this is alan's blog

A Visit from China

2012-01-14T17:39:00.001+08:00

In NUS there are many experiments going on regularly, conducted by honors / PhD students, because NUS is a research-focused university.

Thus, they regularly need subjects to take part in these experiments, and they pay anywhere from $8-$10, and for some it's really random like $20-100+. The most I've got was 20-40$ for one expt (3 hours), can't remember. Szehong got $100 from that same expt.

Anyway, I 'signed up' for what I thought was another experiment, cos my friend msged me and asked if I was free for an interview. and so I said yes.

Then lo and behold, after some SMS exchanges, I found out that 23 China students were actually coming to talk to me. TWENTY THREE.

wtf?!

So at first I thought was an experiment, then became an interview (I thought maybe 1-2 or 3) then suddenly 23 people coming!

So anyway I arranged to meet them in school and so they came... they were a bunch of China JC students (like from a China JC) visiting Singapore, and touring the universities. So somehow by some random selection I was the 'NUS ambassador!' wtf! Don't they have official channels for this.

Anyway the super weird and awkward thing was the moment they all sat down,

They all whipped out their cameras and started snapping photos of ME.

What!?! I felt like a celebrity or something la lol and I was dressed in a super cui T shirt (you'll see later) and berms.

So I eventually sat down and started chatting with them (some still took photos upclose wtf!) and it was really nice and pleasant they were all super cute and friendly and they asked me about NUS life, uni life, whether I have a gf (and when I said yes they all went 'waaaaaa' SUPER CUTE HAHA)
(and I swear I saw some disappointed faces HAHAHAHA. No seriously ok. And they kept snapping pics! So I either look like a weird interesting creature or I'm good looking and I choose to believe the latter lololol )

The girl on my right asked alot of questions, and the girl second from the right asked the most.
I alternated between Mandarin and English, and I actually used English at the start and when I started using Mandarin they were all like shocked like gasssp your Mandarin is so good!!

Oh and they also asked me what my sleeping hours are, and because I'm a pig and need a lot of sleep, I said I slept by about 12 and woke up at 8-9, and once again they all went 'WAAAAA' and I found out it was because they slept at 1 and woke up at 6 >< rofl

So yea we had a chat for like 30 mins , with mostly just the girls asking questions (and the same 2 girls in general, the others asked the odd question) , the boys just quiet quiet and some looked bored. Asked about Singapore food.. the halls.. CCAs.. essays.. etc

After that they asked for a proper pic which is the one you see above and again here:

How's my paparazzi smile? Not bad right. LOL

btw, this 'photo taking' was like a whole row of people standin in front of us holding cameras and snappin pics (cos alot of cameras ma, all the students wanted photos) so it was really like paparazzi. So I just tried to look at all the different cameras at once and keep my smile on my face lol.

So after phototaking they all thanked me profusely and we said goodbyes, then their teacher or something gave me this bag of stuff that I was supposed to give to the NUS side in charge of inviting them - the thing is that I've NO IDEA who in NUS is responsible for it so I'm stuck with the souvenirs:

Some banner from their school (supposedly a v good sch and the students that came were supposedly the best in the school)

Some epic looking book about their school's epic history or something

Was a really fun experience, I would have loved to stay and talk abit more with them but I had to go so was abit sad ;( I felt bad for leaving! Like they were so eager to just talk more with me and learn about Singapore and stuff.

Ok so now what do I do with the epic souvenirs?

This semester is nuts

2012-01-09T23:41:00.004+08:00

I really should blog more often, I think about it (blogging) very often but just can't find the time to sit down to do it. It's like my safe haven.

It doesn't really matter if noone reads it, as long as it's available for my own perusal.

I've a swirl of thoughts so I'll try to segment them accordingly, just scroll to the heading that seems interesting to you I suppose.

1) Szehong became a Christian!

If you haven't heard, my gf has accepted Christ (a month ago or so) and has been attending church service regularly.

If you told me this a year ago I would have been incredulous as it didn't seem very likely, as she had already been exposed to Christianity before due to her friends. This was something that I thought, that it would be harder for a person who has been repeatedly exposed to Christianity to eventually accept it (as compared to one who is finding out for the first time), since that person is probably numb to it or has been habituated in some way.

This was the case for another friend of mine, as I remember his response when I invited him to a christmas event my church had - 'nah, i've gone to many of these before, it's all the same'.

I thought that because a person has heard the same message so many times, why would he suddenly just accept it?

I have underestimated God's favor and goodness in working, and apparently people DO accept it even after hearing it many times.

And for the case of SH it seems that she has made a pretty informed decision, when I talked to her more about it, it was clear that she knew what she was doing and why she wanted to accept Christ (and she also knew much more about 'religion' in general than me and I had much to learn from her :) )

This was a humbling experience, and obviously a very happy one for me. A heavy and tough task has been placed upon me, to be a good mentor for her and guide her along her Christian walk, and I gladly embrace it. I pray that God will give me the wisdom and ability to do so.

2) School is hectic before it even started.

This is a long section by itself, and probably needs further splitting. I don't even know how I'm going to retell the story coherently.

Basically, this has been the most hectic 2 weeks before school reopened (up to today, 1st day of school). Hectic not because of any other things but because of school-specific stuff.

In previous semesters, the 5 modules that I have to take were always pretty clear cut and decided ahead of time. I will bid for my modules accordingly, and get everything settled nicely (e.g. I'll get what I bid for, and have everything by end of Round 2)

This time round, it's different.

The original plan

I originally wanted to take a Lab module (compulsory for Psych majors) along with 2 Psych mods, 1 of which is a compulsory mod and the other is an elective. The remaining two modules would be Philosophy of Religion and Marketing, and these 5 were pretty set in stone.

The first hiccup

The first hiccup came in Round 1A, when we (me and friends) realized that we couldn't even bid for the lab we wanted - it was reserved for Year 3s to bid for. Being a popular lab, this meant that it would be gone at the end of Round 1A.

It was time to find backups, as I frantically went to search for another module. I settled on one eventually, Personality and Individual Differences, sounded interesting.

Complications

Things began to get complicated when a friend of mine, Nella, who has taken basically same modules as me all the while, suddenly wanted to change her module choices, and introduced a module that I never really considered, Mod X.

The gf had some other modules she was eyeing as well but they weren't of my interest so it didn't factor in. I was also doing considerably more research abt the modules (due to my free time) so I was feeding her information that I got.

But basically this injection of a new module made me realize I shouldn't be too set on taking a module, and I should consider alternatives.

Thus in came Mod Y, a module that is taken by a prof I like but he specifically dissuaded us to take the module, because he didn't really have time to prepare for it and was having 'burnout' from lecturing 4 sems straight. Also, the lessons were at 8AM.

After an extended email conversation with this prof, he basically greatly discouraged me from taking the module. I still wanted to take it, because I had no other real options, so I thought of taking X and Y (and the compulsory mod)

The 2nd hiccup

Amidst all these problems, I suddenly realized something that would have been disastrous had I missed. I had originally planned to do 5 modules worth of Psych modules at SEP (exchange prog) next sem. However, after doing some calculations, I realized that if I did that, I would exceed the limit of Psych mods that I could take!

I had to cut it down to 4 modules worth of Psych mods (which involved amending a submitted form for SEP and going down to school a second time during the holidays), AND also remove one Psych mod that I was taking in NUS this sem.

This meant I had to take only 2 Psych mods, and find a breadth/gem to take in its place.

Cutting down one Psych mod meant I had to choose one out of the 3 options (X, Y and Personality) instead of the originally planned 2. I asked my prof for Y for advice, and he actually told me that I shouldn't take Personality because of the prof taking that mod (I'm anonymizing the modules so that the identity of this prof doesn't get out) . Further checks with friends and stuff also confirmed that the Personality mod Prof was ... not desirable.

This reduced it to X and Y. And now I found a breadth, an LSM, that some friends were taking as well, but the thing was that it clashed with X, so if I took that LSM, I wouldn't have been able to take X and would have to take Y.

First attempt at X.

My preference was to take X because the prof for it is highly acclaimed and won teaching awards before for teaching that module! And the module is supposedly a lot more interesting than Y too.

So I just MPEd Y first (noone wanted it, so easily got it for 1 point), and tried bidding for X, but failed to get it after one round (19/11 bidders).

The next round actually released module X (5 spaces)... for FRESHIES which was retarded because X has certain pre-requisites that meant that it was like a 0.1% chance that there was a freshie that could actually take it.

At the same time, as the round progressed, I bid (And won) for LSM and my other mods (marketing + philo)

By the end of Round 2, I had 5 modules. I didn't get Mod X because of the stiff competition, oh well. No biggy. All seemed fine and dandy.

Tyranny of Choice

In Round 3, suddenly 18 slots opened up for Mod X. EIGHTEEN F*CKING SLOTS.

What the hell ? Why do you have to save the spots for the last round and not just release it earlier!? It wouldn't have cost 707 points in Round 1 if just 8-9 more slots were released.

And so suddenly Mod X became a viable option, since it was virtually a guaranteed 1 point module. Over time, only 4 bidders entered the bidding arena for it. Waaay under quota, definite 1 point.

Also, over the course of time, Mod X's attractiveness had gone up as I heard more and more good stuff about it. So now I wanted to take Mod X - but it clashes with LSM! How now brown cow?

The IS problem

I have to find another breadth or GEM to replace LSM then. (This was actually alot more complicated, there were other modules I considered in place of LSM but I eventually settled on LSM)

I found a decent sounding module, ISxxxx, and actually managed to rope in a good friend, Candice, to take it with me. However, there were 2 lecture slots for this module (choose 1), and Candice could only take the 1st one. I could take both, but taking the 2nd slot would mean another long problem for Marketing (which I won't elaborate cos it's too longwinded and this post is already mega longwinded)

This meant I needed to get the 1st slot. BUT. Somehow fate has it that the first slot only had 5 spaces, whereas the 2nd slot had 12 spaces. This meant a significantly lower chance of getting the 1st slot (with candice!) !

When Open Bidding ended (and Closed bidding began), the first slot had 10/5 bidders and 2nd slot only had 12/12 (or 11/12, it fluctuated).

After significant deliberation, I actually decided that I shouldn't risk it and I should try for the 2nd slot because it's kinda risky to try for the first one with so much competition and I didn't have that many G points. Also, I would have to drop the LSM to bid for it, and lose 200+ points in the process. Thus, too much risk to try for the 10/5 slot, I'll have to settle for doing IS on my own :(

Quantum Mechanics

BUT. Lo and behold in the last 30 minutes before closed bidding, I stumbled upon this other mod about Einstein and QM - it actually fit perfectly in my timetable. And after quickly texting a few friends, I found out that it was actually quite an easy and slack mod and supposedly easy to score.

The most important thing was that it was actually under quota! like 20/30 or something like that. In fact, it was one of the ONLY breadth/gem mods that still had so much space (besides the super boring ones like 'Plants and Society') (I know because I checked them all) so I could get it for 1 point!

This led me to realize that I should just risk it - I can bid for the 1st slot for IS, the one with Candice, AND at the same time bid for this Einstein mod which I'll definitely get so it's my backup, and if I don't get the IS mod, I'll just take this mod which isn't all too bad.

Verdict

I didn't get the IS mod. :( Sadface. Was looking forward to doing a module with candice, had never done so before (NM101 isn't counted)

Thus I'm doing this module called Einstein's Universe and Quantum Weirdness.

Thus, only TODAY, at the end of the first day of school, did I manage to settle all 5 of my modules and FINALLY finalize my timetable. (Well not quite, there's still tutorial balloting)

What a whirlwind of events it has been.

And you're one heck of a baller if you actually read from start to finish.

Highlights of 2011

2011-12-31T12:38:00.001+08:00

The end of the year is a time where I look back at the year that just passed, and think: "What?? That was this year? It seemed AGES ago!"

This may end up being a tradition that I do at the end of every year - at the end of 2010 I also made a 'highlights of 2010' blog post.
Wow actually after reading that again, I think 2010 was ALOT more eventful and awesome than this year. This year was pretty... meh? Let's find out, as I recap my 2011!

1) Joining www.sc2sea.com

sc2sea is a community based website for SEA Starcraft 2 players. I began making posts there in about March/April, and soon after I was pulled on board to join as the Head Article Writer there.

My avatar on SC2SEA

Over the past 8 months or so I have more or less established myself there as a well-reputed member of the community and I think many people, if not most, would have read something I have written. For samples of my blogs there, check out My Blogs and my Road to Masters Series.

My reputation there is pretty good, and I love the site so much that I hang around there almost the entire day :) I'm looking to become a moderator there, after I get certain issues settled...

2) iPhone 4

After a looong time of unbearable waiting, I got my iPhone 4! The wait was because I actually found a buyer earlier than expected for my iPod Touch 4 so I was left without a device.

I still feel abit bad for selling my iPod Touch of course, because it was a beloved present from my best male buddy Pewi! But I tried to rationalize that he bought me the iPhone actually! Because that's really what it was, he bought me the ticket into Apple's kingdom HAHA.

So yea, the iPhone has changed my life in more ways than one, with me becoming more active on Twitter (which led to awesome stuff like making good friends :) ), having Internet on the move, etc etc.

3) The 1000 piece Jigsaw

Feeling ambitious, me and SH tried to solve a 1000 piece jigsaw for the first time in our life.

After literally an entire day of hard work (10 hours, 36 minutes to be precise), we gave up and conceded.

And after a week or two, I sold this jigsaw puzzle to Weiqin, who promptly demonstrates her imba-ness by single-handedly COMPLETING it under 12 hours (should read it, her blog post is pretty interesting)

4) Arts Camp 2011!

One of the best experiences I've had this year, if not the best. The energy that the freshies had was just so refreshing. I felt I could connect with them better than my batch of people for some reason. Much more than me with my seniors for sure.

For the original blog entry, go here.

5) Failed my IPPT

How is this a 'highlight' again?

It was the first time taking my IPPT after I had come out of army, and it was a time to gauge my personal fitness.... which was clearly rock bottom judging by how I totally failed my 2.4KM run.

I did blog about it and it was rather interesting, so do have a read :)

6) First time night-cycling!
Thinking back, I've no idea how I managed to do it! We cycled from Holland V to ECP to Singapore Flyer, and all the way back to Holland V! It's insane man! I recall being dead tired at the end of it. But was fun nonetheless, as I had good company :)

7) First holiday with SH!

me, SH and shimin!

Went to Batam with the gf, shimin and her bf, who was our lovely host because he is Indonesian!

Our tourguide

I think without him our trip would have been a lot more difficult.. because he could speak Bahasa Indo he conversed with the cab drivers, staff, etc and bargained and stuff haha.

Was a pretty fun maiden trip, you can see the pictures and read the blog post here ;)

8) World of Warcraft

So I started playing WoW again, got hacked again (but got it back), hit the level cap

Ding

Raided again, killed bosses again, got into some leet guild
And quit WoW again. Hopefully, for good this time.

9) Taught the gf how to cycle!

This is not just a highlight of 2011 but a life accomplishment for me hahaha.
Yea basically SH doesn't ... wait, DIDN'T know how to cycle, so I told her I would teach her! And initially she thought would take a week or more, I told her NO BY TODAY.

Read more about it here. ;) With videos even!

---

Yup that's it for the highlights of this year! Next year will be an interesting one, as I will be staying in hall and (hopefully) I'm going on my SEP ! (Student Exchange Programme) (To Boston University, USA!)

Happy New Year everyone!

CORS Bidding Dilemma

2011-12-27T12:54:00.001+08:00

It’s thattime of the year again – no, not New Year’s Day, not post-Christmas, but CORSBidding!!

I’m justgoing to pen my thoughts down so I can organize them better and make betterdecisions. But I know for sure I’m going to have a big headache when it beginsbecause things won’t go as planned.

MUST-HAVEModules

These modulesare those that I MUST take this sem, so I will throw all my points in them:

PL3234 - Developmental Psychology
One of the 5 Core (required) modules for Psych majors, so I have to clear it! I don't want to wait too long to take it too so best to get it over and done with.
Problem is if I take this, I can't take my back-up lab mod of 'Lab in Applied Psych'. That comes in later.

Expected Bid Points - I should get this for 1 point or in MPE

PL3282A - Lab in Interpersonal Relationships

This is the only lab that I want to take in the list of labs, the other one is Lab in Social Psych but that one is only available in Sem1 and I'm going on SEP in Sem 1 so I MUST take this.

Any other lab would be something Cognitive Psych related which will be considerably tougher because of having to use special program to design stimuli!

My backup for this is Applied Psych (I don't really want but I don't mind doing, not like the Cog Psych labs which I DONT WANT to do), but the problem is Applied Psych clashes with Devt Psych.

Expected Bid Points - 500++.

Previous sems' records show this mod goes for at least 500 points. I will be throwing EVERYTHING I HAVE in this mod, because I HAVE to get it. Fingers -crossed.

Contingency plan is I take this in Y3 S2 I guess, because apparently Y3 students get priority for labs, and from bidding history it seems that this mod disappears after Round 1A (eaten up by Y3 students already). So ;( I need a 5th mod if that's the case.

WANT-TO-TAKE Modules

These modules are what I want to take but not entirely necessary, I can try to find backup if I don't get.

MKT1003X- Marketing

To fulfill my breadth requirement, and also taking this with some friends. Sounds the most interesting of the breadths so why not? S/U ftw!

Expected Bid Points - Not sure how to interpret the Bidding History because there are separate queues and stuff, but shouldn't be too ex! 100? Doesn't affect my other mods though because this is G account.

PL3241 - Personality and Individual Differences

Taking as an elective mod of course, and sounds like an interesting module. Shouldn't have any problems getting it, judging from past history.

Expected Bid Points - 1

PH2211 - Philosophy of Religion

Now it gets tricky. This module is to fulfill my UE, but it also costs a hefty amount in Round 2B (not sure if I can bid for this in 2A or 2B!) (200 + points!)

If I were to splurge everything I have on Lab in Interpersonal, I have to find some alternative for this slot already because I wont' have the points I need to bid for this.

Expected Bid Points - 1 if available in 2A, 200+ if only in 2B

Argh ok I'm gonna go for lunch, when I come back maybe hunt for other alternatives.

A fulfilling job

2011-12-21T14:01:00.003+08:00

I'm working at an education consultancy right now, doing admin work and whatever needs to be done. I'm like an extra pair of hands.

Apart from administering SATs and GMATs and other standardized tests, they also have two 'College Consultants' who are basically advisers for those who are interested in applying for college (e.g. those who finished 'A' levels, etc)

So what they do is guide the individual through the entire process, including writing the application essay, choosing schools, preparing documents, submitting documents, etc. This is naturally a lengthy process, so naturally they spend alot of time with the students, often over a few weeks.

As a temp staff who isn't laden with tooooo much work, and the office being fairly small, I am often able to listen in on everything that happens, like what they talk to the students about, how they give guidance, etc, and it's all really interesting! The college consultants are both really nice and friendly too, so they're nice to be around :)

And I can feel how fulfilling the job is for them - it IS a pretty huge deal that they're helping out with - they're helping these kids apply for their colleges man! Without them they won't have a future! So it's hugeeee. And many of the clients are really thankful and grateful as well, since they really are v nice and helpful and friendly.

Like right now as I am writing this, one of their past clients came back to say hi, and thank them and even bought like a jar of snacks for them!

I hope my job in the future is something like this - challenging, fun, rewarding. I don't even need like high pay or anything.

Random CAP calculations

2011-12-20T14:45:00.000+08:00

I’vebeen doing some calculations because I’m bored.

Mycurrent CAP is 4.33 over 3 sems, meaning a Total Points of 13. I wanted tocalculate what I need to get to secure my 2^nd upper class honors, sohere are just some random calculations I did.

1) For my CAPto drop below 4 after next semester, I would have to get a B- average (CAP of2.96) next sem

2) To graduatewith 2^nd upper honors, I would need a Total Points of (4x7 = 28) (assumingI go on SEP and freeze CAP for one Semester, that’s why multiply by 7 and not8)

That means I need 28-13 = 15 points for my remaining 4 semesters. That’san average of CAP 3.75 for each semester, or B+ average for two semesters, Baverage for 2 semesters.

3) That meansfor the coming semesters, any semester in which I get a CAP of above 3.75 =that amount less I need for subsequent semesters. (e.g. If I get 4.0 next sem,I only need 3.5 the subsequent sem)

4) Assuming Ido well (CAP 4.5) next sem, I only need a B average for the remaining sems.

5) Assuming I dobadly for next sem (CAP < 3.5), I need a 3.83 CAP average for the remainingsems.

NUS Semester 1 AY 11/12 results

2011-12-20T10:08:00.000+08:00

So... Gonna be blogging about my results which I justreceived this morning. Don't read on if you're going to be all judgmental andngeh ngeh why this guy so lame put his results up online.

If you're looking for a module review, go here.

So once again this year, Iwas plagued by a restless night and weird dreams before the release of myresults via SMS in the morning. I woke up at 6 and couldn’t really go back tosleep (results typically released some time between 7-9) and had weird dreams like one in which I checkedmy results and I got an A++(doesn’t exist) for one module and a C- - for anotherso didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad.

ANYWAY. On to the results.

GEK1519 - Science of Music

Predicted Grade - B+
ActualGrade – A-
Thoughts:

Whew, I survived the bell curve. It was no secretthat this module is highly competitive because it’s such an easy module that it’squite hard not to get a good score for the tests if you studied just a littlebit.

While both tests I only scored around themedian/mean, I think my essay / MIDI probably pulled me up (worked on both fromthe start of sem… so had a lot of time for improvement and stuff)

Overall satisfied with this grade of course, becauseI expected to S/U it (if necessary) due to the high competitiveness. Yay still have3 S/Us!

SE1101E: South East Asia - A Changing Region

Predicted Grade - B+
ActualGrade – A-
Thoughts:

Kinda expected grade, considering howmy CA was already not bad (A/A- average) so it would take a major screwup in myfinals to drop it anywhere below B+.

(I almost did.. if you missed my Tweetpreviously, my finals question 1 was: ‘imagine you’re giving a lecture toaliens… ‘ and I ended my essay with a reckless stupid ending: “… and as seen,the region is a dynamic and changing one which you will not be used to, soplease don’t invade us!”
Guess the marker liked it. Lol.

PL3236 - Abnormal Psychology

Predicted Grade – B-
ActualGrade – B+
Thoughts:

My mid terms did pretty badly, so I was not sure howI was going to fare for this. The gf damn leet, she got A for this! Hermidterms was good also la. Glad I got a B+ at least instead of a B or worse.

PL3233 - Cognitive Psychology

Predicted Grade – A-
ActualGrade – A-
Thoughts:

To be honest I was expecting an A for this, becausemy mid term tests were both pretty darn high! Like I would think A+ range. ThusI was slightly disappointed when I didn’t get an A for this, meaning my finalsprobably got about B or B+ level. Oh well.

PL3240 - Group Dynamics
Predicted Grade – B+
ActualGrade – B+
Thoughts:

Mid terms did badly but project did relatively well,so I was expecting an average grade for this. Kinda hoped I would get A- forthis at least, but I guess B+ is good enough.

Overall…

No real shocker in terms of grades or anything like last sem's SSB2216... everything was more or less close to my prediction (besides Ab Psych, which was just me being pessimistic so I wouldn't be too disappointed)

Hmm I initially believed my grades were better than last sem and yet my CAPstill dropped. However after checking last semester’s grades, I realized I didexactly the same! Same CAP as last sem, but overall CAP dropped because myfirst sem’s CAP was higher than both sems.

Hope to do better next sem! I want to pull my CAPup!

The myopic gamer

2011-12-18T12:10:00.002+08:00

Life can be reduced to a video game. Everything and anything we do can be described as some aspect of a game. Many parallels can be drawn between things you do in a game as well as things you do in life.

I will list each example with the real life activity first, followed by the gaming example.

Real Life: Earning money
We all need money. To eat, to travel, to buy frivolous things for ourselves. Unless you were born with a silver spoon or you grow a money tree, most of us would have to actually work to earn money. We slave for hours to end and when we get home everyday, deadbeat and exhausted, we ask ourselves, 'Why am I doing this? Oh right, I need the money."

In a Game: Farming Gold
We have all done it. From breeding Air Dragons to sell in Dragonvale and spamming collect on the Plant Habitats, memorizing mining routes like these to level our Mining profession in World of Warcraft to trade more lucrative ores,

Typical Mining Route in World of Warcraft

to killing more mobs in Skyrim to collect more material for sale. We often do things that are boring and monotonous and grind-like to get more gold. When you are extremely bored and tired and ask yourself "Why am I doing this? Oh right, I need more gold."

Real Life: Multi-tasking
If you have a dog, a girlfriend, a clique, and a family, that is already 4 different groups that you have to divide your attention between them. You fail to do so in any aspect and that could mean soured ties, and the effects could snowball and just come back and bite you in the butt later on. You could even lose your girlfriend.

In a Game: Multi-tasking (Macro)
In Starcraft 2, players have to multitask constantly to keep their economy going. If you are unable to multitask to keep up your larva injects, Chronoboosts and MULEs, it could snowball and come back and bite you in the butt later on when you cannot produce enough units to defend a push. You could even lose the game.

Don't lose your MULES!

Real Life: Building friendships
Psychologists list many types of relationships, and a famous related principle is the social exchange theory, in which individuals focus on the costs/benefits of a relationship to determine whether it's a worthwhile relationship.
Whether we like it or not, relationships involve investment, effort and time to maintain, and you have to put in some amount of these, otherwise you will never have good, healthy, friendly relations.

In A Game: Farming Reputation
Anyone who has played some kind of RPG that requires reputation with a faction will know what this point is about before even reading on.
In many games, you have certain ties with groups of people (factions) in the game. You will need to do quests for them, kill monsters for them, etc, to improve your honor/reputation with them. There are various thresholds such as Neutral -> Friendly -> Honored -> Exalted, etcetc, to indicate your level of relationship with the particular factoin.
Whether you like it or not, forming these reputations involve investment, effort and time to do so, and without these, you will never have a good, solid reputation with any faction.

Someone with leet In-Game reputation but probably terrifail Real Life relations.

Real Life: Work in a Team
School project groups, work project groups, teammates in a sport... I could go on and on listing the different types of teams we work in. You can't escape it, you have to learn how to work with other people and coordinate efforts to contribute to a joint result. You may have problems such as people not turning up, people being late, conflicts within your group, etc. But if you are the leader, you're going to have to mediate and iron these out, in order to have any level of success in your group's tasks.

In A Game: Work in a Team
Whether you are in a 25-man raid in World of Warcraft or playing a 5v5 DoTA game with your buddies, teamwork and coordination is usually crucial in winning/killing a boss. You can't escape it- you can be the best Rogue, the best Lina Maiden, the best Holy Paladin in your group, but if the rest of your team f**ks up, you're going to fail.
You may have problems with people being late or not turning up for raid, and maybe even conflicts over whose fault it was that you failed the last wipe. But if you are the leader, you're going to have to get everyone focused on the task at hand and stop pointing fingers, in order to have any level of success in your group's tasks.

Mid-fight in a game of Dota 2

These are just 4 of the more common examples, there are probably others more trivial cases which you can easily draw a gaming parallel as well. I think this will suffice to prove my theory though.

Life is a video game.

Teaching The GF How To Cycle

2011-12-12T21:59:00.001+08:00

Today me and szehong went to East Coast Park to... cycle! Well not quite, because she can't cycle! So today was basically me teaching her how to cycle!

I have not taught anyone how to cycle before, so this would be good warmup/experience for me to teach my kids in the future hehe. I will just recap the experience here, so if you want to teach your friends next time you can.. learn from my mistakes!

When we first started off, with virtually no prior experience, I didn't quite know how to teach her how to cycle. I tried holding her handlebars to steady her but she said I was making her more off-balance so that didn't work.
I then tried to hold the back of her seat but somehow I wasn't doing it right and was making her off-balance or something!

Thus, we started off with me asking her to coast - basically push herself forward and try to lift her feet off the ground. (We were at east COAST park after all.. hur hur. ok ignore this sorry)

After a while of this it seemed pretty pointless as she wasn't really making progress, so I told her to try pedalling. (The idea of coasting came from a website I was researching the night before, which said the best newbie technique was to coast down a gentle slope to develop balance)

I went back to trying to hold her seat or handlebar or even her body to steady her, but I was somehow off-balancing her according to her. Thus I just resorted to yapping words of encouragement, trying to motivate her to keep going.

This went on for quite a while, with me continually telling her she's doing a good job and that it was awesomeee. I mean, you have to motivate the student regardless because chances are he/she is going to be even more frustrated than you!

We tried a new strategy too, basically for her to complete a complete 'pedal-cycle' - basically start with a pedal higher than the other, step on that to pedal forward, then step on the other pedal.
She kept losing her balance after just the first pedal though, so this went on for quite a while, interspersed with a few occurrences of her succeeding in this pedal cycle once, even 3 times.

After some time of little progress, I decided to go back to giving her support by holding on to her seat and her shoulder. I began to get the hang of how to help and feel her balance and providing the right balance-support for her.

With this technique, she managed to pedal for a few metres before losing her balance or swerving wildly to the side and I have to basically catch her or cushion her. Times like this I'm glad I don't have a hippo of a gf =X I know i know, so mean. But realistically, if she was like, my weight, I would probably not have been able to support her.

I felt that she was making progress (despite her saying that she hopes to finish learning by 3 days, I told her she was going to learn by TODAY!) so I just held the back of her seat as in the picture above.

This was because she was having problems with starting -

The first pedal is always the wobbliest as you have to get your balance, but once you establish it you can continue pedalling!

Thus I was stabilizing her by holding the back seat when she made the first few pedals, and when I felt that she had stabilized I released and let her go as far as she could. (I didn't tell her whether I was holding anot after awhile, I just continued running next to her as if I was :) )

Of course, at first she couldn't go far after that and wobbled and had to stop/fall so I had to run alongside her to catch her when she fell.

I repeated my advice to her to:
1) Just start pedalling (as mentioned, the wobbly start is scary to a beginner, and if he/she doesn't muster up the confidence to make a few pedals to get into a moderate pace, it's going to be very hard to pedal at a super slow pace)
2) To maintain a constant speed (she kept speeding up at first... which is bad as I have to run super fast to keep up and if she lost her balance it would be harder to stop) and to just keep pedalling!

And I kept holding the backseat to stabilize her start and would release it when I felt some semblance of balance. After repeated tries of unaided 5-10 metres, she actually managed to cycle for a good unaided 20 metres before feeling the jitters and losing her balance!

After this I got her to practise starting on her own without me holding the backseat - basically urging her to not be afraid of the initial wobble in the first few pedal cycles and just use her newfound balance to readjust and stay straight.
After some time, she managed to start on her own at about a 50% success rate :) (which went up as time passed)

One thing I realized was that her 'stop' was horrible - she was basically losing her balance and she would swerve wildly and I had to catch her. This meant I had to constantly run alongside which was damn tiring for me! And also very dangerous if she swerved off the path and fell on rocks.
(I think beginners don't know how to slow down, so naturally the bike stops when you swerve sideways so that's what you do? lol)

Thus the next thing I began training her was to stop properly - I got her to cycle for about 10 metres (unaided) and then begin coasting (not pedalling but keeping feet on the pedals) to slow down, and finally put both feet on the floor for friction to grind to a stop.
The first few attempts were bad with her being very jerky/sudden with the stop or swerving again, then after awhile I gave her the ultimate test - I stood in front of her 20 metres ahead and told her to slow to a halt right before me (otherwise she would hit me)

She did it :D (stop properly, not hit me)

Once she had the basics of starting, stopping, pedaling and balance there, I felt safe enough to let her cycle on her own without running along next to her to catch her if she fell.
By then I was pretty much exhausted at having spent the past 2 hours (she learn how to ride in about 1+ hours, but I still followed her closely for awhile after that to be sure) running next to her and supporting her whole bike/weight and motivating her and stuff, so I collapsed onto a seat and let her cycle on her own for awhile till the rental timing ran out.

Below are just some videos are took, they're really short, like 20 seconds each, so just have a look!

Ah, it was an exhausting but very satisfying experience. Nothing beats the feeling of her suddenly pedalling on her own for 5-10 metres even after I had released the backseat (she probably didn't know) and realizing she CAN cycle. Aiya basically every bit of progress was very exciting, my heart literally jumped the first time she went for like 10 metres on her own!

So proud of her :) My amazing student! Learnt in only 1hour+ ! (ya ya if you learnt under that shut up i dont care she's still awesome)

And thank God for no accidents! I was quite concerned that she may fall and get a bad graze or something because the bicycle track was asphalt. The only injuries she sustained were some minor scratches from her bad 'stops' earlier on and thus her toes hitting the floor abit, the pedal hitting her legs abit, her hands gripping the handlebars too tightly, etc.

Great day today :D Love that girl!

My first Starcraft 2 LAN

2011-12-11T20:03:00.001+08:00

Today was the first ever Singapore LAN and it was held at Mystery Box Gaming, organized by Frogmite! (and HDPhoenix)

Disclaimer: This blog post has no pictures so if just words aren't the kinda thing for you, you can stop reading.

(If you went for the event and you're wondering who I was, I was wearing the black shirt with the big Zerg insignia on the front)

Prelude
I was pretty apprehensive about going for this event, as it would be the first time I'm meeting online friends/personas face to face! I even had dreams about it the night before >< Also, I didn't know how receptive the people would be, whether there would be much interaction, etc.
And also, how the heck do you introduce yourself in these kinda things? Lolol. It feels weird to say 'hi, I am Crazerk' instead of my real name.

Three Random Thoughts From The Event
1) People have cliques
It was odd being there as I had virtually no friends/cliques. I had one RL friend there but he was with his Eve clanmates, and then there was the 'top GM clique', basically the top players like Rev, Han, ice (can't recognize the rest) who know each other from playing together so much and from the many tournaments. There were also little congregations, like Drake and Proann from their iRL clan.

Thus I was just drifting around like a vagrant, spending the bulk of my standing-up time behind Revenant watching him play. He's always been my favourite SG player, just because he's very well-mannered, humble and he's Zerg!
It was also a cool experience to have people standing behind ME watching me play, and you can hear them mutter-narrate stuff that's happening and you feel amazing when you do good stuff

2) Offline Events Are Real Tough
I brought my own mouse and headphones just for the fun of it, not like I expected to beat those GMs in the tourney and hence need optimal performance or anything.

The first thing I realized was how difficult it was to get used to the new setup - the new scroll speed/sensitivity (have to basically go configure and unless you are a seasoned offline veteran who has memorized your settings, you're going to have to adapt to something slightly different) the bigger screen, the different keyboard.

THE KEYBOARD. It really makes a huge difference, maybe more so than the mouse! Why? Because mouse(s) don't really differ THAT much apart from those that have different ergonomic designs. (Ok I'm probably horribly wrong but who cares)
But the major differences between keyboards is - the Ctrl key and number keys seems to be at different places on different keyboards.
Thus I was having alot of trouble hotkeying stuff and kept messing up hotkeys because the keyboard was slightly different.

This experience made me realize that it is possible that players play like 10% worse at LAN events if they don't bring their own keyboard/mouse!
Well, of course there are those that practice on poorer platforms (e.g. ProAnn who told me he practised on laptop, so he played better there instead) so somehow perform better, but assuming someone who has a decent rig at home, spends hours practising and being so familiar with his own setup - he is likely to perform poorer in an entirely new environment.

- [Dont click this if you dont want to know a particular result from the tourney] -

3) Frogmite is a pretty big fella
Ok I couldn't think of a 3rd point so this is it. He's big! At one point he grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me for fun and I swore he could have lifted me and spun me on his finger as well.

My Games
My first opponent was aLtHan, woopey doo. I obviously didn't expect to win and just was playing for the experience.
I still remember our conversation before the game:

crAzerk: "Hey ready for our game?"
aLtHan: 'Hang on, let me warm up '
crAzerk : "You can use our game as a warmup!"

In Game 1 I opened 15 hatch and he went 14/14, and I defended his early lings terribly and lost a few Drones. He expanded off that and after some trading of ling/banes he was magically 20 drones ahead or something like how GMs always are and then does a Roach timing.
I defended it with spines and my own Roaches which popped, but he had a superior upgrade + economy advantage, so he just played around with me (for his warmup I guess) for awhile before killing me eventually.

In Game 2 I opened 15 hatch again and held off his early push much better. He went for 21 hatch with banes I believe, and after being a retard and running all my lings up his ramp for some unknown reason and losing them all to a baneling, he counterattacks and kills me.

In the loser's bracket, I faced Warfest, a Masters League Protoss. I tried out ling-infestor and with my amazing micro I more or less killed nothing when he pushed out finally after turtling on 3 bases with a +3 zealot heavy / archon / stalker/ sentry army. Forcefields + Zealot/archon = Zergling Bloodbath.
I silently cursed Protoss under my breath for being an A-move race as he marched on and I pitifully rallied some units to poke away at his Protoss ball and finally surrendered when I had let him kill enough buildings.
(On watching the replay my macro was terrible and inferior to his too so even if I had decent micro it wouldn't have made a difference)
(loser's brackets were Bo1)

Final Thoughts
It was pretty fun seeing faces that I've only seen in photos, and putting a face to some names. Got to see ProAnn (who gave me some tips and played a game with me in which he crushed me with Mothership) , derpy (who more or less ignored me because he had his friends ;( ), Frogmite (who warmly shook my hand when he realized who I was when I introduced myself)
Revenant probably looked at me several times but had no idea who I was so,

Kudos to Frogmite for running this event!

(New) Friends

2011-12-03T21:06:00.001+08:00

I have recently applied to write articles for my school website Insomniac, so I've decided to start blogging again to get in the flow of things. I haven't been writing regularly for ages now... and even the things that I've written (SC2 stuff) aren't proper and formal!

So anyway, this first blog will be informal one, and is actually a more sentimental and personal one. I don't know if I will advertise this on Twitter.. abit paisei to let people read ha! But I guess I will.

This post is probably better as a year-end reflection post, posted on New Year's Eve or something... but I've been wanting to write this for a long time and I don't really have anything else to write about so this will do!

This year, 2011, has been a year of new friends. I've made quite a few new friends which I've come to love and treasure, I guess I'll go chronologically? Or whoever I can remember first. Well it was also a year of turbulence with my gf, but that's another topic for another day and maybe in another setting, this is too public. It'll suffice to say we've come out stronger and closer than ever :) Love that girl :)

ANYWAY. As far as I can remember -
(if you don't care about these you can scroll past the wavy lines ~~~ )

Nella (June)
Lol so what is her name? Nella or June? Haha na i'm kidding. The period was june-july-ish, and while Nella isn't really a new friend, this period we spent quite a lot of time together (because we worked in the same office for about a month) and I realized she could be a nice friend to have around.
She wasn't and isn't like a v close friend or anything, we don't share deep stuff though I did ask her about her relationship stuff and all (I mean, when you spend 8 hours a day together on a slack job, you're bound to talk about everything and anything lol)

You know how you use the word 'nice' to describe people sometimes when you can't find any other descriptor? Well, Nella is one person you would use 'nice' to describe because she FITS the descriptor perfectly. Very nice person, easy to talk to, and nice friend!

Candice (August)
Again, not a brand new friend, just someone who I became closer to. It's odd really, if you asked me a year ago whether I would imagine myself being good friends with her, I wouldn't say so. We just seem so... different! It's like, different worlds ! haha.

I still remember one of the first times we had an actual conversation, it was a small OG outing that I organized, and I was the earliest (as usual. And because I was organizer so I didn't wanna be late though nowadays I'm adapting a 'i'm sick of waiting for everyone so im gonna come late like everyone' rule) and she was the 2nd earliest.
So we were alone waiting for the rest for like .. 20 minutes? and i recall feeling a bit apprehensive knowing she was going to arrive first and we would have to talk hahaha. But it turned out surprisingly fine! We managed to talk about... I can't even remember what but I did remember she taught me a korean word.. OMONA! ok i bet i got that wrong.

And over time, because of Twitter, and also because of Arts Camp! We hung out alot, and talked alot. And now I regard her as one of my close good friends! cheers ~. And she has helped me out and showed her 'why i should be your #1 awesome friend'-ness plenty of times.. just really glad to have her as a friend :)

Simin & Joann (August)
New friends! Met both at the same time, during Arts Camp, which I also met a bunch of amazing freshies who I will end up hanging out much more than I ever did with my batch.

The way I met (or got closer to) these two.. was kinda an odd situation. There were pros and cons about the whole thing - pros being obviously that I got 2 awesome friends, and cons being as a result of spending time with these 2, I neglected other people (e.g. the guys) and things got dicey and unpleasant (at least on my side) I can't help it that I prefer to hang out with girls right! I have GID! I'm a girl stuck in a guy's body (but definitely lesbian)

Anyway I shan't harp on that, and talk about the positive! Ok one girl at a time k

Simin - i think she's just a very sociable person, someone who can fit in whereever she is. Her funny mannerisms and chirpy nature just makes a her a very nice(oops committing the 'nice' sin) person to hang around. I think I think of her as a closer friend than she thinks of me though lolol ;( but it's alright! rawr.

Joann - I don't know how to explain how this friendship began. I think joann is just the kind of person that if you connect with her, she'll be a really good friend to you. And somehow, we connected well, and as a result we became close. We had the potential to become really good friends but at that point of time I was busy emotionally with other stuff, I didn't have time to cope with a new close friend like that (hard to explain stuff here without revealing private matters of others :/ ), so it was a slight pity that I didn't 'follow up' on this good friend when school started.
nevertheless, I still regard her as a good friend whose company I will always enjoy!

Jolene (September(?) )
This was a very unexpected friend ! I knew jolene existed because we were both Psych majors, but i didn't know who she was, just recognized by face. I saw her in a module I was taking alone, and I knew she was Candice's friend, but I'm not the kinda person who's gonna go up and say hi la i'm shy ma. =X

But lo and behold, one night came when I needed her(jolene) help to print notes, and so i asked candice to ask her. And then after a series of exchanges... tahdah! Became friends. lol.

And I think jolene is just a very sociable person... ok hang out I already started a sentence this way earlier didn't I. lol. But it's true! She's just someone you can talk to endlessly even though you aren't super close or anything!

I still remember once I was on the way home on bus 10...
Ok wait, you know how you distinguish between an acquaintance and a friend? A friend is someone you will wave and say hi and call over and will you'll enjoy the conversation for the whole journey.
An acquaintance is someone you see boarding a bus and you don't really want to get seen cos if the person does then he/she is obligated to come sit with you and then have awkward conversation for the whole journey.

Well, on that journey, I saw jolene, and while we weren't exactly v close (just met only recently leh!) but I still waved her over and felt at ease! And could easily talk to her the whole journey too! (eh accomplishment for me la, i'm not a super chatty sociable words-fly-out-of-my-mouth person k)

I think we became somewhat good friends because she's just someone that's easy to talk cock with hahaaa and can bitch together about stuff HAHA. Ok i should stop saying.

Alwyn AKA Pewi
Ok this guy has been my good friend for ages actually, knew him from primary school, became friends in secondary school, and is the only person I still keep in contact with from JC/secsch. (thanks to bball!!)
Why he's in this list was because of one MSN conversation we were having that was yet another defining moment of our friendship.

(one of the previous ones was when he bought me a freaking iPod Touch for my birthday... that showed that money was not a factor in our friendship and .. he's just freaking awesome k. (wow just reading that entry makes me smile... :D ))

So we were having a MSN conversation, I can't remember what we were talking about, it's not important/relevant, but then he made a remark about '... my best friends ... blabla' , when the 'my best friend' was referring to ME! omg!
Like, I never thought that he looked at me as a best friend or even a super close friend? Maybe just a buddy that you kept in touch with?
I mean, I've always regarded him as my best guy friend (prob because I don't have many close ones), but i didn't expect HIM to regard me in the same manner!

I still remember when I realized this I was quite happy and was rambling to my gf about this and saying bye to her i was gonna marry him already HAHAHA. Ok i'm talking like jasminelaw I need to stop otherwise I'll freak pewi away
Anyway, I'll definitely be asking this guy to be my best man for my wedding, he better accept man!

~~~~~~

Wow this post turned out longer than I expected. Anyway, I'm not a person who makes many many friends or lets many people to be close to me. Or am able to be close to many people. So if you are a close/good friend of mine. It's an honour. :D It's MY honour. Thanks for being my friend!

NUS Module Review Semester 2 AY 11/12

2011-11-25T21:06:00.001+08:00

Once again, I'm going to review the modules that I took this semester.
If you have any questions, please send it to my email diabteo@hotmail.com instead of posting in the comments, it's easier for me to reply.

The modules covered in this post:

GEK1519 (Science of Music)
SE1101E (South East Asia: A Changing Region)
PL3236 (Abnormal Psychology)
PL3233 (Cognitive Psychology)
PL3240 (Group Dynamics)

I'll answer 5+1 questions for each: What is it about? How's the workload? How difficult is it? Any miscellaneous tips? Should you take it? and a new question : "How did I do for it?"

If you want to see previous reviews for PL1101E, NM1101E, PH1102E, LAF1201, PL2131, click this link. For PL2132, PL3232, SSB2216 , PL3235, PH2110, click this link.

Do note that modules do vary across semesters, depending on which professor is taking it, so I will include the name of the professor for your benefit.

GEK1519 - Science of Music
Prof: Dr Bernard Tan

What is it about?

First half you learn more or less basic aspects of music theory, such as the notes on a musical score (EGBDF, etc), time signatures, sharps/flats , semitones, etc.
Second half you learn about the technological part of music such as MIDI systems and stuff.

How's the workload?

There's no textbook. No readings.
One concert review (attend any concert of your choice, write a 800 word review), one MIDI composition (compose 1 minute MIDI piece), and one mid term test, one finals test. Both tests are 25 MCQs, open book (lecture notes)
If it sounds like a joke, you are right. It's a freaking joke. It's probably the lightest module in NUS.

Two 2h lecture per week, one 1h tutorial every fortnight

How difficult is it?

This is by far the easiest module I've ever taken or heard of.
You can more or less skip the entire first half of the lectures if you have some music theory background.

In fact, you can more or less skip all the lectures, and just read his lecture slides, they aren't that hard to understand. But if you are afraid of comprehension problems, go for lectures then.

The problem is that he is VERY long winded, and always starts lectures at like.. 40 minutes past the hour. What does he do for the first 40 minutes? Just nag and nag about things he's said before already or recap previous lecture and just random pointless things.

I would say it's quite possible to skip all lectures and still know how to do the tests.
Some basic Math knowledge would be good, such as knowing how to apply simple formulas and doing simple calculations with a calculator.

Miscalleneous Tips

The best tip I can give you is - understand the tutorials, DO PAST YEAR PAPERS.
He basically does not change the format of the tests, so if you do the past year papers and know how to do all of them, you basically will breeze through the tests.
Tutorial questions are more or less gearing you up to do the tests, if you can't find past year papers then do the tutorial questions and understand how to find the answers. Should be pretty easy.

Should you take it?

If you want the slackest module in NUS, yes.

Do note that being 'an easy module' does not make it an 'easy to score module'. These are very different concepts.

How did I do for it?

I got 23/25 for both quizzes, for the first quiz the median was actually 23.something with a mode of 25 -_-
The 2nd quiz the median was 22.something with a mode of 24.
So you can see the bell curve is pretty steep.
What sets you apart will be your MIDI projects and essay, I believe. Do not make careless mistakes for your quiz.

Predicted score: B+

SE1101E: South East Asia - A Changing Region

Prof: Irving Johnson & Oona Parades

What is it about?

You will learn more about SEA in the areas of Gender, Religion, Environment, how globalization and colonialism affects it, etc etc.
The focus for this sem was about it as a CHANGING REGION and how it's evolving and changing and is a dynamic region.

How's the workload?
1-2 assigned readings every week. Some are long, some are really short. Read the required ones, recommended ones are optional, it would seem. But you do need to bolster yourself with many many examples so probably have to go beyond readings. (Pay attention in lectures! and tutorials!)

1 group project, 1 individual reflection paper, 1 final exam (3 essays) (closed book).
One 2 hour lecture per week, fortnightly 2h tutorials.

How difficult is it?

I found it tough because I'm not too good with History stuff and anthropological stuff like this just bores me to tears. However, it is still possible to write a decent essay and do a good project, as long as your basic essay writing skills are there.

My group's project is here:

Do note that there was an accompanying writeup, and I felt that the writeup was done pretty well which contributed to the grade we got as well : an A-.

Miscalleneous Tips

You really need to understand what the lecturer's emphasis - from what I know it changes every sem. For this sem it was about SEA being a changing region so keep trying to draw links to that and how different things reflect the main, overarching theme. It also helps to know what your tutor likes for a report/project, clarifying with her/him about his requirements would be good.
You hear alot of examples during lecture which are good for use in your finals essay exam, so do take them down.

Should you take it?

Dr Irving is a very interesting and charismatic lecturer and is humorous and full of stories to tell. Oona on the other hand... let's just say she's a cure for insomnia.
I can't really say this very objectively because I am biased against these kinda things, so boring to me ><
Also, extremely expensive mod if you're not taking in your freshie sem - every sem it averages about 1400 bid points. I paid 1500 for it.

How did I do for it?
My individual essay got an A, group project A-, I reckon my class participation shouldn't be too bad I think. I don't think finals was THAT difficult though it certainly makes you think. I wrote a risky essay though, if it screws me up I'll get a B or B- overall I guess.

Predicted Grade - B+

PL3236 - Abnormal Psychology
Lecturer - Gregor Lange

What is it about?

One of the 5 core modules for Psychology majors. It is about.. psychological disorders. That's pretty much it. Every chapter involves the Symptoms/Main Characteristics, Causes, Statistics, Treatment for each disorder.

How's the workload?

1 standard psych textbook, about 1 chapter every week. Manageable load. For this sem he even removed one entire chapter because of public holiday that week. woohoo!
1 casebook which I didn't even touch apart from the chapter that I had to present on. Not necessary to read it.
1 mid terms (60 MCQ), 1 class presentation, 1 finals (60 MCQ + 4 short answer). All closed book.
One 2 hour lecture every week and fortnightly 2hour tutorials.
(Tutorials are mega waste of time because you basically just listen to the other groups presenting)

Lectures are pretty much pointless since everything is from the textbook, but the Dr Gregor is fairly interesting and humorous so it makes it worth going for.

How difficult is it?

Quite memory-based subject, just need to memorize the textbook.
Exams do test your application of the knowledge though, such as identifying what disorder it is from a description of a patient.

Miscallenous Tips

Memorize the textbook. Organize your notes according to the same structure - Characteristics, Causes, Stats, Treatment. Helps you to remember better (Some chapters swap it up so it's quite stupid)

Should you take it?

If you are a Psych major, you dont' have a choice. If you're not... you can't take it unless you take the pre-reqs which will mean you're minoring or something. It's not that hard a module, just quite memory heavy.

How did I do for it?
Didn't do very well for mid terms.. not sure why. I did study , guess I didn't get those ambiguous questions right. No idea how the presentation went, the tutor didn't give feedback at all.
Finals felt alright, but after talking to a few friends they thought it was easy so I guess bell curve will be steep.
Predicted Grade : B-

PL3233 - Cognitive Psychology
Prof: Dr Chua Foo Kee

What is it about?

Another core mod for Psych majors. You'll learn about the mind and how it operates with regards to perception, memory, object recognition, etc.

What is the workload?
1 textbook. But this textbook REALLY sucked. Quinlan and Dyson. Terrible. Alot of random useless material and it's not very well structured. I get a headache everytime I do my Cog Psych readings, dunno if it's because the subject is difficult or the TB sucks.
Oh, some weeks have multiple chapters readings.
1 2 hour lecture per week, with fortnightly 2 hour tutorials.
2 class tests (both short answer, 1 open 1 closed book), 1 finals (2 questions, essay)

How difficult is it?

I don't know if Cognitive Psychology is just difficult or it was the textbook's problem. I think it was a bit of both. It doesn't help that the prof sets pretty tough papers too.
His finals paper was considerably easier than previous sems' though, but I think previous sems' one just looked hard because we weren't taught in the same way they were.

Miscallenous Tips

These tips are probably relevant for CFK (the prof) only - remember the experiments+results that support the different concepts and theories (even if they're not the best/correct one), he may ask you to describe one.
Try to recognize what's the useless information and which is important. I was quite selective in my memorizing because alot of stuff was waaay over my head and felt useless to learn. He didn't test those things.
(one example is there was this 2 page+ section detailing Bayes Theorem, a mathematical formula. WTF? )

Should you take it?

Textbook was horrible, Dr Chua is really eccentric so... if you like that kinda thing go for it.
My tutor was HORRIBLE though, just some random Masters student (who was specializing in Clinical Psych) who couldn't answer a single question we had.
You really don't have a choice with this mod (core), so try to take it under a good prof.

How did I do for it?
I'm not sure if my cohort was slack or something, because I somehow scored pretty well for my tests in relative terms. For instance, 70/100 doesn't seem very good but the mean was 52 ><
I got way above mean for both my tests, but I didn't think the questions were super hard or anything was quite straightforward? I mean, I know if it's a hard test or not, and while it's hard because Cognitive psych is hard, I don't think the tests were really hard.
Not sure how I'll do for finals, but I'm hoping for an A

Predicted Grade: A-

PL3240 - Group Dynamics
Prof: Dr Cha Yeow Siah
What is it about?

The study of intergroup issues and processes, such as cohesion, conflict and structure.

What is the workload?

1 mid terms, 1 finals, in classic Cha Yeow Siah style - mid terms was MCQ + fill in the blanks, finals was MCQ+fillintheblanks+casestudy+short answer questions.
1 standard textbook.. quite readable and good textbook IMO.

One 2 hour lecture a week, one 2 hour tutorial every fortnight.

One group project - This is really fun, you basically can choose to do ANY group activity. (E.g. go play frisbee, jam, cook, skate, play LAN, etc) and after that you write a report on the group activity, applying your group dynamics concepts. You also have to present your activity, and try to do it in a creative way, because alot of other groups will do so and it makes a difference I think. My group did this:

(Our activity was cooking)

How difficult is it?

The theory is pretty much logical and very easy to understand as it's things you already observe in everyday life, just attaching a term to it.
The difficult part could be that most people are accustomed to recalling the definitions of terms (e.g. Define Photosynthesis) instead of the actual terms itself. The Fill-in-the-blanks recalls you to recall the TERM as they provide a description/definition so if you didn't encode your information well.. good bye marks.
Weightage of the FOTB questions are quite high too, like MCQ is one question 0.5 marks, but FOTB can be 1-1.5 marks each.

The group project is probably one of the most fun projects in NUS, as long as your group decides to make it fun :)

Miscallenous Tips

If you want to be in the same group as your friends, for the first tutorial when he does this 'network analysis' thing, say you don't know your friend. Because he will deliberately split you guys up ;)

Have fun with your group project, and do a good presentation. I really think this matters. And of course do your report properly.

Remember to memorize the terms and be able to link a term to a concept, because you have to do this for the case study question in the finals too.

Should you take it?

Yes, a very fun mod overall, I enjoyed it. Relatively simple compared to chim things like cognitive psych, so you should take it.

How did I do for it?
I didn't do well for mid terms because I didn't encode the terms properly as I said - just couldn't recall the terms with the description. Scored slightly below median.
My group's project got an A-, which was (supposedly) because both our report and presentation (i.e. the video above) was good.
I'm hoping my finals pull my mid terms up!

Predicted Grade: B+

~~~

Ok that's all I have, I will post up my results when t hey're up so you can judge whether to trust my advice or not xD

Funny conver

2011-11-18T20:41:00.001+08:00

I just thought this conversation was funny.

I was sitting on the train home and there was a girl next to me yakking away on the phone about something quite loudly. She sounded EXACTLY like one of my friends, Munching. Thus I texted her.

Not sure how this description was supposed to help. Guess I have to spot that single strand of short hair which should be quite distinct.

(Vincent is Munching's boyfriend)

Linguistic Hypersensitivity Disorder

2011-11-13T21:29:00.001+08:00

Dear friends,

I have a problem.

A psychological disorder, to be precise. This is not a joke, it is a serious entry, really. Do hear me out.

I have Linguistic Hypersensitivity Disorder. No, it does not really exist, it's a term I made up. If I were to provide a definition, it is 'being excessively sensitive to the semantics of language'.

There are 3 components to this disorder which I will go through in turn - excessive semantic activation, oversensitivity to irregularities and overinterpretation of emotional content in language.

1) Excessive semantic activation
When you see the word 'deliver', what do you think of? If you said 'mail', 'parcel', 'a speech', they would all be fairly normal responses. It's natural to think of these relevant associations.

How about when you see the sentence: 'I went to the post office to deliver the mail' ?Now, with the relevant contextual cue (post office, mail), the word 'deliver' seems unambiguous. The sentence is a straightforward one, right?

Not for me.

Because of my excessive semantic activation, what goes on in my head is something like this:

" deliver the male? deliver = give birth? deliver mail? letters? Post-it? post office as in lead office? de-liver? removing a liver? removing the liver of a male? "

It's like my brain disregards any contextual cues and automatically provides every possible interpretation of every word in every combination.Not just that, but it also generates homonyms (words that sound similar, such as male and mail) automaticallyAND even breaks up any possible compound word.
For a simple sentence like that, my brain refuses to cooperate but instead goes on at 5 thoughts/second and floods my mind with these semantic alternatives.

This could be why I love wordplay/puns so much, because I naturally see the world as such. I immediately interpret the secondary meaning of an ambiguous sentence before the primary meaning. I see the pun before I see the original meaning.

This excessive automatic interpretation, more often than not, is annoying rather than helpful. People say I am 'damn lame', 'corny', etc. (When I see these words I immediately think of being handicapped, maize, btw) and think I'm trying to be funny or something. But it's not like I want to. My brain is just wired to BE like this.

2) Oversensitivity to irregularities
This are a grammatically incorrect sentence.

The above is an example of an irregularity in the English language. Because we have our rules of grammar and syntax, anything that violates them is an irregularity.

It's natural to pick up on such errors. Heck, it's even essential to do so, such as when we are proofreading our assignments.

However, for me, such errors do not just stand out. They jump out at me. No wait, they dont just jump out, they jump at me and double punch and roundhouse kick me in my face. I think staring at a grammatically incorrect sentence for a long time actually makes me feel more uneasy than watching a needle enter my vein. I'm not exaggerating.
Seeing a blatant grammatical error is like having a splinter in my thumb; a sharp rough stone in my shoe; a pesky housefly darting around my face. Make that a dozen houseflies; I just WANT to do/say something about it.

It's not that I want to correct you. I want to correct IT. Call me grammar nazi or whatever, but it seems more like a specific instance of OCD. I am flooded with the thoughts of the bad grammar and how it should be right, and I am compelled to act upon it by telling you.

3) Overinterpretation of emotional content
When someone says 'Thanks alot', it can mean many different things.

If he says it with an exclamation, a smile on his face, he is probably feeling very grateful.
If he says it grudgingly, looking at his shoes, he could be forced to say it or just saying it for manners.
If he says it with a sneer, he's probably being sarcastic and doesn't really mean to thank you.

In face to face settings, you can interpret what the person means by such cues or tone of voice, etc. My problem already begins here - Im VERY attuned to pick up the slightest of cues. And this is of course not always accurate. Perhaps you were exhausted and your "thanks alot" was lacklustre. But I will pick up immediately on the underenthusiastic reply and my brain starts firing away: 'is he being sarcastic? Why? Did I do something wrong? What did I do?'

Of course I don't act upon this all the time. Often after going through this mental checklist, I decide that there's no reason to believe that it was something on my part that went wrong. So I don't go into panic mode.

In online/text messaging it gets worse. Now, gone are the visible cues, and all you have are words. Words that have absolutely no contextual cue whatsoever besides the very syntax and semantics they possess in the sentence.
Imagine how I interpret things like 'Go away'. Does he mean 'haha go away la' or 'go away you #$#@(!@ i hate you'.

I can't think of more examples but the layman's description of this is 'I am a sensitive person'. Yes you may not mean to hurt me with the things you say but you do. I just try to repress it. Damage control. But my brain moves faster than I control it.

~~

If you have read to this point without just scrolling down from the top without reading anything, I extend my hand to shake yours. Because you have taken about 5-10 minutes of your time to understand me. And I appreciate it. Thank you.

And the circle is complete... well not quite

2011-10-11T23:32:00.001+08:00

This is a very short post about my modes of communication.

I used to have THREE distinct ways (almost 4, if you consider the 4th one to be counted (read on) ) of travelling to NUS, and now with the Circle Line opening fully, I have SIX distinct ways to travel to school!!

And the thing is they all take about the same time!! So it's not a clear choice at all! Often I decide just by what I 'feel' like taking. Sometimes it's because I'm going to Science so obviously I won't be going to KRT when I can go directly to Science.
But yea, introducing, the SIX ways I have to travel to school (using public transport duh, I'm not talking about like using aeroplane, bicycle, running, crawling, walking backwards, sailing etc)

1) Train from Boon Keng to Harborfront. Then take Bus 10
PROS
-Once the train clears Dhoby Gaut, sometimes I'll get to sit until Harborfront, not always though. Most of the time after Outram there'll be seats.. but it's just one stop.
-10 is a relatively long bus ride (20-30 mins) so can have a nap. Sure got seats (90% of the time, sometimes single decker then suay)

CONS
-Bus 10 takes 10 million years to come, so time taken is dependent on waiting time.
-It stops at Kent Ridge Terminal (KRT) which can be far from certain classrooms, and far from Central Lib (CL)

1a) Train from Boon Keng to Harborfront. Then take bus 30, and a few other buses that only stops at Heng Mui Keng Terrace
PROS
- Much higher frequency than Bus 10, thus shorter waiting time (sometimes 3 of each of these buses come and not even one bus 10 comes)
- Awesome if you're going to Biz faculty

CONS
- Only stops at Heng Mui Keng Terrace (Outside Biz), so it's a 10+ min walk into Arts

2) Train from Boon Keng to Outram Park, change to EW line, take to Buona Vista, then take Bus 95
PROS
- Slightly faster than option 1
- Stops at CL, easy access to everywhere

CONS
- 95 can be a bitch to get on during peak hours. Can miss 1-3 buses in a row cos they're ALL FULL
- Have to walk quite far to change to EW line at Outram Park.

3) Take 151, direct into NUS.
PROS
- Straight bus, can sleep for damn long
- Ends up directly in NUS, stops at stop right outside U Town

CONS
- Have to walk quite far to the bus stop from my house. (About 5+ mins further than the MRT station)
- Takes longer than 1 sometimes

4) Train from Boon Keng to Outram Park, change to EW line, take to Clementi, then take Bus 96
PROS
- 96 apparently comes often enough
- Can get seats cos 96 is from the terminals

CONS
- Takes longer than 2 (I think)
- Cannot go to Science directly
- I've almost never taken this route before (well the few times I did was because I was meeting ppl at Clementi first)

5) Train from Boon Keng to Harborfront, change to Circle Line to Kent Ridge, then another bus down to Arts
PROS
- Can take the cool new Circle Line
- Lights of Circle Line train very bright

CONS
- Takes longer or about the same time as all the previous options
- Must change so many times
- Lights of Circle Line train very bright

6) Train from Boon Keng to Serangoon, change to Circle Line to Kent Ridge, then another bus down to Arts
PROS
- Fun to try new routes

CONS
- Long walk from Serangoon NEL to Circle Line
- Takes slightly longer than 5 (I think, according to my mathematical estimations based on Train times on the board)

Truly, the tyranny of choice. Some options are good, but too many is terrible.

My dramamama group

2011-10-08T14:30:00.001+08:00

By popular demand, I will blog about my lovely dramamama project group.I will be as ambiguous as possible so as to protect their identities and avoid being picked up by Google or anything, but if they (my group members or people in question) do come here it should be pretty obvious who I'm talking about.. oh well.

Before I go into that, I have to apologize for not blogging much! Meh. I will try to blog more k. Try. Anyway most (if not all) people who read my blog follow me on Twitter anw, so it's not like you have to keep visiting here to check for new blog entries, can just see my Newsfeed! I always tweet when I have a new blog entry.

SO ANYWAY. On to the story. For this particular module I'm taking this sem, I have a group project. My group originally consisted of 6 members. 3 of them are irrelevant to this story so I will just talk about the other 2 of them.

Drama 0.5
We exchanged numbers after the first lesson so we could arrange a group meeting online. After some email discussions and SMS discussions, we arranged to meet on a particular day. We met, discussed, etc and throughout this whole process, Girl B could not be contacted nor did she reply our emails. She was missing from the entire first week.
(we later on found out she gave us the wrong number.. but still.. not replying emails? o.0 )

Drama 1
Guy A was the appointed 'leader' of the group (randomly chosen by tutor). He was a Year 3 Pol Sci major and seemed pretty knowledgeable based on my interactions with him. He carried out his 'leader' duties fairly okay... let discussion.. etc.

Then one day, out of the blue, on the day of a crucial meeting which we would be discussing the direction of our group, he suddenly texts us:

"Hi guys, I think this may come of a sudden shock to u all and also very douche that (it) is last minute. I'm withdrawing from school. A lot of bullshit is happening in my life right now and I need to clear it up. Hope u guys can understand and sorry to leave u guys hanging. I'll speak to --- abt this soon. Thanx and sorry once again"

Indeed I was shocked, and obviously frustrated as this threw us out of rhythm. But it's a typical case of 'shit happens', so just have to move on and accept my 'suayness' to have a school-quitter in my group. He explained it fully and apologized and all so ... nothing much we can do!

So I more or less stepped up as the new leader and directed the group (I always seem to have to do this otherwise the group just stagnates.. that's why I hate group work), and we carried on with our project.

Drama 2 (minor)
Everything was going fine, we just completed our class presentation (unrelated to our project), all 5 of us. We were clearing up our mini-deadlines accordingly.

Then came the first sign of trouble. It wasn't apparent to me yet, but something was wrong. Let's say our group's topic was about Cats (it's not, but I don't want to put the actual topic here)
So according to our work allocation, me and Girl B are supposed to find movies about Cats and do some analysis about how Cats have changed or been represented.

So Girl B submits to our compiler 3 movies which she said was about Cats, but does not elaborate in any way.
Thus our compiler asks her to elaborate more, otherwise she won't be able to link it with everyone else's work. So Girl B then proceeds to just copy paste a paragraph from the journal article which she got all 3 examples from without bothering to summarize/paraphrase/explain it.

On further examination, I found that one of the movies wasn't even about cats at all - it was just a show about animals. Girl B clearly did not even bother to read it properly and just pasted everything to us without processing.

Drama 3 (main story)

So I pointed it out , and she never corrected nor addressed it. Then out of the blue, she sent us an email:

Hi,
Sorry for last min notice. But I won't be continuing with this project group for this semester due to some personal reasons.

WTFF. Naturally, after losing one group member, and now losing another one, in the most ambiguous way possible ('some personal reasons' ?? ) , I was super frustrated and annoyed and curious. Not to mention that the deadline is in 2 weeks time, so it's bloody irresponsible of her.

And note that she said 'won't be continuing with this project group', not that she would be dropping the module or leaving school or what. So I was thinking, how can lidat one? Can just quit the group??

So I texted her and pressed her for the reason. And she finally replied with this:

"Basically I didn't really agree with the topic to begin with and as you can see I don't agree with a lot of things that the rest of our group are insisting on. I don't wanna risk my grades so I decided to do something about it. I need my grades to do honours. I'm either joining another group or doing it alone."

(bolded text is bolded for a reason, you'll know later on)

My first thought was - BITCH. You 'dont want to risk your grades' ??? Implying that we suck and thus you don't want to stay with us la!

But the next thought was like, how can she just quit the group just cos she felt she didn't agree with us? So the solution for group conflict is.. to quit? Is this even allowed? (btw, she never voiced her disagreement to the group at all so we had no idea)

So I asked her if she told this to our tutor, and she said yes, she discussed with the tutor before coming to her decision. So I thought ok, so the tutor knows her reasons, and has allowed her given the circumstances.
It seemed pretty reasonable to me, though abit douchebag la, but if really so desperate and you really believe you can do a better job yourself, then I can understand.

Several days later, I sent an email to my tutor to officially inform her that Girl B has left our group, and I also wanted to confirm that Girl B will NOT be allowed to return to our group if say later on she realized she can't do it herself and wanted to join back. I was worried the tutor didn't even know abt the situation then ... it's not fair to my group if she could just last minute tag along!

Lo and behold, after an email exchange, I found out that there was more that meets the eye.

First, my tutor only knew that Girl B wanted to quit my group because "she was uncomfortable with the topic the group was doing "

Nothing about the group conflicts, nothing about her needing grades for honors and hence not wanting to risk it with our sucky group ( being sarcastic here. -_- got me how can be sucky HAHA. just kidding. ) My tutor did not know the full reasons at all. Girl B was totally smoking me when she said she told our tutor everything alr.

Next, my tutor actually told her this:

"she needs your group's permission before she could leave and I said this to her in the presence of others who she wanted to work with. Also I had asked her to formally email me and you all so that there is transparency in the whole matter and I am aware of everything. However, I received no mail from anyone. "

Girl B obviously did not ask for our permission in any way, she just INFORMED us that she was leaving, totally disregarding what the tutor had said. And clearly did not make it very transparent - she didn't even explain the reasons for her leaving at all. The rest of my group members are in the dark as to why she left.

Looks like when she said 'I decided to do something about it', she meant she's going to be a lying bitch. Right.

So anyway, I've just sent my tutor an email with the full details of this situation, and also hinted that the girl should get penalised in some way (haha):

Me: "It just doesn't sit well with me a student can behave in such a way by withholding information from the tutor and her group and making her own decisions and get away with it scot-free. "

And there you have it. Story of my life.

2011-10-03T22:53:00.000+08:00

I cooked!

2011-09-23T23:05:00.001+08:00

Hello this is an obligatory blog post because I haven't done so in a million years (Well less than that but who's being precise)

Anyway, today, for the first time in my life, I cooked a full meal! (Well ok fine I only helped out here and there but as i said who's being precise)

I mean, I've cooked maggi mee and eggs and stuff but not like a proper meal. Because of this module I'm taking, I have to take part in a group activity with my group, and we chose to cook a 3 course meal! (well technically it's 2 course, but yea precise yea) (EDIT: I realized it IS 3 course lol!)

Our menu was as such:
Cream of Mushroom
Pork Cordon Bleu (which is essentially just one fat pork cutlet with ham and cheese inside!)
Spaghetti with BOLOGNESE with sausage slices
Ice cream dessert (vanilla/chocolate with a Kit Kat bar! Eh I swear some restaurant served this on their menu and sold it for like $7-8 i can't remember which)

We all helped out in different ways la, our main chef was our group leader Lynette who basically fried all the cutlets. I chopped all the onions! (And learnt that I was immune to onions ) (They don't make me tear even if I put my face next to it) And sausages. And passed the ingredients to them when they needed it. (Clearly trying to justify my contribution)

OK ON TO FOOD PICS.

This wasn't just campbell soup ok, it's some special recipe that my group member found! haha. made with chicken broth, personally sliced mushrooms, cream of mushroom, etc etc.

Yummy

Master chef at work (not me)

Yumz! The white stuff you see is the cheese oozing out! Shiok max!
We did take photos with a DSLR will post those when the guy uploads k! Will look nicer than this

The pork cutlet was quite shiok to eat.. I helped to tenderize some of it and merge the two pork slabs ! haha learnt new cooking tip from our master chef Lynette (our group leader who incidentally loves cooking)
We made like.. 5 cutlets? Lol shiok. But the first 4 weren't THAT nice because we left it to cool and it became tougher and harder! The last piece we ate it straight from the pan and it was SOOO good. Like melt in your mouth yumz

Our full meal! This is like one portion, We had like 5 portions.

DAMN FULL

My group had 3 girls and me and another guy, and girls being girls don't eat alot. So I had to eat like most of the pasta!! Stuffed myself to the brim.

Oh we had ice cream too but didn't take photo of that. And had alot more photos of human beings instead of inanimate objects but all on the DSLR! Hope my friend posts them soon.

Ok bye!

Slacking in the background :p

Dear Future Me

2011-09-06T00:13:00.002+08:00

Dear Future Me,

One day, some time in the future, you're going to want to play WoW again. I don't know when it will be, it could be in a few years, next year, next holidays, next month or even next week. But it will happen, for sure.

You're going to feel the urge to return to the World of Warcraft, the World you have spent hours and days in, the world you have spent so much time in. You're going to feel the desire to raid again, to fight in a co-ordinated team effort and kill bosses that are oh so difficult. You're going to want to experience the thrill of gearing up your character with the most powerful loot. You're going to think 'oh why not, i'm so free anyway!'.

HOWEVER.

You need to stop that thought right there. For your own good, DO NOT START AGAIN!

If you start,

- You're going to be bounded to the game for AT LEAST 16 hours a week
- You're going to lose about $20 a month
- You're going to find it hard to schedule project meetings because you have to go home early 3 weekdays (assuming you join a AUS/NZ guild, which you have to anw as there's no SG guild that's decent)
- You're going to be studying every single free day you have and wonder why other people seem so free.
- You're going to find you can't finish your assignments.
- You're going to have to rush your dinner so often you don't even enjoy the food
- You're going to reject outings to play WoW
- You're going to want to go home from outings earlier to play WoW.
- You're going to plan your schedule AROUND WoW. That's just messed up.
(Interesting article about how video games keep you hooked)

And worst of all, you're going to neglect those around you. Those that you care and cherish, but you just think 'nvm I'll play first, talk to them later. They'll understand'. They don't.
You'll start losing contact with people. You'll start losing those you care about. You'll make them upset. And it killed you. It made YOU upset.
If you're still lucky enough to have a gf, you're going to make HER upset. You'll make her feel neglected.

Don't be stupid. A silly game isn't worth it. A silly game isn't worth giving up your social life. Or your studies. Or love.

Think of the free time you have to do what you want, what you need to do.
Think of the good conversations you can have with your friends
Think of the good conversations you had with your gf.
Think of the feeling of just enjoying the moment, and not thinking about what's next.
Think of being able to meet up with people!

A virtual world is not a real one, by definition. Don't go and live in one again.

Do NOT start playing World of Warcraft.

Love,
Present me.

My Worst Handicap

2011-09-02T17:28:00.000+08:00

Have you ever considered how much of a handicap 'inability to form preferences' is?

Almost everything we do in life is governed by this ability. I'm not just talking about our conscious decisions, but the seemingly trivial things as well.

The presence of this ability in our conscious decisions is obvious. What should I eat for lunch today? Hmm, I feel like Western (a preference)... but I just ate some fried food yesterday and I need to stay healthy ( a preference).. I think I will eat YTF today (a preference (e.g.why not porridge? or bread?) ).

How about the less conscious decisions - the things that have became routine? Why do you take the train to school and not the bus? Oh, because trains come more consistently than buses (preference for regularity)
In the morning, why do you brush your teeth before eating instead of eating then brushing your teeth? (The latter is not as outrageous as you think - many Western cultures do that) Preference.

And then there are the things that we also do without realizing that preferences played a part.
When we are getting from point A to point B, and an obstacle is right smack in the middle and we have to go around it - do we take the left or the right path around it? Why? You clearly had some preference towards one side. Maybe the lighting was better. Maybe the floor looked cleaner. SOMETHING led to your choice of the path you took.

It is clear that having preferences is extremely important to daily functioning. If you couldn't decide how to get around a piece of litter on the floor, you'll be stuck on the spot forever - akin to Buridan's donkey!

After some thought, I realize that I have this unfortunate impairment of my ability to form preferences.

Before elaborating on that, I want to say that I am generally an apathetic person. I have to make the conscious effort to get involved in things that matter to the world, things that I SHOULD show some sort of interest in but have none.
One simple example was the General Elections (or even Presidential Elections). The whole country was abuzz with political debate, but my innate nature made me think 'Frankly, I don't give a damn!'

Of course, being the developed, normal-functioning adult I am, I consciously made an effort to at least read up abit and keep up to date with what was happening in the GE and tried to form preferences based on relevant available information.
I care, just to fit in socially.

This is not to say I am unfeeling or have no sympathy. I do care for people close to me. I do help the old lady across the road. I do give up my seat on MRTs (not just to fit in socially). But just in a majority of other situations, I don't really care.

Digression aside, back to my particular handicap. I can't form preferences easily. Or at all, sometimes.

1) Gift selection
The simplest example that really bugs me is that I am REALLY bad at getting presents for people's birthday. It's like, I have the desire of getting someone a present, but I epicly fail in the 'present-selection' part of the 'getting someone a present' process.

Schematic Diagram
Desire of getting someone a present -> present selection -> locating said present (i.e. shopping) / preparing said present -> delivery of present
(sorry, just studied Cog Psych and they love using schematics to represent things)

How do you even know what someone wants? Or what to get? What if they don't like it? I have difficulty buying things for MYSELF, much less buying things for others.

(I did want to get you a present, friend C! ohnoes. But didn't know what to get. :( )

When I tell friends of this problem they'll give me the generic advice 'Oh just get him/her something useful and you think he'll like!' or even 'Don't worry, it's the thought that counts!'
For the first line of advice, my impairment prevents me from coming up with any solid ideas, and for the latter piece of advice.. well now you know that I always DO have the thought. (Well, if you're close enough to me, that is)

And money is clearly not an issue which can be shown in cases where I attend a friend's party or something with several others and we decide to share a present. When they ask me what my budget is, I always respond with something along the lines of 'No real budget la.. just not too ex?'. I just need someone to formulate the precise item to get for me, and I will get it (Obvious exceptions exist, such as if it IS expensive and I can't afford it)

2) Job selection
This is something that is weighing subtly on my mind.

What this paradoxical statement means is that I know I should be worrying about it, and I do, almost at the sub-conscious level, but I don't consciously think about it and worry about it. But it's persistently there.

What exactly it is is this - I'm currently going through my undergraduate studies to get a degree in Social Sciences, with a major in Psychology. What is the natural job path for this? NOTHING.

I don't think I want to be a counselling Psychologist, and anyway that requires another 6 years of education (Masters + PHD... ok maybe 4? No idea)
That's about the only clearcut job that a Psychology major can do.
There's also the I/O (industrial/organizational) aspect that sounded interesting to me for a bit (i.e. working in HR), but after some asking around, I realized you need to have a solid business background to do it (probably a MBA) or at least a double major in some Business aspect.

Specifically, I don't have a particular field or job role that I WANT to work as.

I look around me at the people who know what they want to be. bestie wants to work in some town planning or urban development field. Or something like that. candice wants to be some fashion mag editor or something. (sorry my memory is bad) And recently qin has pursued her passion of writing in her internship at SPH and I'm really glad for her, hope it pans out! (though the gf seems to be in the same boat and as clueless as me... the plight of Psych majors!) (or maybe she has something thought out and I just haven't asked her about it recently)

Me? I don't have this 'thing' that I want to do. I don't even have a clear field that I have a preference to. What am I going to do when I graduate?

(Extremely random note - I'm writing this in school at the computer lab, and an angmoh girl (An exchange student, I presume) has difficulties getting her printing done and is asking the nice guy next to her. She disturbs him at least 2-3 times with a short query, and each time the guy helps her with a response, she does not thank him in anyway! How impolite! She just goes 'oh.'
If she asks me something I'm going to ask her to hit Ctrl Alt Delete)

This handicap affects me in many other ways. Something as simple as choosing what to eat can be a complicated dilemma. What to wear? Even worst.
How do I treat this handicap? How do I develop an ability to form preferences?

Hmm, I'm thinking whether I should come up with a witty ending to this post. I can't decide.

The self.

2011-07-24T12:12:00.001+08:00

Hello everyone! I haven't blogged in ages, which as you know, is usually due to one of the 3 reasons:

1) My mothership has come to pick me up, but I firmly refuse, and so they sent twenty six little aliens to catch me but I've been evading them for the past few weeks and finally managed to exterminate all of them and hence I'm back.
(On a side note, someone just told me Mr Bean is actually an alien... that's why the opening sequence shows him falling from the sky under a spotlight thing. And also why he's so socially awkward. True/False?)

2) A hungry rat found its way into my CPU and has gnawed through all the circuits and wire and finally electrocuted itself and died. In the process, it has also wrecked my computer and I've spent the past few weeks trying to salvage it part by part.

3) I'm busy with a game.

This time round, it's not 1 or 2, and is indeed number 3! Because I've recently started on World of Warcraft (WoW) again, and I've been busy rushing to level 85 and gearing my character up for raids!
I've found a stable group now, but whether they're good enough to progress through Firelands is another question... sigh. Hope we can at least clear 4-6/7!

School is starting again, and there's alot of shit to be done too. Bidding for modules is starting soon, and despite having planned my modules way in advance, I've a feeling something will cock up and I've to replan everything (i.e. SE1101E goes for too high a price)
I hope I'll be able to get my ideal timetable, and that I can get back into the groove of studying too, amid the raiding in WoW too :/

(I never knew 'amid' was the same as 'amidst'. I've always used 'amidst'. But they actually mean the same thing. I found that out when @stcom tweeted using 'amid' and I went to google)

I've been thinking about something recently, about my self. What kind of person am I really? What do people perceive me as? If I was not me, would I like myself?
Yes, the self is a very unique concept, and is something we think about much more than we realize.

In psych, we learn that there are 3 general motives for wanting to learn more about your self - appraisal motive, verification motive and enhancement motive.

Appraisal motive
This is wanting to know truly what you actually are and how you are perceived by others.
E.g. Am I really a good singer? Am I seen as an easily irritable person?

Self-verification motive
This is wanting to verify whether what you think about yourself is really what others think about you too. I.e., whether your self-perception is in line with others' perception of you.
E.g. I think I am a kind person. Do others think I am a kind person?

Enhancement motive
This is wanting to learn good things about yourself to boost your own ego and feelings of self-worth.
E.g. Everyone is clapping after I have sang, they must think I'm a good singer!

Scientists say that the enhancement motive is the strongest among all 3 motives (and appraisal the weakest!), and we tend to be biased towards that motive and perceive things in that manner. I'll use one scenario to illustrate all three to make it clearer:

You have just given a little performance in which you sang 3 different types of songs. If:
Your appraisal motive is strong - You'll ask the singing expert in the room whether you sang well.
Your verification motive is strong - You'll acknowledge that you sang the first 2 types of songs poorly but your forte is the 3rd song, and you'll ask if people agree with this.
Your enhancement motive is strong - You'll ask only certain friends who always praise you for feedback.

We all enjoy compliments, whether we believe them or not. 'You are beautiful!' 'That dress looks so pretty!' 'You're really good at this!' Personally, I love them. And I think my verification motive is really strong.

E.g. recently in WoW, I believe that I'm a good healer, so I asked the raid leader how was my healing (when I knew my healing output was more than the rest already), and she said something along the lines of 'WOW! Bryan !! Sam!! (the 2 other healers) he heal much more than you all leh! And his gear not even as high as yours!! Ok la, have to give it to him, he's good'

HAHA. Head swell like nothing. But yea I did believe that I was a good healer (maybe not as good DPS/Tank), so I wanted validation for that.

But what's the point in knowing all these? why do you want to know how you are perceived by others? It comes down to self-presentation. What do you want others to think about you? Are you ok with letting others see this side of you? Do you want to be known as a ____ person?

And I realized that I am holding my tongue a lot sometimes, and just trying to mold myself into the person that everyone wants me to be. Often, I just want to be liked. I conform. I imitate. I mimic.

Which brings me to the surprising news today - I'm going to start a private blog!

Yes, it's going to be a more personal blog where I post all my rants and crap that I really wanna get off my chest. it probably won't be interesting at all, I mean, how interesting can a rambling person be.
Thus, it'll be very exclusive and secret, if you want to read it, you have to ask me personally for the address. I won't use names there, so there's no way you can Google to pick it up either.

After all, we all need an outlet.

The great exercise plan

2011-07-18T10:32:00.000+08:00

I am a person who needs to draw up a plan before I'll get things done.
I draw up a study schedule closer to my exams for my revision, and pretty much stick to it and get things done. I've no idea what I would do without a schedule.

So anyway, as some of you may know, I've recently taken (and failed) my IPPT. And... since then I've not been exercising! Because I have no plan. So I'm going to draw up a schedule for me to follow, so that hopefully with this, I will be more disciplined in my training and pass the freaking thing and get my $100

Mon - Runs - 2minute sprints / 1 minute walk intervals. Do as many as possible, up to 3 rounds around my estate. (which i estimate to be around 2.4)

Tuesday - Crunches, bicep curls, pushups

Wednesday - Jog for 20 minutes

Thursday - crunches

Friday - 2 minute sprints / 1 minute walk intervals etc.

Weekends - Sports

OKAY. Loosely drawn up, hope my body agrees to play along. For those people who do read my blog, whenever you talk to me start with 'eh so you exercise today already anot' to pressure me to do it k THANKS BAI.

ding

2011-07-16T01:02:00.002+08:00

So... 2 weeks ago I started on my World of warcraft journey once again. Thought posting this would be appropriate:

DING.

To infinity and beyond.

Let the raiding begin

Thanks Blizz

2011-07-15T10:50:00.003+08:00

So, my WoW account was hacked again before I left Batam, much to my horror. :S So i sent them an account recovery request and they replied to it within a day, and I only checked it last night and saw that they said

"Thank you for contacting the Game Master Department. We have reviewed our logs of your account. The account does not appear to have been accessed by an unauthorized user, and no damage was detected to any of your characters. Fortunately, it appears as though your account has been unharmed!"

To which I replied F YOU #!(^$Y@($

Ok no I didn't. I typed a detailed report this time:

"No, my account was hacked! I even know exactly when it took place, or at least the specific time range. So perhaps you could check your logs during that time period? The time which this took place was some time between Monday 11PM (GMT +8) to Tuesday 10AM (GMT +8)"

The actual message was longer than this but yea.

Then this morning I logged on to check, they actually replied almost immediately

'allo! Game Master Varmstad here! I am terribly sorry that I am unable to speak to you at the moment in-game about your issue, our ticket volume is rather high at the moment and we need to get it down before Deathwing decides to crack Azeroth in half. =P
Thank you for your patience and understanding while we investigated the situation that you reported. We have concluded our investigation of the account and apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused you. Emails will be sent for each character receiving a restoration.
After a thorough investigation, we have found this account to be eligible for restoration. The details of the characters and/or items restored are contained in emails sent to the accounts registered address. All restorations provided have been sent to your character's in-game mailboxes.

Lolol GM with a sense of humor as well. The first paragraph is with reference to the lore of Warcraft. So yup. All my stuff was restored, all the items (which I had already found upgrades for in my entire day of playing yesterday), and... more importantly.. My 6k GOLD!!!
Whew. If I had lost this it would have been a big headache. Hard to gear up at 85 and max out my professions already.

So ok yup, I've attached an authenticator to my account now to keep it safe, any hackers can just go to hell now.

K bye

The Batam Post

2011-07-14T23:47:00.003+08:00

And.. I'm back!

Yesterday me, Szehong, Shimin and Stanford went to Batam for a 2D1N holiday! It was a deal from some groupon type of offer, $69 for 2D1N. Link here
Basically includes buffet breakfast, 1h spa, 1 game of bowling, etc. Got some hidden costs! Like $20 ferry tax, $7 for the return ~~bribe~~ tax from Indo (At the customs you have to pay $7... it's called 'departure fee')

It's my first ever holiday on my own (not with family.. with which I've only been on holiday ONCE and that was ages ago like primary school or younger) thus must take alot of photos!

I'll leave some pictures out of this post, this will be a more recap based post. If you just want to see pictures and are too lazy to read my words, just go check out my Facebook album.

On the ferry... kena photobomb! lol

With everyone inside.. and shimin's face looks retarded rofl

SH playing handphone games on the 1hr ferry ride... giving me the evil look when I snap a pic haha

The ferry took so long! Zzz. They should give the ferry some speedboat engine or something to let it SPEED across the sea. Anyway after clearing immigrations and all a bus took us to Harris Resort which would be our accommodation!

Upon arrival at the resort, as we queued to checkin, one of the Harris staff came out with a plate of cold towels! For you to cool yourself down and wipe your sweat I guess.
Well, it'd have been useful it you walked the 5-10 minute bus ride from the ferry terminal, but because we were ferried in the aircon vehicle.. not very useful? Haha. I didn't want to use it either because it just seems gross (even though it's probably washed and clean)

While we were still in the queue, Harris staff came out again with another plate of goodies- this time it's our 'welcome drink'! Haha. It was mentioned in the package (the link at the start of this post)
It's some kind of cranberry juice I think. Nice and cold :)

Very pleasant start to the trip. Kudos to Harris Resort!

OMG YUMMY BUTTER COOKIES

These were sitting on the counter when we were checking in! Looked damn yummy but I didn't dare to take lol.

So after checking in and settling all the admin stuff, we went to check out (haha) our rooms!

Harris Resort has an orange theme - e.g. their staff uniform is all orange, rooms also have this orangey theme, and you'll see from subsequent photos that they really stick to it!

View from my room! Quite nice! Can see everything!

Lovely looking resort

Some toilet shots:

The shower head is quite cool! It's like a big flat square/rectangular thing instead of the usual shower head. This allows water to cover a bigger surface area so.. it's cool! hah

So after the oohs and aahs at our rooms, the 4 of us proceeded downstairs to grab lunch at the Harris Cafe! No other choice, that's the only place to eat nearby lol.

Ok so basically there's this 'Lunch Buffet' that was going on, for SGD15$. So we were asked whether we wanted to take this offer, but of course we asked to see the menu first if there's anything else to eat.
However, MOST items on the menu were ABOVE $15.. just for one dish!!! It didn't make any sense at all.
Obviously we will take the buffet!

Artistic shot! With the food in view deliberately! hehe.

We said this was the perfect shot!

Shimin's favourite food was keropok! She kept taking can! She wanted to bring home the whole jar somemore hahaha.
SO this artistic shot (again) captures the keropok and her.

FOOD!

Ok la the food wasn't very nice at all haha. But it's buffet! so. Haha. whack.

101 dalmations!
Haha ok actually at first only one cat appeared, then we were all like making noises at it and getting it to come.
Then out popped another one from nowhere.. so we lured it over also.
THEN ANOTHER one came out!

So cute la these cats they're like dalmatian colored! We were saying there are 98 other cats we just have to find them haha.

After lunch and some nuaing around, we went for our spa appointment!

Included in our package was a 1 hour Indonesian massage!
which... wasn't that fantastic! Haha. I had this idea that professional masseuses would be super zhai and know how to press all the right spots to make you damn shiok. But mine just felt ok only.
Wa but she cracked every finger and every toe!! Scary haha like yank yank yank yank.

AND. She cracked my neck!! Omg that was the scariest part! Haha. I didn't know it was coming, she was like 'Relax ah.. relax..' then turned my head once to the right gently, then turned it again a second time gently, ... then....
JERK POP CRACK!

OMG!

Haha ok but I have to admit it was damn skilfully executed like she perfectly cracked it haha. But still, the thought of it was scary! And ofc after doing the left side she proceeded with the right side and naturally I was worried haha. But once again she did it quite perfectly so it was shiok haha.

Yup so it was a full body massage with the massage oil.. but it didn't feel like SUPER shiok or anything leh. Just like ok lor normal massage.
And damn gross cos your whole body has oil afterward and cos the masseuse does a head massage too so she rubs the oil through your hair... damn gross!

Oh and don't go with an opposite gender friend if not it'll be quite awkward! I think. Because you have to strip down to your underwear. And while you're wrapped in the towel thing most of the time, when they massage you at the underwear parts they will pull down one! Like wth mine just lowered my briefs abit to expose my butt when she was massaging my lower back. damn weird.
And apparently for girls they massage your boobs very briefly too LOL. Was told that by the girls.

Showing off our oily hair. Szehong is very angry with her oily hair so she flares her nose

Read 'Ratus V Spa'. rofl gross

After our spa, we went to the jacuzzi.. which was damn gross?
And because it was my first time in a jacuzzi I didn't know the 'procedure'. Apparently there are 2 tubs, one hot one cold and you're supposed to sit in the hot one then go sit in the cold one.
So me and Stanford (it's guys one side girls one side) went into the cold one wrongly at first. Then we thought it's weird so we went to sit in the warm one. But the water really looked damn gross like vomit diarrhea water or something.

ANYWAY. After washing up, we went bowling! Free game included in the package! (we ended up playing one extra game for SGD $3.50)

My gf the bowler (not really)

Me the pro bowler in my pro stance (not really)

Omg this photo took like 5 tries or something to take because SH keep on taking bad pics!! She cannot be a sports photographer all the photos will be fail kind HA. Like just blurs.

My disappointing score!

I started out quite promisingly, you see, 9 on first, next 2 frames got spares. Then after that.. slowly collapse, then last 2 frames only 1 point wth. All gutter balls zzz. Next game was worse so not posting the screenshot of the score.

After bowling was dinner! We took a cab out to a nearby seafood place.

Quite expensive! Who said indo seafood was cheap! Each dish about SGD $10

Next few pictures are all food:

prawns

Sweet/sour fish!

After that we went back and just nua and htht. Didn't plan well ! Next time must have timetable planned out nicenice haha.

Anyway, breakfast was buffet breakfast! Shiok! Western somemore! My favourite haha.

Not intended to be obscene I swear. Took abit only at first cos must test whether nice

Delicious looking things which SH took for me but I didn't really eat haha cos I wanted to eat my:

omelettes!! yum!

They actually make the omelette for you on the spot! Damn shiok.

And what holiday is complete without... SHOPPING!

We went to NAGOYA Mall to shop! It's the nearest one apparently.. about 30 minutes ride away :S

I bought a few T shirts because I don't have enough nice ones.

Our lunch was at A&W!! (which btw stands for Allen & Wright, the founders of the franchise) Why did they move out of Singapore!

Their root bear float is damn big!! like the mug is hugeee

Which I suggested to SH that it's actually a business ploy! They give you a super big drink so you get full from that, and they can skimp on the portions! Which is true! Their fries and all damn little lor!

Yup, so after the meal we continued to shop for a bit, and we headed back to our hotel en route home!

Oops no stanford cos he's in the front seat

There he is. Haha this was at A&W

Yup that's all the photos we took! It was an enjoyable trip in general, the service at Harris Resort was REALLY good! I really like it man. Haha. All the staff very polite and courteous and all. I just didn't like the prices of everything! :( Expected the meals to be damn cheap which turned out the opposite.

Anyway, it was a fun time with the girlfriend having our first holiday tog :) and with shimin and stanford. Stanford is the best man! He's damn nice keep on pretending to forget to collect money from us when we owe him because he pays first. We had to push money on him via shimin. And he can speak bahasa Indo so he made our trip alot easier because he can bargain/negotiate/talk with the locals! I think without him we die already lor haha.

ok time to plan next holiday. HAHA. next year ba. School is reopening nooooo. ;(

Anyway, for more pictures, go here.

Bye!

The hardest logic puzzle ever

2011-07-11T15:08:00.002+08:00

Wow this is seriously the most crazy logic puzzle ever. If you can solve it on your own, you are really pretty damn amazing.
I'm reading the solution and I'm already taking ages to even understand it lol.

WARNING - this is really mindf-k to the max! Don't embark on it if you don't want to kill 213987 of your brain cells.

The Puzzle:There are 3 people, A, B and C. One of them always tells the truth, one of them always lies, and one of them always randomly decides to tell the truth or lie.
Your task is to ask 3 yes-no questions, each question has to be directed to only one person, and figure out who is which.

Some clarifications:
- They know each other's roles
- You can ask one person more than one question (e.g. all 3 questions can be directed at A)
- Whether the Random person speaks truly or not should be thought of as depending on the flip of a coin hidden in his brain: if the coin comes down heads, he speaks truly; if tails, falsely.
- Your question has to have a yes-no answer. (E.g. no 'maybes', paradoxes, etc)

If you solve it let me know what your 3 questions are! :D Contact me for any further clarifications too.

(DONT GOOGLE FOR THE ANSWER TRY TO SOLVE IT YOURSELF IT'S FUN FUN FUN FUN )

Night Cycling!

2011-07-09T20:00:00.003+08:00

Yesterday I went for my first ever night cycling trip with the Arts OG! Seriously love the enthusiasm of the freshies to keep organizing these things.. hope it never dies out! hehe.

The co-organizer Hysen had everything planned out:

‎8pm – 10pm Dinner/Renting of bicyles10pm – 12mn Part 1 of Cycling trip12mn – 1am Supper at East Coast1am – 2.30am Part 2 of Cycling trip2.30am – 4.30am HTHT session4.30am – 6am Part 3 of Cycling trip6am – 7am Breakfast at Macdonald7am – 8am Last leg back to Changi Village

Wa can be any more meticulous anot! Got schedule somemore! haha.

The general plan was
Part 1 - Cycle from Changi Village to East Coast Park Lagoon for supper
Part 2 - Cycle from ECP to Marina Barrage to chill
Part 3 - Cycle from Marina Barrage back to ECP Macs for breakfast
Part 4 - Cycle back from ECP to Changi Village

The first part was loooong there's this super long stretch of road that seems to run parallel with some airport runway so we kept seeing planes takeoff as we cycled down that long road. I was still with the front pack at this point, and the others were falling behind it seemed, cycling very slowly!
And chipang was such a noob omg whining like a girl! Kept saying tired etc. The freshies kept making fun of him haha was quite funny. 'Eh guards one why lidat ah' (he was from Guards)

So we sat at Lagoon and me simin grace and keryu shared a plate of Roti John while we all just... talked abt random stuff. It was mostly GS and CP talking to the other PJC freshies about PJC.

Anyway, we began Part 2 shortly after this, in spite of CP's incessant complaints and suggestion to just chill at the beach.

We headed towards Marina Barrage, including a detour into this gays carpark where apparently gays go to pick up other gays and they'll make out in the bushes. Didn't see anything interesting though.

Along the way, because of alot of people complaining that they were tired and etcetc we ended up heading to Singapore Flyer instead of all the way to Marina Barrage. However, we still had to clear this crazy :

MONSTER STAIRCASE. It is about twice what is shown in this picture

Our only route across was to go up this staircase which led to a long flyover which connects directly to Singapore Flyer area. So we had to carry our bikes up this stupid staircase before we could take that flyover.
Oh but the flyover was fun though, it had one of the longest slightly steep downslopes that we could glide down.. AND halfway through it starts to bend so you really have to control your brakes and steer your bike down.. but of course you don't want to brake too much if not it won't be fun anymore! haha. adrenaline rush max

We reached the Flyer and sat near the F1 pitstop area and just talked random stuff for abit while resting... I entered the girl's toilet there! Hahaha. Cos i went with simin and baoyue and the guys toilet was closed so we just all took the girl's toilet. It was like 3-4 AM anyway so sure nobody.

And after awhile we decided to head back to ECP macs, and had to clear that bloody staircase again but this time downwards la. But still have to carry bike.

Breakfast was extremely satisfying, relished my customary Big Breakfast (just about the only thing I eat from the Macs breakfast menu), and then it was the long return leg!!

Ok I don't know why for this leg me and simin were all the way at the back now. It's like the people who were previously too tired to keep up with us were now too desperate to get back so they chiong in front. Then I just stayed behind to cycle with Simin la, more fun ma :)

Was super shack can! The last leg back. Our butts hurt like mad from the seat and our thighs were on the verge of cramping also. Had to keep motivating each other to keep going haha. ALMOST THERE ALREADY.

When we finally caught sight of Changi Village.. OMG SHIOK. haha. the feeling of knowing you have reached the destination is awesome.

All in all it was a great experience, but I don't know if I'll want to do it again haha. Very tiring! And I think the freshies just bring a real nice energy that I like to hang around, unlike around certain other seniors... (shh)
It was also great to cycle and chat with simin most of the time, damn fun man! Though my attempt at introducing some philosophical stuff from PH1102E totally failed because I forgot and mixed up the arguments/analogies xD Was great company nonetheless :)

Though of course I wish certain other people were there, like sang, joann, CANDICE, si en, munch. My usual hangout buddies! Eh and it's not my fault that they're all girls k, the guys are all phantom one what to do. Like wilbur, gary (like almost never see him at all whole year)... noone else sia. PHANTOMS.

Ok this is a very boring post but I just wanted to pen it down so I can read it in the future for memory's sake :)
BYE

P.S. Blogger's new look sucks. Gimme back the old one!

The IPPT

2011-07-05T20:50:00.000+08:00

For the benefit of the non-Singaporeans reading this, the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) is an annual fitness test that all Singaporean males (after they have completed their mandatory 2 years in army service) have to clear (if not, they have to go for Remedial Training which is a 10 week bi-weekly course)

There are 5 stations in total -
Standing Broad Jump - Start with feet apart, stationary, and jump as far forward as you can.
Situps - Bent knee sit-ups, as many as possible in 1 minute
Chinups - Grab a bar and pull yourself up as many times as you can
Shuttle Run - 4 x 10metre sprints back and forth, testing agility. Complete as fast as possible.
2.4 KM Run - Run 2.4KM in the shortest time possible.

So today I went to attempt my IPPT. I had NOT prepared in any way whatsoever besides doing pullups maybe 2-3 times a week. I was just going to get a gauge of my standard so I know what/how to train.

Naturally, I was extremely nervous/scared/apprehensive from the start of the day.

4.15PM - Arrived at Maju Camp for my IPPT, but was told by the guard that they were only letting us in at 4.30PM. (The IPPT was scheduled to start at 5PM)

Went over to sit at some chairs outside of camp, and spent the next 15 minutes swatting mosquitoes which tried to suck my succulent legs and controlling my pounding heart.

4.28PM - The guard came out and told us that we could go in. They actually updated their 'entry' systems! They actually use handheld scanners to scan your ICs now! Nice, high tech. I wonder whose USMS that was. Sure win alot of money.

4.32PM - Reached the Fitness Corner, and had no idea where to go as it was my first time taking my IPPT there. Walked around aimlessly, looking at other people for guidance. Totally committing pluralistic ignorance.
(shamelessly showing off my Psych knowledge) (actually now that I've checked online sources it seems entirely different from what my Psych Textbook taught me wtf. fail textbook)

4.45PM - A PTI (Physical Training Instructor) finally opens up the InPro (in-processing) booth where we go and get our number tags.

5PM - I had already gotten my number tags and was sitting with the many others who were waiting around impatiently for the IPPT to commence. I could feel a tiny lump in my throat now.

Seriously the waiting is the worst part, it just makes you even more nervous and even more scared.

I remember reading this particular scene in one of the Hannibal Lector series (awesome stuff btw) where the psychotic Dr Lector had his prisoner chained up, and let him know that he was going to cut off his toes daily, one at a time, then his fingers, then his limbs, etc.
(Being extremely sadistic he also replenished the fluids and blood lost via some saline drip or something to keep the person alive)

In the book it was clear that it was not so much of the physical pain that was wearing the prisoner down, but more of the mental torture of knowing the extreme agony that was going to come each day. The wait was the worst part of it all, and could drive a person crazy.

Anyway, random digression aside, the wait was finally over when the PTI announced the start of the IPPT session.

After 5PM -
I had a clear strategy for the sequence of stations to attempt mapped out - I was going to start with the pull-ups, then the shuttle run, then standing broad jump (SBJ), then situps.
I wanted pullups first because it was the only upper body one, and won't affect the rest. Shuttle run was next because I wanted some adequate rest time after that (sprinting is tiring) and the 2.4KM run at the end. Situps tend to cause some kind of strain in your inner thighs (hard to explain why) so SBJ had to be first.

Chin-ups /Pull-ups

I stepped up boldly to be one of the first few to attempt the station. I was pretty confident of passing this, as during my practices I always managed 6. My aim was 8 today though. (6 is to pass, 8 for silver)

I watched some chubby guy in front of me struggle to do 2 and kept my chin up. (wow pun unintended) 'I'll beat him easily!'

Then it was my turn.

I stepped forward and put my electronic number tag into the tagholder, and stepped up to hang on the bar before starting.

Go! 1, 2...

Oh wtf, the bar has almost no grip. My fingers are slipping. Readjust.

3, 4, 5.

Why don't they invest in some kind of better grip bars! Omg don't slip and fall don't slip and fall.

6...

(Yes, I did it. I passed)

7...
One more. One more alan.

8!!

Bells went off in my head as I gracefully jumped down from the bar, and restrained the urge to do a celebratory dance at my first completed station of IPPT. I strode confidently away from the station, imagining envious eyes looking at me walk away (there probably weren't any in actual fact)

Shuttle Run
Never really had a problem with this station, besides the odd mishap in JC1 (just Ctrl+F 'shuttle run', it's from the very first post) , but it's one station which you can't practice on your own so I did feel abit nervous about it. Also, the JC1 incident left a lingering phobia in my mind.

As I was queuing up, I saw this slightly plump guy do some dramatic somersault when he tripped and fell mid-shuttle run and he rolled up and continued running to finish it up. Super drama. Like kungfu movie. (he failed anyway)

Then it was my turn. I strode up and put my tag into the holder again for the electronic reader to register it.
There's a way to kinda cheat for this, you just stand slightly further back (like one step away) and start running from there. There seems to be some sort of delay from when the timer starts and when you go through the gantry.

Anyway, on my first time forward, I sprinted too fast and neglected to slow down on the turn, and slid abit and the turn wasn't very fluid. Damn.

Made the mental note to slow down slightly on the turn back, and completed the other 2 turns smoothly.

Ran through the gantry - turned around and looked at the scoreboard thing - 10.00seconds. 5 points! (A)
lolololol. Even with the little skid at the start I still managed an A. Oh well.

Chest full of pride, I walked towards the next station.

Standing Broad Jump (SBJ)
Another station which you can't really practice on your own, but I've always been alright with it (and even set some kind of record when I leapt a bewildering 261cm in Sec2, no idea how I did that), managing a decent score.

Saw a few fat dudes (like really fat kind, those that take up 2 seats on the bus/MRT kind) attempt the SBJ in front of me who almost broke the machine when they landed.

HAHA ok I shan't be so bad. But it was really funny in a mean way. Like see them cannonball forward like 1 metre or something.

Then I saw this spectacled guy in front of me who did his jump and when he landed, his spectacles flew off, and I stifled a giggle. Hahahhaa super funny. How can his spectacles fly off? sucha noob.

So came my turn. I stepped up, looked forward, did my customary swinging of arms, and leapt forward with all my might.

F MY SPECTACLES FLEW OFF.

I quickly fumbled to grab my specs and put it on again and glanced at the score. Whew, at least it's a decent score, 239cm (4 points).

I wasn't satisfied so I tried again... AND MY SPECTACLES FLEW OFF AGAIN.

Why ah.

Anyway, I only managed a 239cm again, sigh. Oh well, 4 points is good enough. On to the last station (before the 2.4KM run!)

Sit ups
This is my pet event.
Back when I was in early secondary school years, I had some obsession for training and mastering situps for some reason, so I did them really regularly.

On my bed, I actually managed a whopping 120 in a minute. Yes, 120. That's 2 per second. It's because the bed is quite bouncy so you can bounce up very quickly.. but it isn't very easy still! Try it!

In Sec2 (seems to be my peak) I did 74 in a minute on the normal mat, which was my best ever. After that was probably 60ish.

(Eh sorry la, let me boast abit, I don't have much physical achievements to boast about LOL)

Anyway, the 5 points(A) requirement was 40 in a minute, which is quite easy in my opinion. I think most people without a huge tummy should be able to get it?
And I really think my training from secondary school has developed fast twitch muscles in my abs, so I can do this really well. But if you ask me to do like 100 situps maybe I can't (more reliant on slow twitch since it's endurance)

So I just raced my way to 30 within 20+ seconds, and rested for 10 seconds, then did another 10 to hit 40, and just got off the platform. I mean, why try harder, just get 5 points can already! Must conserve energy for 2.4KM run!

(Oh when I sat up to remove my tag from the reader, it registered as one more situp. Haha. So i got 41)

2.4KM run

The run was held at a nearby indoor multi-storey carpark (MSC). I have heard from friends that the indoor nature of the MSC made the run additionally difficult, as there is little ventilation and hence it can get hard to breathe. :S Oh well.

When I reached there there was already a decent sized crowd there, so before I could complete my series of stretching the PTI decided to begins his briefing so I had to cut it short. Not that it would really matter.

And just to foreshadow what you are going to read, I set a personal record in this run.

So anyway, the PTI told us about the route, run 6 rounds around the MSC, how the electronic system worked, yada yada. Ok, time to start the run.

We were dispatched in waves, and I was the 3rd wave. Ok no problem. On your marks.. jogging on the spot.. 3 , 2, 1 GO!

With my brilliant mathematics, I had already calculated this. To get a passing timing of 12:20, I need to run approx 2 minutes per round. As long as each round is under 2 minutes or around 2 minutes, I'm in good time.
Generally, I'll want my first 3 rounds to be under 2 minutes, since it's natural tendency to slow down from fatigue in the last 3 rounds, so they can be 2 minutes+.

Round 1
Got off to a quick start.
huff puff. I can do this. catch up with all the flabby people!

Passed a few flabby unfit looking people. Yes! I'm winning!

When I passed the line, I saw my timing for Round 1 - 1:45. I'm in good time! Well done!

Round 2
Ok this is getting tiring.
I'm starting to pant. I'm regulating my breathing heavily to match my footsteps.

Where is all the oxygen? My lungs are starting to catch fire. It's like I'm sucking in air but my lungs don't feel better. My steps become smaller. My pace gets slower.

Round 3
The fire in my lungs is raging.
I'm sucking in air as much as possible, but I didn't feel any better.

Normally, round 3-4 is where you are finally warmed up and you are just settling into the pace of running and shouldn't be that bad.

But this time, I never got to 'settle in' to the pace. It just got worse and worse as I continued the lap. My steps became much smaller, and people were passing me left and right.

Where is the oxygen? Gasp.

When I crossed the line, I saw the timing - 6:22. Shit.

Round 4
The burning fire in me was dancing around my lungs, and people in front of me were stopping to walk, and the peer pressure got to me and the mathematics of it all was clear-
If I took 6:22 to run the first 3 rounds, assuming I run at the same pace (I would probably slow down), I was going to complete it in 12:44. Which is a fail timing. Literally. There's no point continuing anymore.

And thus, for the first time in my life in 2 years, I started walking in a 2.4KM run . :(

Suddenly, the sagely advice of why you should never ever start walking in a 2.4KM hit me like a truck. Almost within 10 seconds of my commencement of walking, I developed a very painful stitch in my stomach

OUCHH. OMG.

Not only that, my legs began to feel crampy, and I kept trying to stretch while walking to shake the cramp off and get rid of the stitch.
I tried to jog abit at the end of this lap to the next.

Round 5
The stitch was full blown now. It was like there was an alien in my side, trying to claw it's way out. It was all but clear that there was no way I would be able to force myself to continue jogging the rest of the way 'just to train' with this pain in my side.

I did the known solution - stretching my side as much as possible while taking deep breaths to let the intake of oxygen cure the stitch.

But wait, guess what? Right, there's no oxygen.

So my pathetic walk continued, only jogging quickly forward when some fat dudes started to approach me from behind - my pride was too big to let some obese fellow who eats McDonalds for all 3 meals beat me.

Round 6
Pretty much the same, me struggling with my stitch, and only running forward to avoid the fat people behind me. Some flabby ones DID pass me, but I was already in the 'cbf zone'.

Completed the final round by jogging through the gantry, and lol-ed at my timing.

17:14

HAHA WTF.

I said at the start that I set a record this time round. Yup, that's the slowest I've ever ever ran in my life. But yea you can't consider it running when I walked half of it. But still, that is just hilariously bad.

The final results

Sigh. Gotta go running now. Have to get used to the burning lungs feeling, and hopefully I can overcome the oxygen-deprived indoor carpark of Maju Camp! Really harder to breathe than usual! But maybe it's because I did not train at all lulz.

That's all folks.

Flyers galore

2011-07-04T23:36:00.000+08:00

So after 2 days of chionging WoW... I am at lv 58. Rofl. That's 23 hours played... with RAF. And now after googling, apparently Athene did 1-70 in 26 hours WTF. How is that possible?? HAX!

Anyway gonna take a break now to just chill and chat with GF and BLOG. Because apparently my blog readership has doubled in the recent weeks (lol) and so.. have to appease the masses eh.

Yesterday I went to ~~torture myself~~ work for 5 hours at Expo with Bestie.... GIVING OUT FLYERS. Omg. First time in my life. I would never take such a job normally but yea she asked me on Sat night and sounded quite desperate so I decided to help her (which proved to be a bad decision cos 1h after I agreed Gabs messaged me for basketball during the same time. >< DAMN)

Anyway, it was an interesting experience, as you get to see the different types of reactions people have. They are not necessarily from best to worst, I'm just writing what I can think of.

1) The nice kind souls
The best to have. When you stick out your hand with the fugly flyer, these are the people who already make eye contact you from a slight distance, and smile and some actually say 'Thank you'. Such nice people!

2) The nice but not kind souls
One step below 1), these people will smile and say 'Thank you' BUT they won't take the flyer!! Wth! So weird. Just help to take la, don't you know flyer distributors usually work on a quota.

3) The nice but not kind souls 0.5
One step below 2), these people will smile and gesture 'no' with their hands as they walk past. I'll usually smile sheepishly at these people like 'hey, just doing my job' kind of smile.

4) The kiasus
These are those who are always out for a discount or bargain or something - You can tell by the way their eyes light up when they see you giving out something. They will make eye contact from a distance - not with YOU, but with the FLYERS as they try to read how many percent off the flyer willl give them.
These are easy targets, they actually walk TOWARDS us so we don't even have to thrust the flyer towards them haha.
And bestie had a theory that many indians were like that. (SHE SAID IT NOT ME)... which was partially true.

5) The blind
These people suddenly become blind when they are within 5 minutes of us. Well maybe not blind, but it's like they put on blinders, so they have tunnel vision. They will totally ignore us and pretend we are non-existent and saunter past quickly. No eyecontact whatsoever.

6) The nonchalant, curious people
These people don't mind taking the flyer just to see what it is, but they don't mind not taking either. They continue in their normal walking path, but if you put the flyer in front of them, they'll just take it for fun. (I'm from this group! I'll always take the flyer then fold a heart then leave it somewhere/throw it away)

7) The ninjas
These people are hilarious. Me and chris(bestie) strategically positioned ourselves on the right and left of this walkway into expo, lined by pillars (from Expo MRT when you turn left and walk down the pathway into expo, that pathway)
So basically even if they try to avoid one side of the pathway to avoid one of us, they will be walking closer to the other one of us.
THEN these ninjas, they are SO afraid of us that they walk BEHIND the pillars to avoid us!
Let me draw a picture so you can understand:

The circles are the pillars, the arrows dictate the general traffic flow

So these ninjas, they are so adamant against taking a flyer from us, and so afraid of the.. shame? of pretending not to see us, so they try to be a ninja and walk on the outermost ends and sneak past us.

Like walao take one flyer will die meh. Very heavy ah one piece of paper. Dustbin just 10 metres away only.

Whenever I notice these people, I always purposely approach them to give a flyer. Like I'll pretend not to see them... then when they are almost past me.. I suddenly turn and step towards them and thrust out a flyer.
Think you can dodge me? GOTCHA.

Yup that's all I can think of. All in all, we were paid $75 :D Yea babeh, $15/h woot.

I don't quite understand why a flyer job would pay by hour though. It makes much more sense to pay by quota, meaning you give out xx number of flyers you get paid xx. Rather than by time... which means you can just go hide and slack and they also won't know.

NOT THAT WE DID, OF COURSE. WE WERE EXTREMELY HARDWORKING AND STOOD 5 HOURS STRAIGHT. ok thanks bye :D

A swirl of thoughts

2011-06-29T22:32:00.000+08:00

I was having a conversation over Whatsapp with Jo-ann, a freshie from my Arts Camp OG, and she typed a long message to which I gave a short reply, and she asked why it was so short, and I said something like I actually have a lot to say but don't know how to express it.
To which she commented "Yea, you look like the kind of person who always has alot of thoughts in his mind" or something to that extent.

Indeed, I am experiencing that swirl of thoughts now. This swirl can be a gentle, mellow swirl which is simply me talking to myself. Then sometimes it swirls faster, and stronger, and it becomes a whirl. A whirl which seems to originate from more sources than 'me' and they're all talking to me at once. And I deflect them. I can't handle so many thoughts at once.

Some thoughts are totally illogical. Why do I feel _ over that? It's ridiculous. It's inappropriate. It's wild. It's madness.
It makes me want to just walk away. But I can't. I have committed. So all I can be is cryptic. And hope the swell goes down, and the whirl slows to a halt.

Another thing that has been weighing on my mind is - should I play WoW? I'm leaning so strongly towards 'Yes' now, and I'm already considering getting a 2nd account to hasten my leveling process.

But this game is not just a game. It's a vacuum. It sucks you in and keeps you there. I don't even know if I'll get to play end-game content which is probably the main reason why I am even starting up again. The leveling process is boring as hell, I've done it at least 10 times. Zzz.

I should go sleep now. Going to go for Psych camp (the last night basically) tomorrow to accompany the girlfriend, and probably won't get much sleep. Good night.

hi joann

Pre

2011-06-28T11:03:00.000+08:00

I don't think I am a very good writer.

Wait what? Inferiority complex speaking?

Well, perhaps it's because I'm surrounded by really good writers; people who's writing I really admire and enjoy reading, such as mrbrown, weiqin (ahha yes I just did put your name next to mrbrown) etc. They have their own voice that they write with, and have their own unique and interesting style of writing.

I am a little different. I am a chameleon. I adapt to different styles that I like and adapt mine accordingly. This doesn't just apply to my writing, but also my behavior and mannerisms. It's almost subconscious but I am aware that I'm doing it. It's not an intentional decision to mimic, but I just do.

However, I'd like to believe that I have my own little distinct style. Just hidden amidst all the layers of mimicry, the layers of other people's styles, is my little gem of ME.

Ok that was a huge digression. Anyway I've had different people tell me that they enjoy reading my blog. I've no idea why. I don't think I'm particularly interesting or funny, but they tell me I am. Nonetheless, I appreciate these comments, and they add a little edge to the smile in my heart.
So I went back to read some of my blog posts to find out what was so interesting, and I realized something interesting.. like a prophecy that came true or something haha.

From a pre-Arts Camp entry:

"I am quite hyped and excited about meeting the freshies and all hehe. Hope they're a fun bunchhope I can click with at least some of them!"

1) Fun bunch? Understatement. They're mad! hahaha. Easily the most enthusiastic bunch of people I've met in camps so far. And crazy. and mad. And fun. :D I love the freshies (even if they don't love me D: ), and I hope they remain this close and this enthusiastic for a long time.

2) I don't know if I should consider it clicking, but I did get to bond with a certain few people. I'm really glad it turned out this way, even though this meant sacrificing bonding with the guys and getting alot of flak for it. Screw them. It's a tradeoff I don't regret taking. I hope these small group of people do end up being my good, close friends for a long time.

From the same entry:

"AND it would be a super duper mega ultra unlikely bonus if .... there was just ONE person who is into Starcraft 2 like me! Omg bff for the camp already just talk SC2 strategies the whole camp hahhaha."

I DID find ONE person in the OG who played SC2 - was even pretty good! Masters league! However, he had already stopped playing, and didn't intend to go back to the game. So it was like... finding a pot of gold but the pot is sealed and welded to the ground permanently.
Ok terrible analogy but you get the point. I hope.

"Still undecided if I should take leave on 20-22 to stay on at Arts Camp or just drop by at nights."

Did end up taking leave, and was the best decision I made. Can't imagine how different it would be if I had just dropped by at nights. Won't be able to forge as many bonds!
Actually in the day I didn't really get to talk/bond much. Cos the freshies play the games, not me ma. It's the nights that made the difference.

So prophesy aside, I'm looking ahead at the new semester. Yes, 'at' the new semester, that wasn't a grammatical (or prepositional, whatever it's called) mistake. I'm looking at how much time I have left before school starts, and what I should do with my time.

For a brief moment last night, I was hit by a sudden impulse (is 'sudden' rhetorical?) to play WoW again.
(You can click this link to see my awesome journey through WoW. And how I earned $750 from it)
I really did love the game, and only stopped because school was starting.

I was even contemplating quitting my job so that I can focus on WoW for this month and at least hit end-game content and raid abit =X

But after some consideration, I managed to repress this urge and I think I won't be starting again! It better not swell up and overwhelm me again.

Ok, this blog post ended up much longer than it should be. If you wondered why the title was 'pre', it's because I was talking about 2 pre- things - precamp and preschoolstart. Haha. Till next time, my friends. (I'm assuming you are my friend hence you're reading this. If you're not I've no idea why you're reading this. Are you that bored? There are nicer things to read like www.cracked.com check it out yo)

poem for friends

2011-06-27T09:25:00.001+08:00

A friend like me

People laugh and people cry
When life's bad, they ask why
How to get up when they fall
Rise up again to stand tall
They look to you and wonder
How come you don't go under
If only they could see
That you have a friend like me.

A friend to listen,
A friend to care
A friend who is ready
For you to share
A friend to lean on
When you're uncertain
A friend who'll pull you up
When you hit rock bottom

Keep your chin up
Take joy in the fact
That I'll be there for you
For any emotional attack
When the dust settles
And the night is withdrawn
I'll be right next to you
Past the break of dawn.

-alan teo (C) 2011

It's an odd feeling

2011-06-25T10:59:00.000+08:00

Cognitive dissonance. Psychologists use the term to describe a certain mental discomfort that you experience, whenever your behavior and attitude aren't aligned. For instance, you know you're an honest person. Or at least you believe yourself so, and would describe yourself as one. One day, an inexplicable urge overcomes you to tell a lie. You suddenly feel very uneasy. You start questioning yourself. You experience cognitive dissonance.

I've been feeling weird lately. Cognitive dissonance is running through me. These 3 sentences rhyme happily.
OK random digression aside. After a 5 day hiatus from SC2, it feels weird to be playing it again. I don't have the same desire, passion, to play the game. To improve. To play more.

Everyone needs something to drive them. Something that keeps them going. A spark, something to ignite their engine. What is mine? I have nothing now.
Oh my, onset of depression ? haha. Random fact - it is commonly thought that depression is just a presence of sadness. However it's more accurately an absence of happiness. There's a subtle but vital difference. It's just not the same thing.
For example, everyone does feel sad from time to time. Maybe your friend stood you up. Maybe your dog died. I don't know. But you bounce back from it and engage in other meaningful activities which cheer you up.
Depressed people don't just not bounce back, but they don't derive pleasure from any activity. They never get 'cheered up'. Hence they remain in their depressed state.

Related to having drive is to have ambition. We all need a direction to head towards, otherwise how do we know where to go? Yes, I am an undergraduate in Arts and Social Science and my major is Psychology. Then comes the follow-up question - So what do you want to do after you graduate?

- I don't want to be a Psychologist/Psychiatrist
- I don't know what post-grad studies to do. Masters in.. what?

What jobs are open for me? What can I work as? HR? That's about it.

It's not that I am apathetic to this. Yes, I am generally an apathetic person. But I am aware of the NECESSITY to be in touch with society, to be up to date with news, to CARE about this. So I make the effort to do so. This drains energy from me. But I still do.
Anyway, I do think about this alot. What am I going to work as?

I'm very simple. I don't aim to be rich. I just want to earn enough to lead a comfortable life and be able to provide for my family. Pay off housing loans, have more than enough for food, and save up for my kids' university education. I'm not materialistic, I don't spend alot. Thus, I don't exactly need a high paying job.

But still. What can I work as? Civil service? MCYS? That's the closest I have to an inclination as to where I want to work as next time. And I'm not even sure.

Think I have to start thinking about this more seriously. Not just more, but more seriously.

Arts Camp 2011 (1)

2011-06-23T16:15:00.000+08:00

Just came back from Arts Camp yesterday! Wow it was really a blast, being the first Arts Camp I've been to.
I just went back to read my O week blog post (here) and realized the experience was just... quite different. It's like I had fun then as a freshie, so the fun is different. And this time round as a facil it is a very different feeling. hmm. I'll talk more about this later.

Anyway I don't have most of the photos yet, have to wait for Shaun / whoever-else-used-camera to upload them then I may make a 2nd post resembling my O week blog post. This post will be just with the photos I took with my phone and more ~~boring~~ ~~wordy~~ thoughts-filled!

I didn't sign up as a facil because I was planning to work (need $$) and so I didn't know if I could commit to it. I ended up staying for every single day anyway, and was a 'full-time crasher' haha.

Fellow crasher Candice! She came for the first and third day

Ok the odd thing was this. While I definitely enjoyed hanging out with her, when she is around I feel like I have to accompany her otherwise it's like quite bad to leave her alone? Thus I can't leave her to go mingle with freshies.
Yet at the same time, at times when I can't mingle with freshies I'll want her around to pei ME haha.
And candice is like quite chill and wanna hide at the back kind haha so can't like pull her along to where the freshies are to do cheer or dunno what. So it was quite a dilemma. But I think I ended up balancing it ok la.
I hope.
Glad she came!

Day 1's night games was some odd game that I never quite understood because we didn't go for the briefing. I was assigned to some random spot so I dragged candice/sien/munch along, my fellow crashers!
Random camwhoring ensued.

Don't ask me what is this they asked me to pose like that idk what this is either

Oh and it was SP night too! The freshies were all blindfolded and brought to meet other blindfolded people. Then the facils keep on ka-jiaoing the blindfolded freshies it was hilarious lololol. (when you're not the blindfolded one la hahaha)
And it was also the first time I spoke to some of the freshies.. and noone really knew my name besides the fact that I was 'the spectacles guy' hahaha. unique red specs =X

Ok i've no idea what day 2 was I can't remember already! I think like it's harder to remember when you don't play the games? Oh wait I know it's the Where's Wally thing but this called Finding Nemo. Councillor like quite chill dont need kena nailpolish or glitter or anything haha. With less contextual cues, poorer episodic memory!
#randomlypluggingPsychtermstoshamelesslyshowoff

Night 2's Fright night was REALLY AWESOME haha the ghosts all super convincing and scary looking! But the biggest shock I got was Sarah's scream so.. lolol.

Anyway, Day 3 was Beach Day!


Me with the lovebirds whose hands probably parted for at most 5 minutes the ENTIRE day. I'm not exaggerating. Ok maybe I am. It was probably only 1-2 minutes.	.

star pose fail attempt

I put super adhesive glue on my head and stuck them to it.

The guy next to me is Hysen AKA S-House-Manslut. Why is he called manslut? see next picture. And the guy next to him is Criss Angel. Ok fine no Angel

wtf

It all really felt quite different - without playing the games it seems like it was all more chill and stuff. Like not doing anything! Too slack already.

As usual the guys went to dunk girls and guys and whoever they could get their hands on... I didn't join in as I don't like this kinda thing? Just find it lame. Like taopok / dunking all these. Especially dunking girls?!? This year wasn't so bad, last year during O week the girls all unite and struggle like mad and it looked like some rape scene. Just not my type of thing. :/

3rd night was awesome, not because of the games, but because of the quality time I spent with 3 freshies, simin, jo-ann and sang.

Anyone who knows me well will know that I prefer smaller groups as compared to big groups, 1-on-1 as compared to small groups (2nd one more for when sharing personal stuff). Hence I never liked all those entire-OG HTHT sessions i think it's quite lame? And don't have the right atmosphere and mood. Like why will I want to share my personal thoughts and feelings with like 912873 people at once?

So it was like, the entire OG was having some group thing but when they shifted outside those 3 girls didn't wanna go out cos they were feeling uncomfortable w what they were talking abt (shoot shag marry.. -_- ) and so basically the 3 of us just talked nonsense and personal stuff and everything under the sun for a few hours!
Which is why subsequently when people asked me 'what did you talk/htht with the girls about??' I had no idea what to answer them, because we talked about like everything.

4th day was wargames + social night which was more for the freshies than anything. I'm totally not the clubbing type so I was bored stiff at Central forum where they had the clubbing music and the dance tentage and whatnot. Don't drink either, so... omg absolute boredom.

I was saved when some girls said they were tired and wanted to go back to hall, so I quickly said that I would go back with them. Made some emo tweets for some reason which I won't mention on a public sphere like this.
managed to get another mini session of htht with simin n joann (sang fell asleep) but the two girls were too tired so it ended early. I mean, last night supposed to not sleep and talk till morning one what! lol. oh well.

5th day was a waste of time, basically some lame ceremony where all freshies shook hands with all facils. Like ALL, the entire camp. Won't bother describing it because it's lame. But I got my favourite part of camps:


The card!

I'm a pretty sentimental person, and I like all these meaningful things ma. So... :D Ok la not bad got meaningful and longenough comments from the people that mattered so yay. :)

And even got cute drawings:

Why am I wearing a mitten

This batch of freshies are REALLY enthu - the most enthu freshies in all the camps I've been to (O week and Psych camp). I mean, to have freshies leading cheer on 1st /2nd day, freshies wanting to run from station to station on their own volition - mad awesomeness!

And just one day after camp they're already planning OG outing! Man, they're great.

I hope the bonds I've forged will last looong. Camp has made me feel really lazy about doing anything now, like don't feel like working anymore haha just wanna nua. Maybe it's the fact that I only slept 12 hours in 4 nights, and only got to sleep from 8-8 (have work today so must wake up early)

It was a great experience, albeit a little different because I was a crasher-facil, but I still liked it nonetheless. It's kinda odd though, like I want to hang out with the freshies but then like abit weird if the freshies all gather talk then the seniors are all the other table then I go over alone and sit with them. Then I'm not like super close with the facils either so ... JUST ODD.

And I've more or less confirmed that I'm at introvert, in accordance to Jung's theory of introversion/extraversion, as my gf pointed out to me.
Because I was telling her I felt really socially drained by the 4th/5th day - Like I don't quite know how to make small talk anymore and I was perfectly fine not talking to anyone and just listening to others or sitting alone though I kept forcing myself to at least chip in with random one-liners here and there and laugh along at things.
It felt like I had used up all my socializing-energy or something ! And as the theory suggests,
(or rather this was how my gf paraphrased it)

"Extroverts draw energy from being in social groups and situations, so they like to be in them. They feel more energized and positive etcetc with more social interaction.
Introverts deplete energy in social groups and situations. It takes effort for them to be part of these, so their 'social energy' will eventually be depleted and they'll be unable to sustain this anymore."

Yup. With that, I shall abruptly end this entry.

random camwhoring

2011-06-15T12:18:00.000+08:00

Hey look I'm blogging again! Wow surprise surprise.

Anyway yesterday I met sh for dinner after work :) She came all the way down to meet me at my office la and we ate near my place too. my awesome girlfriend.

ok yup PICTURE SPAMM. All pictures taken with LemeLeme! (iPhone camera app)


For this picture she said she was imitating what I was doing.

But I said she puff her face so small, where got look like what I'm doing!? So she :

Me and ~~pufferfish~~ szehong

That's all!

Actually that's not all for this entry, just the photospam!

Today is my first tuition lesson! Oh man. I've already prepared a worksheet to let my Sec3 Emath kid do.. hope he takes 1.5 hours to do haha then I can just chill there.
Maaaannn hope it goes well.

And me and SH together with 2 other friends have planned a holiday to Batam!! Whee! First time in my life I'm actually going for a holiday like this. Yes yes, I don't travel much. I'm a poor boy k, + I dont really have a tight clique of friends to go on trips like these. I'm more of a 1-to-1 guy!

OK anyway. Excited about the trip :D Hope my passport application goes through quickly and smoothly and we can confirm it.

Why blogging is dying

2011-06-13T15:25:00.000+08:00

I feel bad because I know there are some people who do read my blog occasionally (or rather, visit, since there's nothing to read because I don't update) and I haven't been blogging anything for quite awhile.

But but but, I promise to make an awesome blog entry after ARTS CAMP k!!

Yup the annual Arts Camp is taking place from the 18-22 June, which is this Saturday! I am quite hyped and excited about meeting the freshies and all hehe. Hope they're a fun bunch and more importantly - hope I can click with at least some of them!

Like you know there may be fun people but they're just not your type. Then you don't really get along because.. like different wavelength? Yupyup.

AND it would be a super duper mega ultra unlikely bonus if .... there was just ONE person who is into Starcraft 2 like me! Omg bff for the camp already just talk SC2 strategies the whole camp hahhaha.

Still undecided if I should take leave on 20-22 to stay on at Arts Camp or just drop by at nights... must check the schedule! And if I do it's like 60x3 = $180 gone so bleah. Opportunity cost.

POST EDIT - omg ok I just found out some fun people are gonna be at arts camp haha ok double hype.

Ok you may be wondering why I named this entry as such.... it's because I think blogging is dying! Ok that totally doesn't explain it. Let me continue! With the rising popularity of things like Twitter and Facebook, it is becoming and increasing tendency to just tweet whatever I want to blog about. After all, Twitter IS a 'micro-blogging service'.

In the past how blogging worked for me is that I'll get an idea about something to write while outside then I'll develop it in my head then go home and blog it out. Or maybe there's some event that occurred with some photos taken so I'll make an entry.

Now, I just tweet those ideas, and upload those photos to Facebook. Finis. ('Finish' en francais)

That explains the lack of blog posts!

Also, I've been quite active and busy with stuff over at www.sc2sea.com , writing articles and contributing to discussions and all. Haven't even really been playing much 1v1s, just chilling and challenging people in chat.

So......... if you still visit this blog from time to time... THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I will try to update more k. After Arts Camp definitely will. I'll post on Twitter whenever I make a blogpost so if you're someone who knows me go ahead and follow me on Twitter! (If you're some random I probably won't accept to avoid spambots)

Abrupt end to the blog post here.

NUS Semester 2 AY 10/11 results

2011-05-30T09:57:00.001+08:00

I'm going to post my results in this blog post, so if you're the kind who's going to go 'ugh what a dirty show off ugh' if my results are good then don't read on. Similarly, if you're gonna go 'rofl what a noob' if my results are bad then don't read on either.
Basically, if you're a judgmental bitch, don't read on.

I shall cover them from best to worst in terms of actual grade . I did a module review here, if you're keen to read it.

PH2110 - Logic
Predicted Grade - B+
Actual Grade - A!
Thoughts:
Wow I didn't expect an A for this! Even though I think my mid terms and finals were both aced, my online quizzes were really bad, like 1/10 and 2/10 or something. I guess EVERYONE also did that badly.. so it was evened out by bell curve.
I have a really good record with Philo mods! I should take more haha. Philosophy of Religion next sem! (or the sem after next)

PL3235 - Social Psychology
Predicted Grade - B+
Actual Grade - A-
Thoughts:
Hmm, nothing surprisingly here, was expecting somewhere around B+/A- because my mid terms were decent (not top notch so didnt expect A), and my essay assignment got an A. Guess my finals was around A- level again, so I got this grade.

PL3232 - Biological Psychology
Predicted Grade - B
Actual Grade - B- :(
Thoughts:

Aww damn. Got lower than I had hoped for. My mid terms didn't do very well, and it was not a matter of not studying enough - I normally finish everything that I PLANNED to study. So it's a problem of not planning to study enough lol.
Like imagine there are 100 bits of information in the textbook, and I selectively study 80. Then turns out they test on the remaining 20 bits of information instead.

My group's presentations weren't very good in my opinion, comparatively speaking (with the other groups')
I don't think my finals did THAT badly, probably about Bish standard again, so I guess my results are logical. :(
Well, at least I didn't fall to a C. Worse grade of my NUS life so far! :(
Ok if you are keen you will realize I didn't follow what I said of reporting them from the best to the worst... because I have alot to say for the last 2 haha.

PL2132 - Research and Statistical Methods 2
Predicted Grade - B+
Actual Grade - A- !??
Thoughts:
Wow. Mathematically speaking, this grade is outright IMPOSSIBLE.
I got a C+ for my lab report, a huge disappointment, and worth a big 25% of my overall grade.

The CAP points to grades are as follows:
5 points for A/A+,
4.5 for A-
4 for B+
3.5 for B
3 for B-
2.5 for C+

25% X 2.5 = 0.625
Assuming I get the best possible grades, As, for the rest of the components of the grade,
75% x 5 = 3.75

Total 3.75 + 0.625 = 4.375! That's below the required 4.5 of an A- grade!

That means that even if I managed to get straight As for my 2 quizzes, mid terms, AND Finals.. it still shouldn't be possible that I get A-! Because the BEST POSSIBLE SCORE I should get is 4.375, which is a B+

So I've no idea what happened here.. the only thing I can think of is that my lab report was not marked on a bell curve - e.g. my C+ was an absolute grade, and maybe noone got A? So after bell curving it was actually higher than C+.

The real shocker is the next one:

SSB2216 - Employee Management in Singapore
Predicted Grade - C
Actual Grade - A- !?!?!!!
Thoughts:

SHOCKER. SHOCKER.
When I received the NUS SMS this morning containing my results, I was first a little surprised with the number of A- I got, as I really did expect more Bs, but my eyes were locked on one phrase:
SSB2216 - A-

HOW IN THE WORLD?!?!

Let's take it from the top. Our presentation. The moment my group concluded our presentation, my lecturer walked over to us and pulled us aside. I can't remember her exact words, but the monologue went briefly like this:
"I was quite disappointed you know. I expected you all to do better. Everything is wrong! Besides that slide where you included the stats which was good, everything else was wrong! - points out what was wrong -. Wrong... disappointed! bad! .... disapppointed....! wrong! " (those were the few words that stood out)

So ok our presentation went horribly. Then for our report, her qualitative feedback wasn't exactly positive either. I can't remember what she said besides the fact that it wasn't generally positive.
Same goes for my individual article analysis - I was pretty sure I was out of point too lol. Coupled with her negative comments ... gone.

So there are 2 components left - class participation and finals.

I must say my class participation SHOULD be pretty decent... I speak up almost every week and the lecturer definitely knows me well by name. I would think I am in the top % of the class in this component? Because most people dont really speak up in class! So I'm lucky.

And finals... I basically smoked my way through? It's really a GP-style kind of thing and I just smoked both essays and really didn't know what I was writing. Didn't plan out my essays well beforehand, and was just writing as much nonsense as I can and throwing in ~~fake facts/stats~~ possible facts as usual like GP LOL.
Guess my smoke was smokey enough!
Because as compared to my project group mates I did do considerably better, so I think was my smokey essay and class participation that put me ahead. :S

But really really shocked with this grade, and thankful also of course! :D

Yup so A A- B- A- A- = 4.3, and with my last sem's CAP of 4.4, my overall CAP is now 4.35 !
Whew, still in safe zone. Hope can do better next sem and push it closer to 4.5! (Wow I need a 5 next sem to even get above 4.5 mad.)

Thank God for the decent results anyhooo.

Road to Masters (4)

2011-05-19T21:52:00.000+08:00

[spoiler=What is this column about?]
I am crAzerk, and I've been playing Starcraft since the original. I love the game, and I love writing, thus the chance to combine both passions excited me to no end. So here I am, providing (hopefully) entertaining writeups for you guys!

I aspire to be in Masters League. And I will strive hard to fight my way out of Diamond. This column will document my journey. Each time, I will write about five or more games that I've played on ladder, and discuss my struggles and thoughts about each game.[/spoiler]

Day 3 of my push to Masters league.. I'm doing so badly I am considering what I thought about the previous post - renaming this to 'Life of a Diamond noob'. For now, dreaming about Masters seems to be like a fat clumsy office worker who can't throw a piece of rubbish into a bin accurately dreaming about being in the NBA.

Also, I have decided to make this a weekly column.. just that I'm not sure which day I should post it on. Is Friday good?

ANYWAY. Let's get on to the games!

1) vs MicromaN (Protoss) on XNC
Last night after my devastating day of like 10% win rate or something, I did some reflection and figured the spanishiwa opening wasn't working for my ZvP.

After some training with my Toss training partner(Narsus, a Masters toss), he concluded that roach/ling all in builds were imba LOL. Because we played quite a few games where he tried to 3 gate expand and I just kept roach/sling all-in him and he didn't really come close to holding off any of them. Is it a build order loss? I don't know. Assuming ideal micro (perfect FFs, perfect ling surround, etc) from both sides, it seems to favor the Zerg.

Thus, I decided to go roach/ling all my games today! (for toss)

As usual, gas steal! Cancel and remake, cancel and remake! :D

I opened with a standard 14 gas/14 pool (for earlier ling speed, and also because any decent toss will block a 14 hatch) into 21 hatch.
As usual, I gas stole him the moment he put his Cybernetics Core down.
There are 2 reasons why you steal it at this exact timing -
1) When he JUST got his CC, it's probably when he JUST has 150 minerals. So he won't have minerals to build an Assimilator down before this! And if he DOES put his 2nd gas down before this, he is delaying his CC by 75 minerals!

Oh ok I combined the 2 into 1 point. Anyway yea gas steal really limits his tech routes SO much, it basically prevents any quick stargate rushes or DT rushes. And you should cancel about 2-3 times (just before complete) and on the 3rd time you can just run out of his base (do the mineral pathing trick to get past his zealot.. but he'll prob have a stalker/sentry out to kill you though)
In addition, gas steal will limit his sentries assuming he still goes a 3gate expand, which works wonders for the build I'm going.

Zergling: "I'm bored. Where's the kind probe who is supposed to come play with me?"

At about 7 minutes, he STILL hasn't expanded. This was when warning bells began going off in my head. 1 base play means some kind of cheesy crap like maybe blink stalkers DTs or some funny shenanigans.

At about 8 minutes, my sac OL spotted his TwilightCouncil, and seeing the number of stalkers he had, I figured it was blink stalkers.

Tactical mistake that cost me the game here. I did not engage here.

Ok I need some professional opinion here. Could I have engaged (and won) here? I saw him setting up a proxy pylon at my gold, and I was hesitant whether to engage because he was hovering around the rocks (read: choke)
28 lings 9 roaches vs 13 (blink)stalkers 4 zealots?

In MY opinion, on hindsight, I think i SHOULD have won this fight.. but my mistake was waiting and letting him warp in another round of stalkers.

Excellent blink micro. Look at all the red hp stalkers at the back!

I don't think roach/ling quite cuts it against a sizeable blink stalker army like this - probably need hydras for more DPS :S
No, don't say infestors. It hits way too early for infestors.

He kept reinforcing and I had to GG out.

I think roach/ling holds an early blink stalker push (e.g. just when blink is done) but if he masses more than 10 stalkers you're gonna need some spine/hydra/transfuse(?!) support. I think. Don't trust me, I'm only a diamond aspiring to be masters.

2) vs Rain (Zerg) on Shakuras Plateau
ZvZ is really my pet match up, I kinda know it pretty well and know where I went wrong every game (when i lose). I opened 15 hatch this game, and he TRIED to but my scouting drone blocked it :) So he had to go pool first.

Pro tip - In ZvZ, leave your first OL in this position - watching the expo and the ramp
You may even want to leave the OL watching his Hatchery just when his pool finishes, to know how many larva he saved up for lings

It's very important to have this OL there, as first it lets you know when he expands, and second and probably more importantly, you know what is coming at you.
When I open with my 15 hatch build, I find it ESSENTIAL to know what he is going for. I basically count the lings coming out.
2 lings? normal scouting lings
4 lings? not to worry, normal scouting lings
6 lings? That's a little too many. Keep watching ramp.
8 lings and up ? It's some ling/bling nonsense or mass speedlings+1 or SOMEthing. Get. Banelings. Nest.

Ok maybe I need to put up my BO for this to make sense:
15 hatch
15 pool
17 gas
17 OL
4 lings when pool done, and Queen, then Roach Warren
20 OL
Pump roaches when OL is done.

This build more or less holds a standard pool opener and you just have to block your ramp with roaches and you're safe against a ling/bling attack. However, I do get a Baneling nest if I see too many lings coming, because he can just surround my expo, kill it, and expand himself while he transits to roaches. really annoying.
(if i push out he runs by and kills drones, etc. Need banelings)

Alternative wall, instead of fully blocking your ramp.
This allows me to swing over to defend the expo hatch if he tries to attack it, and swing back easily to block the ramp.
I kept the lings at the top because I was going to morph them into banelings

And indeed, he was going for ling/bling:

Yes yes blow up your blings on my roaches no problem.

However with his lings attacking my hatch this whole time, he did manage to kill it (just barely! with one ling! omg) But he basically traded like 8 blings and 10 lings for one hatchery. Do the math, it's not worth it at all.

And of course I counter-attacked immediately, with my 7 or so roaches, and i rallied lings as well to morph into blings. Roaches alone don't quite cut it against large numbers of lings, especially if they get a surround, so you need some blings.

My blings killed ALOT of his lings/blings. GG

3) vs Damosc (Protoss) on XNC
I must apologize to this guy here, if he even reads the forums. If you know him you can tell him crAzerk apologizes (again). Well he asked 'can i pause for 1 sec' at the start.. and being in the bad mood I was (10% WR the previous day remember) I said no and unpaused immediately.
In fact this was the same treatment that some Masters players from nGen or aLt or something gave me too.
I did apologize to him after the game so and he said np so... yea.

So I opened 14 gas/14pool into 21 hatch again, and gas steal again, amidst his smack talk ("I will enjoy beating you then")

And he went for... 5 gate -_-

AND...
.
.

Being the pro diamond player i am, I scouted this like, at a perfectly early timing when it was finishing already -_- Not sure if my OL was there the whole time.. let's just pretend it was flying there yea.

So I pulled 6 drones and lings were on the way out, with roaches too.

His bad decision here - Why would you warp in 2 sentries 2 lots? Just warp in 4 zealots!

And I realized later on he also warped in 2 more sentries.. bad bad. If you're doing some 4gate rush like that, warp in zealots/stalkers. You probably want at most 1 sentry to FF the ramp, but you need all zealots/stalkers, according to what units the Zerg has.

After I held this off, I half-expected him to GG out. But I guess after my BM at the start he wanted to beat me badly, so he stayed on, and transitioned to blink stalkers.

Learning from the previous game, I got a quick Hydra Den out (I didn't scout his TC, but if he was staying on one base, hydras would beat anything he sends at me (colussus won't be so fast) ) and I was expecting blink stalkers because he had alot of stalkers.

I -kinda- knew I would be good to handle it once Hydras were out, so I kept dancing with him with my roach army

Lucky surround! Hydras were popping from the main and expo lol.
And that spore crawler was in case of DTs.

And I made a stupid mistake of not putting drones on my 3rd gas, so I couldn't really fund hydras :S I ended up spamming whatever buttons I could getting a mix of roach/hydra/lings.
He had some pretty decent blink micro though, so I was barely holding on :

Wtf so many stalkers

Lucky for me, with my lings tanking the stalker's shots, and my hydra's awesome DPS, I fended off his blink stalker army

And after I cleaned it out, he GGed out

Still nice enough to say 'gg wp'! Because he was sucha nice person I felt bad and apologized after the game. If he had said something like 'you despicable rat your family is going to burn' and left the game I would have just ignored him and reported him to blizzard for abuse or something

4) vs skywall (Protoss) on Shattered Temple
Cross spawn, and I wanted to go hatch first, but I saw his probe almost reaching my base so I had to go the fast speed build again.
My drone spotted a FORGE first (on the high ground too! I wonder why.. )

After seeing the forge, I quickly moved my 2nd OL back towards my expo ( I was sending it to his cliff) because he may cannon me.

Good call, he WAS trying to cannon.

I immediately pulled 4 more drones (with this scouting drone that was returning) to handle it, with 1 drone on his probe and the other 4 hitting the pylon. And I've no idea why but he put down a 2nd pylon (prolly to block my expo?) and ran his probe away without trying any cannons.

I saw his retarded 'wall-in' and decided to try a zergling runby. I've no idea why he didn't get the forge on the low ground if he already planned on a fast expand himself.

The run-by didn't really work well because of his 3 cannons, i was left with 6-7 lings from about 12 lings. Still killed about 6 probes though, and probably put him on his toes abit.

Now, when a Protoss fast expands, I know there are 2 routes to take -
1) Get an early 3rd, because Zerg needs to stay one base ahead
2) All-in with a roach bust or nydus.

I'm not very comfortable with playing with early 3rd because I'm not familiar with how hard I am supposed to drone, and because of his cannon wall in, I decided to go for a nydus.

Unfortunately for me, he had a pylon at his cliff and the moment I put the nydus down I saw it and I thought I had failed.
However, he hesitated before pulling his probes:

Nydus at half hp...

TOO LATE! woot roaches popped.
And I think I was spamming 'D' on the nydus so it didn't have time to do its cool animation where the worm comes out and makes a loud WOOORRAAARHHH sound

Yea so he did manage to kill that nydus but only after I had got all my roaches out with 8 speedlings.

So I just put another nydus down lol and cleared out his army as he tried to dance towards his expo to buy time to warp in more stalkers

I kept streaming lings and roaches, and I took out both pylons powering his 4gates, and he tapped out immediately when this happened

GG!

5) vs KKC (Zerg) on XNC

Hmm, no Terran love this morning. So yea, I went 15 hatch and he went pool first... into hatchery.

Now I'm not 100% sure about this, but to me whenever the opponent does this (pool into hatch immediately) it's an instant loss. (Or I'll be very confident of winning)

If Zerg goes pool first, he need to keep some kind of contain/pressure and even snipe the expo if possible without losing too much.. not go expo himself. On bigger maps this may work, but not for smaller maps or close spawns in my opinion.

As mentioned before, this OL placement is crucial. This helped me spot the expo.

Anyway, I saw alot of lings coming out so I got a baneling nest after my initial roaches.

Now once you have banelings, you HAVE to push immediately (if you were pumping units like me) The reasoning is simple - If he is droning up this time instead of making units, you have a small window before his econ kicks in. Indeed, he had 8 drones more than me. That's why I had to hit immediately.

If he is making units, his roach warren will be slower than you if he committed to so many lings (If you don't see so many lings don't get a bling nest! If he hides his units you need to send a pair of lings up his ramp to check what he has) and so you will have more roaches.

So more roaches, + blings to counter lings, it's a clear win, if you hit within that window.

In fact, he had 2 supply more than me lol. But as you can see, my army is way superior to his.

Long story short, my blings owned his lings, I kept rallying roach + lings (not just roaches! You will be gas blocked anyway so send lings! getting the odd bling helps too) and overwhelmed his army.

OH yes one trick I wanted to share with you guys if you didn't already know.

When you are moving out with your roach /bane army, one thing I've seen many zergs like to do if they have invested in a heavy speedling army is to actually do a run-by when you are moving out and go into your mineral line and decimate your drones.

This will actually win it for THEM, because this way you can't reinforce your army, and they WILL be able to get enough roaches/lings even to defend your roach/bane push. (after trading armies) and continue reinforce for themselves.

Thus, I've started doing this:

My building placement isn't ideal - your pool and RW(or bling nest) shoudl be on the left and right of your hatch respectively to form some sort of walloff into your mineral line.
But anyway, throw up a spine in your mineral line (once again, mine isn't ideal, but I was just trying to wall off that side), and leave 3-4 banelings in your base.
A 2nd queen helps too, to tank baneling splash and draw fire.

This more or less nullifies any stupid speedling runby into your mineral line.

What if he morphs alot of banelings too? Then start rallying your units INTO your base, not to your main army. Your main army should be able to clean out his base (he wont have enough to produce BOTH roaches and banelings) and you just have to do some multitasking to get a simple win.

Good morning! 4 wins out of 5 games, even if they were all 'Even' matchups. Oh well. Going out for lunch with girlfriend now, hope to play more games later! If not this is it! haha.

~~~

6) vs Diphoria (Terran) on Typhon Peaks

Whee first Terran matchup of the day! I don't know why but nowadays I have a pretty good feeling in my ZvTs, probably because I'm winning LOL. Haven't been facing the REALLY good terrans.. guess 'really good' terrans will have too high MMRs to face me.

Hi Mr Terran what's up?

I opened my Spanishiwa opening as usual, and scouted a 2 rax and laughed.

I think I mentioned before how I enjoy playing against 2 rax nowadays. They usually do nothing much, given decent micro from the Zerg's part. And they also open the Terran up for a eco Baneling bust if they expand after that.

Anyway, I actually left my scouting Drone at the Watchtower so I could see what was coming.

4 SCVs and 2 marines

And I must say I am VERY pleased with how I responded. I already had a precautionary spine going up, my queen was coming up at the expo, so I made 6 lings. And I remember clearly I actually told myself 'ok stop now! that's enough!'

Why am I so pleased? Because players commonly overreact when they see such pressure coming, and make like 10-12 lings or something when they don't really need so many. Myself included. Thus being able to override that 'panic' impulse is good!

Virtually perfect micro

In a bunker rush situation, your priorities are as such:

1) SCV(s) building bunkers

1) Marines

2) other SCVs

Note that SCV on bunkers and Marines are equally important, so you should probably put something on the SCV on the bunker and something on the marines if you can surround them. Even if you can't, just chasing them with drones/lings will kill them eventually, they can't scoot and shoot forever.

And as you see in the above screenshot, I microed 2 lings + queen to snipe the SCV on the bunker, and you can note that the only units damaged are the marines! (well fine SCV in yellow but I was FFing the marines)

So pleased :D

Do understand I dont do this all the time that's why I'm happy with myself haha don't flameee :(

After holding off the bunker rush, I droned up, but he tried to do some sneaky marine action:

He hugged the edge and tried to sneak around my creep.

It -kind of- worked because I only spotted him when he hit the back of my expo.

Unfortunately for him, he only killed 2 drones before I got a ling/drones surround and with my queen I was able to clear his pack of 6-7 marines easily. Not worth it for him!

Good surround with drones!

At this point I was feeling REALLY confident, seeing how he threw away so much resources at the start, so I decided to go for an eco baneling bust. I got the 2 gases in my base much earlier than the Spanishiwa build dictates, and quickly got Zergling Speed and a Baneling Nest.

After making another round of drones so my expo was moderately saturated (35 drones total), I pumped pure lings and rallied closer to his base.

Zerg Deathball? LOL.

BOOMZ
He had about 2-3 hellions, 8 marines (that were well spread out too) but my army was just too big, the lings just swarmed around the marines and banelings ran in and blew up.

Ran up his base and killed some popping hellions and marines, and blew up the rest of my banelings in his SCVs before he GGed.

He didn't have much units because it seemed like he was trying to do too much at once - He expanded, was teching to blue flame, and got a viking all at the same time.

Anyway, after this game, my match history looked like this:

Hahaha. 5 wins after 5 loss streak. My next match is probably gonna be a slightlyfavored/favored matchup, so hope I can win again.

The Magic Intercom

2011-05-19T08:54:00.000+08:00

My office's entrance is a pair of wooden doors that are unlocked by tapping your card on the scanner next to it.
Because I am a part time staff, I do not have the card, so I was told to press the Intercom button next to it.

Now, I wasn't told what to say when I pressed the Intercom.
And the thing is, anyone in the company can answer the Intercom. Even I know how to pick up the phone and let the person in when the Intercom rings. However, I don't think anyone actually knows exactly WHAT to say when you pick up the Intercom.

So yesterday morning I pressed the button and after like 10 seconds of fumbling noises, me saying 'Hello, I'm Alan' to seemingly noone, the door suddenly unlocked, so I entered.
Today, after I pressed the button for 3 times, someone finally picked up, but said something unintelligible. It did not sound like "Hello", "Good Morning", or "Who is this?".

The last response is probably the most appropriate response, since you want to know who the hell is at the door before letting them in right? However, I have a feeling most staff here don't really know EVERYONE in the company, so they won't know who to let in either. (They definitely won't know who I am since I"m only a temp)

I wonder what I should say into the intercom next time.

Maybe I'll try 'Open Sesame'.

Update

2011-05-17T23:38:00.000+08:00

Hello my dear friends who read my blog. I haven't been providing real-life updates in a while, so here I go! I'll do it in point form so it's easier to read k!

1) I have just started work at Globalsign.in !
It's a very small company that provides web-based services for companies and the such. My role is there is admin-based and I basically check the contact details of all the major companies by calling them up and verifying them. So I talk to alot of CEOs and Directors! haha.
Their website here

The office is a little shophouse 5 mins from Somerset MRT, and I'm paid $7.50/h. Yupyup answered all your questions already right haha.

My lunch time is 1-2PM, so if you want to ask me for lunch can meet at that time! And I end work at 6pm, so ditto for dinner.

2) Writing career!
Ok the title is overstating it, but if you know me well, you will know that I have 2 passions in life-
One is gaming, another is writing.
And as for now the game of the moment is Starcraft 2, which I've played since it was released last year in.. August? July? Can't remember.
So more accurately put, my passions are Starcraft 2 (SC2) and writing.

And recently, I have found a way to combine both!

Out of randomness and boredom, I decided to do a writeup on my own games and make a blog entry out of it, and also posted it over at this community website SC2SEA, which is the regional website for SC2.

I followed up with a 2nd and 3rd entry, publishing all of them there, and it was surprisingly very well-received by the people there.... And I offered my 'services' to them, and I was actually asked to join them as a writer! wahaha. It's not paid la, but still.

Click to enlarge

I am crazerk/atqhteo yes :)

And there were even people who sent me Private Messages to ask me to cover certain tournaments for them.

And this includes some people from Flash E-sports who asked me to write for them! They are like a start-up website/company that is looking to promote e-sports in the region.

Look it's me!
Haha supposed to put a profile picture but i lazy to put . Wait till they ask me to put again

So to summarize my new writing career:
I'll be writing a weekly column 'Road to Masters' which I'll post on SC2SEA (already have 2 week's worth of material, gonna stack them up so can slack haha)
I'll be writing articles periodically for Flash E-Sports.
I'll be writing tournament recaps occasionally whenever I'm asked.

All on Starcraft 2!! Yay!

I wonder if this kind of thing can put in resume one anot HAHA. Just try luh no harm.

3) RESULTS IN TWO WEEKS
Yes, NUS is releasing our exam results in 2 weeks time.. AHHHH
Am I nervous? Not really. I have more or less accepted the fact that I'll be doing worse than last sem.. it's just a matter of how much worse.

My MAIN concern is this module SSB2216 - Employee Management... I just REALLY REALLY hope I pass it. So that I can S/U it. Yes, I'm worried I may fail it. Of course, the miracle would be I get a B for it, then I won't even S/U it. If it's B- and below, I hope I get a C, so I wont feel that I wasted my S/U just for a 'B-'.
(I'm going to S/U B- too because I want to keep my CAP as high as possible for exchange)

4) DAMN UNFIT
Ok I had plans to exercise since Sunday and every single day I keep pushing it off. Tomorrow I won't be running for sure because I'm meeting the gf... so means earliest I'll run is Thursday -_- ZzzZzz.

Why do I NEED to run? Because my X chromosome decided to pair up with a Y chromosome and make me a boy, and I had to complete NS, and after that I have to pass IPPT every single year if not I'll have to go for Remedial Training. -_-

And my worst station is the 2.4KM run.. seriously it's a retarded station it's just trying to burst your lungs every time to just pass.

I'm just aiming to pass, and I can only do 6 pullups anyway so... I NEED TO TRAIN MY RUNNING.

5) I don't really have a #5, but lists always have 5 things in them don't they. Ok I have a number 5 - Thanks for reading and keep coming back k! Actually don't need just follow me on Twitter and I'll update you when I make a new post! KTNXBAI!

Road to Masters (2)

2011-05-10T18:19:00.001+08:00

Day 2 of my push to Masters league!
And this was when Patch 1.3 just came out! With the infestor speed nerf :( bleah. And the Warp Gate nerf, which means more 2 gate shenanigans as you'll see later on.

1) vs Sidoney (Terran) on Typhon Peaks
This game epitomizes what Benji was complaining about in his blog post.
I opened my usual Spanishiwa style, and he walled off before I could get my drone into his base. (it's a big map -_- )
Tried to fly my OL in at 5min+ to get an idea of what he was doing, but he denied it with his small pack of marines.

So I was playing completely in the dark. Wtf is he doing? Hellion harass? Mass thor? banshees? mass infantry?
I tried to go my safest build, getting 3-4 spines and a few more queens in case of some early push, and once I hit 40 or so food I got my gas up and teched to lair as normal

My lings poked at his ramp a few times, only to see the barracks-2depot wall off, nothing much to be read from there.

Oh Terran oh Terran, thou hath so many possible tech routes that this tells nothing at all.

Then he actually pushed out with a small pack of marines, like 6-8 to clear my ling at the watchtower and outside his base. Nothing out of the ordinary, just good Terran play.

It was only until he hit my creep before I knew what it was:

The Terran march of death

OMGWTF . Marine SCV ALL IN on 4 barracks -_- Well it wasn't really all-in because he still had quite a decent number of SCVs back in base mining. And if you see my baneling nest wasn't even half done, so I knew I was majorly screwed.

I did what I could, trying to transfuse the spines and getting lings to wrap around his marines. I underestimated the number of marines he had though, it wouldn't work.

I knew the expo was gone so I pulled my lings and queens back into my main, waiting on my Baneling's nest.
However, being the great diamond league cheeser he was, he knew this trick (probably after previous cheesing experiences) and ran up my ramp to hunt down my banelings.

And even proceeded to spread his marines out to taunt me as my banelings were morphing in -_-

Sigh.

Looking back, I don't think I would have been able to hold it, with the build I went. The gas just comes in too late for banelings to come out in time... the thing is, how do I even scout it? Against any other kind of harass I'd have been fine - hellion marine.. hellions.. just ramp block and use spines/queens. But marine/scv all in seems to be a weakness of this build, especially when it hits in that small window before you get banelings out.

And you might say, 'oh, throw down more spines!' but the problem is, the SCVs will tank the damage. And the marines will go to work on my spines and queens so... :(
And this is assuming I DO manage to scout it which as mentioned before.. I did what I could to scout but couldn't get a whiff of what was coming zzz.

2) vs MOFFy (Protoss) on Metalopolis
Close spawn, meaning his probe got over waaay early. With some fancy dancing on my expo spot he managed to block it till he could afford a pylon block. I had to go pool first then, and got my hatchery as soon as he cancelled his pylon and i killed his probe.

He followed up with a 2 gate, 3 stalker+zealot harass (Stalkers chronoboosted out) , something I believe many Toss will start using after the recent patch.

Stalkers scooting around to the back to kill my drones

He transited into a 4gate from this harass, but with mass queens, spines, and lings, I managed to hold it off.

The epitome of OVERREACTING.
Note to self - you do not need 32 lings , 3 queens and 5 spines to hold off a 4gate.

He backed out and transited into an expand with +1 attack and blink, while i droned so hard that despite overproducing lings and spines I was still ahead in harvestors. I also snuck a 3rd at the gold on the other side of the map.

I scouted the Twilight Council, but wasn't sure what he was planning to do so I just got a spore at each base + overseer as a precautionary measure for DTs. And being the awesome player he is, he expanded TOWARDS me. That is really freaking annoying.

(More so for Terran since they can just slowpush from their PF there, but toss can similarly cannon push from there and more or less make you feel contained without even doing anything)

I really didn't know what to do. I couldn't engage his army at his 3rd (because I would have to fight on the ramp, and with some nice forcefields like these:

I will basically lose every fight)

I couldn't do a zergling run-by either, because he had cannons at his expo AND his main's mineral line.On hindsight, a nydus MAY have got him stumbling on the back foot, but wouldn't really power me ahead.

So anyway, he teched to colussus and killed me once thermal lance was done.

Colussus + mass blink stalkers = :(

gg

3) vs xunwuFOM (Protoss) on Shakuras Plateau
Same Spanishiwa opening, and i saw him with 1-2 sentries so I guessed he was going for an expand, so I got an early (hidden) 3rd. (When I say hidden I mean not in a conventional location that he may scout)

Then I tried some baneling/ling nydus action, but he scouted all my attempts :(

bleah

You know, I think nydus needs to be buffed. We are spending 100/100 every time we put one down, yet it takes so long to build. Compare it with medivacs/warp prisms which drop instantly. rawr.

I made the tactical mistake here of being pretty much passive while I maxxed out on a roach hydra corruptor army, as he did the same thing as well with gateway + colussus and their favourite - DTs.

PRO TIP - Some time in the mid - late game, you should always put down a spore + 2 spines at EVERY base you have. No excuses. You should be limited by gas anyway, so you should have excess minerals lying around. INVEST in those. No excuses.
Even if he doesn't go multi-base DT harass, it's not that big a loss. As compared to when he DOES, and you have to split your army + overseers up to quickly react and usually you would have lost considerable drones before you clear his DTs.

Yea so basically he did that and stupid me didn't get those spore/spines and he left me scrambling all over. Sigh, how am I going to get into Masters with these stupid little errors.

DTs are devastating even if your opponent is stupid like this and goes for your spine crawlers instead of your drones

I also messed up an amazing baneling drop on his mineral line .. you have to see this:

WHATTT. That's like 15 probes needing just one more hit.
What happened was the stalker messed up the baneling AI and TWO banelings blew up on the stalker instead of the probes. Sigh.

But as you can see, he was already quite far ahead in probes (78>50) after his DT harass.

Yea but basically the main error was not exchanging armies with him abit, despite having slightly better econ. I denied his 3rd for awhile with a pack of lings, but when he pushed out with his big toss ball of gateway + colussus + DTs + HALLUCINATED COLUSSUS..... it was GG.

He was at 200/200 too -_-

Hi I have 10 colussus not 5. I'm going to decimate your army.

Like seriously? How imba is that? Hallucinating colussus = your corruptors are wasting time focus-firing colussus as you've no idea which is real. How do you beat this?

But yea anyway, even without the hallu colussus he would still have won, his army totally raped mine. Didn't have an overseer nearby too -_- And his econ is 34 probes higher so... GG.

4) vs Phoenix (Terran) on Shattered Temple
Some time ago ZvT was my weakest matchup - I had no answer to marine/tanks. Now I think it is ZvP - I have no answer to a good pressuring Toss who gets his 200/200 up quickly and rolls me over.

Anyway, I felt more comfortable vsing a Terran in this game after the 2 bad toss losses.

I opened Spanishiwa build (surprise surprise) and he hid his 2 rax at his cliff which my OL AND my scouting drone spotted anyway (we were close air spawn) so... no idea why he did that.

Oh wow.. I only realized something after watching the replay.. He actually DOUBLE expanded to the 'island' expo ! wtf! Well I had 15 harvestors more than him and never quite lost the harvestor lead but still..

Anyway my OL scouted 3-4 rax so I got some early lings/blings before getting my infestation pit. Was afraid of some kind of early infantry push

Shifting spines to a forward defensive position to defend my gold expo too.

Hmm this guy is a Masters Terran and he doesnt constantly make SCVs! So bad.

I cleared out his pack of marines at the XN Watchtower, so decided to push in with my bling/slings army which I kinda overproduced. Crushed his defenses, and managed to kill quite a handful of SCVs before he cleaned out my forces.

I followed up with another attack which cleared his expo, but he had a 3rd and 4th CC at the bottom right of the map . I was ahead by 30 harvestors and felt really comfortable, So i just kept expanding and teching to t3
(He had a siege line in his base so I didn't want to throw away too much army in an overanxious bid to end the game)

I did some burrowed infestor harass:

Fungal + 3 Infested Terran ftw

Then he started doing some multi prong medivac drops that really messed up my econ abit, but I had ultras coming out already

If I had unlimited gas, I would just mass infestors +ultras. That's all you need - fungal, Neural, ultra swarmmm.

Ok at this point I'm not quite sure why I didn't win. 184 to 113 supply, I cleared his 3rd and 4th expo with mass lings, ultras, infestor.

Ok I know why now.

I kept trying to brute force up his ramp, with fungal + ultralisks. However, with 192387 medivacs healing up the mairnes and marines being constantly streamed out of his barracks (11 at a time) with 3/3 upgrades.. I lost waaay more than I should have.

And to make things worse, I had tech switched to Broodlords but forgot to get infestors/blings support, and his mass marines (yes terran can win with just one unit) cleared out my BLs -_-

Yes so despite having like double his harvestors, he was able to overcome my army and i was actually down on supply for the first time in the game!! I was genuinely worried when he pushed towards my base with mass marines + medivacs and I frantically produced infestors and blings

Picture perfect. BANELINGS BANELINGS BANELINGS OOHHH

Ok the game dragged on for quite abit because he kept massing marines and 3/3 marines are freaking sick and cost efficient. I eventually managed to win , and the total game length was 40 mins -_-

NOTE TO SELF - Just pump infestors if a terran masses marines next time.

Ok, it's lunch break!

4) vs icantrememberhisnameidontcare (no this wasn't his nick)
... Starcraft crashed within the first 2 minutes of the game. Awesome. Great start after lunch yo.
Great streak today, 1 win out of 5 games.

5) vs LmBenz (Zerg) on Metalopolis
Both of us opened 15 hatch, and i decided to go mass lings /blings to early bum rush him.

speedling warz!

Unfortunately he had the same idea (didn't make drones too) and we played speedling/baneling see-who-makes-the-first-mistake game for awhile.
He was no pushover, and none of us made any significant mistakes (like lose a ton of lings to a single baneling)

AND I MADE THE STUPID MISTAKE HERE of not transiting into roach baneling! Which easily beats ling/bling. And... basically he did that. Transition smoothly into roaches while I was still pumping ling/bling

And I made ANOTHER dumb mistake:

Blew up about 3-4 banelings on the queen -_- While microing my lings to run by. He had like 7-8 drones at the expo, if I had got there would hae been able to kill like at least 5-6 of them?

And I realized he basically out macroed me. He massed a round of drones and he was 10+ drones ahead of me the whole time. :(

Then I caught up on macro, but his early lead meant he had shit loads of resources saved up. I tried to get infestors a bit too early, and he had a slight upgrade lead on me too. He engaged just before I could get a critical mass of roach/infestor up and he had +2 attack when mine was almost done, and he kept streaming roaches from there and crushed me :(

6) vs Dom (Protoss) on Typhon Peaks
As usual, 13 hatch 15 pool while he rushed DTs! I stole his gas and kept cancelling on it though, so it slowed down his DT rush alot. He expanded while his Dark Shrine was making, and he made the mistake of letting my lings run up his ramp and scouting his shrine.

I responded with an evo chamber with spores and spines... and he actually got an early 3rd!! Ugh.

I went for a baneling double mineral line drop, with the intention of transiting into roach corruptor after that.

Probes running from one OL drop!

But of course, he missed the second one as it always is

BOOM

Unfortunately, with his THREE nexus pumping out probes, he was STILL ahead even after this drop! Damn.

He got an early 4th too, and was really on top of his probe production >< DAmn.

In our first clash, we were both maxxed out, he had gateway + blink stalkers + colussus + High Templars. Yes, that's what having 4 bases of gas lets you produce

Mass corruptors made short work of his colussus, but my ground army wasn't enough, but i kept rallying roaches so he had to back

He wisely transitioned into mass immortals, which easily dominated my roaches.

AND the turning point of the game - he used DTs to more or less deny my 4th, and I never got about to establishing it.

I transitioned into broodlords which stopped his push which almost killed me, but my lack of a 4th while he had a 6th (yes he mass expanded and spammed cannons at those bases.. how to break huh) cost me the game ::(

Protoss death ball designed to own roaches

He took out my 3rd base before running away from my broodlords! :(

So yea with his DTs denying a 4th, and my 3rd gone.. he could remacro up his mass stalker army which made short work of my broodlords :( GG

6) vs iMed (Zerg) on Typhon Peaks
I opened with 15 hatch and he went pool first into a hatch, with decent pressure from a pack of 15 speedlings or so. Then... he transitioned into roaches and basically pumped roaches while I made roach baneling..

I'm not quite sure what happened this game I think his speedlings made me edgy and I didn't drone up as much as I should have. He made a big bunch of roaches (hidden) and then suddenly moved out. He didn't tech lair while I did, and I guess that's what let him make more roaches?

I'm really not quite sure why i lost. Didn't drone hard at the right time I guess.. :( He hit with more roaches at the small window before I could get units, and while pushing out he massed drones and was 10 drones ahead.
LOST

BAD LOSING STREAK. :( Stopped playing after this... 1 win out of 6 games! :(

Road to Masters (1)

2011-05-09T18:28:00.001+08:00

Exams are over, so it means it's time.play Starcraft 2 and push for Masters League.

This series of blog entries will follow my journey from May 9th 2011 until I hit Masters or until I die from playing lol. I will just give summaries of my games and my thoughts on each game.

1) vs FrOstar (Terran) on Backwater Gulch
Some bad-mannered Masters dude who started off with 'hey noob' and 'ready to get smashed?'
Just mind games so I just shrug it off with self-deprecating comments like 'sure smash me hard' or something.

I opened with Spanishiwa's 13 hatch 15 pool as usual, and held off his bunker harass easily with only about 1-2 drone casualties

SCV on bunker blows up, drones going for marines

He then poked at me with a pack of marines + hellions but my 3 queens + spines held it off fairly well.

Then came the surprise - He did a Thor drop in my main - which did pretty much shit loads of damage killing more than 10+ drones and a few queens..

Thor dominates my mineral line :(

NOTE TO SELF - Queens fail against thors. wtf it took out a queen in like 6 hits or less.
ANOTHER NOTE TO SELF - To handle Thor drops, just put a freaking spine crawler and maybe a spore in mineral line.

After this harass it was pretty much over. He was so far ahead in harvestors and army. When his siege tech was done, he moved out with 2 Thors, some tanks and a bunch of marines and began his slow push.

Terran slow push is probably the most stupid and imba thing in the game

Left the game after he constantly reinforced with more mech and marines.

2) vs Hilakpopcorn (Masters Zerg) on XNC
I opened my standard 15 hatch 15 pool while he went for a 14 gas 14 pool.
He pressured quickly with slings while I rushed roaches after my initial 4 lings.I saw that he had many lings so I got a Baneling nest as well

Then came my stupid move of the game that cost me the game - I decided to push out with all my roach/banelings, and when I saw his lings runnign to my base, I didn't bother to run back and decided to baserace.

Two reasons why this won't work - 1) I had not enough banelings on defence, and didn't put a spine in my mineral line (If i had these 2 instant win for me)
2) He actually had quite a bit of resources banked up and had just got a roach warren.

So yea basically I killed all his drones and he killed all my drones and our armies ended up with me having nothing and he had 5 roaches + a whole bunch of lings. I had to gg out.

I had 1 baneling left! Wonder if I would still win... -_-

Had this game so easily... sigh threw it away.

3) vs Hilakpopcorn on XNC
yes same dude again. I kinda like how the matchmaking system sometimes does this.. It makes it like a Bo3 or something haha.
Exact same builds from both of us.
Once again, my roaches popped before he could do much damage with his sling/bling initial poke

Got too anxious to end the game again and engaged at a bad spot, losing all my roaches

Don't get cornered

Then I made another stupid mistake - I proceeded to drone up about 6-7 drones while he kept pumping roaches.
NOTE TO SELF - Put down 2 spine crawlers to defend against a push if you want to drone up

Because I DIDN'T, he hit me quickly and simply had more roaches than me. gg.

4) vs Tobzino (Terran) on XNC
As always, opened with Spanisihiwa build, and he went for a 2rax opener. I really laugh at 2 rax openers nowadays.. I don't know why Terran still bother to go for it, most Zergs know how to hold it already. (e.g. dont let Bunker go up, etc)

So his initial poke failed, and he got a CC during the time. My sacrificial Overlord revealed his 3 rax, so I quickly put up a baneling nest and got a bunch of lings.

He decided to do a timing push when his stim + combat shields was done, but marine/marauder is really laughable nowadays, all you have to do is wait for them to come on creep and do the simple ling-surround-baneling-rape trick that all decent Zergs should know:

Step 1 - Banelings move in first, then slings (because slings move faster)

Step 2 - Run AROUND the infantry ball, don't even bother attacking with slings yet. Blings should be on move command towards infantry

Step 3 - Once you got a good surround like this, you can Attack command your slings, as well as move your blings in.

Step 4: BOOM

So I cleaned out his entire army with plenty leftover, so I just counterattacked hard with mass slings/blings and eventually won the game. gg

5) vs BossDaddy (Terran) on Shattered Temple
It was close spawn, and I saw he didn't use his barracks to wall off. I stupidly thought I could roach bust this easily and went for a roach rush (without expand).
I should've gone sling/bling, I think would have been instant win.

Anyway, he pushed with 3 scvs and some marines and realized there was no expo so backed off abit. Then i stupidly left some roaches at my ramp so he ran up and saw it, then immediately walled off his ramp with supply depot +bunker.

No way I could get in now.

Retreating roaches :(

I did what I had to do - pump drones and expand quickly, get some spines for defence. I would have held pretty decently had he not gone this unexpected route:

WTF 3 PORT BANSHEE

Talk about a good tech switch.

So yea this caught me totally offguard and despite my valiant efforts at queen micro and frantic spore crawler throwing down... I couldn't hold off the banshees. gg

6) vs Narsue (Protoss) on Metalopolis
This guy is actually my online friend so we exchanged some greetings at the start. He knew I always did Spanishiwa build, and it was close spawn, so he opened with 2 rax to try to do some pressure.
I held it off fairly easily with lings and a spine.

I quickly put up a few more spines and his 4 gate followup from that.. well he didn't even try he just backed off after seeing my spines defence. (my sac OL spotted his 4gate)

When you see so many spines, you should back out.

He expanded after that, and I was going for baneling bombs (OL speed + drop) .
Once I had a sizeable ling/bling army, i engaged him while doing simultaneous bling drops on his mineral lines. This move is SO devastating, just that you must have the right follow up.

For me I always expand before pushing, and transit quickly into roach hydra. This close spawn made expanding to a 3rd more difficult :S
Then I also kinda messed up the engagement, with my ground forces moving in ahead of my bling bombs

Dropping bling bombs on him while he spams FF to try to trap my blings

This is VERY bad because the idea is that blings will rape the sentries and weaken the units, and lings will finish them up. Doing it the other way round just doesn't work.

My mineral line bomb did SO much damage - I was ahead by 10++ harvestors. He counterattacked but my roaches were out already and with my spines and queens I could hold it off.

He came again when he had 3-4 colussus, and toss being toss, with well placed FFs he won that fight even though I had a bigger army of roach/hydra.

Zapped to oblivion :(

He spotted my 3rd and instead of kiling me he pulled back to kill it off at the same time grabbing his 3rd. I used an OL to drop some drones off at the base next to mine instead to hide an expansion there.

He made another push when Thermal Lance was done, and I'm really not quite sure how I held it

Basically roach+ queens spamming transfuse, and bling bombs dropped on top of his army

THEN the deciding moment of the game - I actually cleared his army with plenty of roaches left over. BUT. I . DIDN'T. PUSH.

If I had pushed there and then, I would have won the game. He had virtually no army. But because I didn't, and he had a 3rd base earlier than me, he quickly macroed up an army and pulled even with me. Then he made another final push with a tech switch to mass immortals and killed my roach/corruptor army easily and won :(

BAD DECISION NOT TO PUSH THEN UGH. Threw the game away yet again sigh.
I don't mind losing to a more skilled player who outplayed me, but losing because I failed to seize the opportunity to win like this just makes me SAD.

Took a break after this depressing game for lunch, then went on to ladder more.

7) vs Supertofu (Zerg) on Backwater Gulch
Both of us went 15 hatch 15 pool, and when I scouted it I decided to put on some ling pressure.
Once I scouted that he was making lings (seeing 8 or more) I immediately threw down a baneling nest.
(if you see very little lings, he's probably going roach warren. Scout his base with lings to be sure)

In fact, he WAS going roaches, but I had already committed with alot of lings. So i quickly made the push with speedlings. He was caught offguard - in fact, he was supply blocked hence he couldnt get his wave of roaches out in time.

Swarmed :D

I killled a shit ton of drones before he made enough lings to counter my lings (yea dunno why he didn't pump out a round of roaches)
But yea with his lowered worker count, I just kept streaming slings in, and with blings i easily handled his own slings. GG pretty soon after.

8) vs Supertofu (Zerg) on XNC
Yes, again. :) I love these repeat games. Seeing that he went 15 hatch the previous game, I took a gamble and went for the build order win against 15 hatch - the 10 pool.
There is really no way to hold it off assuming the aggressor knows what he's doing.
yea so basically rush zerglings to his base and put down 2 spine crawlers spread out. He can pull drones but your zerglings can just poke at them and kite them. Your spines will finish before he manages to get his own out, and your lings should have already raped his drones.

Easily won in about 5 minutes.

9) vs Terran (Terran) on XNC
Rofl right at the start of the game I started trash talking him about his nick haha.
me: "Hey that's an original nick"
"Who would've thought of that!"
"I should probably leave now since clearly you dominate me in creativity"
"I mean .. wow"
"The name is genius!"

hahaha.

So anyway, I spotted a gas opener from him and stole his other gas, and i opened with my spanishiwa style which I think he scouted.
He gets a hellion or two with some marines and a medivac or two and I thought he was trying to drop into my main, so I brought my 3 queens over and pumped out a wave of lings to deal with it.

No coming in noobiesss

Little did I know.. he was actually... going for..

.
.
.

BATTLECRUISER RUSH WTF!?

Lucky for me, I had like 4 queens out already so with transfuse I was able to hold off the BC

But he knew with my build I didn't really have map control, so he actually double expanded at his natural and the gold >< Ouch. Before i even got my own 3rd (not at the gold)

I was going for my usual mix - sling/bling/infestors against his marine + tanks + some hellions + 1 BC -_-

Because he got the gold so early, he was exploding with minerals and couldn't spend them. He threw down his 3rd-6th rax too late and was stuck with alot of minerals.

I couldn't do any infestor harass on his mineral line because he had turrets up with tanks nearby :S So I just massed up an army as quickly as I could, at the same time grabbing my gold (4th base) asap too.
When I was close to max supply I tried to trade armies with him in a pincer attack which failed horribly because he moved down to the right side of the centre gap in XNC and my timing was off.

One group attacking into buildings -_-

Another group with 0 micro :S FULL ENERGY INFESTORS. zomg. If I had just fungaled and Neural Parasite the 2 Thors I wouldve had this clash easily (Yes i had NP researched)
But I basically just moved my infestors in and let him kill it because I was trying to micro the left side army

He made a quick counterattack but my macro was on top of it - i had infestors and lings ready to handle his army. This time, I remembered to use Neural ;p

Neural Parasite ftw.

After this clash, my hive was done so I got an ultra cavern and got ultras out with some infestors + lings.
With ultras, you can just auto-attack into the terran army haha. Well, infestors to fungal growth the infantry is important too.

Swarrrmmmmm

It didn't kill him though, because he had alot of marines and tanks and thors streaming out. And yes that 1 BC is still alive. At this point I went for a tech switch to broodlords, while taking my 5th base, and using lings to deny/delay his 4th base

I love how scary Broodlords look. RAWRR

He had just got only 2 vikings out, and my ground army with my broodlord's help managed to exchange off with his army.

Carnage!

After this clash, he actually prematurely GGed and left the game.

He still had quite abit of marines, and a BC + 2 vikings to deal with my leftover 5 Broodlords. However, I did have 6 corruptors coming out , along with my 2 idle corruptors and 2 ultralisks at the watchtower, so I suppose I would still have won eventually.

Good, long, game!

10) vs Dellward (Zerg) on Shattered Temple
I opened 15 hatch to his 15 gas 14 pool, it was close position.
He actually went roach warren immediately after his pool (my drone was there scouting it), and teched to lair after getting just 3 roaches while I had pumped out 7. I tried to pressure abit but he saw me coming and got out some roaches. I spotted his lair and was worried about mutas so I threw down an evo chamber and got a few spores.

It was unwarranted though, because he was merely getting burrow + roach speed.

Because he was on one base this whole time, naturally my econ was stronger and I pumped out roaches quickly. He tried to do some Contaminate shenanigans though, luckily for me I still managed to pump out enough roaches to deal with his roach push

rawr

He kept up the roach pressure for a while, but because I was on 2 base (and 10 drones ahead), I could easily crank out more roaches than him. So I made a follow up counterattack when he pulled back when he realized he had fewer roaches. I just kept streaming roaches in.

Contaminated him as well. As you can see on the Production tab, my +1 was done too. He didn't have any upgrades.

Kept streamign roaches, and he eventually GG out.

11) vs Air (Zerg) on XNC
I open 15 hatch as usual. He also tried to, but I got a minivictory here by blocking his expo with my drone

Drone wars!

This just resulted in him putting a pool down first, then a hatchery immediately after, not much difference.

Again, I decided to go for ling pressure and pumped lings, and seeing he had quite a few lings of his own, I put down a Baneling nest.
Unknown to me, after his first 10 or so lings, he got out a roach warren. And he wasn't bad enough to get supply blocked like the previous zerg i faced, so he pumped his wave of 6 roaches out quickly.

At this point, I made a TERRIBLE engagement.

This was our units at our engagement

His roaches were popping out as my lings engaged his lings head on WITHOUT my banelings (they were slowly running over..) BIG mistake. This probably cost me the game.
If I had just waited on the blings, and the 4 blings killed his 12 lings, 25 lings will easily take out 4 roaches.

Sigh, potentially game winning clash. Anyway, he won that fight because of his roaches that came out, by the time my blings came there was not many lings left to blow up on so they blew up on roaches/lings.

I threw up a RoachWarren in response but it was too late. He rushed with roaches and lings and I ranby to clear his drones. It was not enough though, as his roaches cleaned up my base and his mass of lings killed everything.
lost :(

12) vs papasoftee (Zerg) on Shattered Temple
I don't know how he guessed it, but he opened 10 pool against my 15 hatch. As mentioned earlier, it's a build order loss, even though I cancelled my hatch and managed to defend his early push. He expanded himself and contained me with lings, and eventually won with more army.

13) vs BIGGUN (Zerg) on Typhon Peaks
I 15 hatched again and he went for a standard 13 pool or something. Didn't matter, he went roaches but I rushed roaches as well, and i held off his early pokes. He expanded then, but I had the econ lead already and never let go of it.

The game did drag on to a rather long game of about 20 minutes, but I won eventually with a better econ in a roach/infestor vs roach/infestor fight.

That's a wrap! My record today was 6/13.. ouch that's bad. Oh well, in my last 10 games it is 6/10. And I WAS on a 3-game win streak before I started today.

Gonna try to play more later at night, and tomorrow! Hope I hit Masters soon!