hooray CTs over.

I need A for physics and chem, B for all the rest. And darn, that is really hard to get, considering that are the CTs are not easy.

Problematic subjects: Econs and KI. I think that the critical thinking could probably save my essay for me to get a B, but econs! 12 marks out of 50 marks are gone because didn't do the questions... sigh. And being an essay writing humanities subject, there is no guarantee to how many more marks I can lose. I can only afford to lose 8 more marks. oh man. oh woman. oh hermaphrodite. oh eunuch.

Wish I could transfer a few marks from my other subjects to save econs. If I could, I'll transfer 4 marks each from physics and math. (But of course they should not implement that because China scholars can just pass econs, pass GP, then from math physics chem transfer here tranfer there get all A. China scholars, it's all your fault.)

Speaking of transfering marks, this reminds me of the Kyoto Protocol as mentioned in my econs paper, where companies that exceed their carbon emmisions quota could buy "carbon credits" from those green companies that are more efficient than required by Kyoto Protocol, or else they face a fine that is much higher than the price of carbon credits. Singapore joined Kyoto protocol not because we want to save the earth, but because the government wants Singapore companies to earn carbon credits to sell overseas.

Man what a business opportunity because of certain requirements expected.

Just like tuition.

I can't believe my luck!

I broke my spectacles the night before chem CT, at like 2 am. Good thing I have a spare that is 100 degrees less. Makes me giddy though.

Anyway, to ensure I wake up on time for the test, I set 2 alarm clocks to 5.50am. They never failed to wake me up before. I made sure they were activated before I went to sleep.

The next morning the first thing I realised was that it was 7.45 am! w00t! I'm supposed to be in school at like... NOW??!! So I just wore my uniform, splashed some water at my face, drank milo and went off. (good thing my father helped me call a cab) Took a cab. Rush hour. 30 minutes ride. Reached the LT at 8.25am. The paper started at 8.11am. w00tness... I have like 15 mins less than everyone else to do the paper.

But then again look at the bright side, I have 15 mins more to study/sleep! By taking taxi I saved 10 minutes! So in total I have 25 more minutes to invest in chem test(by studying or sleeping)!

Buahahaha I bet you are all jealous.

I still remember part of the speech during the Council's investiture. The part from Alice in Wonderland.

If you don't remember, fear not! I have the book and I shall quote it directly.

***

'Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinning a little wider. 'Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

'That depends a great deal on where you want to get to.' said the Cat.

'I don't care much where - ' said Alice.

'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

' - so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.

'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'


***

It does seem that one needs a goal to know what to do. Perhaps, when you ask yourself, "What should I do now?" It really depends on what you want to achieve. And if you believe in a mechanistic universe, "want" doesn't really make sense. How can this blob of interacting charged particles "want" something? Yet it seems like it does. Strange.

What if I take it that if a system tends towards a certain condition, I say that it "wants" that condition? So if a person tends to a state of happiness, then he wants to be happy? If an atom tends to form an octet configuration, it "wants" to form an octet configuration? If unlike poles attract each other, they "want" to be together?

Hmm wait, don't they all obey the second law of thermodynamics?

So, if we all tend towards where we want to get to, why do I still get lost, and wonder what everything is for? Why am I searching for what I really want, even though it is just supposed I want to do now?

Perhaps it's because what I want to do now may make it difficult for me to do something else later.

Random thought:

Ever read any stories where the protagonist is sucked into the mirror? Maybe you haven't, or maybe you have watched a channel 8 tv show "My date with a vampire II" (sometime in 2000). In those cicumstances, the protagonist who gets sucked into the mirror finds out that all the words are laterally inverted, and that right handed people are now the minority! Oh my! Just imagine yourself being sucked into a mirror! But as I thought about it, those would probably be two of the last few things I'll worry about.

Being in a world where everything a a mirror image of your current world also means that all your laevorotatory optically active compounds would become dextrorotatory compunds. This has more serious implications that having to read everything through a mirror. Recall that many biological molecules are optically active.

Firstly, you can't eat anything there except for saturated fats, glycine, salt and tartaric acid. All other foods are non-superimposable with the kind that your body can use. You can't take any vitamins, suppliments or medicine, as they all have to be dealt with by emzymes. Ahh, you wouldn't suffocate though, majority of gas molecules in the air are achiral.

Secondly, you would be immune to all diseases that come from the exterior. The microbes that try to make you sick wouldn't be able to penetrate your defenses to do anything serious, because the macrophages would engulf everything that the body doesn't recognise, and even if they get through they have nothing to eat. Ahh, true, virii don't need to eat, but they can't do anything to your cell either because they can't even force their way into the cell. They can't take control either because all their proteins or RNA enzymes are optically active.

Thirdly, most things would smell and taste different. Our smell receptors idenitify the molecule's shape. So probably what smells nice here wouldn't smell quite as nice there. As for taste, sour and salty tastes would remain the same because they depend on ions, which are achiral.

Lastly, male or female, whoever goes there would be sterile. The enzyme that the sperm uses to penetrate the ovum would not work there. (If you recall, you are effectively immune to all pathogen caused diseases too) Perhaps this means that you would not need contraception in the mirror world.

Pretty cool huh?

I remember that a friend introduced me to the "hedgehog's dilemma". Supposedly, if two people are too far apart they would be sad because they are lonely, but if they are too close they can hurt each other too. So he said that his solution would be to stay far away.

I suppose that he might be right if the hurt you can get from being too close would never be greater than the worst loneliness you can possibly get. However, if that is the case, then people would not come together to form societies; they would be more like plants, the farther apart, the better. So apparently there seems to be an optimal distance.

But where is it? I thought of this:



Apparently, you would get a graph like this when you plot



where k and p are positive constants, a > b > 0.

If you are that interested in the ideal distance, you can differentiate and work out the solution, but it would be pointless because we don't know what y, k, x, a, p, b stand for.

BUT the repulsive force probably doesn't go up forever! E.g, When two hydrogen atoms get too close, they experience Coulomb repulsion, but if they get really really close, they can attracted to each other due to residual strong force. (which is stronger than Coulomb repulsion at that distance, then the weak force would turn one of the protons into a neutron so there's no more Coulomb replusion) Then they will stay together, and nothing but a blackhole can tear them apart!

Well... I leave that to your interpretation. My point is, staying far away probably isn't the best policy.

How do you be an optimist?

Think opportunity cost!

"Man, I broke my toy dog. But that's ok, I'll end up spending less time and battery on it and have more space for my toy kitten!"

How do you be a pessimist?

Think opportunity cost again!

"Ok it's the school holidays, but that means I'll have less time with my friends, less time in the nice library, likely to get bored, more likely to overspend etc. Oh bother."

So what separates the two? Well, the pessimist thinks more about what he loses, while the optimist thinks more about what he gains. Not so much of glass half full or half empty.

A: "Are you kidding?"
B: "Why should I lie to you?"

B imples that he is not lying. Let's see how that is implied. Let's say A answers the rhoetorical question.
"Hmm I can't think of a reason why you should lie to me."

So let's see.

P1: If I lie to you, I have a reason to lie to you.
P2: I do not have a reason to lie to you.

C: Therefore I am not lying to you.

Hmm... although the reasoning is correct, the first premise seems weird. Let's try another.

P1: If I have a reason to lie to you, I would lie to you.
P2: I do not have a reason to lie to you.

C: Therefore I am not lying to you.

Now the premise makes more sense, but the argument is invalid.
The reasoning for "How would I know?" and "What to do?" is quite similar. They are likely invalid too.

If you say something like

"If you like me, you'll buy flowers for me."

Then it follows that if that person does not buy flowers for you, he certainly does not like you. (MT)
But if he buys flowers for you, he may still not like you.

Unless you mean something like

"If you buy flowers for me, it means you like me."

Then it follows that anyone who buys you flowers like you(MP), but people who don't buy you flowers may like you too. That sounds pretty narcissistic.

Or maybe you mean

"Iff you like me, you'll buy flowers for me."

Then it follows that anyone who buys you flowers like you, and anyone who doesn't buy you flowers don't like you. Nice and simple. Too simple perhaps.

Oh bother.

Which leads me to scientific statements!

"If theory X is correct, A occurs."

Then it follows that if A does not occur, theory X is certainly not correct(MT), but if A occurs, X isn't neccessarily correct.

But which scientific theory to take?

"If theory X is correct, A and B occur."
"If theory Y is correct, A, B, C, D, E and F occur."
"A, B, C, and D occurs."
(You are not sure if E and F occurs)

Logic gives no answer.

Gibbons gave green gastronomical gourmet good golden guts.

Often, old oocytes omit odd oats on ostriches.


As ambitious as an anteater, Alan accepted ammunitions.

Wyrens wave with water wigs which wither when worn.

Anna ate an astronomical apple as Alex altered addresses.

Your yolk yonders yet Yemen yelled "Yikes."

!Xobile!

nvm. It is not supposed to mean anything. Just suggesting a "subtle" way of saying something on your blog. Though it is pretty obvious anyway, but you could say that you were in a random mood and you didn't think of it! Not to say that I would use it though, I don't blog about things I don't want others to read.

ccal camp was fun.

In every camp there would be some assholes in any group. This time there isn't in my group. Either that I am lucky to be in a group of nice people, or that this is a ccal camp and assholes generally don't become ccals. Everyone else in the group is a nice person.

In the beginning our group A1 was really very quiet. Probably only Nanett and Chloe was talking quite a bit. But that was because then in our group Lincoln, Alvin Nat and Chia Qi went for founder's day. Quite a lot of quiet peoplein the group(Joel, Yiwen, Jingwei, Me). So quiet that Amy, a J2 who decided to stick with us for a while almost couldn't stand it. We were supposed to do high ropes, but it rained :( so we did other stuff. Not say very fun, but not a waste of time either.

Oh, I must comment that the camp food is very very nice. Every meal, yes. I think its because I like fish, and I like spicy stuff.

But that awkward silence didn't last too long, as Lincoln, Alvin and Chia Qi came and joined us, and Lincoln and Alvin made a huge racket teasing each other, making everyone else laugh in the process. For the night camp out Lincoln the chef made spaghetti! My first time eating spaghetti, and it tasted good. Alvin toppled the hot water twice and Lincoln capitalised on that. Later Lincoln toppled over the hot water himself, and... the whole scene was pretty interesting, and Alvin and Lincoln going on about each other and Nanett cutting in whenever Lincoln mentioned something about Alvin's country of origin. And we roasted marshmellows to eat. I ate quite a lot.

At night it was hard to go to sleep, because it was quite warm in the tent, so we spent some time outside looking at stars and talking. Okay I didn't talk, was largely listening to Amy, Lincoln and Alvin. When Amy was tired we went back to the tent to sleep, but Alvin was like "Eh I don't think I can sleep leh, I'm damn wide awake now!" but when we went back to the tent he was the first one to fall asleep. I found it hard to sleep, as there was a small piece of stone at my back. But I managed to sleep a little anyway.

Next day, our group was the one of the first to be prepared. I think A1 is very efficient. Even though we woke up last we finished packing first. And the first activity for the second day we had was sea kayaking. I declared myself as a non-swimmer, and Yiwen the school swimmer volunteered to pair up with me to sorta protect me. When we were about to go out to sea, it rained and lightning flashed and we had to go back. As our bodies were already in the sea, we were all wet. The wind blew and it was really cold. So it started off with 3 guys huddling together for warmth(Me Lincoln and Issac Long), and then more guys joined in and we formed a small circle. Then there were three girls huddling outside, and Lincoln asked them to come in, and so there were like 7 guys in a ring and 3 girls in the centre. So more and more people joined in, until the girl's centre was also quite big, so Lincoln asked that the small girls go into the centre. Then more girls joined in, such that there were not enough guys to form a ring around them. Then 2 big guys (Alvin and Chia Qi) joined in, and the girls squeezed inwards, so we formed a tightly packed circle, with the guys forming a ring outside, the girls forming a ring inside, and the petite girls standing in the centre. The scene was really quite cute, it reminded me of a picture I saw of penguins huddling together in the storm, with the weak and young staying in the centre and the strong ones taking turns to be in the outermost ring. Then we huddled together and sang some songs. We sang school song, rj batch song, ri batch song, rgs batch song, and the barney "I love You" song etc. It felt warmer than being alone. Tourists were looking at us in amazement, and probably taking photos, and perhaps thinking that this is some indon culture or something. Anyhow, we had to be broken up and briefed. The weather turned better and we got to kayak! And so we hurried to sea because the sea water was warmer than land. I took the front and Yiwen took the back. Yiwen is really powerful, you can tell that because everytime she paddles you can really feel the kayak moving faster. I bet all the other guys were jealous that I had Yiwen as a kayaking partner. Haha, she's really so good that for a while I kinda needed reassurance that I did contribute to the kayak's speed. And she did give me that. Kayaking was so fun that even though we were one of the fastest, we didn't want to stop so soon, so we went back and forth trying to make the most of our paddling time. There was once when we turned, I leaned too much and the kayak capsized. Being non-swimmer I almost panicked, but I kept calm, and made my way back into the kayak. It was fun.

After that was low elements. One that made an impression on me was the game where if you get tapped 3 times on the shoulder you can do anything. I felt like an idiot not saving others when I could have. I think it has deeper meaning than that. It felt like... I had the power to help others, but I was not helping others, instead I was just enjoying having that power. Maybe I read too much into it, but it left quite an impression on me. Another one was the electric fence game. I tried to jump over it, then when I was cruising through the air I was thinking "what if there is a rock where my hand would be placed?" (Answer: I would fracture my forearm/break my wrist.) But good thing there wasn't any rock, so the rolling breakfall turned out fine. Phew. Lesson: Look before you leap.

Then there was the amazing and adventure race. In the beginning I led the group to a place and I wasn't confident enough to walk further, so we turned back and found out that all we had to do was to walk further down. Sigh. That affected the morale quite a bit.

That day we slept in the tent at campable. Good thing the ground was nice and soft, so we slept soundly.

Next day was the last day for activities, and there was rafting. Even though A2 set sail first, we (A1) came back first, because A2 raft was slower. Then there was Wakatobi trail! Nice walk, and Alvin's bash through the jungle was a nice one, because it shortened our journey by a lot. It was really funny when Lincoln got blindfolded, cos Alvin kept making fun of him by telling him how nice the scenery was. Later, when Lincoln got to take off his blindfold, the other group came in and he stepped into a huge gaping hole. GGY took a photo of that. Word went around and even Amy heard of it.

Wakatobi trail made us quite uncomfortable, even I wanted to shower. After showering I wore my sister's FBTs. The girls commented that I have nice legs. Yay.

That night was grand dinner and campfire. It wasn't really a success, I would say. The fire was too big, so people refrained from staying around the fire. I think only Jerik's group put in a good amount of effort into the campfire item to make it look nice. And during the campfire SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED but I cannot say it here so ask me or anyone in my subgroup if you want to know.

At night we tried to organise a subgroup supper to finish off whatever food we had. Okay, technically it was supposed to be guys and girls share, but since the girls had more food, naturally the guys benefited more. One tiny detail that caught my attention was when there was only one jewel biscuit (you know, those small round biscuit with coloured sugary cream on top), jingwei and lincoln both tried to throw the biscuit into the air and catch with the mouth, but jingwei cheated and just put it in her mouth and bit off the cream. Lincoln didn't know there were no more jewel biscuits left (it was late at night with bad lighting), so he asked "Got anymore not?" Then Jingwei took the biscuit out from her mouth and gave to Lincoln. Lincoln was about to flick it, but he noticed something amiss, and he went "YYYYYUUUUCCCCCCCK!!!" and jingwei gave a very evil laugh. Really noe! You must hear it for yourself, it sounded really evil. Like in those chinese martial arts drama you watch on tv, when the evil lady gives the hero poisoned wine and the hero drinks it and she laugh a very evil laugh, then the hero would get startled, then he would grab his neck with both hands and vomit black blood. Okay thats besides the point, but man... Jingwei's evil laugh sounds very evil. Then we had to go back to tent and sleep. Later we were talking in the tent about the something that happened during the campfire, then we heard Mr Shah's voice "Eh boys, stop talking it's late." We were stunned for 3 seconds then Lincoln went "Shut up lah Indra!" Then we heard "Ah shit!" (Lincoln later revealed 'Imagine if it was really Mr Shah...') And it was indeed Indra. Then he used his Mr Shah voice to say "Eh your tent got space not, can fit in one more person?" Then we were laughing like madmen and the girls shouted "Hey can you guys keep it down?" Then Indra went "Oops sorry." and left for the night.

Next morning pack up and go! Supposed to be grand lunch, but not as grand as grand dinner (or my grandfather). Yiwen helped me carry my daypack while I carried a water tank. (Thanks!) Lincoln hit his shin against something and scraped off some skin. Then at the Bintan ferry terminal SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED AGAIN. In the ferry ride it felt like a roller coater ride for a short while. I'm used to sleeping on the rocking mrt, so naturally on a rocking ferry i would sleep just as well. It felt like a short ride.

When we reached school it was about time to say goodbye! But nobody said goodbye. I left school alone, but met Yiding on the way. It feels strange to leave a camp this way.

Reached home and took a nap. When I woke up it felt as though I hadn't left Singapore. Bintan felt like a dream, when you wake up, everything suddenly reverted back to its state when you fell asleep and you didn't know you fell asleep.

Perhaps as Wangrui said, everyone was just tired. Maybe so.