I haven’t been really blogging for a very long time. I can’t remember the last time I sat down to write a decent post, be it a serious opinion or a book review, or even a review for the JDramas that I have watched before. Most of the time I seem to have lost an interest or lost the passion, the zeal, of blogging.

The main reason is that the semester has started and I became lazy. There’s just stuff to do at night, and the freshies are already freaking me out. It seemed that this batch of freshies are all very hardworking. My lecture just ended and they came in to sit down and take out their lecture notes, and I haven’t even gotten out of the lecture yet!

The libraries are quite occupied too. I’m surprised to see the whole of level 5 taken only in the beginning of second week. Unless the seniors changed all at one shot, the logical reason is that quite a number of freshies are inside.

I know they are different because they hunt for textbooks more rigorously than we did last year. They kept asking me if I knew anyone still selling the MLE textbooks. But admittedly, some are just plain stupid, or desperate. Two guys in Used Textbook Forum sold their MLE textbooks for 35 and 36 dollars respectively. The clementi bookshop price is about $38 and that’s first hand. 2 dollars cheaper for a 2nd hand book? I rather “upsize” and get a new one.

But thankfully they have not started to book the discussion rooms yet, so I can still book them and have my group mugging therapy sessions. Again this semester is 6 modules so more work needs to be done.

A friend challenged me. Loser treats winner to Kushinbo. Based on the SAP score. So there’s much work to be done, very little time. I even brought my Japanese homework to school to do. It’s pretty fun though, being in school and studying. A good change to lazying around in the 3 months holiday.

I ran today too. Ran a shorter distance and didn’t clock the time I wanted to clock. In short I’m slower and more easily tired than I was last month. I guess I need to get used to running.

Well uni life is pretty much settled. Bought all my 3 core module’s books already, the last one from Coop instead of clementi bookstore cause the stock only comes in 6-8 weeks, of which my sem is probably going to end in a month’s time. So I just get it at 1 dollars extra from Coop and without the nice plastic cover too. Haha.

Well, shall continue working hard!

Well it’s the first day of school today and I finally gotten my last module. Why so late? Because to get the sixth module, we have to bid from round 3 onwards, and round 3 starts today. It’s due to a new NUS policy where they try to make it easier for people to get all 5 modules first before allowing the rest of us who want a sixth module to try.

I’m not being a sick mugger when I took this sixth module, but I absolutely have to clear it for my minor requirements. Since the department of ECE decides that we have to take 2 business modules, it has lead me to need to overload 3 semesters so that I can do my IA and clear my minor altogether within 8 normal semesters.

Hence here is the breakdown:
EE2004 - 1 point
EE2005 - 1 point
EE2011 - 1 point
All these three above are preallocated.
MKT1003 - 1 point
GEK1520 - 600 point from G account
MA2216 - 1 point

There you go. 605 points spent this semester.

Tutorial balloting also starts today. I managed to get my desired tutorial slots for GEK1520, EE2004 and EE2011. EE2005 I didn’t get because everyone chose the same slots. Why? Because the other EE2005 tutorial slots clash with the other preallocated module’s lectures. Totally stupid. No one from the same group as me would be able to attend the other tutorials. Dumb right?

So I shall do something tomorrow, maybe appeal. Then I will wait till round two before I ballot for my MKT1003 and MA2216 tutorials, of which both I hope to get my desired slots.

Got to pray then!

Friends are an integral part of your lives, and they accompany you through life. Some friends stick with you as you change schools, some don’t. Some friends are closer, some are not. Some remember your birthdays and will wish you happy birthday, either through an sms, or by writing on your wall in Facebook, or even saying it on MSN.

Some friends celebrate your birthday together, some don’t. Some will make a party all just for you, some will just have a simple meal. Who is to say what is right? For as long as they remember, we’re all happy about it. A simple meal has its pleasures, a party has its advantages.

Having friends is a happy thing. They talk to you when you are alone, accompany you on that long train ride home. They laugh at your jokes even when it is not exactly funny, and the best thing is, they are there when you need them to be, or at least I hope I can do that.

Sometimes having a large group of friends is fine, sometimes it is not. A smaller close knit group is great when everyone is as close to each other, but let’s not deceive ourselves because it’s not true. Most likely, even within a small group of friends, you have friends that are closer to some people, and that is a universal concept that is not to be changed.

What we can just do for all of our friends is to make them enjoy being with everyone of us. Keep them in the loop of what’s happening, get them out for outings. Each other’s birthdays. Make a point to eat lunch or dinner together occasionally. Study together when you have the time even when the modules are different. Take the same modules together and have fun.

I guess that’s what friends are about. Just spending occasional time together. Because I’m an electrical engineer, I like it when charges stick to electrically charged plates. I’m the plate, and friends are the charges. Talk to me and I promise I’ll be the best friend I could ever be. After all, what matters to me in university is to have friends to finish the 4 years together with me. Isn’t it?

Actually sometimes you just feel that you’re totally lousy. I don’t know why but I just dislike and find it difficult to approach people I don’t know well. In a sense it’s not very healthy. It’s like sometimes it’s just a simple thing to do, but you delay doing it and even hope you need not do it because you are just simply too shy or embarrassed to say something?

Today my friend asked me to help do something but I didn’t. After a while I felt a little guilty because I didn’t help because of my lousy character where I just don’t like approaching people I don’t know, even when it’s just something simple.

I should really change, but how do you change something that’s fundamentally part of yourself for the past twenty two years? Sometimes I just think I am just lousy.

Well I don’t believe in making only new year resolutions, anyway I believe if I have to wait to make a resolution, it’s going to be too late. Hence, I have a new mid year resolution, and that is not to get involved in any flame wars going on the internet.

Flame wars are really getting insane lately, and if you want to find one, its at you-know-where. In fact, I feel that there are not many mature people around the blogosphere who wants to discuss things in a more mature way, of which I feel we should accord everyone the basic respect. Everyone’s views are not wrong, because they have their reasons for feeling that way. It is up to a good discussion to filter out what is the crux of an issue, tackle it, and solve it. However, I’ve been pretty disappointed because most discussions end up with really childish people.

What’s up with name calling? What’s up with trying to flame and not really doing anything? What’s up with posting “Ex-****sters trying to ruin ****” when the author himself is the one who seems to be racking up the flame war? I had a discussion which ended sour because the other party was too childish to respect opinion. I understood his point and respected his opinion, but he called me names, so that’s it.

My mid year solution is to not participate in flame wars. When things go out of hand from discussion to flame, I will not comment any further. From now on, I will only day “Thank you and have a nice day”, and things will end that way. Any name calling just further demeans the author of that comment, and does not really hurt me in any sense. After all, it makes no sense to argue back and destroy my very own reputation, no matter how little that is, isn’t it? After all, winning a debate is not just having the last word, it’s about having everyone’s else’s recognition of your views as most appropriate.

I don’t believe in name calling and I don’t believe in making derogatory statements like your mom is a blablabla, which happened in one of the comments in my blog. Luckily, its from somebody to another person, and not to me, else I would have probably cursed that guy and hopes that his mouth grow thousands of little ulcers and that he will sleep and have a whole bowl full of salt filled in his mouth and when he is in unbearable agony I will pluck his nails out one by one and then I will blablabla.

So, if you believe in what I believe, repeat after me: “I will not argue with kids”.