Module reviews for AY17/18 Semester 1

Perhaps because it's my first semester in university, it was a bit hair-raising especially when midterms and finals rolled around. Overall though, I found the workload pretty manageable. And after studying some cool stuff, I now feel like this:

CFG1010: Roots and Wings 1.0

MCs: 2 for Unrestricted Elective

Delivery:

1 face-to-face workshop in Week 1 or 2 and another in Week 11 or 12
Weekly e-lectures with accompanying notes and readings

Assessment:

Commitment Challenge essays = 3 x 10%, roughly 500 words each
Industry Awareness Project essay = 25%, about 1000 words
Design Your Future = 15%, fill in a template creatively using drawings and diagrams
Online quizzes = 2 x 10%, open-book
Attendance at face-to-face workshops = 10%

Overall rating: 7/10

General comments:

You either love it or hate it. Even though the module is run by the department in charge of getting graduates ready for the job market, it has nothing to do with career or whatever. It's more of a general lifeskills seminar series covering things like empathy, conflict management, and focusing techniques. It can be a bit "ra-ra" at times. Personally, I feel they pushed the mindfulness part too much and it got really cloying after a while, like having one too many chocolate eclairs at a high tea buffet. But there were useful tidbits too. Approach this module with an open mind and you will definitely get something out of it. As for the assessments, just submit everything they ask for according to their guidelines and you should be fine. And TURN UP FOR THE FACE-TO-FACE SESSIONS even if you have tuberculosis because they will make or break your grade! NOTE (added on 4 June 2018): All traces of this module have been expunged from the Centre for Future-Ready Graduates website, and that can only mean that the module has been scrapped because when it was still around they were shouting from the rooftops about it.

EL1101E: The Nature of Language

MCs: 4 - FASS students can use this to clear the Humanities basket or as Unrestricted Elective

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 1-hour tutorial, where groups of students will present their answers to that week's problem set

Assessment:

Midterm 1 = 25%, all MCQ
Midterm 2 = 25%, all MCQ
Finals = 30%, all MCQ
Participation and attendance = 20%

Lecturer: Dr Nala Lee - 11/10

A relatively junior faculty member in the English department, Dr Lee is nonetheless the best lecturer I had this semester. Maybe she hasn't yet become worn out and jaded by the vagaries of life as an academic. Her love for linguistics comes through strongly in every single lecture she conducts, and she is obviously just as passionate about educating her students as she is very open to contact through the online forums, email and face-to-face consultations. Most importantly, she has a knack for boiling down complicated and abstract concepts into simple terms. And she sets fair tests which only cover content that she explicitly teaches in lectures. For students with special needs, she is very forthcoming and proactive in rendering the required assistance too.

Tutor: Ms Wang Tianxiao - 10/10

Many tutors are actually postgraduate students serving as teaching assistants, and their quality can run the gamut from excellent to downright horrible. Ms Wang is one of the better ones. She actually cares about doing her job properly and comes prepared for every tutorial with her own slides and notes recapping the content from the previous lecture. She also relates to the students well and is responsive to questions over email and face-to-face. Sometimes she seems unsure of certain concepts and will need to confer with the professor first, but that's preferable to someone with a big ego who attempts to smoke out an answer that ends up misleading the students even further.

Module: 11/10

Extremely interesting content, non-strenuous assessments, no need to spend money on a textbook because all readings are provided... I can think of worse ways to fulfil my Humanities Faculty Exposure basket! If you're the type that likes to analyse the nitty-gritty details of things, you'll love this module as it goes into the most micro-level stuff like where you put your tongue when pronouncing certain sounds, rules for putting sounds together, relationships between words and sentences, and so on. Then there are the broader topics which zoom out and give you an overview of how language is used in society as well as some of the psychological aspects of it. I've heard rumours that this module is an easy A, but that is not the case as the bell curve is unforgiving because everyone tends to do well making it hard to stand out, but it's an easy B in any case, and you can always S/U it if you don't like your grade. Disclaimer: I have heaped some seemingly hyperbolic praises here but in my opinion they are deserved. I have no ulterior motive as my major is Communications and New Media and I will probably never take any other English module besides this one. Click here for a preview of the content!

FAS1101: Writing Academically

MCs: 4 - compulsory Written Expression and Communication module for FASS students

Delivery:

Weekly student notes to be read independently
Weekly 2-hour tutorial, mainly small group discussions facilitated by tutor

Assessment:

Research proposal = 15%
Overview essay = 25%
Final essay = 45%
Participation = 15%
The first three components will be about a single topic which you will choose at the start of the semester from a given list.

Tutor: Dr Lee Ming Cherk - 9/10

A kindly old lady, Dr Lee could be anybody's grandmother. She has a warm and maternal streak, and can be a bit muddle-headed and "uncool" in the grand tradition of elderly folk everywhere. If that sounds very endearing, it is. Teaching-wise, she was quite average. Sometimes I got the impression that she was trying to force an element of interactivity into the tutorials even though the subject matter doesn't really lend itself to such a style. But I thought she captured the essence of academic writing well in her recap slides, and this certainly demystified the process for me a lot. She also communicated with the students openly through email and face-to-face consultations, which is important because the feedback really helps to shape your essay into something of acceptable standard.

Module: 8/10

The weekly student notes written by Dr Zhou Ziqian are a bit weird. They come across as arrogant, humorous, psychotic, "emo", thoughtful... all at the same time. One thing is for sure: they're not dreary to read at all. And I love some quotable quotes like the following:

When so little as half-developed thoughts occur to me, it feels pleasurable to hear that procession of keys being struck on a keyboard. This is especially pleasurable when colleagues are within earshot. I write not with the mildness expected of one holding pen and paper, but with the temper of one who works with hammer and anvil.

If that's not poetry then I don't know what is. It's also relatable AF.

The module itself is boring and unremarkable but seeing as it's compulsory there's not much else to be said about it. What I wrote in another post still holds:

... it focuses too much on argumentation and philosophical debate. It fails to cover what in my opinion are more vital topics like how to do referencing properly. A couple of online lessons are devoted to this but it's not enough because referencing is full of intricacies that could trip up even the most careful writer, and yet making a mistake could land said writer in hot soup for academic dishonesty. The module is also too narrow in scope: not all writing done in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences conforms to the "thesis statement + supporting arguments" mould. I know for a fact that very little of such writing is done in the field of psychology, which is dominated by journal articles reporting the results of studies and which use the "Introduction + Methods + Results + Discussion" format. In communications and other subject areas, writing tends to be more discursive rather than argumentative in nature. FAS1101 would be more useful if it was designed to acknowledge these differences and spend a few weeks on each type of writing, rather than using up the entire semester on building a single piece of argumentative essay.

Just plan your workflow early so you give yourself enough time to submit all your assignments by their respective deadlines and you'll be fine.

GER1000: Quantitative Reasoning

MCs: 4 - compulsory General Education

Delivery:

Weekly e-lectures
2-hour tutorials on alternate weeks, prepare your responses to the questions uploaded about a week before class

Assessment:

Group project = 27%, prepare an executive summary and scientific poster about a study reported in a given journal article
Midterm = 20%, all MCQ
Finals = 33%, all MCQ
Weekly online quizzes = 10%
Participation = 10%

Tutor: Mr Desmond Lau - 8/10

Mr Lau has a good sense of humour and is "cool" enough to relate to the students well. But he does tend to get carried away sometimes. He once filled the entire whiteboard with a complex mathematical proof while explaining the solution to a question in that week's tutorial problem set. That was way beyond the scope of the subject and ended up leaving me thoroughly confused until I decided to just totally disregard everything he'd just written. Having said that, he does get his job done, and that's all I really ask for from a tutor.

Module: 6/10

Do you want to impress your friends with a cool party trick like telling them the Bacon Number of Liam Neeson using the Oracle of Bacon? Or equip yourself with the skill to detect whether or not you're being cheated at gambling by a loaded dice or coin? This module is for you! Well, actually it's compulsory for everyone but you know what I mean. But if you want to be able to read news articles and sift out inaccuracies from truths, then you'll be sadly disappointed. This module is very calculation-oriented so that by the end of it, you'll know a whole bunch of formulas and numerical relationships and rules. But this is also arguably is greatest flaw. As I wrote in another post:

... the module kind of misses the point of why it exists in the first place. As claimed during the first lecture, the module is supposed to equip us with the skills and knowledge to critically evaluate reports of findings and data that we may encounter in our daily lives. For example, if we see a newspaper article claiming that "Eating more eggplant boosts libido", we can use what we have learned in GER1000 to decide whether or not to believe the conclusions drawn in the report. Well, so far, I've learned how to calculate Risk Ratio and Odds Ratio, Symmetry Rule, Simpson's Paradox... But nothing that really helps me to, you know, decide whether or not to believe what I see! All those fancy stuff I mentioned are only useful in the back end, when you have all the necessary raw information to work with, but not to everyday consumers. Oh wait, they taught us the maxim that goes "Association/Correlation is not causation" but I could have told you that three years ago, when I was barely into my first year of polytechnic. And even non-psychology polytechnic students learn it. It's old news.

But everyone has to take this module anyway so... Just do all the tutorials faithfully because they really help in preparing for the midterm and final, and try to get a good score for the group project too. Click here for a preview of the content!

NM1101E: Communications, New Media and Society

MCs: 4 - FASS students can use this to clear the Social Science basket or as Unrestricted Elective

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
Weekly 1-hour tutorial, mainly working on the group project

Assessment:

Group project = 30%, write a 4500-word report proposing a communications campaign
Midterm = 15%, all MCQ
Finals = 40%, all MCQ
Attendance and participation = 15%

Lecturer: Associate Professor Lonce Wyse - 8/10

The best way to describe Professor Lonce would be "thought-provoking". If you like a professor who doesn't give you any answers but instead gives you a lot of questions about varied topics to chew on, Professor Lonce is for you. He really got me to ponder about many things, like how artificial intelligence is going to affect us, what sort of hidden agenda the news media has, and more. As a result, I feel that I'm able to see issues from different angles now. However, he isn't very good at delivering the core lessons of the module. His lectures tend to be rather messy affairs in which he spends the first 20 minutes rambling on about some current affairs stories, and then tries to proceed into the content proper but gets so lost and sidetracked along the way that neither he nor the students have any idea what's going on anymore. Fortunately, he sets easy questions about the lecture content for the midterm and final. Unfortunately, he also likes to test knowledge from obscure corners of the textbook like when was the internet/digital computer/telephone invented. In his defence, I don't think he's the right professor to teach this module as his expertise lies in sound production, art and design, and coding. This introductory module needs to be taken by someone with a grounding in media theories and campaign strategies. The department should shoulder a bit of responsibility for throwing Professor Lonce into the deep end here.

Tutor: Ms Liu Ximing - 5/10

To put it diplomatically, I feel Ms Liu didn't really care about her role as teaching assistant. We received a sum total of zero emails from her all semester long, and even during tutorials she came across as being rather detached and disinterested. In fact, my project groupmates and I couldn't recall her name until the end of the semester! To be fair, the way the professor had designed the tutorials was for us to use them to do our group project, so there wasn't much teaching to be done in that sense. But she could at least have made the effort to hold some discussions about issues raised in lectures, or recapped some of the lecture content. Not only did she not do any of these things, she also failed to give us any useful feedback or answer any of our queries about the group project.

Module: 7/10

I'm not very sure what to make of this module because like I said, the professor made the content quite disorganised. However, the bits that I did grasp were enjoyable. I also liked doing the group project as it allowed me to apply the concepts from lectures to a hypothetical real-life scenario. This helps a lot in consolidating the knowledge and revising for the midterm and final! Fair disclosure: I have declared Communications and New Media as my major. Click here for a preview of the content!

PL1101E: Introduction to Psychology

MCs: 4 - FASS students can use this to clear the Social Science basket or as Unrestricted Elective

Delivery:

Weekly 2-hour lecture
2-hour tutorials on alternate weeks, prepare your responses to the discussion questions provided before the tutorial

Assessment:

Midterm = 50%, 100 MCQ and 5 open-ended
Finals = 50%, 100 MCQ and 5 open-ended
Research Participation: Marks will be deducted from your final grade if you do not take part in 12 studies conducted by senior psychology students

Lecturer: Associate Professor John Elliott - 10/10

By his own admission, this was his last semester lecturing PL1101E as he's extremely old and nearing retirement. He deserves great respect and it was an honour to be taught by him before he rides off into the sunset. It's not an exaggeration to say that John Elliott is the physical embodiment of psychology in Singapore. At one time he was one of only two psychologists in the employ of the Singapore government, and he also started the psychology programme at NUS. I wish him long and happy golden years ahead.

Tutor: Ms Maria Wijaya - 7/10

Tutorials were meant to be held in a discussion style but due to Ms Wijaya's reluctance to pick on people to give their contributions, they often devolved into sessions filled with awkward silence and self-conscious forceful bursts of exhalation through the nose every time eye contact was accidentally established. She does know her stuff though, and is able to explain the psychological theories and concepts quite well. It's just a pity that she didn't facilitate the tutorials properly.

Module: 8/10

I don't know what your impression of psychology is, but if you think it's all about sitting on couches and talking to people to "make them feel better", or carrying out "profiling" to track down dangerous criminals, then I'm sorry. You've been misled by the media. Some psychologists do indeed work in clinical and forensic settings, but those are but two of the myriad fields in psychology. This module will touch briefly on all of the core areas. It is absolutely jam-packed with theories and concepts, but contrary to popular belief, there's no need to sleep with your textbook in the hope that the knowledge will diffuse into your brain. Your focus should be on understanding as this is a much easier way of remembering the content. The assessments do not require word-for-word reproduction of the textbook or lecture notes, so do not waste your energy and time memorising! You'll miss the forest for the trees, and not be able to appreciate the true wisdom of what psychology is trying to teach you: to know yourself and others better, so that you can lead a more satisfying life. Click here for a preview of the content!

I hope these module reviews have helped you in your decision making on which modules to choose for yourself, or let you know what to expect from the compulsory modules. At the time of writing, this is my maiden attempt at producing module reviews, so the formatting may be a little crude and some information you are looking for may have been inadvertently omitted. Do feel free to drop a comment below if that's the case. I'll probably also tweak the layout of my module reviews when I publish my module reviews next semester. Until then!

Hands on with the Xiaomi Mi A1

I recently renewed my contract with M1 and upgraded my handset to the Xiaomi Mi A1. This reasonably new model comes with an affordable price tag and packs a punch with powerful specs.

This review is written in descriptive terms and I have purposely kept numbers to a minimum. If you want technical information about the phone, look here.

Design

The Mi A1 is pretty, with a rather feminine body accentuated by the gold colour that I chose for mine. The other option is black.

It fits nicely in the hand, even my small ones. However, the screen is still big enough that watching videos and playing games are pleasurable.

If I have one complaint about the physical aspect of the phone, it would be regarding the buttons. The hard power button, located in its usual position halfway down the right edge of the chassis, feels mushy when pressed and it can be difficult to tell if you have successfully activated it. Along the bottom, the three touch buttons for Menu, Home, and Back suffer from a different problem: their areas of activation are very limited and you have to be extremely accurate in hitting the correct spot in order to get them to respond. This means that if you keep your eyes on the screen while trying to make the phone go back, you are likely to miss the button completely and be left bewildered for a couple of seconds wondering why the phone failed to do what you wanted.

Software

The stock Android that the Mi A1 has by default can be a bit disorienting because most of us would be used to the Android skins of our favourite brands, such as HTC Sense or Xiaomi's own MIUI.

Stock Android is really bare-bones stuff. Your phone will work, but not much besides. The good thing is the lack of bloatware, those redundant apps that come together with every new phone and cannot be deleted. But some very basic apps that should be there are also omitted. For example, there is no file manager app and you will have to install a third-party one from the Play Store.

Personalisation can also be a challenge. Stock Android does not give you the option to easily add your own custom ringtones, notification sounds and alarms. You will have to use the third-party file manager app mentioned above to copy the sound files you want to use into the respective "Ringtones", "Notifications", or "Alarms" folders in the phone's internal memory, then go to the Settings menu where you should now be able to find your desired sound clips.

The keyboard is another area which is sorely lacking. Its predictive feature does not seem to learn my personal language patterns well, but does pick up obscure things like Chinese names (e.g., Swee Ling). It also fails to autocorrect properly even if only one letter out of the whole word is wrong. If you have a favourite third-party keyboard, just use that straight off the bat.

On the plus side, being on the Android One programme means that your phone gets all the latest updates straight from Google. Your phone will be protected against the newest cybersecurity threats. These patches go out about once a month. Each time, you will have to connect to the internet to download a tranche of about a couple of gigabytes, and then let the phone install the update and restart itself. The entire process takes about 15 minutes.

Performance

I readily admit that I abuse my phones. They work really hard for me as I use them for many intensive activities. It was with this in mind that I selected the Mi A1 with its beefy RAM, generous internal storage capacity, and large battery.

The phone does not disappoint on any of these counts. It is a joy to use as it feels snappy and handles regular tasks with impunity. Multitasking is a breeze too. No need to worry about sending apps to the background while you attend to incoming messages or emails. They will be in the exact same state you left them in when you return, and you can resume using them immediately with no noticeable lag.

I have installed dozens of apps in my phone so far and its internal memory is only about half full. Of course, it helps that there is no bloatware taking up valuable space.

The battery has amazing endurance and has no problem lasting a full day of normal usage. I have even watched YouTube videos for about five hours continuously and the battery level only reached about half. To get the most out of both your screen and battery, set the brightness to the dynamic mode, which will adjust itself according to the ambient lighting in your surroundings. Also set your geolocation to battery-saving as this will stretch your battery life even further while still being accurate enough for most purposes.

Speaking of YouTube videos, the Mi A1 has a real powerhouse of a speaker! It is LOUD and clear, and I love watching videos and listening to music on my new phone.

In case you are wondering, I have deliberately not commented on the display and camera, which are standard elements in any phone review. This is because I am not fussy about those parts of a phone beyond whether they work or not. The Mi A1 has a fancy dual camera at the back which supposedly enhances depth-of-field, but I have no idea what that means and have not noticed anything different in my shots so far. And the display is functional and renders images, videos, and games well. That is all that matters to me and is all I can say on this issue.

All in all, the Xiaomi Mi A1 delivers high-end performance for a low-end price. It has its flaws, particularly to do with the drawbacks of the stock Android operating system. But those can be rectified yourself within minutes using downloadable third-party apps from the Play Store, and should not detract from what is a solid and satisfying piece of hardware that deserves a place in everyone's pocket.

My former domestic helper

When I was a kid my parents hired a Filipino maid to look after me and do the housework because both of them were working full-time.

It's common to hear of horror stories involving incompetent, abusive, or deviant maids, but luckily Yaya (nanny in Tagalog) was an excellent maid.

She was the central figure during my early childhood years and I'd say she played a big role in shaping the person I am today. Which is to say, she did a lot of things right.

Many maids take the easy way out when it comes to babysitting duties, and simply leave their charges in the care of the television (or its contemporary equivalent, the tablet). This turns the children into brainless zombies with the attention span of a chihuahua and the intellectual capability of a leg of lamb.

But not Yaya. She made the effort to engage me in conversations, using proper English and not those irritating goo-gaa baby languages. It helped that she had a computer science degree and was middle-aged so she was herself smart and mature enough to carry such a discussion through. She made sure I read books, and was also very strict in checking my homework, often sitting in front of me to watch while I did it.

The television was used to a certain extent, particularly in the evenings when she would be busy with cooking and other chores, but even then, she regulated the shows I could view. Most of the time it was either Hi-5 or Sesame Street, both very wholesome and educational programmes.

At playtime, she was there too, inventing new games out of old toys and facilitating free imagination. I had a cooking set which I loved very much and I would often pretend to cook dishes for her. Sometimes I used wooden blocks of various shapes and sizes to make stuff. This type of play was actively encouraged by her, and benefited my cognitive development greatly.

It wasn't all serious, of course. On the school bus ride home from kindergarten we would play Scissors-Paper-Stone or I-Spy. Oh my, such traditional games! Sometimes she got homesick so she'd put on some OPM (original Philippine music) and start dancing and singing along. I grew to like OPM because of her. Here's one song that was hot at that time.

Moving on to one of my favourite topics: FOOD. Boy could Yaya eat! That explained the fact that she was a little wide around the middle. And she was adventurous, enjoying local flavours like a native. Her signature dish as far as I was concerned was deep-fried ikan bilis (anchovies). So crispy and salty and delicious... She did it as well as any nasi lemak (rice with coconut milk) hawker.

Unlike many Filipinos, she could take spiciness. Indeed, she relished it! She taught me from a young age too, and we would heap spoonfuls of SingLong-brand sambal belacan onto our respective plates at dinnertime, much to the amazement of my parents and any guests alike. But sambal is actually pretty mild stuff, so sometimes when we wanted to challenge ourselves and ramp things up a notch, we would add chilli padi (bird's eye chilli) instead. I once ate seven bowls of chicken macaroni soup with chilli padi in a single lunchtime because it tasted so good and addictive, especially when I was being entertained at the same time by my favourite book at that time, a colourful maze book called Amaze-ing Journeys.

Picture from Google Books

I can survive a serving of Samyang 2x spicy noodles today and it's all thanks to her!

Eventually Yaya decided that she wanted to go home and build a house and family with the money she had saved while working here, so she left. I don't know where she is now or what she's doing, but one thing is clear: a part of her will always remain within me.

Checking in: Recess Week, Year 1 Semester 1

* This is a non-scheduled post. In other words, HOT OFF THE PRESS!!! *

It's the midpoint of the semester and there's a one week break. Some people call it recess week, which is actually the official term, but others refer to it as "reading week" instead because immediately after this week come the midterm tests.

Naturally, recess week is usually used for studying for the midterms and catching up on various assignments. I have been occupied by such pursuits too for the past few days, but I felt the need to take a bit of time off today to write this post. I was going bonkers having to read and write academic (read: lousy) writing and wanted a change, if only for a couple of hours.

So let's talk about what I've been up to over the past several weeks.

I mentioned before that I'm taking 6 modules this semester. My favourite one is EL1101E: The Nature of Language. The lecturer is very good and she brings across all the important information in a clear and organised manner. I also love the interesting content. Just as a taster of what the module is about:

How do you know what are possible words in English? Some words simply don't sound right to us if we are native speakers but linguists need a system that's more concrete than that. The rules governing sound patterns that can be present in a particular language are called phonotactic constraints. An example of a phonotactic rule in English is: In a complex onset, the first consonant with the exception of [s] must be followed by a liquid or glide. What does that mean? When a word has at least two consonant sounds at the start, the second sound must always be the sound of the letters "l" ("place"), "r" ("fragile"), "w" ("quick": made up of the sounds "k", "w", "i", and "k", phonetically transcribed as [kwɪk]), or "y" ("curious": "k", "y", "u", "r", "i", "uh", "s", phonetically transcribed as [kjuːrɪəs]), unless the first sound is the sound of "s", in which case there is no restrictions on what the second sound can be ("spoke", "smoke", "scale", "snail", "slide", "swear").

Isn't it exciting!? You'll never think about English the same way ever again after taking this module.

On the flip side, I don't really like FAS1101: Writing Academically and GER1000: Quantitative Reasoning. I feel that they were made compulsory with good intentions but something got messed up along the way and the whole module became irrelevant and a chore. For FAS1101, it focuses too much on argumentation and philosophical debate. It fails to cover what in my opinion are more vital topics like how to do referencing properly. A couple of online lessons are devoted to this but it's not enough because referencing is full of intricacies that could trip up even the most careful writer, and yet making a mistake could land said writer in hot soup for academic dishonesty. The module is also too narrow in scope: not all writing done in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences conforms to the "thesis statement + supporting arguments" mould. I know for a fact that very little of such writing is done in the field of psychology, which is dominated by journal articles reporting the results of studies and which use the "Introduction + Methods + Results + Discussion" format. In communications and other subject areas, writing tends to be more discursive rather than argumentative in nature. FAS1101 would be more useful if it was designed to acknowledge these differences and spend a few weeks on each type of writing, rather than using up the entire semester on building a single piece of argumentative essay.

As for GER1000, it could just be that I'm an arts student so I struggle with mathematical concepts. But I really think the module kind of misses the point of why it exists in the first place. As claimed during the first lecture, the module is supposed to equip us with the skills and knowledge to critically evaluate reports of findings and data that we may encounter in our daily lives. For example, if we see a newspaper article claiming that "Eating more eggplant boosts libido", we can use what we have learned in GER1000 to decide whether or not to believe the conclusions drawn in the report. Well, so far, I've learned how to calculate Risk Ratio and Odds Ratio, Symmetry Rule, Simpson's Paradox... But nothing that really helps me to, you know, decide whether or not to believe what I see! All those fancy stuff I mentioned are only useful in the back end, when you have all the necessary raw information to work with, but not to everyday consumers. Oh wait, they taught us the maxim that goes "Association/Correlation is not causation" but I could have told you that three years ago, when I was barely into my first year of polytechnic. And even non-psychology polytechnic students learn it. It's old news.

Funnily enough, the two modules that I'm most emotionally invested in, NM1101E: Communications, New Media, and Society, and PL1101E: Introduction to Psychology, are kind of non-descript. NM1101E has cool content that's relevant and up to date with real life, and PL1101E is a good old-fashioned "memorise a ton of facts" psychology module. I have not much more to say about them except for one gripe: I feel a bit lost and anxious about how to study for these two modules. The NM1101E lecturer doesn't really follow the textbook and adds in a lot of his own content, which is good. But I can't help but wonder what will come out in the test and examination. Will he ask about the extra things he covered during the lectures but which are not in the book? On the other hand, the PL1101E lecturer sticks closely to the structure of the text, but picks out a few key points (or what he calls "learning outcomes") from each chapter to cover in depth during the lectures. Does this mean he will set questions based around these learning outcomes, or should students just boil the textbook into soup and drink it?

I don't understand this university stuff. I'm so confused.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on my first one-sixteenth of my university education. Only 15 more similar segments to go...

RuneScape: Reflections of a childhood gamer

Many of us 90s kids would recognise some classic games that we grew up with: MapleStory, NeoPets, AdventureQuest (commonly referred to as BattleOn), and RuneScape, among others.

We probably remember rushing home from primary school every day and speeding through our homework, so that we could have permission to play with the computer. Back then, it was common for each household to only possess a single machine, so our parents controlled its usage quite tightly.

Our homework duly completed, we would wait impatiently as the Windows XP computer booted up slowly, and laboriously established a connection to the internet through the dial-up modem.

Then we proceeded to snatch up the mouse and launch Internet Explorer, type in the URL to our favourite game, and breathe in wonder at how people could possibly have created such an amazing world inside of a tiny glass box that isn't real.

I might've romanticised it a bit but I'm sure some readers will be nodding in recognition. Computer games were not as ingrained into everyday life as they are now, and experiencing a game for the first time was a significant moment in the life of a child. It was sort of like a rite of passage, that said: "You're a legitimate user of the worldwide web now."

My maiden brush with computer games came in Primary 3 when a friend introduced me to AdventureQuest. Man, was I hooked on it! I always wanted to play. But the servers were so old-fashioned that they could only accommodate 8000 to 12000 players at any one time and were always full. That was very frustrating because it meant that sometimes when I was free I couldn't log in.

But I'd say it built character. It taught me the value of perseverance. If I really really desired something, I had to be willing to work for it and be patient. So I would sit there for hours, repeatedly clicking the login button and seeing the failure message, pressing Back, then clicking the login button again in an endless cycle until suddenly someone somewhere in the world logged out and I would be rewarded with a place in the game.

That was the early version of a First World Problem!

Anyway, another friend later showed me how to play RuneScape. I've not stopped playing since.

For those who haven't seen RuneScape before, it basically involves exploring a massive open world with other players in a multiplayer setting. There's something for everyone! For people who live to die, the northern area of the map is a free-for-all combat zone where you can fight other players. Be warned, though. When you die, you lose everything your character is carrying! If that scares you, don't worry. You can still train your character into a mighty warrior without ever laying a finger on another player. Just look for computer-controlled monsters that are of a lower level than you, so you can kill them to get experience points to increase your level without putting yourself at risk. Fancy a little relaxation? There are plenty of peaceful skills to play with. Fishing, cooking, crafting, woodcutting, mining... The list goes on.

As with other role-playing games, there is a levelling system and players must gain experience points to progress and unlock new abilities. But RuneScape is notorious for its grind. A quick illustration: to get from level 40, the level at which you gain the ability to catch lobsters, to level 99 in Fishing, you will have to catch 144414 lobsters. And how to catch lobsters? Simple! Click on the frothy water and wait. Lobsters will appear in your inventory, each granting some experience points. If the water stops frothing, look for another part which is frothy. When your inventory is full of lobsters, put them in the bank so you can cook them later to obtain experience points in the Cooking skill. Then come back and click on the frothy water again.

If you think that sounds horribly repetitive, it is. If you wonder how anyone in their right mind can get addicted to a game as lame as that, you're not alone. I sometimes wonder that myself... And I'm a dedicated player!

The thing is, RuneScape isn't for everyone. Lots of people try it out once and swear never to touch it ever again. Especially when these days, everything is instantly gratifying and attention spans are shortening at an alarming rate. The kids now aren't going to be excited to go home and play a game where all you do is click and wait. Heck, some adults won't even think about playing it themselves. This has resulted in RuneScape becoming a rather niche game with a small community. Those of us who still play are die-hards from the noughties and most of us are at least 20, with some already married with kids of their own.

But it's a pity. RuneScape has taught me so much. I learned that copper + tin = bronze from the Mining and Smithing tutorial in RuneScape, before anyone else my age knew what bronze even is. I learned how to read a map and find my way around using landmarks and the words "North, South, East, West". I learned how to do business and make money by buying low and selling high. I learned how to use Google more effectively when I got stuck in certain quests. I learned the hard way how to avoid scams when I fell victim to one a long time ago.

And through it all, I've had so many great times. Something as basic as standing by the riverside, rod in hand, shooting the breeze with fellow fishermen. That's the essence of RuneScape and what keeps me coming back again and again. Not forgetting the heart-pounding triumphs, such as slaying Elvarg the green dragon and earning the right to wear the rune platebody armour. And the random acts of kindness like when a player with a higher level gives me 1 million coins for no apparent reason.

I wouldn't consider myself a RuneScape junkie by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly there are people out there who spend far more energy on the game than I do. But I've been around in the game long enough to be a veteran, and have a reasonably high level to show for it. Not bad for a purely free player who has never spent a single dollar of real currency on the game, and plays only sporadically when time and life commitments allow.

Here are some photos of my in-game character. That gold-highlighted armour he's wearing cost a fortune but looks awesome!

In front of the Citharede Abbey

Just outside Falador city

The Grand Exchange marketplace at Varrock

Jetty at Musa Point on Karamja island

Shantay Pass

The cape shows that my account is at least 5 years old. Next year I become eligible for the 10-year version.

Ah, so much happiness in a single blog post. 🙂

Recipe for Jonathan's Fizzy Fruit Jelly

***This post is adapted from one I wrote on Facebook dated 29 September 2016. Since I have this blog now, I decided to transfer it here to complement my other recipe entries like my Berry Blast mocktail. Also, the weather has been terribly hot recently so this would make a nice treat.***

I love watching cooking and mixology videos on YouTube for fun, and my favourite channels are Jamie Oliver's Food Tube and Drinks Tube, as well as Mobile Home Gourmet by Dennis Viau. Recently I came across a recipe for Summer Fruit Prosecco Jelly. For those who are unfamiliar, Prosecco is a sparkling Italian fruit wine. Adding it to jelly gives the jelly a nice fizz on the tongue.

I dislike the taste of alcohol, so I wanted to try making a similar jelly with a soft drink instead. Using Jamie's recipe as a base, I experimented with replacing the Prosecco with 7-Up, and discovered that it works just as well. Jamie used gelatin sheets to make his jelly from scratch, but I used Tortally premix, which is readily available in all major supermarkets at an affordable price.

Image from Boon Supermarket

Below is a description of how to make my Easy Non-Alcoholic Fizzy Fruit Jelly.

Ingredients:
One 1.5-litre bottle of 7-Up
2 packets of Tortally lime flavour premix
250ml hot water
250ml cold water
A box of grapes

Serves 8-10 (I used the colourful plastic cups from IKEA. Depending on the volume of your cups,  the number of servings yielded might be slightly different.)

Method:

1. Place the 7-Up and grapes in the coldest part of your refrigerator for at least eight hours. Alternatively, put them in the freezer for about four hours. This makes the ingredients very cold and ensures that the bubbles from the 7-Up will not escape when you add the drink to the jelly mixture later.
2. Boil 250ml of water. Take it off the boil and add it to a bowl. Add both packets of premix and stir until all the granules are dissolved. Add 250ml of cold water from the refrigerator. Stir until the mixture is at room temperature.
3. Portion the mixture equally into serving cups, making sure to leave about a third of the cup free. This should give you eight to ten servings.
4. Take the 7-Up and grapes out of the refrigerator. Add two grapes to each cup. Top up each cup with the 7-Up. Do this as quickly as you can - you want to avoid letting the ingredients warm up or the 7-Up go flat.
5. Give each cup a gentle and brief stir - make two slow rounds in each cup with a spoon - so as to get all the ingredients mixed uniformly together without driving out too many of the bubbles from the 7-Up. Place all the cups in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours.
6. Enjoy your jelly!

Possible variations:

• Try out various soft drinks to replace the 7-Up
• Experiment with different base flavours for the jelly mix
• Use other types of fruit

Did you make this dessert? Let me know how it went and what suggestions you have to improve the dish!

Plans for Jonathan's Junkyard: The second half of 2017

As I mentioned previously, I will be starting university in two days.

Of course I hope there will be work-life balance. Common sense tells me that as long as I manage my time decently, I should have time to pursue interests other than studies. After all, many students work part-time, participate in extracurricular activities, maintain boy-girl relationships (before I get lynched, let me amend that: "maintain romantic relationships regardless of whether it be between members of the same or opposite gender, or individuals of nonspecific gender, or any other human being not covered by the above categories"), and still graduate with Honours.

But the online horror stories are difficult to ignore. I worry about staying up till the wee hours every day, struggling to keep up with the myriad of readings, tutorials, assignments, and test preparation, skipping meals and surviving on stale air and my own tears. Am I just overthinking and being dramatic?

One thing is for certain: this first semester will be an uphill battle. Before writing this post, I read a 24-page chapter from Cruz-Ferreira and Abraham (2011) which is the required reading for Week 1 of the module EL1101E: The Nature of Language. To be honest, it was an easy read compared to some of the psychology readings I have done in the past, but I felt like poking my eyes out with a fork.

The problem is that I have been away from the full-time academic life for about a year now. Last September, I went on a full-time internship, after which I did my Major Project before graduating in May this year. The last time I did five or six modules in an academic semester was in the April 2016 polytechnic semester, which was a lifetime ago.

So frankly my skills for coping with academic readings and other tasks have gone a little rusty. They will return but it will take a while, during which I will probably struggle.

With this in mind, I have prepared a series of blog posts in advance which are now sitting in the system awaiting automatic publishing. I will not let this blog go dark. Even if I have no time to write new content, the ones in storage should be able to last until my next holiday in December at a posting frequency of about once or twice a month.

To the handful of followers I do have, thanks for supporting and reading my stuff, and this announcement is mainly for you. The next few posts you see here, in the months of August, September, October, and November, are scheduled posts UNLESS they are preceded by a statement to the contrary. Nevertheless, they are written exactly the same way and I hope you will continue to enjoy them.

See you on the other side.

National Day 2017

It's Singapore's 52nd birthday!

I look forward to National Day every year. The whole country just seems so alive!

My favourite part about National Day is the annual theme song. I have a weakness for them! Some of them got panned quite badly but I love them all.

Of course there are some that I like more than others. I tend to associate certain songs with key events in my life, which always seem to happen around this time of year. So you'll notice that a couple of the songs I particularly enjoy are there simply because something important happened to me that year.

What Do You See (2009)

This holds a special place in my heart because it was the soundtrack to my intense preparation for the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), which is a defining milestone in the life of any Singaporean child. And I scored 271 to top my primary school cohort to boot, making the memory all the sweeter.

Tomorrow's Here Today (2016)

Last year's theme song is also pretty cool as it provided the backdrop to me getting my first job at Adecco Singapore. As I mentioned in another post, that internship was fun, fulfilling and enriching all round. Good times!

Because It's Singapore (2017)

And of course, this year's coincides with me entering university, also a significant event.

My Island Home (2006)

This is here on its own strengths. I just love the melody and lyrics!

Home (1998 and 2004)

Dick Lee is the best local songwriter in my opinion, and Home is hands-down the best National Day song of all time. It's evergreen and can be sung by normal people, but most importantly, its words hold so much meaning and emotion. I remember being in Primary 1 when the version performed by the children's choir was shown on television. The sound was so soulful and left a deep impression on me.

One United People (2003) and We Will Get There (2002)

Both are upbeat pop numbers by local singing sensation Stefanie Sun. They are notable for being among the few National Day songs with a fast tempo. I like their cheerful and positive tone.

I got a little carried away with the list! But really, I seriously adore these songs and listen to them again and again to soak in the festive spirit. Hopefully this post has reminded you of all the wonderful music we've had over the years, and inspired you to go look them up on YouTube just in time to participate in this very special day.

Once again, HAPPY NATIONAL DAY!!!

Starting university: Year 1 Semester 1 preview

This is not a drill.

I will be starting university next Monday.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this. On one hand I'm excited. The long break I've been on since April was getting bothersome as I didn't know what to do with myself every day. At least studying is doing something. Furthermore, there are lots of interesting modules in the university that I can't wait to try.

On the flip side, I'm apprehensive about a lot of things. University is a step up from polytechnic and I'm afraid I won't be able to cope with the heavier demands. Multiple-choice questions in tests and examinations now also come with a strange new mechanic called negative marking.

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Negative marking

We all had to do problem sums in primary school right? You might recognise a type of problem sum that looks like this:

In a Maths quiz, each pupil had to answer 20 questions. 5 points were given for each correct answer and 2 points were taken away from each wrong answer. Mirabel answered all questions and scored 79 points. How many questions did she answer correctly? (Taken from http://studyroom.sg/11/)

Don't waste your time working out the answer (which is 17, by the way). I just wanted to use this example to illustrate what negative marking is. Basically, it means taking away marks for wrong answers. Sadistic eh? And who knew that those irritating problem sums were actually based on real life scenarios? I certainly didn't. Not when other problem sums talked about Ali carrying home 25 watermelons, Shruti baking 148 cupcakes, or Ah Boy raising 37 horses on his farm!

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A new school and new environment also means new people. That frightens me. Heck, even old people frighten me.

But I have to simply suck it up and move on, and survive as best I can like I always have.

Preview of Year 1 Semester 1

This is something I intend to do before each semester. I will write briefly about my CORS bids and modules I will be taking during the semester.

But first, what on earth is CORS?

Many adults I know, and even some of my peers, have problems getting their head around the concept of bidding for modules. But it's really not that hard to understand.

In NUS, the Centralised Online Registration System (CORS) functions as the "auction house" where we go to "buy" our modules of choice. Before every semester, we are each given 1000 points to spend. We typically take five modules per semester. This means we have to split the 1000 points among the five modules we want. No, we can't simply put 200 points on each module because some modules are more popular than others for various reasons and go for a higher price. Also, naturally a student might want one or two out of the five modules more urgently or fervently and choose to bid more for them and less for the other modules. So all these have to be taken into account when weighing up the bid amounts.

Let's look at a practical example from my own CORS bidding exercise. I was pre-allocated two-and-a-half modules so I only bid for three more. Pre-allocation simply means you are given the module and don't have to bid for it, though you do have to pay one point. I wanted NM1101E, PL1101E, and EL1101E.

Those three modules are paid for using the Programme account, which holds 600 points out of the 1000 with the other 400 going to the General account. I had 598 points left after paying for two of the pre-allocated modules. The third was paid for with the General account as it is a university-wide compulsory requirement. Note that this 600-400 ratio applies to students from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) and may not apply to students from other faculties.

So basically I had to split 598 points among the three modules. I looked at historical trends to base my decision on. PL1101E is traditionally expensive because it is required for psychology majors and psychology is a popular major. NM1101E was a strange creature. In some years it went for one point while in others it spiked to almost 200. EL1101E is insipid and can be secured for one point most of the time.

Obviously I bid higher for PL1101E and NM1101E. But during the bidding exercise itself, it is possible to react to the situation too. This happened when I saw that the number of students bidding for EL1101E was about 100 fewer than the total capacity of the module. In cases where modules are undersubscribed like this, everyone who bids gets the module for one point. I also saw that PL1101E was oversubscribed, with more bidders than available places. With about an hour left before the close of bidding, I slashed the allotment of points for EL1101E and redistributed them to the other two modules.

After the close of bidding, and in the event that a particular module is oversubscribed, the system will rank all the bids from highest to lowest, and the top X will get the module where X is the quota of students accepted by that module. All successful bidders pay only the lowest successful bid amount, with the rest of their bid points being refunded. Unsuccessful bidders are fully refunded.

Leftover points are carried over to the next semester's bidding exercise.

I hope this crash course in CORS helped you to understand it a little better if you aren't acquainted with it already! Moving on...

Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory option

This is important to know as I will mention it again later.

The Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory (S/U) option allows students to "wipe away" undesirable grades. The modules that are S/U-ed will still contribute modular credits (MCs) towards graduation as long as the student passed, but the grades will not be counted in the calculation of the Cumulative Average Point (CAP).

Of course there are rules. Students can only S/U 32 MCs worth of modules, or 20 MCs for polytechnic diploma holders, which is equivalent to 8 or 5 modules respectively. Not all modules are S/U-able: only Level 1 and a handful of Level 2 modules are eligible.

The common practice among students going for Honours is to S/U anything worse than a B-minus, though judgement and caution are required. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

My modules this semester

CFG1010: Roots and Wings
Number of MCs: 2, so I call it a "half-module" as a regular module is 4 MCs
Grading: CS/CU, does not count towards the CAP or S/U allowance.
CORS bidding result: Pre-allocated for one point from the Programme account
Format: There are no physical lectures and only two face-to-face workshops in the entire semester, although obviously some effort is required for coursework in order to get the CS grade.
This is a career-preparedness/lifeskills/motivation/meditation/leadership/some other fluff module. It is pre-allocated to all freshmen in either Semester 1 or 2 by default. Although it has not been formalised as a graduation requirement at the time of this writing, it is a prerequisite for ALL internship modules including Compulsory Internship Programme modules like NM3550Y.

GER1000: Quantitative Reasoning
Number of MCs: 4
Grading: Standard letter grades, eligible for S/U
CORS bidding result: Pre-allocated for one point from the General account after successful appeal through CORS
Format: All lectures are e-lectures and face-to-face tutorials are held on alternate weeks
All students in NUS will be pre-allocated this module. In my case, I wanted it this semester as the schedule was a match made in heaven with my other modules. But I was unlucky and it was not given to me at first. Fortunately, my appeal was granted and I was pre-allocated the module in the end. The module is about statistics and probability, and is intended to impart skills such as scientific and critical thinking so that students will stop blindly believing any report that has numbers in it. Correlation =/= causation, anyone?

FAS1101: Writing Academically
Number of MCs: 4
Grading: Standard letter grades, eligible for S/U but if I am forced to S/U it I would be a disgrace to my Academic Writing lecturer in Temasek Polytechnic
CORS bidding result: Pre-allocated for one point from the Programme account
Format: All lectures are e-lectures and face-to-face tutorials are held every week
The title of the module is self-explanatory. This module teaches students how to write academic papers. Its sister module, FAS1102, teaches writing for public consumption in various formats. Students in FASS take one module in their first semester and the other in their second, with the exact order being decided randomly for each student.

EL1101E: The Nature of Language
Number of MCs: 4
Grading: Standard letter grades, eligible for S/U but if I am forced to S/U it I would be a disgrace to my mother, who graduated from NUS with a Bachelor of Arts in English
CORS bidding result: Bid two points, won for one point
Format: Face-to-face lectures and tutorials every week
This fulfils part of the Exposure requirement where FASS students have to explore the introductory modules from the three divisions within the Faculty. I am actually quite excited for this module. Its content includes things like phonetics, morphology, semantics and syntax. I would love to know more about what goes on in the English language and how everything works!

PL1101E: Introduction to Psychology
Number of MCs: 4
Grading: Standard letter grades, eligible for S/U but if I am forced to S/U it I would be a disgrace to the entire Psychology Studies department in Temasek Polytechnic
CORS bidding result: Bid 303 points, won for 10 points
Format: Face-to-face lectures and tutorials every week
My plan is to do a minor in psychology so this is one of the modules I must do. What more can I say? This module touches on the key areas of psychology like biological, cognitive, social, developmental, and abnormal. Assessment is 100% test- and exam-based with plenty of memorisation necessary. In other words, a bog-standard psychology module. I predict a lot of my stress coming from here...

NM1101E: Communications, New Media and Society
Number of MCs: 4
Grading: Standard letter grades, eligible for S/U but if I am forced to S/U it I would be a disgrace to myself
CORS bidding result: Bid 293, won for one point
Format: Face-to-face lectures and tutorials every week
This is the basic module for my intended major in Communications and New Media (CNM). It touches on the three areas within CNM: media studies, interactive media design, and communication management. I hope this will be a fun module with plenty of coursework, to offset the dreariness of some of my other modules.

I will be taking on a total workload of 22 MCs this semester. This is slightly more than the usual 20 MCs because of the extra 2 MCs from CFG1010, but that module will have to be cleared at some point so I might as well do it now while I still have all my S/U allowances to fall back on if I drop the ball on any of the other modules.

Well, just like everything else in my life, the next few months look set to be a crazy and wild ride. I can only buckle up and hang on, take things one day at a time, and see what comes out on the other side.

Lay's Thailand: Exotic flavours

A very close friend went to Thailand for a holiday and brought back some Lay's potato chips for me.

The potato-chip enthusiasts among you may know that the Lay's sold in Thailand is quite different from the ones we find here in Singapore. There are so many more exotic flavours to choose from!

Here are the ones I tried:

Hot Chilli Squid

Image from eBay

The chilli was not overpoweringly spicy, allowing the taste of the squid to come through clearly while still providing a nice tingle of mild heat. I ate this pack over a few days, and the chips stayed crisp despite the repeated opening and closing of the bag.

Garlic Butter Scallop

Image from AirFrov

Layers of nuanced and well-balanced notes take turns to fade in and out of the forefront, combining into a harmonious symphony of gastronomic bliss. When you first put the chip in your mouth, you will get all the usual potato-chip experiences: salty, umami and moreish. Then, a hint of garlic fragrance will make itself known, followed up quickly by a familiar yet somewhat unexpected taste of Hokkien mee. Yes, that hawker favourite of fried noodles and seafood. Even the slightly charred smoky smell is there. Delicious! I polished off the entire bag in one sitting because it was just that good.

I have one more flavour my friend bought that I have yet to try. The package for this one is completely written in Thai so I have no idea what the flavour is. When I get around to consuming it, I shall attempt to figure out the ingredients and write another post. Stay tuned!

Google AdSense

I was clicking buttons in my blog control section and discovered that it became eligible for AdSense.

For those of you who don't know, AdSense is Google's advertising scheme for content creators like bloggers and YouTubers. Basically, joining AdSense allows Google to place advertisements on your blog or YouTube videos, and you get a slice of the revenue generated by those advertisements.

I was a bit surprised that my blog is qualified to be part of AdSense. It doesn't get any web traffic and my viewership numbers are in single digits. My mailing list has four subscribers of which two are my parents. All in all, it really is my little dusty corner of the internet, only of interest to myself and a few people close to me and literally no one else in the world.

But Google's artificial intelligence (AI) apparently thinks putting ads in my little dusty corner would be a worthwhile venture. I'm flattered. Not! I think it goes to show that AI is overrated and there's nothing like human judgement.

I won't sign up for AdSense. It's not that I don't want the money. Of course I want the money! But it just makes no sense (pun not intended) at all for me to register.

With such low readership, I would earn a few cents a month. AdSense will only transfer money into my bank account if it owes me a lump sum of SGD150. I might not even get paid in my lifetime!

Furthermore, even if I wanted to use AdSense, I wouldn't know how to because this banking thing is beyond my comprehension. I rarely interact with money in either physical or virtual form, so it kind of intimidates me when I have to read about, think about, or otherwise deal with money in any way. And I don't even know my own bank account details.

I mentioned before that this blog will not be monetised and remain purely a hobby. I won't lie though, when I saw the AdSense option, I was tempted. Why not earn a bit of passive income for something I enjoy doing? But then I realised how silly the idea is, and immediately discarded it.

This blog will stay as a fun personal project on the side. I'll go look for money elsewhere.

My primary school food memories

Continuing the theme of reminiscing about food from my childhood days, this week I wanted to go way back to the times I ate at my primary school canteen.

Well, my principal insisted on calling it a cafe, because I suppose it sounds better and more high-class. Being the pioneer leader of the school (it was a new school and he was the first principal ever), he even made sure the design of the chairs were suitably cafe-like, with those wiry bits wrapped around a metal frame akin to what you might find at a cheap outdoor dining establishment. His attention to detail extended to the food stalls themselves, which had cute little awnings in the style of a French marketplace.

The food was cheap and good. My three favourite dishes were:

#1 Fishball noodles

The Chinese noodles stall was, together with the chicken rice stall, the most popular, with long queues forming during every single recess session. Its signature offering, fishball noodle soup, was only 60 cents. Each serving consisted of one factory-made fishball which was mostly flour, some thin slices of fishcake (yup, from a factory), a heap of yellow noodles with very strong alkaline smell, and lots of MSG-laden soup. Looking at the description I just wrote, I feel a little freaked-out. But at that time, as kids, that fishball noodle soup was manna! For those who wanted variety, there was also prawn noodle soup, chicken noodle soup, and laksa for 80 cents.

#2 Curry chicken rice

From the Malay food stall came this gem of a dish: 80 cents for a large mound of steamed white rice, slathered in a flavourful gravy of robust curry, with a juicy and tender chicken drumstick on the side. The curry was spicy, and was richly perfumed with the unmistakable aroma of copious amounts of curry leaves, coconut milk and other spices. I really loved this curry chicken rice and would eat it multiple times in a single week!

#3 Hainanese chicken rice

To be honest, calling it Hainanese chicken rice is a bit of a travesty. But it was white, and contained chicken and rice, so hey, I labelled it as such. At $1 (later increased to $1.20), it was one of the most expensive foods in the cafe. Maybe they knew they had the monopoly on this uniquely Singaporean food, and when the craving strikes, people will still pay. I would scoff at the laughable rendition of chicken rice now, but it was all the rage then, with its stringy shreds of tasteless chicken, bland rice, and watery chilli sauce.

It might seem like I hated the canteen food, but that is not true at all. When I was in primary school, I thought the food was AWESOME. Only now that I am older, wiser, more discerning and perhaps more fussy do I realise how simplistic and unhealthy some of the food really was.

Having said that, I guess you cannot expect much more from food being sold for a dollar or less in a school canteen, can you?

First look: My orientation experience at NUS

This is what orientation should be! A series of lecture-style briefings on everything you need to know about being a student in that particular institution.

Not a bunch of silly games and mindless cheering which achieve nothing except make everyone fall sick from excessive laryngeal utilisation, physical exertion, and prolonged close contact with a large number of people.

Or worse, thinly disguised orgies like the scandal that erupted last year.

There will always be those who enjoy such "fun" orientation camps but I definitely am not one of them. That's why I didn't sign myself up for any.

Instead, I derived great satisfaction from the two days of orientation talks that were held on 26 and 27 July.

The topics covered ran the gamut, from bidding for modules to graduation requirements, library resources and even fire safety.

Did you know that a standard American living room needs only 48 seconds to get completely engulfed in flames due to a small spark in the lighting on a Christmas tree? I didn't either, until the presenter for the fire safety talk showed this video.

I don't have the faintest idea what the point was in telling us that. Maybe to demonstrate the awesome destructive power of fire so that we'll pay more heed to the danger?

Anyway, between the sessions, there was time for me to check out the nearest canteen, called The Deck. I had my first taste of sustenance from it as an official NUS student: a cup of fresh pure apple juice ($1.50). Delicious and reasonably priced!

I really liked the orientation talks. Much of the information can easily be found online but there's nothing like hearing it directly from the people in charge themselves.

Now I just have to anxiously await the results of my Qualifying English Test (QET) and hope I don't get forced into taking extra remedial modules... Then the excitement begins when the bidding exercise opens!

5 food-related things I miss from my childhood days

What would life be without the rose-coloured tint of nostalgia?

I may not even be 20 yet, but I'm certainly old enough to have experienced lots of things that are now consigned to the history books.

And being the glutton that I am, I thought I'd compile a listicle of foodie memories that I particularly treasure from my early years.

Let's get into it, shall we?

#1 KFC @ Kallang had free flow of soft drinks

I used to have horse-riding therapy at the Riding for the Disabled Association (Singapore), and after the sessions my parents and I would often go to the KFC branch near the National Stadium for dinner. That outlet was unique because it was housed in a standalone building of its own, with an attached open-air carpark and drive-through counter. But the best part was it had free flow soft drinks! It doesn't have that anymore though. Nowadays, finding a food joint offering free flow soft drinks makes me want to dance a little jig because it's so rare!

#2 Hans @ Pickering Street

Although I didn't eat at the recently defunct flagship store of the Hans Cafe franchise very much, it still holds good memories for me. Their Hainanese pork chop and curry chicken were the stuff of dreams, and strolling around the area and seeing how conservation shophouses and modern glass structures meshed together into a harmonious explosion of aesthetic wonder provided such a great complement to the whole ambiance.

#3 Mussel Guys @ VivoCity

When I was in primary and secondary school, which by the way was an extremely long time ago, VivoCity was my favourite post-exam hangout spot. On a couple of occasions, my father took me to eat at this small casual-dining restaurant called The Mussel Guys. The food there was comforting and I remember they had a killer rendang dish, as well as a lip-smacking lobster bisque. Sitting in front of the full-height glass windows, enjoying the view of Sentosa without having to go outside into the afternoon sun... That's my definition of a perfectly relaxing day out.

#4 Farms

Going even further back, to my time in kindergarten, I recall going on a field trip to the local farms around the vicinity of Lim Chu Kang. We visited the quail farm and Hay Dairies goat farm. At the quail farm, I sampled some quails' eggs and a herbal quail soup that was so delicious I went back for seconds (there was more than enough because my classmates all recoiled at the taste of the soup). And at Hay Dairies I began my love affair with goats' milk that continues until today (I benefited again from the squeamishness of my peers as I got to claim all their unwanted milk). Unfortunately, the quail farm was closed to the public after the emergence of bird flu, and I will soon no longer be able to buy local goats' milk, due to the government's utterly heinous, loathsome and despicable plan to bulldoze all the farms to make way for more housing to accommodate foreigners we don't actually need, and more training grounds for their beloved white-elephant excuse for an armed forces. (drops mic, steps off soapbox)

#5 Buffets had fewer strings attached

It seems very common now for buffet restaurants to impose all sorts of terms and conditions such as time limits. I even saw an advertisement on Facebook the other day in which a Japanese buffet restaurant touted its special offer for our 52nd National Day, boasting free flow alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages... for the first 52 minutes of your meal. How corny is that! Back when I was a kid, a buffet was a buffet. Pay one price, sit there and stuff your face until nothing else can go in. Why do you have to go and make things so complicated? (Avril Lavigne, 2002)

The sad truth of the F&B scene in Singapore is that small operators come and go and even the big companies have to tighten their belts every now and then in response to high rentals and labour costs. So uncovering a little gem of a foodie paradise in your neighbourhood can sometimes prove to be a dangerous game. Who knows whether the place will survive a few months down the road? It's quite likely that it'll close down after a short while, leaving you tearfully distraught and questioning the meaning of your existence in this world.

On the flip side, there's always ample opportunity for new entrants to the market, or even for old friends to make their triumphant returns. I'm too young to have eaten at A&W before they left Singapore, but now they're coming back I'll get to try it!

Social media: the good, the bad, and the downright ugly of online behaviour

As some of my regular readers may know, I have an interest in the field of communications and intend to further my studies in that area. I plan to get a job in the industry too, after graduating from university.

So I thought in this post I would talk a bit about online etiquette. This is something that I think is quite lacking, not only in Singapore but all over the internet in general.

As we all know, technology has made radical changes in the way we live our lives, and will continue to do so. Of importance to the communications practitioner is how it has transformed the way we transfer information, interact with one another, and air our opinions in the public sphere.

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are no doubt blessings in many ways. For example, in the context of Singapore politics, alternative points of view which may have previously been easily censored by the establishment can now be quickly and widely distributed through Facebook sharing. This has resulted in an unprecedented pushing of the "OB markers", such that freedom of expression and room for debate do exist to a certain degree today. In order to avoid being left behind, or worse, labelled as blatant state-controlled propaganda mouthpieces, mainstream media outlets like The Straits Times have taken care to present both sides when discussing issues of national importance such as the Little India riot (Kaur, Tan, & Dutta, 2016). This demonstrates the power of social media. Besides breaking down barriers and opening up taboo topics, it takes the lead over traditional media sources in charting the future direction of discourse and the exchange of ideas.

However, there is a dark side to this unfettered ability to speak one's mind for the world to see. The convenience of typing out messages on the go, coupled with the anonymity afforded by the virtual space, has made it more tempting than ever to be abusive towards others. Unfortunately, this causes levels of antisocial behaviour that are unacceptably high.

Flaming is a word that has taken on a completely different meaning in the modern times. It used to conjure images of things burning, such as a house on fire or a juicy beef patty on the grill. But now it connotes hate and anger directed at another person, brought to life as a stream of vitriol, typically delivered by a set of fingertips dancing across a keyboard in a dreadful rhythm.

Very often, it is easy to forget that on the other end of the connection lies a living, breathing human being just like us. As a participant in Mishna, Saini, and Solomon (2009) said: "... it might be easier to (say more hurtful comments) because you do not see how much they are hurt by it.”

The problem is even worse for service providers, companies and organisations that have a presence on social media. Because of their "non-human" appearance, frustrated customers and members of the public do not hesitate to hurl torrents of frightful language at them. What everyone fails to realise is that behind every Page is an administrator or group of administrators. Yes! People, as in actual humans, do go through those messages, and feel the pain from them.

I wish people would be more civilised on the internet. The golden rule "Treat others as you want to be treated" applies to our dealings online as well. Before pressing Send on anything, put yourself in the shoes of your counterparty. If you were them, would the message bring about negative emotions? If so, think about how you can phrase your message in a more constructive manner. Robust arguments are always welcome as long as they are conducted in an orderly fashion. That means no personal attacks, swearing, or irrelevant statements.

And please, have a little sympathy for administrators of organisational social media accounts. I have seen first-hand how that job wears people down mentally so bad that it starts to cause their physical health to deteriorate too. They have to be on alert 24/7 thanks to the omnipresence of social media, and constantly walk on eggshells as one wrong move could result in a massive public relations disaster. Hate-filled messages just add insult to injury and are totally unnecessary.

Of course you can give negative feedback about an organisation, but do it with tactful diplomacy. Instead of saying "Your staff's attitude sucks. You are a useless piece of sh*t organisation! Just close down already.", say something like "I was disappointed with the level of service your staff provided. Their dour faces were unpleasant to look at and ruined the ambiance. Perhaps you could consider sending them for some customer service training." Notice how the latter feedback pointed out the problem specifically, and suggested steps for improvement. The former was just insulting.

Given my career aspirations, I take pains to be nice when corresponding with organisations online, as I know that one day, I might be the one on the opposite side of the conversation. So when I am finished talking to a particular organisation for the time being, I always make it a point to thank the person behind the account. Like I said earlier, the work is not easy, so if I can bring a smile to that person's face with a few extra words of appreciation and encouragement, why not? I would certainly love receiving such a message if our roles were reversed.

Our actions online have a very real impact in the offline world. We may not see it and its effects may not be immediate, but believe me when I say it is there. People have lost their lives because of events that happened on the internet. Social media has so much potential for good... But it can also be used for evil.

Which side will you stand on?

References:

Kaur, S., Tan, N., & Dutta, M. J. (2016). Media, migration and politics: The coverage of the Little India Riot in The Straits Times in Singapore. Journal of Creative Communications, 11(1), 27-43.

Mishna, F., Saini, M., & Solomon, S. (2009). Ongoing and online: Children and youth's perceptions of cyber bullying. Children and Youth Services Review, 31(12), 1222-1228.

Why I don't intend to write a biography

Over the years, various people have told me that my life is very interesting and inspirational, and encouraged me to write a book about myself.

But don't hold your breath, because I have no plans to do so anytime soon.

I'd rather stick to blogging like this. There's less pressure to produce content fast enough to meet deadlines while maintaining quality, because the way I blog now is quite casual. I write whenever I want to write and I write about whatever I want to write.

Getting a book published is a whole different ball game. The first challenge would be finding a publisher willing to give me a chance. Then I'll have to contend with numerous editors and sub-editors breathing down my neck constantly. And once the book has crept through to the finishing line, it'll need to stand up for itself in the open market.

Why put myself through the stress?

Quite frankly, the thought of writing an entire book about myself both bores and scares me in turn. I don't think my life is THAT exciting, that people will actually pay money to read about it. I certainly wouldn't pay a virus to buy a biography of someone like me. An ex-soldier who fought in Afghanistan, a famous footballer or singer, yes. But not just any-old-body whose only claim to uniqueness is the fact that he has some exotic disease.

The beauty of writing blog posts is that they are short and each revolve around a different topic. It never gets stale for me because I'm always writing about something new. A book, on the other hand, is a very long piece of writing about the same thing. How painful is that!

I've read biographies by other disabled people and boy were they excellent home remedies for insomnia. The trouble is that disabled people are often held up as figures of inspiration. So when disabled people write their life stories, they play up the element of inspiring-ness, because that's what the public wants to see, and that's what sells more copies.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I love money as much as the next guy. But I'm not going to fleece people out of their hard-earned money to line my own pockets by selling them some cock-and-bull story that's 10% truth and 90% drama.

I'm not about to pander to anyone's fancies. Maybe people do derive inspiration from observing the goings-on in my life. That's cool and they are perfectly welcome to continue. I draw the line at the point where I actually start inducing people to be inspired through my writing.

My writing in this blog aims to entertain. Above all, I want people to read my blog and have a good time. Maybe they'll laugh, maybe they'll cry, maybe they'll learn something new. But most importantly, I hope they will be intrigued and enjoy their experience with my blog.

Preaching has never been on the agenda, and it never will be.