change your votes, is that democratic? It’s like voting with prior knowledge of how other people vote.

I’m also tired of the petition to remove Tin Pei Ling and put George Yeo instead. Do any of those people think before supporting such a petition? The movement against Tin Pei Ling is because people feel she is not good enough to be an MP, and hence when she won due to the GRC effect, it is undemocratic. I agree the GRC is not a good system, but putting George Yeo in does not make it more democratic. In fact it is an abuse of the system when you can swop MPs like that based on a petition of the few. It is also a mark of disrespect to those who voted for her. What if there were people who genuinely liked her? Just because your friends and family doesn’t share those views doesn’t mean no one has those views.

This election has also made me see how people are swayed by the media. The media is a crucial tool. It can propel a politician to fame and it can destroy him. Granted that ST isn’t exactly the best source of political news, but blindly following The Online Citizen or Temasek Review isn’t going to help. If I would want to rank the three together, I would put Temasek Review at the bottom. TOC and TR are openly anti-establishment, only writing articles for opposition and against the incumbent, and TR doesn’t have an editorial direction since anyone can contribute an article. In such a way the accuracy and integrity of the site is always in question.

Until now, we have people pointing fingers at each other, blaming the others for returning the government in power. The country is still divided along political views and I am not sure if that is the best for us.

What I think is this: If you are genuinely concerned with the GRC system and the gerrymandering that you are convinced that it exists, then lend your hand to the opposition so they can be stronger in the next election. An election is a logistics battle, so even if you are unfamiliar with national issues, you can help in putting up posters, giving out pamphlets etc. If you are smart and trained in an important field like economics and finance, then help to draft out policies and scrutinize existing policies. If you are smart and you have ideas, think of how to bring GRC down instead of claiming it to be unfair. The GRC system will remain until someone comes up with a method to have single seats and still solve the problem of minority representation. Personally I thought the government could top up the representation by adding NMP seats to prominent leaders of each community. Such suggestions do more good than just mere complaining that the ground isn’t level.

But please, the elections are over. Let us respect the results and respect our fellow Singaporeans who voted. We each have a vote, and our vote is equal. Our vote does not weigh more than the other person on the street. There is no such thing as four legs good, two legs better. Especially when you rail against unfair practices but practice such unfairness yourself. So please, let’s just move on.