I Couldn’t Jog to Save Life

I just came back after a < 30 minutes jog which covered circa 3.0km. It was terribly slow. My pace wasn’t even inspiring at all. There were a few moments where I had to slow down to walking pace to catch my breath. I took a disappointing 15 minutes to cool down upon returning.

I lost a lot of my stamina, strength and flexibility (not that I have much to begin with) since the last few months, no thanks to a certain complication. Still, my motivation is as strong as before if not more and so is my focus, which I found to be my key to in completing the jog just now. If not, I would’ve collapsed at roadside, foam in my mouth, waiting to be rescued by a passerby after the sun rises.

So, what should I do? I am already taking part in a sport which hones my mental strength. i.e. focus and concentration. I seriously think that I will need another physically demanding sports. However, the question lies in the aspects emphazised by sports. Stamina building sport? Or muscle strength? Or universal physical improving ones like swimming? Swimming helps to build up lung capacity as well. That’s why it is recommended for people with asthma. Even though I am not at the stage where I have to lug an inhaler with me all the time, I still find that I am easily out of breath. Or perhaps breathing exercises practised in yoga as well?

Whatever it is, there is no one ideal sport that can serve all purposes, just like the ideal gas theory. It’s ideal because it exists only in perfect conditions, and perfect conditions are non existant. However, I find that the closest thing to it is swimming. Until I find another closer sport, I guess I will be swimming and shooting for some time.

I’m already a millionaire if only…

I’ve been receiving a lot of mails in my emails account lately. The majority of these are spam mails with titles like “Congratulations!” and  “I need your help”. These are the less discreet ones even though they still couldn’t get pass the spam filter. However, some were just outright ridiculous and unbelieveable, like “You’ve just won the British Lottery!” or “Mr. XXX left you his will”. I will direct these mails to the blackhole of the net if there is one.

Imagining what will happen if I am to believe these scams is easier than imagining that they are real. What an irony. I am not being cynical here but the contents of these mails are downright riot that it’s not worth a teaspoon of belief.

As an example, I’ve included one of these many lousy scam mails that now lie in my filtered mail, waiting for me to send them into oblivion with a single click of “clear spam folder”.

BRITISH LOTTERY HEADQUARTER6/49
P O Box 1010, 3b Olympic Way,
Sefton Business Park,Aintree,
Liverpool , L30 1RD

ATTENTION WINNER

We are notifying you on our Online Draw held on 05/08/08, where your Email emerged one of the Two lucky winners who won the first prize of a total sum of £1,263,584.00, from a total payout prize pool of £8,075,997.00 in our Online Lottery Draw.

Your e-mail was attached to Ticket no:025-1146-1992-750, Serial no:2113-05,LuckY no:08-11-17-30-32-41bonus no:47,REFNO:BRLFGP2551256/

02You have been selected for a cash prize of £1,263,584.00(One Million Two Hundred and Sixtythree Thousand, Five Hundred and Eightyfour Pounds Sterling). The selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerized email selection system(ess) from adatabase of over 250,000 email addresses drawn from which you were selected.The BRITISH NATIONAL LOTTERY is approved by the British Gaming Board.To begin the processing of your prize you are to contact the Payment Bank (ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND) for more infomation as regards procedures to claim your prize.

You are to contact Royal Bank Of Scotland with details given below and also fill the payment processing form:

Name: Mr. Hamilton Reeds
Email: rbs.transferunit@googlemail.com
Tel: +4470359 24006 (You can confirm your winning with a telephone call to the office of Mr Hamilton Reeds).

PAYMENT PROCESSING FORM:
(1) FULL NAME
(2) FULL ADDRESS
(3) NATIONALITY
(4) AGE
(5) OCCUPATION
(6)TELEPHONE NUMBER
(7) SEX
( TOTAL AMOUNT WON
(9) COUNTRY

NOTE: YOU MUST ENDEAVOUR TO STATE THE FOLLOWING:Ticket no:025-1146-1992-750, Serial no:2113-05, Lucky no:08-11-17-30-32-41bonus no:47, REFNO:BRLFGP2551256/02, so that they can attend to you timely.

*Winners are advised to keep their winning details/information from the public to avoid Fraudulent claim (IMPORTANT) pending the prize claim by Winner. *Staff of the British Lottery are not to pertake in this Lottery.

Congratulation!!
Sincerely,
Stella Roberts (Mrs).

Now, allow me to analysis this mail with my logic and a little bit of cynicsm which might not be found in those who fell for the scam.

1. The first part is done with logic. A quick search of “British Lottery Headquarters” at google reveals that it is phishing scam at the very first page of the result. Heck, google can even tell what phishing is with its dictionary feature. Just type “define:<word>” and google will display the definition of any word you typed. Google is now not only a search engine, it is also expose scams and functions as a dictionary. There are more features but that’s not really the point of this post.

2. The second part is cynicsm and it lies in the numbers. I won more than 1 million pound with another “lucky” individual from a payout pool of 8 million pound. Yikes! That’s about 4 million dollars. I can pay fees, clear my loans, buy myself some sleek cars and spacious house and start some businesses to boot, if only I remember ever taking part in such thing. No participation required? Well, I still don’t buy it because I’ve not won more than a meal in my whole life, with the meal courtesy of a friend who lost in our exam result bet.

3. The last part is done by observing the obvious. First I was told to complete the payment processing form. Yet, I was not told to whom should I send the form. The closest is the line which tells me to give a call to Mr. Hamilton Reeds. Nice job providing details there. Should I send the form through phone lines and hope the form can squeeze its way through the undersea cable before emerging at Mr. Hamilton’s phone?

4. Language. I do not claim I can write well. I never do. But if you are a scammer who makes a living out of writing scam mails, you best make sure you master the language beforehand. Get a degree in language or something. At least use the spell checker before you click the “send” button. Perhaps you can avoid obvious mistakes like “pertake”.

Lotteries aside, wills seem to be a favourite among scammers. I can’t recall seeing any relatives that reside in South Africa, Morocco, or Poland just to name a few in my family book. So, it is baffling to read so many emails which says I am left with so and so amount of fortune by these “relatives”. Gees, my ancestors must have been great travellers to be able to leave their lineages all over the world.

To Uncle So-so, thank you for leaving such a huge amount of money to me. Unfortunately, I do not even have 200 dollars with me, let alone 2000 dollar that you want me to bank into certain account before the will is finally executed. Moreso, I wondered why do you need my 2000 dollar to get your will executed anyway if you were so rich when you were alive and what can that 2000 dollar do to you now that you are dead? Can’t you afford to pay the 2000 dollar at the first place if you were as rich as you claim to be?

Seriously, scammers need fresh ideas. Think out of the box. Let your imagination flow, but keep it within reality. Attend some marketing seminars. Do some market researches and know the your targets. If you can’t do that, stick to the legal jobs.

Stay tuned. Adieu, graynut signing off.

Getting Handful Soon

Am I biting off more than I can chew?

First, it was the hopeful idea of getting admitted.
Then, comes the wishful thinking of graduating with a first class honours.
Now, it ballooned to double degree first class honours.

Say, am I really biting off more than I can chew?

These few days have been quite rewarding for me. I attended the Freshmen Inauguration Ceremony 2008 (FIC) and received my studennt pass on the 4th, went to the MSE-Physics Double Degree Programme (DDP) briefing on the 5th, and bade for Singapore Studies (SSA1201) module and General Education (GEM1517) module (won GEM,lost the SSA) and completed my notebook loan agreement procedures today (6th). Each event was accompanied by a series of thoughts and actions.

The Freshmen Inauguration Ceremony was a blast. Freshmen were treated to performances by numerous musically talented NUS students. The event flagged off with a cha cha dance performed by the NUS Social and Ballroom Club. Next up was a few numbers by the KR Inspire from Kent Ridge Hall. The audience was then treated to the amazing performance by the Resonance, an CCA acapella group. Truly wonderful performance I say. Joel Koh then belted out an mesmerizing rendition of Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder with his guitarist friend (sorry, I forgot your name) providing wonderful tune. Oh yea, Joel Koh is the lead singer in KR Rockers, another musician from  KR. I wonder if Kent Ridge Hall is known to groom music talents, much like Eusoff Hall and Temasek Hall known for grooming sports talents.

Performance aside, we got the opportunity to see what it’s like to don robes and mortars, as members of NUS Senior Management, Senior Administrators and also student leaders were there. It was definitely inspring to see people in such attire. I was reminded of what scholars in the Renaissance era probably wore, as the modern robes were just modified slightly from the classic ones. After all, it is an honour to be donning those pieces of clothes and be part of the scholastic world. You wouldn’t want to mess around with something as honourable as graduation attire and mortar would you?

Refreshments were served after the ceremony, the best encapsulation of the phrase “there is free lunch in this world”. Yes, there is. Of all official ceremonies and events that I’ve attended here so far, none was missing refreshments. So yea, we get free lunch in this part of the world where the living costs just lower than Tokyo and Hong Kong.

The MSE-Physics DDP briefing was a stark contrast to the FIC. There were only 5 people during the briefing, including the professor. 4 people out of the entire MSE freshment batch?! Either the rest were scared away by the notion of the workload while doing a double degree, or they just didn’t bother to attend. There was no obligation from attending the briefing people. The briefing was to provide information such as modules to take and suggested timetable and also a QnA session regarding the programme. The professor was there to answer our questions, not to stick a gun behind our backs and forces us to sign up for the programme. That aside, it was my first time speaking to a professor here. Prof. Ding from China (firgured it out from his accent) was very friendly and down to earth, not to mention very helpful. He answered our questions as detailed as he could, while admitting that he has no idea on some queries. This programme is afterall still in its infancy. The first batch was scheduled to embark on their final year project (FYP) next year. That translates into us being the 3rd batch in the programme if I heard Prof. Ding correctly.

Sort of like guinea pig eh? Me like that idea. Well, being interested is one thing. Being able to cope is entirely a different matter. Out of curiosity and responsibility to find out, I used the timetable planner to get a gross idea of what’s in store for me if I really join the programme. The result was far from favourable. I thought having one extra module compared to single degree programme will not alter my timetable much. I was wrong. Dead wrong. With the addition of one module, I would have to accommodate two more slots of two hours each at least; one for lecture and another one for tutorial. The laboratory session was left out at the moment because there was none from the additional module. That may not seem much but when I had a glimpse of my timetable, I swore that I will develop a teleportation machine some day. Almost everyday will be filled with lectures, tutorials and lab sessions, with Saturday and Sunday spared.Then I realise I have co-curricular activities on the weekends.Dang.

That was just the beginning. Upon closer inspection, I found out that it was impossible if my schedules are what the timetable indicates. I can’t get from Engineering faculty after my MLE1101 which ends at 13.00 (assumed) to the Science faculty for my MA1505 which will begin at the same time. There’s no way I can do that. Not until my teleportation machine is completed, or even better, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) gives birth to wormhole travel or allows the manipulation of time in the form of…THE TIME MACHINE. I hope I am worrying for nothing, as my modules are supposed to be altered once I join the programme. So far, no ammendments have been made. Keeping my fingers crossed here.

Workload aside, can I ace the exam? The bell curve system applies here and the fact that this place is a concentration of smart people doesn’t help at all. It’s not how good you fare in exam here, it’s how good you fare relatively to others or so it’s said. So, am I really biting off more than I can chew? Is my head getting too big?

Stay tuned. Adieu, graynut signing off.

Rainbow Innuendo

The whole video is so wrong. Lol. I litterally broke into a fit of laughter when I watched it. Enjoy.

Adieu, graynut signing off.

Exemplary Efficiency

My student pass was supposed to be available for collection today after 2pm. Eager on gettin my hands on it, I went to the collection booths a quarter past 2. Upon arriving, I found out that the queue at the booths was quite long, but nevertheless, it was moving. I reckon there were at least 30 people in front of me, but that didn’t matter as long as the queue move. It did, and it moved quite fast too for an ad hoc booths. Kudos to the staffs manning the booths for putting in so much effort. Effieciency was metaphorically screaming  when they worked.

A good 15 minutes later, I was at the front and soon it was my turn. I handed my collection slip to this young lady after she signalled me as soon as she was done with her previous customer. (I think customer is a suitable reference here, as payment was made to obtain that pass.) Other staffs were busy attending to their clients. Upon checking my collection slip reference number, this lady skimmed through boxes and boxes of student passes along with the respective files and yet mine was nowhere to be found it seemed. She offered me a yellow piece of paper apologetically, asking me to provide my name, FIN (Foreign Identification Number) and contact number before reassuring me that I shall be contacted once my pass is found. I noticed that there were a few similar papers, but filled with different particulars, probably those who were in the same boat as I did. Having done that, the lady apologized again when I handed the paper back to her. Frankly I didn’t see any need for that, as I think that they were doing hell of a job handling thousands of applications at ad hoc booths throughout the week. You might think I am indifferent towards inefficiency that is so prevalent back home, but these people really did their best. Credits given where’s due.

I went back to my room and decided that I will wait through the weekend and Monday as well before giving ICA a call, IF I was not notified by then. It seemed like that’s not the case. At 6 pm (3 and a half hours since I left the place), I received a call from an ICA officer. I recognized the caller’s voice as the officer who donned his uniform during the application process on Wednesday. He verified my name over the phone and informed me that I can collect my pass on Monday. Need I say more about efficiency?

Stay tuned. Adieu, graynut signing off.