Random ramblings about chemistry:

The longest compound sentences are probably not found in GP scripts, but in chemistry scripts. I really only learn to write very very long sentences in chemistry with a variety of conjunctions, like: As, because, thus, hence, therefore, such that, and, moreover, then, additionally, however, but, also, due to, while.

Just a weird thing that came up in my mind.

"When trifluoroethanoic acid dissociates, it forms a carboxylate anion which has its negative charge spread over the two highly electronegative oxygen atoms and is stabilised by resonance. In addition, trifluoroethanoic acid has three highly electronegative and hence electron-withdrawing fluorine atoms attached to it. As such, the negative charge on the carboxylate group of the trifluoroethanoic acid anion is further dispersed by the fluorine atoms that draw the negative charge towards itself. Thus, the deprotonated trifluoroethanoic acid is highly stable.

While ethanoic acid anion also has its negative charge dispersed over two highly electronegative oxygen atoms and is also stabilised by resonance, the additional stabilising effect of nearby electron-withdrawing groups by charge dispersal due to the inductive effect is absent in the ethanoic acid anion. Thus, the deprotonated ethanoic acid is less stable than the deprotoned trifluroethanoic acid anion, and hence trifluoroethanoic acid is a stronger acid than ethanoic acid.

Should the author's conclusion be accepted? Explain your answer."

Moral of the story: Never talk to Zheng Rong about your math paper, no matter how confident you may feel.

Yoda's quote doesn't make a great deal of sense. Imagine this convo between Luke and Yoda:

"Okay... I shall try to punch through this wall."
"Do or do not, there is no try."
"..." Luke punches the wall but fails to punch through, and he grimaces in pain.
"And so you did not punch through this wall."

Whee. Promos in 18 hours time. GG.

I apologise for my lousy narrative skills. Afterall, I read little fiction.

This afternoon I bought popiah from a store, and I sit quite far away from the store. I bought 2 popiah, they were meant to be shared among my father, mother and I. After I ordered she asked me to go back to sit as she would pass it to me later.

After a while, she came with the popiahs and 3 pairs of chopsticks. I was quite amazed, how did she know that 3 people were eating? Later it came upon me that she could have peeked after she was done with making the popiah and find out that there were 3 people, but we were sitting quite far away!

I don't know if I could say that she went the extra mile for service, but she really impressed me with the extra effort she spent.

There is no free lunch in this world.

In sec 4 I was amazed that certain horrible expressions, after differentiation, gives you something neat.

Then in J1 I was amazed at how this neat expression becomes a horrible expression upon integration.

A convo with my mother on wednesday. I was playing comp at that time(4pm).

"Yang, you've been playing for quite long."
"...quite a while... but I studied from 7 to 1!(not lying)"
"Yar, well... I mean, can I play now?"

rofl.

I have wondered about the difference between a mental image and a "real image"; the difference between an object you are looking at and an object you are thinking of. Think of the colour red. Apparently, this "colour" is not quite the same as one you would see, yet we can make a correlation. We can think of a red ball, but apparently we can conceive of nothing but a "red ball", with nothing else, in the middle of nowhere. We have never seen anything quite like it, yet we can think about it. You can't touch an object that is hot and cold at the same time, but you can touch a hot object and think of cold. You can think of what a person looks like, and still be well aware that the person is not anywhere within sight. You can even have a song ringing in your mind while listening to a lecture.

Apparently, the realm of thought and sense are separate; they seem be independent of each other at any given point in time, and we are aware of it. No matter how one can vividly imagine and fantasize, he is still well aware that the images are not the same as what he would see with his eyes; one can have an imaginary discussion within his mind during an examination and he can be quite sure that he is not listening to something that others can hear. Best of all, one can mentally curse someone in the person's face with a smile, and be certain that the person would not hear it.

My dreams are vivid and uncontrollable. The strange thing is that as I recall from the transition from thought to dream, there is no defining point when things start to appear as sense instead of thought. Perhaps, the ability to distinguish between sense and thought is diminishing as I perceive less sense data. When I close my eyes, I can make myself see my eyelids if I want; I can make myself feel the cloth on a particular part of my body; I can feel myself breathe, but after a while, when thoughts start flooding my mind, I don't sense them anymore. At a reduced level of "consciousness", the distinction between thought and sense become less clear.

But I might have just been taking this ability to distinguish between thought and sense for granted. Apparently, schizophrenic people can't.