When there is nothing to say

Enough with the fancy words of "meritocracy" and "equal opportunities"! With everyone chasing after what makes them good on the outside, have they forsaken to cultivate what is inside? In this harsh reality, everyone becomes an unwilling slave to the pursuit of superficially "physical" success since it is what defines them in the broader context of the society. Everywhere is a pitching ground for competition, and every moment is deep breath, hold, slow release only in preparation for another deep breath and the cycle goes full circle again.

Suffocation

I wonder how the hall people can juggle so many activities and still study? Perhaps I'm just incompetent...

Recollection...

Remember how I used to complain about the assignments? To date, I have already submitted two assignments: the Critical Thinking & Writing Critique and the Biochemistry Essay.

Three hours ago, I had just downloaded the programme required for the Biochemistry Short-Answer Assignment and it took me a dreadfully long two hours period just to complete the assignment. That aside, the programme is really fun to use since you can turn, twist, shade and do all sorts of manipulative things on a protein model. Moreover, the longest "short-answer" is 5 words long so the assignment name is undisputably appropriate after all.

For more information, the protein in question is a chicken lysozyme which is found in the chicken egg we eat all too frequently. The complexity of the molecule is astounding given the myriad of intricate bondings and linkages that "mould" an otherwise random assemblage of linear chain in a oval-shaped structure. Adding to that, it is even more amazing to see how human ingenuity has managed to unravel the mystery behind the workings of the enzyme. All that has to be done is to insert a certain molecule into the active site of the lysozyme (the part responsible for chemical reaction) in such a way that the two molecules are permanently locked in that way. It is as though time "freezes", allowing scientist to study the nature and mechanism of the active site and hence attain useful knowledge regarding the biological processes occuring in the chicken egg we take for granted. So "chim" a revelation in a seemingly unremarkable thing...

Didn't know there is such thing in a chicken egg...

Reeling back from the digression, I have only two major assignments ahead of me. The 5000-9000 Physics assignment is crawling almost imperceptibly since I have only managed to produce 1500 words out of the verbosity with which my friends have consciously, willingly, and enjoyably characterised me. In project work, I am the slacker...I admit, haha!

That's all for now from the rambling thoughts of Ryan Hee. Adios.

Tiring Week

Everyone deserves a chance to complain. Apparently, some people of the similar character as I have a higher propensity to do so.

This week is rather draining to my mind and body. There are two submissions of major assignments so I have been having butterflies in my stomach for being nervous about making small but incredulous mistakes related to grammar and the use of diction. On top of that, I have received yet another short-answer assignment that requires me to download a program about protein modelling. I don't even know how to design a simple chair, what more a complex macromolecule like a protein! I know A Po is gonna kill me for complaining about this.

I have also had my athletics training this week. I had barely run 6 rounds before I started puffing and panting for air. Bad stamina.... need to train more i guess.

In choir, I am the only guy in the Alto 1 voice range. All the other guys are in Tenor and Bass, wondering what is this gender-confused kid doing so high up the voice range (Phew, thank god i heard that another guy is a soprano in NUS Choir). I mean, at least Alto 2 (which is only one step higher than Tenor 1 in the case of our choir group) would be more fitting ... but I'll just take what is offered. Ryan, start singing like a girl...

Lastly, the concert training has only gone two-third full throttle and I am already skipping morning lecture on the next day. Dancing is tiring (I admit I am a dancing failure) and acting, as a whole, is not on par with the expectation of the director, Clara. And it hurts having to see Clara managing the entire team alone since her co-director, Eileen is down with chicken pox fever.

Tomorrow, a tuition awaits me and I have yet commenced on designing the appropriate test question.

Well, end of complain session.

Assignment Comes, Assignment Goes

Lets do a count on the number of "big-time" assignments that I have to complete this semester:

1. Critical Thinking and Writing (EG1413) Critique
2. Critical Thinking and Writing (EG1413) Position Paper
3. Biochemistry (LSM1401) Essay
4. Biochemistry (LSM1401) Short-Answer Questions
5. Great Idea in Contemporary Physics (GEK1510) Essay between 5000-9000 words.

Item 1 literarily tests how well you criticise the article which is written by a gay author. Oops, no personal attack since that would be fallacy. It is pretty much completed.

Item 2 is about Saving Gaia. It harks back at the useless assemblage of writings that is produced over the 8 "fruitful" months for PW in JC1. I wonder whether any suggestion we make would make the Earth a better place (Gaia is Earth in Greek by the way). It is sort of a group work, and we have barely started on data-mining.

Item 3 is practically a feat of squeezing so much information in response to two central questions in 1000 words. The essay was soo overflowing with words that even after several attempts of succinct rephrasing, I had to resort to omitting words like "the" and "a". Thank god it is just 997 words in total. (Maybe I should add, "No more essay" as a three-word remark to the lecturer?)

Item 4 has not revealed by the lecturer for the time being and this sets me thinking on how short a short-answer should be. Are ten words too many?

Item 5 is what you call "Mission-Nearly-Impossible" when you have to write that much for questions like "What is a photon?" Maybe I should go into unraveling the origin of the word "photon", which is in Greek, and from there, talk about Greek culture, and then, Greek mythology, and then, Disney Hercules, and then, media industry and finally, the up-and-coming Wall-E. Should be enough for 5000 words, eh?

So much for now. Adios!

Mound, Hill and Mountain

Remember how your primary teachers used to tell you that life was smooth sailing after UPSR? Remember how your secondary teachers used to tell you that life was smooth sailing after SPM? Remember how your JC teachers used to tell you that life was smooth sailing after A-Levels?

I feel deceived. For all this while, they have insinuated in me the belief that after each academic hurdle, the burden of studying would simply evaporate. For all this while, I have held hope of a comfortable, easy-paced life following each major exam.

Apparently, all these are lies. The teachers are not entirely blamed though. It is my assumption that forms part of the illusion. It is a naive longing for dry land after sailing through stormy seas, only to find that the next day holds an even more unpromising weather.

Welcome to university life. Loaded with lecture notes of almost incorrigible sentences, voluminous textbook that banishes you to the realm of snores and dreams, the three compulsory hall activities that must be taken if you wish to stay on in hall (apparently, the minima may rise to four given that people are overloading...), and the headache of trying to organise these within a 24-hour time scale.

Since I have been passive for so long, I guess it would be just to update the post of my latest doings. I am acting in the Raffles Hall Musical entitled " Rendezvous" as the butler. Small role... Practice spans from 8pm to 12 am very weekday. However, practice is good since it is an avenue to unwind after a full day of lectures, tutorials, and practicals.

From my most humble, scrappy experience of daily affairs, be they large or small, life itself is like pushing a boulder up a mound and down, only to behold in dismay, a hill, then up the hill and down again to face an even taller mountan. Yup, the never-ending cycle of viciousness. That's life.