自得其乐

Without the one-week vacation, it is indeed a lot less attractive than it was.

Only deadlines, deadlines, deadlines...

Luckily I have already taken a short trip home last month.

The urge to write is still as strong, but speed of writing is too slow and the time available is going down as the semester progresses.

Time to get back to study...

早在我回家前的一个星期，妈妈就告诉了我，在我回家之前，她会先去新疆旅行，这段时间里不但家里的电话不会有人接，连手提电话都有可能没有讯号不能接通，所以我一直没有在回家之前联络她的打算，反正回了家一样可以聊天嘛。

所以那天晚上我接到她的电话的时候，还以为她已经回到家了，谁知道她支吾一番之后就问我可不可以换个时间再回去，因为她的旅行推迟了整整一个多星期，如果我如期回家的话，她就只有一天多的时间在广州，而且还有可能要加班而几乎没有时间见面聊天。可是如果要放弃旅行的话，就不仅仅是放弃一次休息的机会，还要如常加班工作，也实在是不值得。

当时我就觉得很Orz，明天六点多的飞机，现在才来讲要改期，不是有点太迟了吗？况且这次回家主要的原因是和爷爷一起过他的八十岁生日，改了期就没有什么意义了。

于是我就很直白的跟她讲不是很可能，也解释了原因。她明显的有点失望，之后聊不到几句就草草挂线了。当时我也没有想太多，就马上回去实验室做出发前的最后准备。

忙完一切赶去机场，才不过12点多，吃过一点东西之后，我就跑去观景台看夜景，开始了漫长的等待，也渐渐能够静下心来想一点事情。

这次旅行，名义上是要回去跟爷爷过生日，暗地里是为了和一个即将远行的好朋友道别，那是不是就代表妈妈去了旅行也是不要紧呢？

想想这些年来回家很多次了，只有两次是为了她，一次是特意在母亲节回去煮一顿饭给她吃，另一次就为她和爸爸离婚时做见证。

然而就算我不管是因为什么原因回了家，到最后我也是常常把大部分时间花在和长辈还有和同学见面上，直到很晚才回家。每次回到家，见了面，她讲的话也就离不开“食啦食啦”（多吃点/吃点什么吧）还有“着多件衫啊”（穿多点衣服吧）之类的。听多了，我也就惯了随便应付过去了就是了。

比白开水还要淡，但是，谁又能离得开它？

于是有点睡不着。

不觉得饿，却又想吃东西，我就特意走到了机场的另一边吃快餐。

吃了一半，大约是凌晨三点多，突然间又接到的她的电话，原来她也是睡不着，又担心我一个人在机场过夜不安全，就打过来了。

还是那些问题：“饿了吗？找点东西吃吧。”“机场很冷吧，有没有带衣服去穿？”

我都一一详细的回答了。

然后我也问了她加班的安排是怎样，也提醒了她也要好好休息，不然去旅行就没有精神了。

两个人都有点忧郁，只是嘴上都不想说出来。

再聊下去，也不能改变什么吧。

“明天见。”

As funny as always!
As surprising as always!
As touching as always!

My avatar in the Simpsons' world! ^_^


Don't go immediately when the credits start to show. There are hidden scenes until the last minute!

还是忍不住了，花了一整个晚上把TC打完了，结果有很多该做的事情还没有做...Orz

我想英雄传说应该算得上是PC上的Final Fantasy吧，虽然第一第二代不算有名，但第三至五代（卡卡布三部曲）却是各有特色又环环相扣：《白き魔女》的牺牲，《朱紅い雫》里面亲情与友情的羁绊，《海の檻歌》对生命的歌颂，在卡卡布大陆三次面临可以毁灭世界的负能量浪潮的袭击这个主题下连成一体，当中精彩之处真是非笔墨能形容。到了第六代，在新的世界里，故事架构也变得更庞大，单单是一个国家的故事，就用了三个四十小时的游戏来讲，当中还埋了无数伏笔，所有谜团都要等到第七甚至第八代才能解决，按两年一个游戏的速度来说，应该要到我三十六岁才才能打完这个三部曲吧。

好遥远啊。×_× 还是先工作吧。。。

《白き魔女》

《朱紅い雫》

《海の檻歌》

《空の軌跡》FC

《空の軌跡》SC

《空の軌跡》TC

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Wow...Sibelius 5 is going to be released at the end of this month!!! Looks like there are quite some new features added. But the price is still VERY high -- 599 USD. Scary...@_@

http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/5/index.html

为什么论文的截止时间要推迟一个礼拜？？？

我不要再过这种每天对着同一篇论文12个小时的日子啦！

This is my 5th hour editing (in fact more like re-write) a previously rejected paper.

The more I look at it, the more scary it becomes: how could I have submitted a paper like this?

The basic content is ok, however, the flow is bad, the cohesion is not there, but there are lots of funny phrases, misused words almost everywhere.

Shall I blame myself for not seeing them two months ago or be grateful that at least I can see them all now.

I must have been blinded by the Ghost of Computer Science...

It looks like another 10 more hours of work to make this paper work.

一字记之曰：“短”。

工作日数少了 (遇上农历新年就更少了), 一切开支也少了, 但是月薪不变 (可能还有红包补助)!!!

绝对一年中“纯利润”最高的一个月!

昨天我还在为礼拜五要跟supervior开会而烦恼，今天check E-mail就发现他那天早上要开行政会议，我和他的例会推迟到下个礼拜二。

马上松了一口气。。。

虽然丑妇终须见家翁，但拖多几天对他来讲也是好事吧，起码不用在新年期间遇上不速之“（惊）吓”。

趁这几天，努力整容吧。

和上一次过年回广州尽兴地玩了十天相比，今年的春节就比较凄惨咯。

除了年三十去了朋友的朋友家吃火锅之外，年廿九，初一至初三都在编程中度过。（同届的广东人都回家了，所以完全没有出去玩。）

今天要开始赶做研究，礼拜五还要见supervisor汇报进度。

吉他练习，编曲，还有之前答应要写的信统统都还没有完成。

难道这是犯太岁的第一个征兆？

按照这样下去，今年大概是全年无休了吧。T_T

（结果，就去了网上购物安慰自己。。。）

10. Compose and arrange simple music
9. Improve on guitar/piano/vocal skill
8. Exercise regularly to put on some muscles
7. Blog regularly to keep track of life
6. Publish papers in international conferences
5. Travel in Europe
4. Pass JLPT level 2 and improve conversational skills in Japanese
3. Keep in touch with friends and family
2. Make and stick to plans
1. Learn, Learn and Learn

Finally, the end of my 1st semester in the Graduate Programme has come.

It is indeed a lot harder than I would have expected: challenging assignment, skyrocketed workload, high peer pressure, unresolved research direction, etc...

That's why I haven't been updating the blog for one whole month -- super over-stressed...(Luckily ensemble and daily jogging helped to maintain my mental balance. ^_^)

Well...I won't say things would have been a lot better if I have chosen at least some examinable modules or some with part-time postgraduate students: at least now I have a much early break to rest and prepare for the future.

For the coming vacation, I am going home for a short while, then come back for music camp, some research work and revision for the qualifying exam.

Then for the next semester, I will have one examinable module, two qualifying exams , some more research and, of course, Expose and Genus concerts. I think it should be much less stressful althought it requires even more consistency.

Nevertheless, I am still adjusting to the life of a research graduate. Hopefully I can soon achieve the lifestyle I have always desired: work hard, play hard and, more importantly, learn as much as I can.

Life is short, so live it.

Part (I)
Have no hint of what the title means? I was as puzzled as you are when I first heard this phrases in one of the presentations of the first academic conference I attended.

Ok...The first one is actually the pronunciation of "Ranking Process" by a Chinese researcher while the latter is in fact "the outline of my talk" by a Japanese researcher.

This is by no means sarcastic because I myself am famous for pronouncing "Sound" as "Sang (As in Mandarin)", "Count" as "Kangt", etc... It just reminds me of a simple fact: Your first language determines your accent, which affects all other languages you learn.

For example, most Chinese and Japanese people are quite weak in oral English. The lack of English speaking environment when they study the language is, of course, one reason; however, at a deeper level, they fail to pronounce accurately mainly because their first language has no direct counterpart for some of the phonetic sounds. One notorious example is the "th" sound, which has no counterpart in Mandarin or Japanese. As a result, you can hear lots of funny phrases like san-kyu, san-ke-you, dang-kyu. All of them are in fact just "Thank you" pronounced in a wrong way.

Part (II)
My first language is Cantonese. It is much richer in phoneme and tone than Mandarin. Therefore, I suffered far less than most people in mainland China when I learned English. Of course, as I mentioned previously, I have my own problem as well. That is something some of my ensemble friends like to point out and sometimes make fun of. Personally I feel quite ok about it since they never did this with a bad intention. Therefore, I actually have never thought of "perfecting" my English. After all, this kind of small shortcomings makes a person unique and realisitc. Moreover, I actually don't mind being "mildly criticized" from time to time. Because then you know at least you have a place (however small it is) in them. Otherwise they won't say anything at all, isn't it?

In my opinion, being hated by everyone is not the saddest thing in the world because that means you are still "something" in their mind.

But being ignored is.

Your Personality Profile

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant. Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle. You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs. For you, comfort and calm are very important. You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection. You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

At the beginning of summer, I thought I had a lot of part-time jobs I could take up. At the peak period, I had around 6 of them to choose from: 1) bringing the primary kids to outing 2) installing computers in the new NUS law faculty 3) helping out in the events organized by NUS alumni house 4) working in co-op bookshop 5) doing some research work with my supervior and 6) freelancing for a student company in NUS...

In the end, I got none of these jobs and I had decided not to do any part-time this summer. Just at that moment, I received an email on a assistant professor looking for part-time programmer. I said to myself: " This would be your last chance!" and I dropped the professor an email... Surprisingly, I was accepted without any interview. *_*

That's how my current part-time came about: s$700 dollars for one (or possibly two) programming assignments. I spent only 2 days to get the first one working...now waiting to see whether I need to make any changes to it and then I can start on the second...

Unbelievably good part-time, isn't it? Now I can earn more yet have more time with my family, which is totally impossible if I had taken up any of the 6 jobs above.

一切都是最好的安排。

Don't get me wrong. It is my room which became single again. ^_^

My roommate moved to another room one week ago. Since then I have been adjusting the location of my furniture to create my dream room. On top of that, I tidied up the living room and kitchen. Now they look even more cleaner than when I first moved in.

It's indeed a lot of work, but I feel great. Now I can do whatever I like in my room, without the need to worry about whether I am disturbing someone else. Here I am, my guitar, my keyboard and my mp3s! ^_^

今天去Watsons买东西，付钱的时候有一位女士拿着一大篮日用品排了在我后面。

未几，一个小女孩蹦蹦跳跳地拿着一样东西跑过来,大喊：“妈妈，这个你要不要？”

那位女士像是很喜出望外，一连说了好几次：“啊，宝贝，你怎么知道的，妈妈就是要这个，太谢谢你了。”

那个女孩看到妈妈这样高兴，也有点得意洋洋的说：“妈妈，我怕你流血嘛······” (晕!!!)

那个负责收钱的阿姨听到这里已经忍不住转过脸在偷笑了······

(那个“东西”当然不是“止血贴”啦）

It turned out that the surety only needs to be below 55 at the time of signing (instead of completion/execution of) the supplementary deed...I'm indeed 自寻烦恼...

If there is anything in the world that I am very very not good at, it would be asking my friends to do me a "big" favor. And here comes one: I need to find a replacement for the second surety of my scholarship deed.

The surety of the deed must fullfil the following 5 requirements:
(i) be a Singapore citizen/Permanent Resident
(ii) be above 21 but below 55 years of age
(iii) be gainfully employed
(iv) not be a party to an existing scholarship/bursary/study loan or any other agreement(this includes other scholars) except Tuition Grant
(v) not be a bankrupt

(i) and (iii), (iv) are the killing requirements. (i) and (iv) eliminates most of my PRC friends and relatives while (iii) eliminates all undergraduate members in the ensemble.

Survivors? I think only my supervisor and the alumni members in the ensemble...|>_
(Trying hard to avoid the replacement by: 扮无知。。。see how it goes)

After all the hard work, my baby ontology is born~~~!!!
Lalalalalal...still need to work out the utilities...@_@