"Sometimes, don't you just hate yourself..."

MS4523 POLYMER SYNTHESIS QUIZ TWO:

After staying up the whole night studying for the quiz along with my roomie, the moment of truth finally arrives as the clock ticked closer & closer to 9:30am. The lecture notes & tutorials never left our hands even as we made our way slowly to the lecture theater.
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As if a curse, once I step foot into the LT, I forgot what I know & what I didn't know... This seems to be a persistent bugbear for all of us, students. The point of saturation. You just can't stuff another chemical structure for Nylon 6,6, another equation governing the rate of propagation or another value for the molecular weight of isoprene, into your brain. Then there comes the point of time, when you want to step into the LT, grab that test paper, & get it over & done with, ending all that misery. I have that impulse all the time...
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So the paper is finally in my hands. It's mainly MCQ's. Each question is worth 4 marks. Relatively simple, I must say. Having said that, no doubt that makes me hate myself even more for losing 12 marks worth of points. Two of the questions are because I was thinking too much, or due to the lack of me understanding the question, or due to the poor structuring of the question which makes it very misleading...
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It was something about cationic & anionic polymerization, & the charge of the carbon that terminates the living species... Is the charge neutral, negative or positive? There are two questions regarding this, & I totally screwed it up because I was thinking too much, thinking that it might even be a trick question. Haiz... so much for looking in too deep.
LESSON ONE: Just go with your instincts, man. Don't think too much.
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I screwed up for the other question too. I didn't really know the answer to that question. But I happened to catch a glimpse at the answer for the question, of my friend who was sitting diagonally infront of me. He circled (B) while I circled (C)... But needless to say, I wasn't confident enough so I changed my answer to (B) too. But thinkng back, I don't know what clouded my judgement then... because I know that options (A) & (B) belong to the same species, thereby leaving (C) as the odd one out. AND I DID CIRCLED (C) AT FIRST ACCORDING TO THE LOGIC OF THIS THINKING. But I had to wavier in my answer & choose the wrong one, when in fact I had the right answer all along. Haiz...
LESSON TWO: No more copying from others. They are in the same league as you. Just because you think you don't know, doesn't mean that the others know...
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Why don't you ever learn from your mistakes, Leslie? Two more weeks to the exams... buck up, buck up! No more mistakes... (Damn, these mistakes just have to spoil my day)
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Rain... Rain... Rainy Day
It was a beautiful Thursday. Viewed online lectures the whole night before... and took a 2-hour nap before attending my 9:30am Nanomaterials tutorial. One word - Shagged! But the professor giving the tutorial, Alex Yan, is my FYP professor... so need to show face a bit. =P But he's good - he seems to know what he's teaching and his explanations are quite clear. Most importantly, answers to the tutorial will be posted. That means no scribbling of answers down in Guiness Book of Record's timing. =P

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After tutorial, I went to do my FYP for a while before I headed back hall to change & pack my laptop & went off to look for Charmaine @ Ngee Ann Poly. Met my girl & had lunch at Ngee Ann Poly. It's been long since I stepped into a polytechnic canteen. The crowd there, in the canteen, in the school premises, are just different from what we usually see in NTU. The crowd is definitely younger, rowdier & more funky, at least they try... but sad to say, there are some students who just seem to be trying too hard... Anyway I think I look like a lecturer there, & there was no way for me to blend in with the crowd. But when I walk around with Charmaine, I just can't stop thinking how funny it would be that we seem to be having a teacher-student love affair in school. =P

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Tried to study after lunch but I guess I was just too tired & sleepy, and I just dozed off beside her while she was studying for her BTT coming up next week. Seriously she is the first person I've seen or heard of, whom writes notes on the Basic Theory book. Very amusing indeed. Well at least she's serious about it... =]

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By the time I woke up, it was about time for me to leave for my driving lesson @ Bukit Gombak. Hate to leave her side, but she has training later while I have my driving. So I guess we had to say our sad goodbyes...

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Driving is definitely getting easier... on the road as well as in the circuit. But let's not get too complacent here. There is always room for more improvement! The practical test is coming soon in another two more weeks, on Nov 7th. I'm so nervous about it. I have nightmares about not passing the test. Stressed...

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Came back hall after driving. Rained on the way back, stopped... Studied abit, took a nap, woke up at around 12midnight... Guess what? Raining again. Continued studying... Went for a run at around 3am... Refreshed! Took some laundry for washing & continued studying. 6am - rained again. In the last 12 hours, IT RAINED 3 TIMES! I love rain. But, just why can't I wash my clothes & hang them out to dry in peace, undisturbed peace? Haiz...

Haha... Guess I'm complaining abit too much. Probably due to the stress from all the quizzes, FYP & exams...

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Coming up:
1) MS4523 Polymer Synthesis Quiz 2 - 28th Oct
2) MS4520 Polymer Technology Quiz 2 - 30th Oct
3) Driving Practical Test - 07th Nov
4) Exams!!!
5) FYP!!!

"Love at First Sight ♥..."

19th October, 2008:
From "It's Complicated" to "In a Relationship"...
We were dating... But now we are finally "boyfriend" & "girlfriend".
To me, it means acceptance... acceptance of me into your life.
It also means you have finally overcame your phobia of being in another relationship.
And I'm feeling very blessed (still am), to be in this relationship with you, together...
I know I wanted you the first time I saw you @ SDBA...
I just didn't know whether it was the right thing to do then, or how to go about doing it.
I don't know what gave me the courage to do what I did.
But I'm glad I did what I did on Friendster... adding you as a friend.
And one thing led to another, & now to this. It is like a dream come true.
~.~.~
Back then I was clinging onto a 'hope' that wasn't there... But I just couldn't bring myself to let her go.
But you shown me the way, you shown me the light...
You put a smile on my face every morning I wake up, with your morning SMS'es.
You made me realise how much I've fallen in love with you, when I thought I almost lost you that night.
You are what matters most to me, & I look forward to days spent with you.
And Life is so much more beautiful, just because you are in it.
To my most beloved girl, thank you for being in my life.
~.~.~
From: A Boyfriend

17th October, 2008:
A simple day...
Woke up late from a good night's sleep.
Went swimming with Charmaine after her lessons @ Bishan Swimming Complex.
She loves to swim! And she has been trying to get me to the pool since long before...
Did you know? She was once a competitive swimmer, so it's only natural that she swims fast too.
Had some great time at the pool before we went to catch "Connected" @ Cathay AMK Hub.
We both thought the movie was fantastic, surpassing its predecessor "Cellular" even...
Not that we remembered the Hollywood version "Cellular", but we just thought "Connected" was so much better!
After the movie, we went shopping for ingredients. I promised I would cook dinner for her one day.
Always imagined cooking dinner for someone very special. Well, today was that day...
We headed back to my place & I started preparing dinner...
Charmaine whipped up her specialty: cold soba for both of us too.
In the end, we had the following dishes after hours of hard work (but enjoyment):

1. Salmon in japanese soy sauce
2. Miso soup with tofu
3. Cold jellyfish
4. Cold soba

Mind you, even though it was my first time cooking for someone, all the dishes were Yummy-licious~!
After dinner, it was already quite late & so, I sent my girl back home.
After which I returned back home to clean up the dirty dishes.
All in a day's work for a delightful day with someone special... =]

SINGAPORE BIENNALE 2008 (PART 02):

The first piece of art as we reached the second layer of the exhibition was "D.84 & D.85, Little Guilin (Bukit Batok Town Park) Singapore, 2008" by Gary Carlsey. I don't understand this artwork at all, but it's stated that Carlsey has from a range of photographs taken of Singapore's Little Guilin Park in Bukit Gombak (itself a copy of the real Guilin in China, & representative of 'Chinese-ness' in Singapore) and Jurong's Chinese Garden, selected images & re-rendered them in faux wood-grain. These images were then creatively applied to selected IKEA furniture. The surface representation, identity of the nation & self, interiorly & exteriorly, become sources for the creation & reading of the work... (Still understand crap out of it...)

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"D.84, D.85, Little Guilin (Bukit Batok Town Park)" - Gary Carlsey

Next, an INTERESTING artwork by E Chen... "Tropicana" is the name of the piece. Sculptures made of woollen yarn. The yarn is elaborately woven to take the shape of a scooter & a lamppost with ivy growing around it. flower petals littered all over the floor. I was so tempted to "steal" one of the flowers but there was one of the staff keeping a look-out at the art piece, whom made it hard for me to do anything. Anyway, back to the artwork, the thought of using yarn - something so flexible, expandable & even soft & ephemeral - are qualities that contradict against many traditional notions of sculpture...

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Another thing I found out later was that the tips of the yarn are actually hooked to, & pulled by, a motor on the ceiling & very slowly wound up so that the sculptures are gradually unravelled. So by the end of the exhibition the artwork will have disappeared~! Now, although it is said that art is immortal, but in fact nothing is permanent, & that idea is symbolically proved in this installation. Cool eh... (I think so)

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"Tropicana" - E Chen

In the room next door, a set of photography work shown, the "Altitude series" & "Infinite Island series" (2003 -2006) by Ryuro Fukuda. Both series are digitally manipulated photographs. "Infinite Island" depicts an imaginary, paradise-like view pools of water on an island in the middle of an ocean. A closer look at the image shows that the island is surrounded by craggy cliffs, making it seem as if access to it would be very difficult. If you could get there however, this would be an idyllic place where anyone would want to spend some time.

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In "Altitude", images of an unmanned balloon & para glider floating in the stratosphere at an altitude of 10,000 metres, which in reality is a height that no balloon or human can possibly fly in, are shown.

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"Altitude" & "Infinite Island" series - Ryuro Fukuda

Next up is a 3-framed video art piece. There are three frames projected onto with the videos, in a dark enclosed room by itself. Beautifully named "El naufragio de los hombres (The wreck of men)" by Charly Nijensohn, the artwork is a video work that was filmed earlier this year during the rainy season in the salt desert of Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, a vast landscape 13,000 feet above sea level & thought to contain 10 billion tonnes of salt. When the area is covered in water, as it was when Nijensohn went there, the sky meets an almost perfect reflection of itself creating an extraordinary mirrored horizon. The artist worked with the Aymara community of the village of Colchani, whose lifestyles were threatened by poverty. They were featured in the video as images of lonely figures standing unmoving amidst small groupings of rocks.

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"El naufragio de los hombres (The wreck of men), 2008" - Charly Nijensohn

Sometimes they are alone in the frame. Sometimes there are several figures placed closer to or far away from the camera, emphasising distance & location. The soundtrack played in the background is eerily natural (it scared the shit out of Charmaine), the sound of wind sweeping through the great space, the wet flutter of rain hitting the lens. It sounded as if we were right there on spot... The figures are marked by their lack of movement, their stillness becomes more of a gesture of defiance than of passivity in the face of their stark surroundings, & the reflection of the sky makes them appear to be floating amongst the clouds, as if bravely becoming mythical beings. Nijensohn is fully aware of the metaphysical poetics that his imagery suggests: "Exposed to the erosion of time, they vanish into the emptiness. In silence & isolation, they are testimony of an existence which, in disappearing, becomes a declaration of principles."

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The next piece is one of Charmaine's favourite pieces - "The Yellow Mountain" by Su-Mei-Tse. In a dark room, projected onto a screen, this is once again a video piece, in which a huge yellow 'sun' appears from behind a mountain range in what looks like a traditional Chinese-style ink painted landscape. Seemingly a portrayal of a sunrise at first, it starts to morph into something totally unrelated. It is a humorous piece that disrupts one's expectations & by doing so, the artist hopes to provoke us to think again about our stereotypical view of Oriental paintings & the way in which we look at the world in general.

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"The Yellow Mountain" - Su-Mei-Tse

Then we moved on & viewed these exhibited pieces by Desiree Dolron, "Xteriors I, II, IV, VIII". These photographs were excellently taken, if you ask me. The detail, the look in the models' eyes... the photographs actually look like oil paintings. The rest are some other less interesting pieces we saw...

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"Xteriors I, II, IV & VIII" - Desire Dolron

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"Piano" & the "Canary" series - Lieko Shiga

The next piece is a very 'cute' family photograph, which is also an exhibited piece. Named "Who is this Family" by Rachel Goh (Singaporean), the artwork consisted of five family photos. The photos are from the same family. The 'cute' part of it or rather interesting part is that in the photos, though the family members remain the same. They interchange their positions/roles & clothings based on the family member they're 'supposed to be'... Don't understand what I'm saying? Take a look yourself. At the end, a video of the family going through the actual photo shoot & changing of clothes is shown too.

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"Who is this Family" - Rachel Goh

The next room we came to shortly, was my favourite work of the whole exhibition. The only one that had me mesmerized the whole evening! "Blackfield" by Zadok Ben-David... A truly work of art! When we first entered the hall, the floor was seemingly filled with thousands of small, wispy metallic plants emanating from a rectangle field of white sand. The 'plants' which are etched out of metal, come from botanical drawings & are painted black. Immediately I was astounded by the amount of hard work put into arranging these 'plants' standing up in their rows... & the detail each 'plant' had. Then as we observed the pieces, we move forward. Then as I turned my head around, what I saw just took my breath away. The previously black 'plants' have in that instance ALL TURNED INTO A MYRIAD OF RADIATING COLOURS!

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It was then that I realized that all the plants are installed with the coloured side facing one end & black facing the other. Thus when a visitor encounters the installation from one end, they will either see a sea of coloured or black plants. The side with colour is extraordinarily cheerful, while the black is stark, very much like a scorched landscape against an almost pure white background of fine sand. Both, however, are beautiful to behold. The experience on seeing the black change into colour, or vice versa, row by row, is truly mesmerizing. Coming up close to the plants reveals their extremely intricate structure & patterning. As the change in colours happens as one shifts one's point of view, the macro & micro views of the installation also present a change in perspective. Hence it is not only the physical thing of the installation that matters but one's relationship to it.

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"Blackfield" - Zadok Ben-David

The next piece was by Yuan Goang-Ming, called "Disappearing Landscape - Passing". This is a three channel video installation. In it, scenes, one after another are shown. A pleasant normal day for a family - two abandoned buildings in which family get-togethers of the past could be imagined; views from a car as the artist drove between his home in Danshui & Taipei; & a nearby woods. These images are shot by three cameras that relentlessly progress forward as if to move through all obstacles. The artist suggests a sense of transience in relation to the rise & fall of human life. To me, however, it's like looking at things from different perspective.

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"Disappearing Landscape - Passing" - Yuan Goang-Ming

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"Serigala Militia" - Tromarama

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"Think of One Thing" - Mariele Neudecker

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"Operation Supermarket" - Farhad Moshiri & Shirin Aliabadi
(Pay attention to the labeling/ words on the 'products')


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"Teratoma II: Digmaan ng mga Mundo (Teratoma II: War of the Worlds)"
- Leeroy New

That's all, folks. A truly wonderful experience... Remember to make your way down to Singapore Biennale 2008 if you have the time, the chance... Enjoy. =]