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"I thank God
for the many free dinners in the week to come.
May they serve as catalysts and
feast upon their own positive energies
to generate a bountiful harvest
of more free dinners
everyday throughout the year
and for the years to come." -cj
you reading this?
Just logged in to check my poems account.
woot! huat ah!
I have developed a penchant for testing waters. I'm not a born anti institutionalist, but that trait probably developed after I was in France. Big establishments have a need for order, which is why they have so many protocols and rules in place. These rules are part of a intricate woodwork which has been fine tuned over years. They regulate every gears and clogs of the institution. I admit that there is a need for them. However, there is also a need for exceptions. Being part of a big institution, sometimes I felt neglected by it. Their push for internationalism make them blind sighted to their own reckless in their collaboration. Students like us who are caught by this recklessness can either strangle ourselves using their red tapes or we can try to break the rules.
So many times, I find myself testing the system. I am not dissatisfied with where I am. In fact, the current status quo isn't too bad if I compare myself to some of my peers. But research may not be my cup of tea and i am not going to let protocols and rules to limit my potential to explore my options. Let see how much leeway is the institution is going to concede this time. If it does not drown me, then I get to live another day to test more water.
I sent in my applications.
I sat in my cubicle; staring at the moniter. The output of the simulations was running up and down my screen like some screen saver that had gone crazy. I wonder if the prolonged staring at these black and white flickering will trigger some sort of epileptic fit or acute muscle spasm (You know like how flashes of light or strong glaring spotlights can sometimes cause people to have chemical imbalance and to go into convulsion). I hope it does not happen to me. I who spend most of my awake hours in front of the computer certainly do not want that as a occupational hazard. I peeled my tired eyes away from the screen and took a glance around the lab. The whole place was dark and quiet and I was starting to feel a little self conscious. Sitting in the only lighted cubicle in the dark lab, I feel like a theater star on a dark stage under a spotlight. Maybe I should just jump onto the table and start singing. I mused at a thought for a while and dropped it almost immediately. I still had work to do and went back to staring at my scrolling screen.
Suddenly, the lights in the whole lab came on! The room was filled with the song Firefly by Owl City and the florescence lights start to flicker on and off. The whole lab's lighting was synchronized to the beat of the song. Then nearing the end of the opening tune right when the words are about to be sang, my lab mates began pouring into the lab from both doors. Grooving and dancing to the rhythm of the song, they sang,"You would not believe your eyes if 10 million fireflies lit up the whole when you sleep.... " Mesmerized, I sat up. I have a flash mob style dancing in my own lab! (Similar to the one at Raffles City last month). Then, the printer started printing, the model helicopters started hovering and the mechanical arm inside the safety box started waving.
I must be hallucinating.
I blinked. Suddenly, there were no dancing researchers. No tune in the air. No waving mechanical arm. No disco like lights. I was alone again in my lighted cubicle. I surmised. I can suggest a new interrogation technique to the police; make suspects stare at my simulation outputs. Within hours they will hallucinate and pour out every dark secrets. Huh. I do better pack and go home now. You know you are working too hard when you see dancing researchers. Dammit, I becoming like Ally Mcbeal with her dancing baby.
Wogashaka wogashaka.
Today, for once I got to play the market maker side of the forex game. For the past few months, I found myself staring at charts and indicators hoping to come with a working trading strategy that will work most of the time. All these while, I was playing the role of the price taker. Today, when I got to be a price maker, I saw how erratic the market can become. So often during today's trading session I saw the bid price going higher than the offer price. Weird things like this only happens in this virtual market which is filled with people who have no idea what numbers they are keying in. Myself inclusive sometimes. Every time the bid price goes higher than the offer price, (which is very often) I tell myself that this time I am going to arbitrage all the way. It's not as easy as I thought. Arbitrage once, arbitrage twice, and I got trigger happy and I forgot that I was suppose to guard myself against hits. I forgot to change my price quotes and I got hit. Then there is also the technical problem and the problems of figures. In the end, by the time I got an idea of what is going on, we were already making a net loss. Maybe I'm just not fast enough.
Lessons learned. Faster minds and even faster fingers win.
Tempers flared at Vivo city earlier this week. One man was allegedly beating up another for cutting his queue. The emotional turbulence that swirled within these two men is something I cannot grasp. Why so serious? What is the opportunity cost of 5min? Maybe staying in France for 2years, I have subconsciously accepted their lassie faire way of life. Now, I have the patience of a fisherman. Last Thursday, I began my day by waiting an hour and a half for a haircut. The other barber was sick (how untimely). After which I went on to wait at POSB tiong bahru. So i practically spend a whole morning and half an afternoon queuing. You know how wise patient fishermen like to make small talk with one another. So I turned behind and asked the aunty behind me how's her morning? (you can always do this at POSB tiong bahru branch, because this neighborhood's demographic has a disproportionally high percentage of talkative ah mahs and ah pehs.) The wise ah mah continue and dispense to me the Queuing Theory with application to outlets in the Redhill area.
"You wait here and queue for me. I go and talk to the uncles and aunties who are seated over there." I obliged obediently. We were at the end of the queue anyway. She went around and did her little ground survey going from uncles to aunties to uncles. The old people in the neighborhood seems to know one another, unlike the younger generations, I reflected. She came back into the queue after her rounds and reported,"xiao lian geh, we go to the Bt Merah Central outlet. It will be faster there." I hestitated a little. Would taking a 10min bus ride to another outlet shorten my waiting time? She seemed to read my hestitation. She pressured me a little more and I caved. On the bus ride, she gave me a detailed analysis of the situation.
"Old people like us, we cannot stand for very long. The queue in the bank is so long, our legs will hurt if we have to stand in the queue for too long. So many old people will come to the bank and ask the person in front and behind to keep their place in the queue for them. Then they go and sit on the chairs inside the bank or the kfc outside. The number of people you see in the queue is really not the number of people queuing. You have to count the number of people in the queue plus the number of old people seated in the banks and the number of old people seated in kfc. So today, if you have waited there, you will have to wait for 1hr or longer." After she finished, I consciously closed my dropped jaw. What wisdom. She should do operation research for the bank to help model their queuing system.
Aunty was right. The queue in Bt Merah Central was only 10min. Vite faire. Though the queuing time was short, there was an over zealous uncle. He was dispensing out medicinal advice to an indian lady who was having throat irritations. Frog legs he reccommended. Brew into a tonic soup and take 3 servings a day. He went on for a few minutes and he eventually gave up as the indian lady was ignoring him already. The sign on the wall flashed,"Counter 5.". The chinese lady at the head of the queue, oblivious to the new update, was slow to react. From right at the back of the queue, he said, "Hello Hello. Miss Please Move."
I can imagine with over zealous uncle like this, and hidden uncle queuers at tiong bahru; no wonder people sometimes break up into fights.
The army should recruit Redhill aunties as their reconnaissance scouts. They do great ground analysis.
5 things i want to do right this moment
1) Go for a round island night cycling
2) Take beautiful pictures
3) Read a good non fiction book
4) Run in the rain
5) Write project reports
Number 5 is just nagging at the back of my head. How can i leave it out.
