it failed me

I’ve always looked upon the Internet as The Invincible one. But today, I can’t find anywhere on the WWW to watch

The Right Stuff (1983). Please, anyone who know where to watch this online, tell me! So that I can afford to skip my lecture on Monday.

movies aficiando

Phew, it was such a long day yesterday. Despite that (lessons ended at a whooping 8pm!), I didn’t have Monday blues.

Remember the 4 hours lecture I mentioned? It’s probably one of the best modules around. It’s Film and History. No exams. No tutorial. What say you?  Although 4 hours seem a little too long for comfort, I’ve found myself a solution.

The first portion of the lesson was the ‘lecturing’. I must say the lecturer is a funny guy. Wasn’t bored at all. And after that, it would be movie time. Linking films and histroy together may possibly make you go “ha. must be some boring films”. Contrary to that, the movies screened so far are GOOD.

1st Movie (which I missed ‘cos I wasn’t allocated to that module yet)

Memento (2000). It’s such a refreshing movie experience. One will easily liken it to Vantage Point the way the movie is presented. (I conveniently streamed this on tudou.com ‘cos I need to watch it for my assignment.)

2nd Movie

Rain Man(1988). Intitially when I knew that it’s a 1988 film, I was kinda turned off. How can the film possibly be nice? I was wrong. It was so interesting. I watched it twice. Once during the lecture and the other at home comfortably via tudou.com.

Other than the assignments, we need to discuss ’bout the films on NUS IVLE. That’s easy! Just talk and talk.

When I first stepped into the LT, the lecturer was blasting some soft rock music while waiting for everyone to settle down and everyone was busy chatting, munching and making out. Eh I made the last one up. Ha. My point is, everyone looked like they were there to party and relax.

The solution to the uncomfortable LT chair is, stream the movie online. Whoots. I am lessons-less on Tues and Wed. I can take my time to watch the movie at home. Meaning I don’t have to end my lessons at 8pm on Mondays. Please call me a genius. Of course, I will check that the movie is available online before skipping the lecture. Thank goodness the ‘lecturing’ is before the movie screening, not after.

Another happy news, I’ve gotten every single tutorial slot I want. It’s sunshine after rain. It’s always the darkest before the dawn. My modules shit got me down rather badly but everything is going on pretty well now. Oh, did I mention that for 2 of my 5 modules, the tutorials are on even and odd weeks? Meaning each week, I’ve only got 3 tutorials despite having 5 modules. Wahhahahaha. I rock.

(sorry for my outburst. I got carried away.)

the next best thing to gold

Yay! Singapore table tennis Women’s team has won the gold at the Olympics 2008!! Er.. If only that was true. Ha..

Achieving silver is just as celebratory as winning the gold. After so many years, an Olympic medal at last. Perseverance prevails. The whole nation had the eyes fixed on the finals to the extent that the English broadcast of the National Day Rally was postponed. Thank god for the exciting match, it saved me from the boring NDR. Oops, I’m 100% politically apathetic. Then again, I will try my best to sit through the English NDR tomorrow (is it tomorrow? like I care… HAHAHA). Popcorn, potato chips, coke, chocolate bar checked!

The match probably made everyone sit at the edge of the seat. There were many exciting rallies throughout the whole game. Damn impressive artful work from the Singapore players despite the 3-0 score. If you were listening hard enough, the commentator had such a quirk sense of humour. He mentioned Wang’s adopted panda and thinking of visiting it since he stayed in the hotel nearby it. Ha.

After the match, it was the Channel 5 news and it mentioned that there were some negative views from ‘certain quarters’ regarding the fact that the Singapore players ain’t “real” Singaporeans. It is such a mood killer. Honestly, did they not feel a single tiny weeny bit of happiness as we watched our flag raised during the Victory Ceremony?

However, the more repulsive thing was the reply made to the above comment. The reply was that Singapore is not the only country that uses foreign talent in sports. Hello, by pulling other countries down the waters with you ain’t going to make you dry, or drier for that matter. I suppose the better approach is to continue to educate the public (or rather just those rascals) that these players are now Singaporeans. We should accept it and share the glory of the silver medal. Is that not one of the best birthday presents for Singapore? I admit that personally I would be prouder if the players were born and raised in Singapore, ie true blood Singaporeans. The least we should do is to credit the country for picking out the right players from foreign lands?

An innocent triumphant moment can turn into such an ugly discussion, that will make anyone sad huh? While the objectives of Olympic games are being reminded (peace and stuff I reckon) ever so often these days, here we are in our own country being bitter about the ‘pirated’ Singapore players. Some people ought to wake up.

Anyway,

Congrats to the Singapore Table Tennis Women’s Team!

Beijing Olympics 2008

I was at Sim Lim Square when the entire mall roared upon the victory of Singapore women’s team for clinching a placement in the women’s team finals for table tennis. It was indeed a historical moment for Singapore sports arena. (talking bout ARENA, there’s a NUS event at the Arena tonight!)

I was having a Philosophy lecture while the semi finals was going on yesterday. 3 guys sitting in front of me were following the score of the match closely.

We were keeping track of the ‘Live Results’. It looks like the above just that it was yesterday’s crucial semi-final match.

The people behind me were cringing and cheering quietly as all of us evidently paid more attention to the score than to Socrates and Plato (I thought the caucasian lecturer was saying ‘play-doh’ when he said Plato).

They would go, “eh 7-7!” “singapore leading!” “shit man”. Haa.. While I pretended to be nonchalent and peered over his shoulder once in a while to check out the score discreetly.

I thought Singaporeans were the only one emphasizing on our ‘medal drought of 48years’.

Their original nationalities have always been a rather sensitive issue. I witnessed much cynicism from locals who labelled these chics as IMPORTS. I have mixed feelings towards this matter. Truly, they ain’t born and raised in Singapore. But hey, does that mean they ain’t true Singaporeans too? So what even if we are Singaporeans who are born and raised here? What have we done for Singapore? At least the male counterparts can claim that they did NS, but the ladies? Dare we call ourselves true Singaporeans?

Why don’t we just rejoice in harmony and savor the hair standing moments together tomorrow? Won’t it feel better than to feel bitter that “imports” are winning for us?

All the way, for the two weis!

super lemon

Looks like I was going through the ‘non-blogging phase’ as well as the ‘non-clubbing phase’ for the past couple of weeks, the latter still holds though.

School has officially started on 11 Aug’08, Monday. NUS bidding for modules via CORS is rather infamous. I screwed up mine pretty badly and was going through 3 appeals.

In my moment of desperation and frustration, I googled NUS bidding and came across two rather interesting blog entries.

You can even find ways to sabotage the whole bidding system. (if only this fellow has used the time he spent on writing all these on bidding his modules, things might have been better for him)

What happened to me was that I bid and was allocated 3 level 2000 modules, which are normally NOT meant for 1st year students. I didn’t know that and went ahead to bid what I thought was crucial for my major (in the sems to come). When I was already allocated with 3 level 2000 modules (1st year students should start with level 1000 modules), I received an email from my faculty that I should consider dropping at least one of my level 2000 modules. The story didn’t end here. I was still on an advance bid for another level 2000 module, which I promptly dropped of course.

Due to the very late realization that I had to drop the level 2000 modules, in case I can’t cope with the workload and hence affecting my results, there was hardly any more decent level 1000 modules for me to get. I missed the protection round for 1st year students. And with my measly points, it was impossible to compete with seniors who have 4 digits in their accounts.

I appealed and appealed. Finally, everything is more or less settled now, ‘cept for my tutorial balloting. I was so desperate that I even appealed for a CHINESE LANGUAGE module.

I can’t blame anyone but myself for bidding those level 2000 modules in the first place. I’m very grateful that FASS made a few arrangements to keep my head above water for my first semester. Phew..

Thank god I was surrounded by a few good willed friends who tried to help me in whichever way they could. Thank you.

‘Cos of my rather complicated case, I didn’t have many lectures to attend. I went drinking after the first day of school; shopping + movie on the 2nd ; watched a movie on the 3rd; comfortably nua-ed at home on the 4th; woke up bloody early to INTEND to attend my only remaining NM level 2000 module at 8am to only skip it when I was right outside the LT, ‘cos I was dead sure that I’m going to drop it, and crashing an uber boring BioChem lecture on the 5th. Relaxed huh!

I’m already feeling the influx of workload. School ends at 8pm for me on Mondays due to a 4hour(4pm-8pm) lecture. Well, at least they decently take away exam for this particular module, but to only suffocate us with many many assignments I heard.

Should my tutorial balloting go well, I will be having a 3-day week.

After so many years of not studying hard enough, I wanna be real studious this time round.

Witness my change yea!