Since i cannot get any results, i am actually writing my dissertation. I want to make it really lean. Trying to make it below 50 pages.

I am so bored because i cannot access the terminals in the lab for some unknown reasons. And the staffs are nowhere to be seen.

Yesterday i was waylaid by two person who wanted to sell me faith, and they failed miserably.

Watched Star Awards yesterday. It was interesting to note that Chen Liping, while on stage receiving her award, said something like this: "Thank you god and goddess of all religions for blessing us the last year." It was truistic that she was referring to the Slim 10 case and that only affirms Lucretius view that religion is a disease born out of fear.

And stupid me, came to school at 7.30 only to find lab closed again. I got another 3 days break.

Watched Master and Commander a few days back and it was absolutely awesome. Crowe was quite at his best as the callous and yet passionate captain Aubrey. This was exactly the type of movie you need to proselytize people to joining the navy, to glorify war, violence and blood. It is a good movie with its special effects - i wouldn't mind watching another time - but if all movies were made in the same mould, save being bored, i suppose people will become more bellicose without themselves knowing. It is absolutely scary.

Okay I did it. An excel program that does quadratic regression by using gaussian elimination to solve for the constants and then using quadratic extrapolation to get the hot spot stress. Very customized and neat. Heh.

The lab is closed till 8 Dec, which means i got an unexpected one week break. Heh. I am running out of time to do my FYP, i figured. And i figured that i could save some time by writing a program that does quadratic extrapolation. Hmm, but how do i do that?

Things will never be the same again. Awakened and deeply traumatized i am, with that process seemingly irreversible. I don't suppose i could think like before, even if i want to. Once the mind learns to do something, it is incredibly hard to 'unlearn' it, if even possible. Cycling is a good example.

Fuck, my lab is closed. I came happily to school at 7.30 only to find all the computers gone.

After my exams on Friday, i would have completed 7 sems at NUS. And i was thinking just now what i have learnt so far, which i will enumerate:
1) Probably all the engineering stuff i have learnt will not be put to use.
2) However, the engineering approach to analysing and tackling problems is an extremely powerful tool which can be employed everywhere. By this, i am talking about the Aristotlean approach to division, which bears some similarities. You will become more logical, and i don't mean this in the real hardcore sense of the logics learnt in philosophy.
3) That i must be prepared for lifelong learning.
4) That you must draw the line between a good decision and a bad outcome.

That is probably quite impressive but the more i think about it, the more i feel you don't need 7 sems to learn them.

Universities should have two versions of the same degree: one for people going to practise in that field and another for people not. The latter should be shorter of course.

So, two of my cousins flopped at the PSLE. No, they didn't. They got 230+, decent enough to get into seconday school. Yet they cried, both of them, believe it or not. Expectations were high and they had failed miserably. The RI and RGS dream was over: that bubble had burst violently. Yet, that wasn't really what they wanted, but merely what others wanted from them. Someone should really tell them what is really going on, that they shouldn't be judged on some meaningless number or the name of the school they come from. They think that for children to cry is perfectly normal and that got me seriously worried because in years to come, the conflict between their superego and ego might affect their development as teenagers. Yet, these people do not at all seem worried, or so it seemed, or maybe they don't know.

I am not a parent, nor am i going to be one very soon. It seems an enormous duty, to me, to be in charge of someone's life, to teach them right from wrong, to impart to them their philosophy to life, because i am not even confident i know them well myself. You don't just had kids just to fill up your life. That is such a selfish thought. There is a duty to teach them properly and adequately, and these people had failed in that regard. I am having a hard enough time trying to be a 'good' human being, trying to be more responsible to myself and others.

After reading this, people will probably think i am very pessimistic. But i am not, really!