Monday, May 31, 2010
All I've been waiting for
After every semester, every module, every exam, every test, every assignment, every chapter of hard work, I've finally gotten it. It has been really a tough and emotional ride. To be honest, I still can't believe it. And I totally feel taiko getting it. But let me indulge in a Jose Mourinho moment - it doesn't matter how I did it, cos I did it!
All I've been waiting for.. these 4 long years..
1st Class Honours. 3 words. 4 years. 1 thesis.
Omg I did it.
I hope I did my part in proving social mobility is achievable as long as you dare to dream, and of course, work damn bloody hard for it.
Yes I did it.
lowtide blogged @
12:14 pm
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Back from KL
Back from KL for around 24 hours already, and still reminiscing about it!
Shall do a description + pictures post soon!
What I must say first is that, travelling is indeed addictive. I must admit that despite putting on an intellectual front, I'm actually quite ignorant on many parts of the world, and the knowledge I have are mostly from what I read, hear or watch.
So it was good that a trip to KL opened my eyes slightly to life in a bigger country! Maybe I've grown too old in the brain already, I tend to observe more on the way of life and the scenery, rather than the best deals for food or shopping. Also it intellectually stimulated me on how a big country plans its towns, transport, shopping areas and the economy in general - not an easy task!
I've also learnt that the way we operate in Singapore is not definitely the 'standard' whereby other societies will, and there are a lot of hap-hazard, human-nature inspired situations unlesss someone in authority plans for it. Interestingly!
And most importantly, the great company on this journey. Kaiwei, Soon Leong, and Cherie! One of the best 4 days of my life, being able to escape from the troubles back home, being in another world, and the most 'worrying' thing is where to have fun and what to eat. And it rocks being able to spent your own money (plus it's cheap there) to enjoy the things in life. Having been denied in my younger days, I still treat this as heaven. Great knowing Samuel from Australia and Benjamin from New Zealand too.
The world is big, it's only KL, but the travelling bug has kicked in. Definitely spurs me to work hard to earn my salary, so I can see the world piece by piece! No money now, but it's ok. Only when I spend my own hard-earned money will I feel guilt-free and more accomplished!
Til next time =)
lowtide blogged @
1:33 am
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Last Few Hours
Now I'm at the last few hours in my PGP room.
Last night before I went to sleep, I took a glance across the room. I thought back to the day when I first entered the room and yes, it was 9 months ago. It was during Oweek, and I checked in during one of the free slots.
Since then, this room has accompanied me through an arduous year 4. In the first semester, wow the modules were tough, especially Basant's EC4102. I remember the times up to 4am whereby I just sat there at the small table in my room, banging in mathematical parameters in the weekly tutorials. And of course in International Economics II, where I scratched my head over the Feenstra stuff and practised Curnot and Betrand competitions many, many times.
And of course in the second semester, this room provided for me the peaceful sanctuary to focus for my thesis, as I scratched my head over how to phrase my wordings perfectly.
And yes, this room allowed me to temporary escape for the 'societal' pressure when facing the family, allowing to focus on my work (and my late dota games into the nights). Of course, now I know, as much as I love my family, these days of peaceful solitude and distance convenience will never be back (unless I strike it rich and buy a car/some wonderfully-located house).
I wanna thank 20/2F for the 9 months of shelter for the shelter you've provided for me, and allow me to achieve when I did achieve. Dean's list in year 4 sem 1, no mean feat as the stakes are way higher, and I couldn't do it without this sanctuary. Will I get the desired outcome for year 4 sem 2 too? I pray, I pray.
No matter what, a great Thank You, and maybe I'll be back for Masters, somewhere along my long career in the future =)
lowtide blogged @
12:58 pm
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Quote
Was just talking cock to zikang then I realised I said something quite not bad:
"When you cry during the semester you'll smile during the results release. When you smile during the semester you'll cry during the results release."
Yes, success is hard. In Singapore it's even harder =(
lowtide blogged @
5:58 pm
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Meaning
Freddy used to be one of my favourite trainers at Adam Khoo's. He's not exactly that good-looking, he's relatively old, and I can totally see him faking his enthusiasm when dealing with primary school kids, but he was doing his job, and he's really good at it. Combining childish jokes with serious messages, he's good.
I remember his opening message. He wrote on the board, proclaiming:
"Studying is meaningless!"
,much to the cheers and enthusiastic claps of the children. (The teacher sitting behind was smiling, frowning and shaking her head at the same time, of course.)
When the cheers gradually softened, he said,
".. unless you know what you want to do with it."
That quote struck me.
It was end of year 2 then. It triggered me thoughts on why am I here in NUS, and specifically, why am I majoring in econs.
Learning? After 2 years in NUS economics, I've seen enough to conclude that most of what I learnt in school would not apply to my work in the future. Economic policy planner? The models we learn give us a basic concept, but they are too superficial. The most useful thing I learnt was perhaps econometrics, mainly on how to deal with numbers and statistics.
That brings me to the 'signalling' model I've studied in Micro and Labour Economics. According to the model, studying DOES NOT improve your productivity, it merely filters and let the 'high ability' people 'signal' themselves to be as such. Hence the different kinds of academic qualifications, and the different kinds of honours class.
In the real world, of course, this is grossly unfair. There are certainly capable people who do not have a university degree, and of course, incapable people who has a university degree. But the plain fact is the world has chosen this as the signal of ability, and you have to obtain this signal to be rendered 'good', no matter whether you really are.
That steered my direction immediately. Sadly, even though I was still stimulated by some of the modules I've learnt, I've dropped things I know I couldn't score, e.g. i did not take Malay 3, and I took 'easier to score' modules like soci stats, pysch stats despite not aiming to learn much from them.
Actually I'm not sure why I typed this post. Just wanted to share how I made something meaningless to something more 'meaningful', no matter how superficial the reason was.
lowtide blogged @
1:54 pm
Sunday, May 02, 2010
Depression
No time to blog one mega emo "Last paper in NUS" thingy. Honestly, it hasn't really sunk in. I think it will really sink it only when I start working full-time.
Anyway, just a quick post. I'm not sure if people know about it from the news, but Desmond shared with me about his friend from dentistry same batch committing suicide due to depression around 10 days ago.
She surely suffered from things e.g. academic and financial stress during her 4 years in NUS. I'm not sure of the reasons so I wouldn't speculate. The thing is that seemingly she appears normal, knows how to joke around, and yet she was suffering from depression.
This brought to my attention that anyone could be suffering from this psychatric illness, if left unnoticed, will lead to dire consequences such as suicide. Seriously it made me worried about some of my friends who seems permanently emo about certain things, yet unable to summon the willpower or employ the right methods to solve them.
This seems ridiculous, but if one does not watch out for his/her mental health, with our high-stress, high-expectation society, somehow somewhere, something with go wrong with someone.
One death is one death too many, so please take care of yourselves. If there are any problems and it's within your power, go solve it. Don't fall deeper. If it's out of your control, seek help. If you don't look out for the little symptoms, they will accumulate to something big.
Someone died already, and this is really no joke.
lowtide blogged @
3:58 am
