Monday, November 26, 2007
It's a little more than a week to the start of finals, and the stress factor is starting to creep in. My finals open with Math 293, a course I have been doing well in, and ORIE 320, a course I havent been doing too well in. But before them, I have got one more ORIE 320 prelim this Thursday to deal with. Felt quite accomplished after ompleting the Math HW, but now, I am kinda stuck in my 320 studying. There is no help available at least for the next 14 hrs, because the f****** professor refuses to hand out solutions to the practice prelim.
I have always studied based on practice prelim. I think this approach isi pretty useful, because it emphasizes the important concepts and you can see them being applied into problems. And to make matters worse, my housemates are consumed by CS 211 final project ( and having suffered over summer because of CS projects, I can understand) while my other orie buddies are far away. Really depressing, because I got to simply grit my teeth and plough on. Time is not really on my side too, sighz. the first signs of obvious stress, when you always feel you dont have enough time...
and when tt happens, you tend to make matters worse by simply doing nothing. so browsing away at the endless websites (straitstimes.com, yahoo, soccernet), all which I have visited over the past6 hrs, as well as watch tvb shows on crunchyroll.com etc etc etc. and then it's time to sleep, and you have just succeeded in running away from your fears of exams...
I got to find a way to stop this.
And oh, the sight of a white car from atop my window at my attic every morning almost ruins my day EACH AND EVERY DAY. I hope i will not see it too often, especially over the next 2-3 weeks.
Please respect my wishes, appreciate.
;
7:09 PM
***
Friday, November 16, 2007
It's hard to keep to your promise of regularly updating your blog, epecially when you are an engineering undergraduate at Cornell! Admittedly I could have scribbled a few lines now and then, but I like to use the blog more as a form of self-reflection. Thus, as the semester heads towards a frentic finish, I feel it's apt that I post on my blog, reflecting on the events thus far. They say a picture speaks a thousand words; unfortunately, camera has never been a must-have item in my bag, so I don't have too many photos that chronologises my fall semester. Below are a collection of low quality photos taken using my samsung camera, and you have to forgive me... so here we go!
Well, how can work not be THE MAIN feature of one's semester? And yes, work has been an almost unavoidable daily activity. Not that I have been overly studious; on the contrary, I feel I could have worked even harder! But that does not take away the fact that it has been yet another work-laden semester! From nearly tearing my hair out literally when trying to produce the pro-formal statement of cash flows for my NBA 506 final project, to staring at the immortal words of Prof Bland for ORIE 320: Optimization, the rigor of academic curriculum at Cornell has never been in question.
This, together with the stress stemming from my own expectations, at times hindered, rather than helped, my academic progression. There were too many occasions when anxiety during an exam got the better of me, resulting in hesitation and thus excessive carelessness. I have been a victim of my own carelessness too many times; there was not a single paper where I had more than 5 points taken away for a single question. Rather, I have uncountable number of single points taken away for sheer carelessness. And it has begun to take its toll on my grades. That said, I have truly learned from this, and would strive to be clearer in my presentation of answers and weed out these nitty gritty errors. it's painful, but it's not costly, and it's salvageable!
This was a picture taken at Ian's place when several friends from UPenn came over for this fall break. It was nice catching up with friends like Yexiang and Yinwei, as well as making new ones! And as usual, when boys get together, booze is the order of the day! That said, it was fun just chilling with a group of friends, so long as we chat more than we drink. And I think there could be more such impromptu gatherings among the Singaporeans @ Cornell, inter or intra-batch.
Although the SSA has many activities lined up each year, I feel there is a genuine lack of interaction among Singaporeans across various batches of students, especially with the grad students. It's' uncommon to hear the familiar sounds of Singlish-laden conversations in Statler terrace restaurant or at Taste of Thai, yet often we struggle to identify our fellow Singaporeans. It's the same even within the undergraduate community. Even though we have had Prepare, AGM, Happy Hour and Makamannia, there are several freshmen out there whom some of the seniors struggle to recognise (unless you have done Prepare). This is not the fault of the SSA; it's more down to the individual.
Cheers to friendship, within and beyond Cornell!
This guy is the champion of ORIE 320. He would always sit at the front row, and he will NEVER FAIL TO FALL ASLEEP within 10 minutes into the lecture. This picture was taken 10 MINUTES after the lecture had ended! He's the man, man! lol.
Prof Bland, what a fella! He drones, he mumbles, he comes up with crap ideas like distibuting exam papers with 2 colours, he comes up with a seating arrangement that hinders, rather than helps, the conduct of the exam. He declares crap events like cell phone day, dresses up on halloween wth a leather strap attached to the back of his pants, as well as wearing a silly hat. He calls everyone who raises questions by the name "Adam", and when you knock on his door, he can be curt as you could ever imagine. Z-Z-Z.
;
5:10 PM
***
Well, how can work not be THE MAIN feature of one's semester? And yes, work has been an almost unavoidable daily activity. Not that I have been overly studious; on the contrary, I feel I could have worked even harder! But that does not take away the fact that it has been yet another work-laden semester! From nearly tearing my hair out literally when trying to produce the pro-formal statement of cash flows for my NBA 506 final project, to staring at the immortal words of Prof Bland for ORIE 320: Optimization, the rigor of academic curriculum at Cornell has never been in question. 
This was a picture taken at Ian's place when several friends from UPenn came over for this fall break. It was nice catching up with friends like Yexiang and Yinwei, as well as making new ones! And as usual, when boys get together, booze is the order of the day! That said, it was fun just chilling with a group of friends, so long as we chat more than we drink. And I think there could be more such impromptu gatherings among the Singaporeans @ Cornell, inter or intra-batch.
Cheers to friendship, within and beyond Cornell! 
