Reflections

I went for the first day of Coach Training at AKLTG today. It was very fun (to be expected), but I also learnt new things, and not all about coaching. I learnt more about myself. And I'm still quite confused. Which is good, cuz that means I'm learning, building neuro connections and getting smarter. Yep. ;)

Anyway, the reason why I'm so confused is because of this girl I met. She's enthusiastic and outgoing, but to the point (I feel) that she doesn't seem to have any sense of boundaries. It's not that she doesn't respect them, it's more of like, she doesn't appear to realise they exist, let alone the extent. Leme give you a few examples.

Today at lunch, one of my eyelashes fell and stuck to my face. She removed it with her finger. Okay, I'm not sure if it's because she's a girl, and feels comfortable with such contact, or it's just me. But since is didn't know how to react, I didn't, and let her remove the eyelash. Next thing, when we were walking to the MRT station, she said something funny and then grabbed my arm for support as she laughed. Again, how much of it is just me, I don't know. Regardless, I feel uncomfortable.

I mean, I came from a boys school, and didn't have much interaction with girls. So I feel uncomfortable when a girl constanly touches me. Not that I don't like it, it's just that it isn't the norm in my Model of the World. I don't know if it's normal in her world, or if she's dropping hints. Here is another thing I doubt myself in, because I historically don't recieve much attention from females in my generation.

Anyway, my solution, or rather, my gameplan today, is to find out alot more about her, and ultimatly find out if her behaviour is normal to her, or if she's dropping hints at me. I'm flattered if that's so, yet I'm not sure if I'd reciprocate.

Damn I was supposed to post this 2 days ago. See how lazy I am? Zzz...

Okay first 2 days back at school. Summary time!

Monday was awesome. I made a pact to myself, to get Zs (the grade representative of Distinction) for all my subjects. If I don't like a subject, I will force myself to. At the minimum, a B+.  I made files to file my lecture notes and tutorials, so that when I look at a subject for the day, I just grab the file and everything I need will be inside, hafta use a filing system, last semester, my notes were so disorganized and crappy. I must make the effort to organize. And so I did. I'm happy.

Over the holidays, I've been thinking I wanted to take Psychology as a Cross-Disciplinary Subject (CDS) more than I wanted Basic Financial Accounting (BFA), so I applied for a switch. Imagine my surprise when my lecturer, Ms Rita Choo (who, by the way, is one of the most awesome people in TP), called me and told me I could take both. I immediately accepted. My timetable's a little crazy, but I can cope. I WILL cope. I will EXCELL. People call me crazy, but I don't care. I had to buy notes for Psychology and Quantitative Analysis, a core subject of my course. Can you see that they appear to be on opposite ends of a spectrum? One so left brained and mathematical, the other so right brained, emotional and about understanding people and the way they think. So I guess it was kinda weird for an outsider to see me request notes on Psychology and Quantitative Analysis. ;)

Anyway, today was fun. First, we had CORE, which is Core Financial Business. We had to form teams, so 4 people (Lisa, Jie Ni, Zi Xuan and Qi Yong) had to draft the rest of us, in a modified wheel fashion. What that means is that, person A picks one person to add to their team, followed by person B, until person D has picked. Then the next round of picking starts with person B, followed by C, then D and back to A. And so on. I was quite sad to be one of the last picks, but it did tell me that I hadn't proven myself to be a very useful person last semester. This sem, I'm going to change that. I'm gonna be the one to add the most value to the team. Anyway, long story short, Lisa picked me, and I'm gonna put in my 100% for this project.

Okay Tuesday. It was a full day for me, as I had lessons til 4pm, then skating at 6pm. I'm just gonna skip straight to skating. It was after skating, and most of the skaters had skate off to Tampines 1 for dinner, leaving less than half behind. I kept going around, asking people to join me for dinner opposite, as I hadn't eaten, and my mum didn't cook for me. I usually depend on dinner with the skate team on Tuesdays. Anyway, no one wanted to eat, until I finally convinced Song to acompany me.

I guess it was a blessing in disguise, cuz we had a very deep conversation about the meaning of life, religion, and the end of the world. Very fun.

When I started the Financial Business Informatics (FBI) course in TP, Problem Solving and Programming (PRSP) was one of the subjects I had to take. Before, I had no interest in programming, but I soon found it so elegant and logical, and since I didn't have Mathematics as a subject anymore, this became sort of it's substitute. I found it easy to understand, and found myself sailing through the class (I got an A). And although I'm not too proud of it, after the 6th lesson, I started to not pay attention to my teacher, and instead did the assignments in class. When I encountered something unfamiliar, I opened up the instructions sheet that my teacher, Ms Nami, had uploaded. This meant that I finished way earlier than my classmates, so I started on my project for the subject. Once, I realised that the class had gone quiet, so I asked my friend what we were supposed to do. He showed me, but I couldn't find the html file. I had done the php assignment earlier, but it needed to reference a html file, and I couldn't find it at that point. I took a look at what the php file required from the html file, and referred to past html files to create a new html file for this php project. Only when I had successfully completed the assignment did I turn to my friend and brightly said "Done". He looked at me and asked why I was so slow; he'd finished a long time ago. Only then did I realise that Ms Nami wouldn't have set us the task of making a html file when we weren't even taught. Apparently, when she had told the class to do the php assignment, she'd uploaded the html file there and then, and I hadn't bothered to check or ask for it.

That was the turning point for me. I realised that I wasn't just good at this, I had a knack for it. The next few weeks, I completed my project assignment with 3 weeks spare, while my classmates struggled with the last question: creating a Minsweeper game that plays itself, generating random numbers to open up random positions. That took me a while, but I eventually puzzled it out by myself.

Back to the present. Uncle Michael sometimes works with my dad, managing IT portions of projects. He owns an IT company, and has recently started teaching me this programming editor: Python. Since Monday (18th Oct), he told me to create a program that can check websites for certain pieces of information. Specifically, searching the html of a webpage to find the name and last price of Stocks. I stumbled over the first assignment, because I was unfamiliar with Python, and had no tutorial to guide me. My codes were messy, and the first 2 attempts I made only worked with assumptions. My search tool was clunky, and all these problems arised because I didn't know Python well enough. Eventually, I succeded. Actually, it was this afternoon, when I finally found the missing puzzle piece, and it worked like a charm. Assignment 2 (also finished today) was to upgrade this program: using a .txt file as a reference, without constant user input, so that when one item is changed on the .txt file, the Python file can still run. One only has to input data into the .txt file once, and the program runs.

For example, if I want to check my portfolio of 3 stocks: IBM, Dell and Citigroup. All I have to do is type it in the .txt file, along with the quantity of stocks and purchase price, and my program will check the respective webpages for the last price and current value of the stocks. If I want to add one more stock, say BAC, I just add it to the bottom of the .txt file and my program takes it all in stride, producing perfect results.

I'm very proud of it.

I just finished attending a 2 day course called Optionetics. They taught me how to trade Options. Trading options are usually better than trading actual stocks, because there's much less risk involved. However, it is also tougher to understand, if you don't have a background in stocks and technical analysis.

I'm gonna open a trading account on my next birthday in February. Yay!

Oh I've grown into a lazy sod, I have. Totally didn't blog about anything these past 3 weeks.

I've been working 8-5.30pm every weekday, so I've been kinda tired. Weekends are for Magic, and I've been quite busy since the new set came out. Filled with deck ideas. But that's for www.planeswalkerz.blogspot.com. 

Anyway new developments: I started learning Options. Daddy's been teaching me and getting me to read books about it. I'm going for a 2 day course this Sunday and Monday. Quite interesting. It's like stocks, only with much less risk. That's awesome.

Skating: I've finally learnt the J-turn. Can't apply it on the cones yet, but I found the trick: I have to toe my left foot even before I pull it back. Then swing my shoulders for extra boost. I've also learnt Chap Chap, although still choppy. At least I've got the movement down, and my speed is picking up. My Korean Slide is still really slippery, I can't guage the roughness of the floor properly, so sometimes I lean back too far and fall backwards. Other times I don't lean far enough and I stop suddenly. I also fell alot. Feels like the floor beat me up.

Lol. Oh yea, 3 days ago on monday, I helped this girl who lost her way. I was walking back from Brendan's and she stopped me, asking for directions to Bedok South Road. She was heading towards Chai Chee, and since I was going to Bedok South myself, I invited her to follow me. Found out some interesting bits of info:

1) Her name's Vanessa
2) She's a year 2 in TP
3) She's in GET (Games and Entertainment Technology)
4) She smokes

Yeah it's kinda disappointing that she smokes (HATE SMOKERS), so I didn't ask for her number.

At least I feel good that I helped someone. :)

Alright! I learned the K-Slide, or Korean Slide, today! Fun fun! Now I have a cool way to stop. My power slide is getting boring.

Work is pretty meh. Yesterday I was folding cardboard boxes, today I was in the clean room with Troy. We had to put on so many pieces of clothing that I felt like a Muslim woman- everything must cover up, only eyes can be seen. I put on my lab coat and was like, Good afternoon, Doctor Marcus, is our patient ready? Then I saw us in the mirror and was like: Its day 21 of the zombie outbreak. We still have not found a cure. And then I went inside and was like, woah, we're all blue ninjas!

...

7.50pm I'm at Resorts World Sentosa!!! And I get to go on all the rides free!! A unlimited number!!! And it's free!!! Whoo!!! Lol. I'm going on the roller coaster first. Related to Shrek I think. I haven't had dinner yet. Starving.

We went on a Dragon roller coaster. Not just any dragon, but on Dragon. Whoo!! That was exhilarating!!! But kinda short. ADRENALINE RUSH!!! I'm feeling good about my decision not to bring a bag. It would've been a millstone. We're going on the Shrek 4D Movie/Ride.

Shrek was pretty meh. Okay it engaged most of your senses except smell an taste, and it did have pretty funny puns, but overall boring. Especially after the ride. We had dinner. I had a Tandoori Chicken Wrap, which came with Lays potato chips and a Sprite. I wanted a Milk Shake, but their machine was broken. I settled for an ice cream sundae. It was $11.80 in total, but with my $10 voucher, I paid just $1.80, as far as I'm concerned.

Lol me and my food.

Anyway, we went on to Jurassic Park. The Canopy Flyer was first. Waited 40 minutes only to go for a 1 min ride. I was so bored I measured the intervals between each car that left. 25 secs. Lol. 

After that we went for the Revenge of the Mummy ride. Now THAT is a ride. It was the best ride by far, and we went twice! The first picture they took, I wasn't even aware they'd taken a photo. My hands were up and covering my face. Lol. The second time I did my best to look bored in the picture, but I'd angled my face a bit too much, and I just looked stupid. Sigh..

We wanted to go for the Rapids ride next, but it was closed due to technical difficulties.

Overall the RWS is quite fun, but it was too bad the Red and Blue Roller Coasters weren't open. I wanted to go for that. None of the other rollercoasters went upside down... 

I eventually left at 11.30, and I joined the longest que yet: the que for the monorail back to Singapore... Lol.