suffocating

i feel like im suffocating.

despite efforts to be more hardworking, i start to realise that it doesn't work without working smart.

this fact suddenly dawned upon me as even though my classmate started her assignment super late, she worked super hard on it, often giving up her precious sleep but she was successful in figuring out the answers, getting full marks for her assignment. I guess she deserved it, for knowing the definitions well and writing them all out.

But i can't stop but wonder why cant i do the same? am i willing to spend sleepless nights slogging through an assignment question? even if i do, i reckon i'll just be STARING and not thinking. i reckon that the same piece of info would just be cycling around in my brain.

Definition meanings don't fit in my mind. Ways to figure out a question run away when i spot the different words forming the exam paper. what am i doing?!

i feel so frustrated that i tell people i'm bored. i don't know how to articulate my words out. people cant help me.

knowledge is power!

Well, at least that's what i thought.

Maybe IT IS time that i took some 'moral' subject to 'offset' the supposedly more 'immoral' or worldly way of thinking.

I've been holding on this notion that "knowledge is power" for too long, which is further enhanced by C&S where there are asymmetric information and the one with more information stands to gain though the one with less information would tend to use all means and ways to get the 'smarter' one to relay that piece of knowledge.

Looking around me, i realised all the help that i have been getting. All the (no matter how minute) pieces of information slipping past them with no hint of hesistation.

It's time i learn to share. it's time to change.

Reenrolment

I've re-enrolled into Melbourne University! Ok, no big deal right. The problem is choosing the elective subject that i have for next year. Mind you, the ONLY elective i have next year. The rest are PURE ACTUARIAL subjects. Think my head is going to burst. People are choosing derivatives, corporate finance, management subjects and even MORE MATHEMATICS subjects (stochastic modelling). I wanted to take entrepreneur finance but the lecture clashes with actuarial modelling 1! SAD CASE! now i'm at a loss.. i don't want to follow all my other friends sometimes..makes me feel as though i'm taking the subject JUST BECAUSE they are. =x which is why i took Competition and strategy this semester as my elective. bah. more things to think about. what a hassle

assignments give me such a headache..

It's not as if i start late and thus have to rush for my assignments (generally try not to anyway). it's just that i tend to rush into things and attempt the questions before i read any of the textbooks or lecture slides sometimes. This results in me being stuck and having to 'wait' for others to start theirs. Feels like i'm relying so much on them =x

Maybe it's time to learn to revise my work before attempting the assignment questions. I try to. In the shortest period of time. Thereby resulting in a dissatisfying outcome. TSK.

Last day tomorrow. Last assignment due. Just feel like getting it out of my way NOW! but somehow more and more problems seem to keep cropping up. come on, it's ONLY 5%! =x man.

i'm supposed to have studied tonight as well. But i can't focus.. not sure which subject to start studying. Maybe stats? FM? Macro? C&S?

subjects start to circle round me. hard times.

manga addict

that's it. too much manga reading is addictive. Think it's about 4-5 hours or even 6 of kinda non-stop reading. why can't i do this for my studies? gotta sacrifice my exercise if i want to continue reading so much for leisure =(

Food - junk food

It came as a pleasant surprise that i was able to spot my friends' mistakes regarding assignments (C&S, Stats). That doesn't mean that i was able to fulfil the same assignment without having to refer to theirs though. Reminds me of the inability to reject H0, it's insufficient reasons to reject yet we can't blantantly just say we accept it (though some ppl DO say so).

Maybe i should restrain from buying so much junk food now. (though technically, some would argue it's fuel food for exams) the moment i see food in my room (which is like 99.99% of the time) i just munch it down. Have already consumed 1 pack of jellies, 1 bag of wang wang biscuits and 1/4 tin can of wasabi peas. The rest of the minute stuff includes my 3 fun size packs of chocolate, boost, snickers and twix not forgetting the bigger sizes of the latter.

Also, the library i hope would become my 2nd home soon. Otherwise, i won't be able to complete my studies. 20 days and counting. That's not a lot is it, for 4 subjects. Oh no! 5 days. and Uni hasn't even ended.. One more assignment to go.

"i thought you were one of my kids"

That's what i get for being as "tall/short"(whichever you deem more suitable) as a high school kid in Australia.

After finally deciding to go for bodycombat (and subsequently, even bodyattack), headed home after getting some HH stuff (for those non economic students, HH = Households).

While walking along Elizabeth, a whole group of young ones were marching (well, not literally) the same way as i was. As a result of the intensive (well, i tried to do intensively) 2 hours, was walking slower than the group. That's when that statement popped up (refer to title)

I assumed that it'll stop there, but somehow i managed to catch up with them, because of the traffic lights (wanted to jay walk actually, but decided against it, what if i influenced some of the kids there?!) I'm guessing that the teachers were waiting for the whole group to cluster together before crossing the roads so i ended up going ahead of them.

What surprised me the most was somehow, even though i walked ALL THE WAY to Peel street already, they were (in my opinion) FOLLOWING me! So scary okie! i half was thinking why on earth are the local teachers stalking a chinese girl! Lol. So silly.

Apparently, at peel, the teacher and quite a number of students were SO CLOSE behind me. I thought for a moment they might jump on me or sth *whew* thankfully, they did not and remained civilised. (sorta =p) After i walked further to the ulu road (Courtney =p) the rest of them continued to walk up queensberry.

At that point of time, i thought that perhaps i should have plucked up my courage and attempted to speak to the teacher (an old man) where they were going.. But i'll never know now would I..

Distant Homes

I was just thinking about how the distance between my home and my friends' seem to increase exponentially every year. How i made the choice, without realising too much of what the consequence might bear, of moving further and further away. The choice of living with my current housemate.

Perhaps i tend to be more impatient (reminds me of the new topic on barginning) with people i know. Just felt quite bugged today. Interacted with my mum on MSN earlier and felt quite irritated when she spoke of how 'her method' of finding a job, ie just entering a store and asking for a job, worked for one of her friends' daughter who is studying here in melbourne as well. I attempted rebutting that she probably dressed up and thus my mum recommended me to do so as well. That's when i got quite frustrated =x I guess i don't want to grow up that fast, but i don't think i can deny the fact that i have to, sadly.

back! -its no use banning me-

The computer is ultimately still so tempting.

Attempts at leaving the computer on, especially with the music gets distracting. With the computer switched on WITHOUT the music seems like a waste of electricity. One excuse tends to be the stinginess of saving on the cost of sms-ing(mind you, it's aussie 25cents rather than 5c in spore) through twitter (check out www.twitter.com and add me at dolphin12128 for free sms hee)

Today is Paul's last day teaching bodyattack at melbourne central. Think he's going to the new fitness first at Essendon. Shall miss him as an instructor.

ok, just a day off the com and i'm losing my train of thoughts already =(

shall banish thyself from the computer

i hope what i say holds.

be gone evil electrical applicance!

no matter what, i still can't immense myself in the expected value and variance of the stationary auto regression process. well, they make sense on lecture slides but when it comes to tutorials, it's a whole new different thing.

then again, i should be focusing on oligopolies and their pricing to obtain equilibrium or price competition with loyal customer base or simply the wage incentives for workers to be more hardworking (reminds me of my macro tutor today who is just so psych that the QLT, if im not mistaken, is done that he is going to slack off =x)

Jay reckons that men are like the lion in madagasgar (however it's spelt) who looked at the zebra like a piece of steak, or in his case, women. He then proceeded to ask whether the girls prefer a honest guy, who pretends he's not hungry or one who takes a bite anyway. hmm, interesting how the topic of exchange rates got to there. frankly, i remember such weird stuff as opposed to the actual economics discussion (well, more like lecture). bah.

been sleeping loads lately. gotta start to quarantine myself from my com.

exercise and studies

Despite having agreements that my friends join me at body attack today, none of them turned up. one smsed her regrets though. Once again, the intensity of it was so huge that i felt my body become lazy! Somehow couldn't breathe properly either, had a dry throat and drinking the fluids didn't help much =x bah, still prefer body combat and the punches involved =) upper body strength than lower.

Here's the embarrassing bit, as i returned the mat, i crashed into a lady! Said sorry and stood there dazed for a while as i recovered from my recoil =x that's not all, she asked if i was alright..! Aiyo. so embarrassing. faster scoot off. haiyo, so blur.

safeway - bought cans of food and bottles of sauces. ok, exaggeration. Bought more chocolate than those =p anyway, trained my left arm more than attack as i carried the heavy metal things back. my left arm shook as i ate dinner but only for a while.

i realised that i need to be more organised and plan what to study. 4 subjects doesn't seem as many in secondary school but now, it seems like a lot, especially if i want to cover them in depth. couldn't complete studies this morning though i had 5 hours free =x only compared answers with my friend, where i seem to have more correct answers for once.

alrighto. shall proceed to exchange rates and implications of depreciations and money wages. hopefully i can move on to white noise and AR(1), also known as auto covariance though i have no idea what it means yet. thus the need for revision. was talking to madelin(my housemate) and telling her about R and how i'm using it for ANOVA tests, where it combines all forms of data to calculate the F values and P values to use for hypothesis testing. Not a very detailed way of explaining but that was enough to sweep her off her feet =p must learn of more elegant ways of expressing myself through my studies

Facebook

Facebook is the latest Friendster, Hi5, Myspace. It's amazing how useful it actually can be. It's cooler than the latter stated because of all the evolving applications that can be added that somehow are not part of FB itself. Read somewhere in the news that it's going to evolve even to a booming business as people use FB to network. It's no longer just sth for leisure but an important way of knowing people.

Although it tends to be quite addictive with the usual accumulation of points system, ignoring these at times, the messages on the 'walls' are useful ways of communication especially with old classmates. A few classmates added me, and sadly fewer bother saying hi. But i guess sometimes we ourselves need to take the initiative. Im either too lazy or just wonder what their response would be after these many years.

Anyhow, was rushing my macro assignment today, quite last minute with my partner =p passed it up about 430pm when it was due at 5pm. haha. doesn't matter now, 1 down, another 3 to go! 4 exams in 27 days! oh man, to think i was slacking yesterday. attempts at that assignment led to the attraction of the soft cushion-y bed. (then again, i have been lying on it while doing my work - this might explain my tendancy to fall asleep)

Oh, my housemate cooked Ba Kut Teh today! super good, i tell ya! =D had gone to the gym for body combat earlier tonight and was thinking that ba kut teh was those heaty food but turn out quite smooth! =p oops, guess i dont know my local food name and taste that well. I miss chili crab! normally durian as well, but ate durian gelati @ lygon and drank durian smoothie this weekend so that craving is satisfied =p mMmmm.

On to Hypothesis testing using chisquare distribution and contigency tables. should be doing C&S oligopoly and pricing first though. before moving to FM simulation. before lastly attempting Wilcoxon test. unfortunately i need more help from others who have yet to try them. =p

drifting flies (don't read if you are eating/going to eat)

Have you ever thought of the world in slow motion?

Picture this,

walking down a pathway, something the size of green peas hits you. sweeping it away, you see a few other black spots to your right.

Thinking it was just your vision, you move on, only to your dismay of finding more black spots.

Staring carefully and closer, imagine flies moving in slow motion up and down, as you would find the way wooden horses move on merry-go-rounds in slow mo.

DISGUSTING! Ok, and this is only the middle of spring? *winces* Somehow, during summer these black irritating houseflies just EXPAND at least 5 times bigger! (from my perspective anyway) not lookig forward to that.

Have you ever been to a park and saw poo and wonder who the inconsiderate owner of the dog is? And why they don't use the plastic bags provided to pick up and remove them off public property? (in singapore anyway)

Well, it's harder to imagine that when you see poo on the tram TRACKS in the middle of the ROAD. Yuck, i wonder if countless unsuspecting tram drivers drove right past it. Which makes me wonder if they were the one responsible for cleaning their own trams. I've seen tram drivers changing shifts in the middle of its tram line before (stopped at the tram station before though it wasn't the terminal stop) so maybe both tram drivers have to clean if they found such undesirable materials clinging to the bottom of the tram? Haha. Would they be like taxi drivers who generally take care of their own cab by washing or would there be cleaners to do such jobs. interesting things to ponder over =p Oh, and in case i failed to mention, no, i don't think it was a dog who did it. Horse carridges are common enough in melbourne for me to assume that it was them who did it. Still, i wonder what the situation had been like? =p heehee

haha, sorry for the disgusting words written. i better get back to time series models. or maybe Barro-Ricardo's equivalence equation. Argh, the amount of work piling up tarnishes my insight as to which subject to start on.

Encounters need speech as company

3rd time in a row since i manage to get a lift from Eleanor and her parents to church. Each time i would have thought that i'll be late for church because it takes about 15-20 mins to walk. Interestingly how the timing seems to coincide these 3 weeks and thus be early and at least be able to talk abit more with people before service starts. Today was talking to Devin. He's actually quite funny, born a brazilian and some other exotic background. I should learn to keep these facts in mind, i tend to be forgetful. Sometimes even though i forget, i refuse to admit and would rather let it slip thus making conversation quite meaningless. Indeed sincere conversations involves making the effort to store facts accumulated through previous understandings, of which i'm still a noob at.

One thing that struck me most at church today, was James 1:22 "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

"I wish i had orientation, because it binds you to a group at least. I missed out on that in JC and Uni. Sadly, I don't have that many people as a result." - a random statement made by me and within 5 mins, i was proven wrong. Saw Petrie and Yenching pass us, met Sam with her churchmates after their lunch and encountered my old Cell Group @ SSCOC during lunch.

"Blackcat" - a Japanese manga that consumed my hours over this weekend. Guess i shall treat that as my rest. As the week ahead comes, i better start balancing studies and exercise once again. =)

ah, so cute!

Right. The first reaction somehow seems to be that. -refer to title- Haha, my story on monday was unfinished. My housemate essentially helped me complete the rest of my hairstyle which might shock my mum when i return =p

Assignments are piling up. Just finished Stats assignment 3 and stats assignment 4 came out today! Lecture materials are getting more boring. Voting procedures and strategic planning. There is a reason why i don't get into politics. Then again, as the classroom's empirical example showed, people are not necessarily rational (or they don't know how the 'game' works). So why bother? =p but still, game theory is interesting. IF everyone was rational. I once got an assignment question where it works with confessing the true value of a lost luggage handled by Quantas and the different incentives to cheat. Was reprimanded by one of my friends at OCF (Overseas Christian Fellowship), dorothy, when i explained the theory behind it all.. "what is commerce teaching you? you should take some religious studies to compensate!"

rush hour indeed

Still am attempting to make full use of my time. Still failing.

Uni classes still bore me, breaks in btw still can't be used for satisfactory work. yet, i take comfort at the thought of being able to interact more socialably with my friends. =) Alicia @ ballieu, Soraya & Dawn (does <5 mins of conversation count?)during Inter Maco Lecture, Yanyan before Body combat, Szerene & kay after body combat, YiXian, Winston & Clare as well as Charis along lygon, and of course, Jean, Karen, Madelin and Aaron (well, partly anyway) during dinner. People whom i seldom get to talk to.

Celebrated Karen's 18th birthday a day before the actual day. Dinner(@ intersection cafe) + desert(@ some unknown place to me). offered to watch a movie with them @ my place, rush hour 3, even though i knew i would be rushing after that as well. Stats assignment due tml, Macro assignment on tues, have not prepared for BS for OCF on fri(aka tml) nor prepared for devotional sharing with dot. And guess what? things would be full on from 11am. Classes to end at 3 +, meet with dot, then music then welcome duty.

Rush hour[s].. They say the shorter the time you have, the more efficient you would use the time. I say, that still doesn't work for me.

Studies vs exercise vs..

It's interesting to see how people react to a situation presented to them

I asked Eleanor earlier if i should go for fitness class or stay home and study.

Guess what her answer was?

sleep and do your work. As long as you do some work, it doesn't matter how long you sleep. [or sth along that line]

erm.. right.. i thought i was weighing studies and exercise? In creeps the element of "sleep". As a result, i fell asleep halfway while doing my work. =x I am so influenced by what people tell me!

Just awoken from the laziness of not catching up with others and started reading a few of my friends' blogs. One thing that has been consistent with my posts is the lack of existence of pictures.

Viola, my attempts at changing.



"its called light painting. Just set for long exposure and write anything with a focused light like your lcd flash on the phone" - explanation from a pro. I just did the writing with 3 lightsticks though. =p

time's a wasting..

It has always been fun when your entire day is occupied with activities, either in sch or out of sch. I never gave much thoughts to the importance of it all especially when i was in primary or secondary school. Following a fixed schedule is SO easy.

6am, wake up. 615am, breakfast. Be ready by 630am. Arrive at school before 7am. Rush to finish up uncompleted pieces of homework. wait for friends to arrive and just talk about last night's shows. Classes filling the days with a break or two in between. 1/2 pm. End of school. During pri sch days it was "i hope i don't miss the bus home" During sec sch days, "right, lets not be late for badminton/Band now" I had Badminton on Mondays(guys session but just crashed),Wednesdays (mixed)and Fridays(girls session! =]) and Band on Tuesdays(Woodwind),Thursday(Brass - just take the opportunity to practise more) and Saturdays(combined practice). It was so fun, packed with activities. I never thought of studying. (don't ask me how i passed my exams. i had NO IDEA really) it was more towards "must do hw, otherwise must find so and so to copy from"..

Those were the days.. NOW, come uni it's so different. 14 contact hours a week pales in comparison. Of course, my mum's 1st reaction when she found out was "so much time, can go work, can learn driving.. can .. " Ok, so that was my first few reactions as well. But this freedom in time meant that i had to be disciplined to be committed. That was something i really lacked. well, not really "was", but "is" rather. My 1st semester's contact hours were devoted to the morning literally (9am-12pm classes most of the time aside from quite a full day on fridays). I seriously can't remember what i did apart from that. I was like slacking at home (because my home was about <10mins away)

anyway, now i'm spending more time in the gym than on studies. need to commit more time to studies.

let n=number s=studies g= gym

s(n)>=g(n)
where n is continuous thus the notation =p

given that i don't know how to subscript on blogger, i'll save you guys the discrete version =D

it's time to be a nerd.

edit: nerds can't survive without food. unfortunately this "attempting to be nerd" thought ahead of herself and processed thoughts of eating junking food, like recently purchased chocolate or jelly or raisins. Good thing there's the preference for frozen jelly that led this fellow to the kitchen where the sight of dinner shone and reminded her of one thing that most ppl claim they would never forget. To eat.

fed up

Which is better? To have hair block your view or to have sharp pain in your eye?

I voted for sharp pain initially then after an hour of lecture, decided against it.

Attempts at studying have been softened by the excuse of 'my hair is so irritating and keeps preventing me from concentrating as i focus more on sweeping it away from my sight'. These excuses have kindly been thrown aside these days as i managed to obtain a hairclip.. which at the time of 1030am, seemed to have vanished in my full-of-clutter room.

Frustration filled me as i picked up the closest sharpest object.

Contemplation left me as my head grew lighter.

*snip snip snip*

one strand, two strands..

worked on my fringe for about 15-20 mins.

*stares at the mirror*

Bravo. I had just randomly removed that obstacle from this pathway. No more excuses. Time to focus.

Revived

It's been ages since i've posted in a public blog. Perhaps i should have, but at the beginning of this year, i reckoned that my thoughts were too flawed to be shown to the public so i kept my blog secret and eventually stopped posting.

A request to start blogging. maybe it's time to stop being so protective, after all, no one else is perfect. I should stop being so anti-social and start living a life again.

Just a note of warning to new readers, I tend to over focus on myself so it gets boring. But I'll try to be more observant and list these observations instead. =p

Anyhow, it'll be interesting to share something that happened quite randomly yesterday.

Had made plans to go to the gym fitness classes but this guy, looking quite distressed came up to me and asked if i wanted to work. I thought to myself, ya, duh, given that my parents have been nagging at me since year 1 for me to do so, just that i had been lazy all these time. I told him, sure. Ultimately, this conversation headed down the lane where he ended up bringing me to this shop somewhere nearby (about 5 mins drive away)

Yes, it seemed foolish and all (given that i just met this guy), but it's actually quite fun to have unexpected events happening. I used to be a planner and things don't always go my way and it gets frustrating.

So i ended up working for him, doing manual job. Had agreed to 2 hours but worked for 3 hours instead. It was quite scary at first because i had roughly finished what he instructed me to do within 2.5 hours and he had somehow disappeared. Thoughts ran wild in my head then. "it's 1230pm already! doesn't he know i wanted to go off by then? should i just leave? what about my pay? (which was minimum wages btw) is he trying to cheat me? (oh ye of little faith) i'm late for the soccer match! oh man oh man.." i seriously panicked as time passed .. during this time, i kept scolding myself for doing such a foolish thing, of entering the truck, of not getting his number, of just agreeing without much hesitation without fear of being tricked.. but after a while, i had to force myself to calm down and have more faith in him (i seriously watched too many shows where there are just so many 'bad guys' out to get us 'innocents')

Thank God that he eventually returned and that i was able to get to the soccer match that afternoon and even play in it =D whew. Soccer match against OCF melb uni was good. lost 3-4. sustained a few injuries but what's the point of going to war without being able to show a few battle scars? Haha. The purpose of exercising is to obtain sores and aches to justify the time spent on it.

Been spending more time on exercise than necessary. Much less on studies. Feeling that after exercise at least i feel productive, but when studying, i usually still am unable to complete assignments/tutorials. But according to viv's housemate, who is my coursemate, i am quite hardworking at least doing the bare minimum necessary for tutorials. It's not enough. It's not enough. Yet i never want to do more =x

Today at church, according to one of the aunties in church, i was bright. No, not bright in the sense that i was smart, but outstanding in strikingly obvious red while the rest of the overseas students dressed in dark gloomy colours. no wonder i hesitated wearing that today.. =p

alright, random words that consumed half an hour or so. back to asymmetric information that provokes signaling and screening.