momentum

when there's nothing to blog about, i don't blog. when there's too many things to blog about... i don't know where to start and i end up not blogging either. it's probably good for my time management anyway.

vic and sl are in town for a 2 week training camp. 4-day cycling trip coming up next weekend.

and then i'll be flying back to sg on 19 may to join the team flying to holland for the delta lloyd regatta. back to sg for the s'pore laser trophy from 2-6 june, qualification event for asian games later this year. by the time i return to sydney classes will have ended and study break will have just begun.

in other words, now is the time to start doing proper work. force times distance in the direction of the force.

how to give a good lecture 1011

1. keep your students awake. this can be accomplished in a number of ways - audience participation, engaging slides, doing a dance...

2. be confident. appear as if you know what you're doing. would be a lot easier if you did indeed know what you were doing.

3. be clear and concise. don't spend 5 minutes meandering about before getting to the point. 

4. raise thought provoking questions. make students look beyond the 5-mark exam question and see the bigger picture.

5. be passionate, have a good sense of humour, have fun!

this was written sort of in admiration for my physics lecturer for the first 6 weeks, joe wolfe, who was the most animated lecturer i have yet seen. although it was hard to learn from his lectures because of the speed with which he went through examples, he taught with such great energy and passion, conducting 2 minute experiments and putting on a delightful show for us students. sadly the lecturer for the following weeks is as dull as ditchwater. he's not the only one either.

sailing at forster's

travelled 4 hours north of sydney to wallis lake to sail a university fleet racing/social regatta from 8-10 april. photos courtesy of brett goodall.

liz and i also sailed this formula 16 'viper' catamaran with double trapeze, capsized it without knowing how to upright it... had to be rescued by kingsley, pretty unbecoming of us laser sailors!

cheers!

shiok

Originally a Malay exclamation, but now a universal Singaporean expression denoting extreme pleasure or the highest quality.

1. “This char kway teow is damn shiok, man!”

2. “I ate the char kway teow until damn shiok.”

taken from the coxford singlish dictionary. but doesn't that make it seem like the only thing that deserves to be labelled as shiok is char kway teow?

awesome

it's a strange feeling to be among people of extraordinary creative talent and/or who possess extraordinary vision. not the same feeling as when you stand among people of authority, people of supreme intelligence or great athletes even. among the latter you feel appreciation, admiration perhaps, and maybe you'd go wow, this guy is amazing. but when you're sharing the same space as creative geniuses, somehow the atmosphere in the room is transformed, and you get the feeling that something very special is happening right here, right now, and you're there to experience it first hand, and you don't really want it to end any time soon. priceless.

thoughts, 3 days after attending jan utzon's speech about his dad, Jørn, at the unsw scientia building. thanks kwong for calling me along.

songs on repeat

beirut - after the curtain

brad mehldau trio - dream sketch

jimi hendrix - little wing

beirut - scenic world (lon gisland ep)

clann zú - there will be no morning copy

simon & garfunkel - anji

so much for going to sleep early tonight

craziest day ever. 

"new monster avenue".

shadows on the broad lawn,

canopy of trees.

sometime after midnight,

the ground is gonna freeze.

birds in the frosty air,

what are they doing there?

greenhouse full of butcher's broom,

breezes at my back

some time before the sun comes up,

the earth is gonna crack.

I look down at my hands,

like they were mirrors.

fresh coffee at sunrise,

warm my lips against the cup.

been waiting such a long time now,

my number's finally coming up.

all the neighbors come on out

to their front porches,

waving torches.

find this song seems to hint at something much more.

moving into a strange new and delightful world. 

but not everyone is welcome.

not everything is welcome.

 the mountain goats are playing at the manning bar on april 13th.

meanwhile i'm catching the dirty projectors tomorrow. should be fun. acapella indie rock.

the best is yet to be.

i meant to speak about this sooner, but been a bit worn out from being my sporty, competitive self. in the last week i've played table tennis, lawn bowling, cricket, volleyball, soccer, gone kayaking, running and cycling, and even a little bit of frisbee. everything but sailing it would seem.

but today is a big day. been thinking about this day for a long time. for the last two years i've been venturing out and actively finding things to do, to fill my time. i found new ways to distract myself. two years of zero studying... do i still have it in me to sit in a lecture theatre, listen, take notes, understand what's going on, not fall asleep - in short, learn? is there still that classically chinese singaporean mugger hiding somewhere inside me.

so i've just returned to my college from my first 2 lectures, on algebra and calculus respectively. confidence booster for me... i followed pretty easily, the concepts came back to memory... somehow maths is just comforting to me. complex, imaginary numbers, absolute values... i've been away for a while, but it wasn't long before i was right at home.

so the next concern is whether i am in the right course - whether i need this to refresh my memory or whether i could perhaps proceed to the next level or something. do i need this, um, revision?

chemistry lecture at 1pm.

today is acs founder's day.

in days of yore, from western shores, oldham dauntless hero came...