In response:

The first attempt was made by Claire Tan, defensive having just memorised a tome of SEA hist statistics: “What? Is this your attempt to be a historian?” But further attempts made by geographers instead seemed no less incoherent: from Yoong Ren Yan was the response “The east is beast?” *gasp*. From Deborah Ong, the response was less shocking but no less revelatory: “The east is least.”

Daniel Lim was determined to restore scientific order and related a most enlightening discovery: “Given a mapping of a three dimensional great sphere, it follows that there is no spherical coordinate for which there exists a point in its positive azimuthal unit vector that violates S symmetry constrained by the holonomic spherical condition. Therefore, by Neother’s Theorem, the postulate is wrong.”

But Huang Jiahui was not to be outdone. In swift logic that would silence any opponent, he expounded his world view on fervently religious grounds: “The trade winds blow from east to west. This is a clear heavenly portent directed towards the west, indicating that the west must be more favoured by the gods. Since the gods are always right, the west is better.”

Matthias Chia, however, dumped his religious sensibilities in favour of cheap Singaporean frivolity: “Jurong got loads more foreign menial labourers, Geylang got more foreign sensual pleasurers”. Upon learning that this would appear on Facebook, he quickly amended his answer to a possibly more decent (but no less incorrect) thesis: “The west has Douglas Lok, the east has Lihui: the verdict is clearer.”

But Li Hui Ng would have none of that. Her response was sharp and clear: “To the extent that there are hot hunks, ice cream and tornadoes there, the west is best.”

In the same thread of fangurling, Robyn Constance Yzelman sang (without sound): “The sun may rise in the east but at least it settles in the final location” (Californication from RHCP) Annie Zeng Jingyin decided to retort with instead with a “Bonus Question: fangurl blabber>

Wenjie (Huang) also gave a rebuttal question: “I should stop slacking. Discuss. [25]” which was hardly surprising. Another not-too-surpising response was from Fong Jie Ming Nigel, who sang “Lalala” (again, silently) followed by stating a very pragmatic “obviously no. Plus, the ‘west’ isn’t homogeneous.”

XuanWei Chew, presumably under the influence of Sowden, responded with a Freakonmics-type “Sex is a more profitable industry than toothpaste.” And Aaron Tang, clearly having his mugging disturbed, would ask “Was that Econs or GP?” And Thia ShanZhi was obviously very puzzled: “Ok la. Depends on what. For education, I’d prefer the west.”

The two most surprising answers, however, came from two girls. Pearl Calista Lee responded with “Megan Fox. Full marks!”, effectively demanding the 25 marks. Joanne Ho’s reply was certainly a shocker: Yong Sheng is a kukuhead. Discuss with reference to his recent autistic behaviour”.

We know this to be false.

Actual post

N.B. Further additions:

Vincent Tjeng says: “No; Kazakhstan is the greatest country of the world, and all other countries are ruled by little girls.”

Matthew Chan says: “What?”

Pearl also says: “Wice is best but rice is nice.”

I’m grateful for many, many things, as one would probably surmise from the previous entries. The town where we stayed is beautiful, the team mates were fun to be with, the food was generally good. (one 20-inch and 10-inch pizza coming right up) By any chance, the photos should appear on FB after the CTs.

Which I am nervously ill-prepared for. I don’t know how I’m going to cope. 12 more days, and it comes. I haven’t started on even a quarter of my revision material. This is my least prepared paper, so I’m anticipating more disappointment from everyone around me, and worse, myself. This is no longer just a crisis of confidence. Sigh. Someone, help.

In other news, I watched 101 Dalmatians, Aladdin and When In Rome. The former two relieved fond childhood memories – especially since the tapes for those had gone mouldy and I forgot the story. The latter was enjoyable to some extent.

Back to APGP. Helppp.

Same people, same ways. Same life of successive failure.

We finished our tournament earlier this morning, and it sure makes me wonder why I’m spending possibly the most important times in my June holidays in La Crosse, where I should be studying instead. The 2-hour booklet competition was alright, and I should say that I was rather happy to come up with a significantly more creative solution than usual. But when I use “creativity” here, i really mean the sort of outrageous, completely impossible solutions that FPSI has come to encourage. It is of no small importance in American brainstorming that feasibility does not come in way of expressed “creativity”. This has left a distasteful impression that has been gradually growing for the past two days. The sheer focus on the enormity of America’s appetite for cheap creativity is mildly off-putting at best, and intensely sickening at worst.

I should comment on the sheer size – and the unquestioned social acceptance – of the stomachs of Americans. There is a good sample size here, given the 50 states represented. People pant as they walk and talk. Worse, the sheer size of the canteen at this university (Uni of Wisconsin-La Crosse) and the accompanying variety of food offered corresponds directly with the size of the people occupying it. The sight of people leaning over the dispensers, trays and racks to get more ice-cream, more pasta, more drinks, more food is a highly uncommon sight in Singapore, which could explain my disgust. It could be purely a function of social norms that invoke such a response, but I doubt that some part of it isn’t myself. My teammates seem fine with this image. Why do I even care?

Ah. My teammates. It has been awfully boring for the past two days as I struggle to communicate with people whose overwhelming chief concern is themselves. They spend almost all their breath on speaking about themselves. At dinner today I just gave up on talking and let them talk, deliberately dropping out of the conversation. As usual they discussed a wide array of topics, including and certainly not limited to themselves, themselves, and themselves. It is an absolute bore to spend time with people whose only daily observances, hourly mediations and minute ruminations are themselves.

Alright time to bathe. I shan’t bore you, if you managed to get to this part of the post. Tomorrow is free and easy, and I hope it will be as the name suggests.

So far the trip has been alright. To get to La Crosse, we had to take 3 planes. First from SG to Narita, then to Minneapolis, and a connection flight to the county of La Crosse. The former was spent mostly sleeping, the latter mostly hibernation and finally the final trip predominantly resting. The waiting time was unbearable and unproductive, in equal parts. 8, then 12 hours on your bum is hardly a state of utopia. Add an Edmund who spilt his 5th cup of water on our seats, and the relative primitivity (is this a word) of a plane without any seat screens for inflight entertainment – I know. The last trip was only an hour long, but the Delta Connection flight was scheduled for 50 people, had 49 passengers and then deplaned 2 passengers because of “flight safety and balance issues”. So much for the corporate slogan “together in style”.

(Oh an afterthought: the food from delta is surprisingly palatable. We were “deceived” that we would only have one dinner meal on the 12 hour flight and anxiously ate $13 noodles in Tokyo. We ended up with 4 meals instead. In total, over a period of 26 hour flight, I had eaten 8 meals, with 4 tubs of yogurt to boot.)

We boarded the chartered limo bus, which was clearly equipped for alcohol. There were over 20 racks for wine and liquor bottles, which we used maximally. The moment we boarded, the radio begun to play “Party in the USA”, which was very appropriate.

And then the hotel. It was not bad, and they moved in an extra bed since there were 3 guys sharing the 2-bed room. But you see Jeremy was fully obsessed with sleeping with us, and so we slept together. It was distinctly de javu experience. In the Scholar’s Cup finals in Korea 2 years ago, the RI delegation was in the same room he was thoroughly scandalous about it. We slept at 10 – the earliest I had slept in years.

Today we explored La Crosse, which is really quite a quaint town in Wisconsin. Unlike Singapore’s “heritage areas”, the buildings here are infused with the cultural integrity of this place. They contribute richly to the scene of what is a deceptively small county. That was what we discovered as wetoured downtown today after breakfast, walking through the characteristic grid streets. They were more anxious to buy souvenirs for their friends, having prepared a list of people to buy for. Edmund and Jeremy brought an insane amount of USDs.

I was far more keen to observe the architectural uniqueness of this place. It is really a beauty here. It is really marvel. It is geographically endowed with beautiful back alleys, quaint facades of shops throughout the town. The buildings are mellow and the signs of decay are breath-taking. It is the way the place matures that subtle inspires a gradual but firm admiration. We wandered through an immense bookstore selling everything from Sexual Health t0 Motivation, from Tolkien to various book of the Bible. Another was a huge antique shop, which comprised 3 levels of tightly-squeezed antiques of any type imaginable. The thing is there were people there: perusing the books, wandering the antiques. Then there were the sandwich joints,  candy stores, and the sort of sundry shops that traditionally make up a small town. Despite some elements of modernity, life here is rooted in the past, but in a non-dreary or overly “cultural” way.

After lunch at a pizza joint offering 20-inch pizzas, we visited the co-op supermart and were quickly back in the hotel. So we’ve done our practice problems. Well done to us. Ms Mok is sitting next to the window, her feet on the bed, and evaluating our stuff. Jeremy is telling me: “If they’re gone by the time you finish typing, too bad.”

He really is referring to the excellent local black berries. I can’t believe I’m staining Edmund’s keyboard typing this. Okay seeya.

It’s been the longest winter without you
I didn’t know where to turn to
See somehow I can’t forget you
After all that we’ve been through

Going, coming,thought I heard a knock
Who’s there? No one
Thinking that I deserve it
Now I realize that I really didn’t know
If you didn’t notice you mean everything
Quickly I’m learning to love again
All I know is I’m gonna be okay

[Chorus:]
Thought I couldn’t live without you
It’s gonna hurt when it heals too
It’ll all get better in time
And even though I really love you
I’m gonna smile cause I deserve to
It’ll all get better in time

I couldn’t turn on the TV
Without something there to remind me
Was it all that easy
To just put aside your feelings

If I’m dreaming don’t wanna laugh
Hurt my feelings but that’s the path
I believe in
And I know that time will heal it
If you didn’t notice boy you meant everything
Quickly I’m learning to love again
All I know is I’m gonna be OK

Thought I couldn’t live without you
It’s gonna hurt when it heals too
It’ll all get better in time
And even though I really love you
I’m gonna smile cause I deserve to
It’ll all get better in time

Since there’s no more you and me
It’s time I let you go
So I can be free
And live my life how it should be
No matter how hard it is I’ll be fine without you
Yes I will

Thought I couldn’t live without you
It’s gonna hurt when it heals too
It’ll all get better in time
And even though I really love you
I’m gonna smile cause I deserve to
It’ll all get better in time

But what right do I have to complain? The Urban Geog teacher is, in reality, a really nice guy. The thick booklet attests to the significant accumulated effort  which one should not so frivolously dismiss. Clearly the problem lies with the notes, not the teacher.

To show to myself that I’m not like one of those complaining coffee shop uncles, and to qualify this rant, it is only fair that I have my own notes, and make sure they’re better. So all complaints are backed-up with a clear template of what notes can be, instead of empty rants complaining about the world. These are based on notes from the package, condensed into a neat 40 pages, 10% of the original 400. This is meant to be a complete replacement of the A level geography syllabus.

Most facts are checked; while no accuracy is guaranteed, I’m sure it won’t list “free clinic for homeless” as a long term solution for homelessness, or worse: recommend “open markets and eradicate barriers” to create more jobs for slum-dwellers in Bombay.

Tags: A levels, cities, Geography, notes, study notes, urban, urbanisation, urbanization

Reba McEntire, Take It Back (1992)

(apologies for the minor reba craze)

Yesterday was my first time at Cyrene Reef, and it was amazing Went with Teamseagrass for a monitoring session (work before play!), thanks for inviting me Ms Ria! Sunrise at Cyrene One of the many Knobbly Sea Stars (Protoreaster nodosus) all over the place at Cyrene Cyrene reef is a submerged reef (meaning it is submerged at high tides, but at low tides, BAM! a 1km or so stretch of land suddenly appears in the middle of nowhere), a 30 minute b … Read More

via Diary of a Boy wandering through Our Little Urban Eden