Thursday, June 23, 2005
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is coming to Singapore! For those who don't know him, Neil Gaiman's an author, my favourite one in fact. He's written quite a few novels like American Gods but he's most famous for his Sandman series. If you've known me long enough, you'd heard me hock this series before; for those that don't, here we go....
The Sandman is a story about Dream of the Endless, he's an anthromorphic personification of a point of view. That is, because we dream, therefore he exists. His job is simple (of course, the simple things are always hard), he has to construct the things we dream. It goes like this, when we dream of something, we are actually in the Dreaming and the things that we see there, pink elephants et al, are actual constructs that exist in the Dreaming. Its alot of work, but its his task, and he performs it well.
He is of the endless, one of 7. The seven, in order of their age are: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire/Despair (twins) and Delirium. I'd tell you more about each and everyone of them but i know everyone hates a long entry :p
Anyway.... This comic series has a dark gothic feel with mythological references from *everywhere* and the best thing is, some of the stories don't even have dream in it! The Sandman isn't just a person, its a setting.
But i digress, Neil Gaiman is coming to Singapore and will be giving a talk as well as an autograph session on the 4th of July. Tickets are $8 each and there are 4.30 pm and 7.30 pm sessions. It will be at cineleisure orchard. Not too sure where else to get the tickets but i got mine at Comic's Mart.
Good stuff, if you're going too be sure to pop me a tell and we can go together and stuff!
The Sandman is a story about Dream of the Endless, he's an anthromorphic personification of a point of view. That is, because we dream, therefore he exists. His job is simple (of course, the simple things are always hard), he has to construct the things we dream. It goes like this, when we dream of something, we are actually in the Dreaming and the things that we see there, pink elephants et al, are actual constructs that exist in the Dreaming. Its alot of work, but its his task, and he performs it well.
He is of the endless, one of 7. The seven, in order of their age are: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire/Despair (twins) and Delirium. I'd tell you more about each and everyone of them but i know everyone hates a long entry :p
Anyway.... This comic series has a dark gothic feel with mythological references from *everywhere* and the best thing is, some of the stories don't even have dream in it! The Sandman isn't just a person, its a setting.
But i digress, Neil Gaiman is coming to Singapore and will be giving a talk as well as an autograph session on the 4th of July. Tickets are $8 each and there are 4.30 pm and 7.30 pm sessions. It will be at cineleisure orchard. Not too sure where else to get the tickets but i got mine at Comic's Mart.
Good stuff, if you're going too be sure to pop me a tell and we can go together and stuff!
posted by Highwind at 7:53 PM
1 comments
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Talk about a hiatus...
Alright, so its been awhile since i posted and its been even longer since i've mentioned anything about my post on the 50 things i said i would speak about; I guess i should now. Today's topic: Working Out
First, a brief introduction on my physique. I am scrawny beyond belief; I weigh 55kg (on good days) but i'm 1.82m tall. My BMI and body fat is so low, i scare myself. That being said, i *want* to gain weight or at least gain muscle. I eat a healthy amount in my opinion but my weight hangs around 55kg. I did lose 4 kg after my 2 operations though, cest la vie.
Moving on, i do work out a little at home. I have a pullup bar, a single 5kg dumbbell (donated by a long lost Indonesian friend) and the cold hard floor. Ok, so don't laugh my muscle-bound friends but this is what i do once every 2 days (everything is in sets of 12)
3 sets bicep curls
3 sets hammer curls
3 sets deltoid raise thingies (/shrug)
5 sets wide arm pushups
3 sets situps
some pullups
I don't know, maybe i'm doing it all wrong. Or maybe, i'm genetically predisposed to be skinny; almost my whole family is scrawny. Maybe i'm not doing the exercises right, maybe this maybe that, who knows?
Why am i doing all this for? Well, for one i'd like less bony shoulder for Ariel to rest on and on a personal sense i want my body to mirror my mind. God has given me a good mind and i want to make my body the same. I don't want to be some huge dude, some physique is good enough for me and oh, no more scrawny arms please ^^
Some final notes: I used to do a decent amount of cardio but of late i've stopped totally. I know cardio and weight gaining aren't exactly mutually exclusive but they don't go together that well either. I should start my cardio again soon though, maybe twice a week, maybe with Ariel too ^^ Also, i'm getting one of those swiss exercise balls. Gonna add some back strengthening exercises too; tall and skinny do not a good posture make.
Finally, to the many people who tell me how skinny and scrawny i am, i assure you i'm aware of my physique and i am working on it, just give me some time. I'm trying!
First, a brief introduction on my physique. I am scrawny beyond belief; I weigh 55kg (on good days) but i'm 1.82m tall. My BMI and body fat is so low, i scare myself. That being said, i *want* to gain weight or at least gain muscle. I eat a healthy amount in my opinion but my weight hangs around 55kg. I did lose 4 kg after my 2 operations though, cest la vie.
Moving on, i do work out a little at home. I have a pullup bar, a single 5kg dumbbell (donated by a long lost Indonesian friend) and the cold hard floor. Ok, so don't laugh my muscle-bound friends but this is what i do once every 2 days (everything is in sets of 12)
3 sets bicep curls
3 sets hammer curls
3 sets deltoid raise thingies (/shrug)
5 sets wide arm pushups
3 sets situps
some pullups
I don't know, maybe i'm doing it all wrong. Or maybe, i'm genetically predisposed to be skinny; almost my whole family is scrawny. Maybe i'm not doing the exercises right, maybe this maybe that, who knows?
Why am i doing all this for? Well, for one i'd like less bony shoulder for Ariel to rest on and on a personal sense i want my body to mirror my mind. God has given me a good mind and i want to make my body the same. I don't want to be some huge dude, some physique is good enough for me and oh, no more scrawny arms please ^^
Some final notes: I used to do a decent amount of cardio but of late i've stopped totally. I know cardio and weight gaining aren't exactly mutually exclusive but they don't go together that well either. I should start my cardio again soon though, maybe twice a week, maybe with Ariel too ^^ Also, i'm getting one of those swiss exercise balls. Gonna add some back strengthening exercises too; tall and skinny do not a good posture make.
Finally, to the many people who tell me how skinny and scrawny i am, i assure you i'm aware of my physique and i am working on it, just give me some time. I'm trying!
posted by Highwind at 2:38 AM
1 comments
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Scholarship oh my
Hello everyone, as always, its been an immeasureably long time since i've last posted. Alas, real life and game life draws me away from revealing anything but the most exciting portions of my life :p
Anyways, this entry is about the Lee Kong Chian scholarship (Touchy issue, considering the uproar recently when some uber scholar posted some really scathing remarks) Ahem, anyway, to begin:
SMU called me on friday and one of their staff, Melissa, informed me that i was shortlisted for the Lee Kong Chian (henceforth LKC) scholarship and the interview would be on monday. Despite the short notice, i acknowledged and thus began the whirlwind ride.
I have never went to an interview before, well, the SMU early admission might have counted as an interview but it kinda fun and totally non-stressful i'd loathe to label it an interview. Anyway, i started reading about scholarship interviews and started thinking of answers to those eternally tough questions they always ask in scholarship. I eventually did find answers to these questions but all for nothing it would seem......
Cut to monday morning 9am and here i am shirt and tie in LKC school of business level 3 meeting room 1. There were some of my fellow interviewees already there and i greeted them. I felt so tense i could cut my own tension with a knife let alone the others. Anyway, by 9am, all but 1 of the 14 interviewees had arrived and we were escorted to meeting room 2 that was larger.
It was there i was informed that that would be no individual interview, instead, we would be seperated into 2 groups to discuss and complete a question and then we would present it. My group consisted of 6 guys and a girl (no pizza place though) and we began our task: choosing the right question. We could do question number 1, where we imagined ourselves to be a scholarship panel that would decide the numerous requirements and related issues on a scholarship or we could do question 2, where we were given 8 great works and had to decide to consign them to oblivion. Our task was to decide the order in which we would consign them and the reasons why.
Needless to say, i fell in love with question 2. Never mind that i didn't know what Fermat's last theorem was (I later did find out, and man, was Fermat a prankster) but i love min-maxing and this was right up my alley. Our group discussed it though, and we decided to err on the better side of caution and do question 1 instead. The reasons were many. Insufficient knowledge, widely differeing concepts notwithstanding. A little part of me died when we started on question 1 (I sooo love drama :p)
Anyways, when it came to the discussion, we ended up defending our choice of question more than our points (which were boring anyway) It was fun, and we digressed from the topic too many times to count which on hindsight was a good thing as i'll explain later.
Lunchtime! My appetite had evaded for the entirety of the morning and it continued to do so for lunchtime. I had a light Seaweed soba that tasted sour (darn soba, should have had the udon) and green tea. Go vegetarianism! Anyway, back to interview~
The 2nd part of the interview has us discussing the other groups question. They had chosen their question 2 (the "creative" one for lack of a better term) which was simply O. Yup, that's it, just O, nothing else. However, while our choice of question was bad, their method of answering was criticised. They present 3 concentric circles where "ME" was in the centre which was surrounded by SMU, which was surrounded by Singapore society which was surrounded by the world. 2-way arrows were drawn through every border to indicate a 2-way relationship between each level. I won't elaborate on their presentation but i can assume you can draw what was said simply from the diagram. The profs and our group however were not. Prof Chua noted that SMU could be replaced by NUS or NTU or anything for that matter and kinda sealed it for the team. Our group took turns to criticise the other groups presentation which we felt was... lacking. We kinda expected more from such an open-ended question but were left wanting in the process. To be honest, i felt kinda bad for group 2 as they had the unenviable task of having to defend themselves (i couldn't think of a counter defence for them, i would so hate to be in their shoes) They did pose us this stinger though, could we (group 1) have come out with something more creative? Good question, and i got to thinking...
If it were up to me, my answer would be that O looks like zero which is called Nil. Nil to me brings up the concept of Nihility. Where if nothing existed, how would it be? Anyway, it never came to that and i could never bring that point out. Alas :p
When it was all said and done, we were given 2 minutes each to talk about the interview today, what could be improved about it and what we could contribute to society if we were given the scholarship. That said and done, the interview ended and i went home, showered and headed to Marche to meet Peng Kong for "last supper" before NS starts for him.
Now, from 9am till 5pm when the interview ended i could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I could swear my heart rate was pushing 100. My digestive system was out and i could almost feel myself trembling. Even when the interview ended the adrenaline had not been flushed out of my system and every phone call coz it to spike again. Reason being: They said they would call everyone one of us tonight to tell us whether we would get the scholarship or not. They finally called while we were having dinner at Marche, Melissa called and she said she had good news. I was selected! I was estatic! I thanked her profusely and had a good dinner sans the butterflies.
So here we are, I've been selected for the LKC scholarship worth 50k i think (I heard someone shoot the number but i can't confirm it)Something i never thought would happen in my wildest dreams. Truly, praise be to God for again he has poured out more blessings than my cup can contain! There is no limit to how much love He has for us and how much He is willing to bless us.
On a sidenote: I said some very.... insensitive remarks during the interview, i wish i could have taken them back but obviously, I can't. I sincerely hope i did not hurt anyone's feeling during the course of the interview. It would have been a poor thing to have to hurt someone for this scholarship which is the last thing i would want. I apologise to anyone who feels this way and i hope you'll forgive me. If there's anything i disliked about the interview it was that in the course of our lively discussion the underlying cause was the scholarship. All of us wanted it, desired it. The competition for it made things very tense which may have been one of the objectives of the selection process. It was not easy for me to say the things i did but i did anyway, and i feel really bad if i hurt anyone. Real life must be all about this i imagine and now is a good as time as any to learn. I did say one thing that i really wished a euphemised though, but i'll carry that with me for now.
Praise to the Lord for this blessing. A new chapter in my life begins now. One with even greater social responsibility than before. It sounds really daunting but i know my Lord is always there to depend on in every part of the way.
Anyways, this entry is about the Lee Kong Chian scholarship (Touchy issue, considering the uproar recently when some uber scholar posted some really scathing remarks) Ahem, anyway, to begin:
SMU called me on friday and one of their staff, Melissa, informed me that i was shortlisted for the Lee Kong Chian (henceforth LKC) scholarship and the interview would be on monday. Despite the short notice, i acknowledged and thus began the whirlwind ride.
I have never went to an interview before, well, the SMU early admission might have counted as an interview but it kinda fun and totally non-stressful i'd loathe to label it an interview. Anyway, i started reading about scholarship interviews and started thinking of answers to those eternally tough questions they always ask in scholarship. I eventually did find answers to these questions but all for nothing it would seem......
Cut to monday morning 9am and here i am shirt and tie in LKC school of business level 3 meeting room 1. There were some of my fellow interviewees already there and i greeted them. I felt so tense i could cut my own tension with a knife let alone the others. Anyway, by 9am, all but 1 of the 14 interviewees had arrived and we were escorted to meeting room 2 that was larger.
It was there i was informed that that would be no individual interview, instead, we would be seperated into 2 groups to discuss and complete a question and then we would present it. My group consisted of 6 guys and a girl (no pizza place though) and we began our task: choosing the right question. We could do question number 1, where we imagined ourselves to be a scholarship panel that would decide the numerous requirements and related issues on a scholarship or we could do question 2, where we were given 8 great works and had to decide to consign them to oblivion. Our task was to decide the order in which we would consign them and the reasons why.
Needless to say, i fell in love with question 2. Never mind that i didn't know what Fermat's last theorem was (I later did find out, and man, was Fermat a prankster) but i love min-maxing and this was right up my alley. Our group discussed it though, and we decided to err on the better side of caution and do question 1 instead. The reasons were many. Insufficient knowledge, widely differeing concepts notwithstanding. A little part of me died when we started on question 1 (I sooo love drama :p)
Anyways, when it came to the discussion, we ended up defending our choice of question more than our points (which were boring anyway) It was fun, and we digressed from the topic too many times to count which on hindsight was a good thing as i'll explain later.
Lunchtime! My appetite had evaded for the entirety of the morning and it continued to do so for lunchtime. I had a light Seaweed soba that tasted sour (darn soba, should have had the udon) and green tea. Go vegetarianism! Anyway, back to interview~
The 2nd part of the interview has us discussing the other groups question. They had chosen their question 2 (the "creative" one for lack of a better term) which was simply O. Yup, that's it, just O, nothing else. However, while our choice of question was bad, their method of answering was criticised. They present 3 concentric circles where "ME" was in the centre which was surrounded by SMU, which was surrounded by Singapore society which was surrounded by the world. 2-way arrows were drawn through every border to indicate a 2-way relationship between each level. I won't elaborate on their presentation but i can assume you can draw what was said simply from the diagram. The profs and our group however were not. Prof Chua noted that SMU could be replaced by NUS or NTU or anything for that matter and kinda sealed it for the team. Our group took turns to criticise the other groups presentation which we felt was... lacking. We kinda expected more from such an open-ended question but were left wanting in the process. To be honest, i felt kinda bad for group 2 as they had the unenviable task of having to defend themselves (i couldn't think of a counter defence for them, i would so hate to be in their shoes) They did pose us this stinger though, could we (group 1) have come out with something more creative? Good question, and i got to thinking...
If it were up to me, my answer would be that O looks like zero which is called Nil. Nil to me brings up the concept of Nihility. Where if nothing existed, how would it be? Anyway, it never came to that and i could never bring that point out. Alas :p
When it was all said and done, we were given 2 minutes each to talk about the interview today, what could be improved about it and what we could contribute to society if we were given the scholarship. That said and done, the interview ended and i went home, showered and headed to Marche to meet Peng Kong for "last supper" before NS starts for him.
Now, from 9am till 5pm when the interview ended i could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I could swear my heart rate was pushing 100. My digestive system was out and i could almost feel myself trembling. Even when the interview ended the adrenaline had not been flushed out of my system and every phone call coz it to spike again. Reason being: They said they would call everyone one of us tonight to tell us whether we would get the scholarship or not. They finally called while we were having dinner at Marche, Melissa called and she said she had good news. I was selected! I was estatic! I thanked her profusely and had a good dinner sans the butterflies.
So here we are, I've been selected for the LKC scholarship worth 50k i think (I heard someone shoot the number but i can't confirm it)Something i never thought would happen in my wildest dreams. Truly, praise be to God for again he has poured out more blessings than my cup can contain! There is no limit to how much love He has for us and how much He is willing to bless us.
On a sidenote: I said some very.... insensitive remarks during the interview, i wish i could have taken them back but obviously, I can't. I sincerely hope i did not hurt anyone's feeling during the course of the interview. It would have been a poor thing to have to hurt someone for this scholarship which is the last thing i would want. I apologise to anyone who feels this way and i hope you'll forgive me. If there's anything i disliked about the interview it was that in the course of our lively discussion the underlying cause was the scholarship. All of us wanted it, desired it. The competition for it made things very tense which may have been one of the objectives of the selection process. It was not easy for me to say the things i did but i did anyway, and i feel really bad if i hurt anyone. Real life must be all about this i imagine and now is a good as time as any to learn. I did say one thing that i really wished a euphemised though, but i'll carry that with me for now.
Praise to the Lord for this blessing. A new chapter in my life begins now. One with even greater social responsibility than before. It sounds really daunting but i know my Lord is always there to depend on in every part of the way.
posted by Highwind at 10:00 PM
1 comments