Highlights of 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 1 AY 11/12

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  atqhteo@gmail.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.

Funny conver

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

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

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

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.