On the plus side, I got back my results and I have to say I was a bit stunned at some of them. Just to give you an idea, all 4 of my subject marks have a range of 5% (that means, the difference between the lowest and the highest subject marks is 5%). I've never had marks with such a small spread before. Ever. The second and more amazing thing is that, for all 4 subjects, I lost a total of 25% only. The third thing is that the highest subject mark was a subject that I thought I screwed up the exam a bit. But I really praise God for the results because I could have dropped dead at any moment doing the crazy but fun assignments or just have a brain overload but He sustained me through. He has been merciful at times when I just felt like "Oh what the heck, let's paint the town red today" with 2-3 days left to submission. Not very smart on hindsight.
The next biggest thing to happen was that I got the chance to be the casual photographer for one of my medical friends who graduated a few days back. Another not smart move was that I've decided to take along my film camera and my digital and somehow most of the pictures were in the film. And I bought an Astia for the job. That's putting a lot of eggs in one basket. On the plus side, I feel special since during the "photo taking" time, every 1 in 2 people you see have a DSLR on their hands. I was the only one actively taking photos with this '75 film camera. On the negative side (hehe), it did give me unnecessary pressure in taking the shots which means that Murphy's Law might be creeping around the corner. Oh, and the other good thing was that I got to talk to one of the photographers who was with my friend's housemate (also medical student) all because she spotted my film camera. She's quite an interesting person. She reminds a lot of Lydia Lee, the missionary that OCF is supporting in Singapore but not as hyper. We both started checking each others equipment and chatted from there on albeit sporadically. She was an Olympus user with a Sigma lens. That's something you don't see everyday. And likewise from her now that she knows I'm using a Pentax. But she has apparently 9 rangefinders in her possession and she showed me one of hers, a Yashica model. Can't remember what was the focal length but it was cool. Not as heavy as a friend's Voigtlander. Anyway, yay for another film user. On a tangent, is it just me or are most of the film users Singaporean? I can only name one Malaysian who does film (when he can).
Spent the whole day with my friend's family, whom I've met most of his siblings already but it was an interesting experience meeting them in person. Not to mention some of the other medical students families as well. For one person, when I saw his mother I was at a loss for words. She has quite a good number of years to her name, grey haired and all. But she was like a textbook example of aging gracefully. Normally you wouldn't associate gracefulness or elegance of her age to a person who has probably gone through more than half a century of life experience but she really is the epitome of those qualities. It gives the impression that she has a wonderful character, one that I'm sure my friend's father would already know. It's something we, in our current society, fail to praise such women or even fail to see them. I knew of the story on how his parent's met and he couldn't understand how that could happen because he doesn't see his father doing or saying things to his future wife when they first met. Now I can probably understand how it all happened.
Also another interesting thing, now that this friend of mine just got a girlfriend, she was introduced to his mother and I was being a ninja behind a bush of people and I saw this impression/expression on the mother. It was faint, hardly noticeable to the everyday in passing person but there is no mistake about that when you do see it. It's something that I don't have a word to describe. Good thing there are several (hundred) words to describe it. There is a certain type of glow on her face as she talks to the girlfriend, although it was short in length, but there are many more things going on. For starters, it's the "She's a nice girl" but a bit more than that. It is probably closer to the look of "Future daughter-in-law?". I kid you not, if you were there with me you could have sworn you'd see it too. But there was something else to the impression/expression given her stature. It looked like she was reminded of herself when she was younger. I don't know how true is that but it certainly looked that way. Amazing isn't it how many words/thoughts/ideas can be passed on in an expression that lasts a split second?
And back to my friend's family. His parents were interesting, how they interact with each other, how they interact with us and so on. I've known most of his siblings except one who was quite a fair bit younger than the rest. She looked like a cross between a friend who recently got married and a friend from Adelaide. She's quite hyper but a bit of a slightly unconventional girl. She plays guitar, bass and drums but mostly on bass. The first I said to her when I heard that she played bass is "Keep playing more bass and drums! You're doing a huge favour to bassists everywhere and specifically female bassists". Quite an odd thing to say to a person I've relatively just met on hindsight actually. Despite her age, she does know quite a fair bit about bass which is a good thing. Gave her some pointers when we were chilling out in her brother's place. She's got potential and have it easier than me when I started on bass. First of all I started when I was 18, waaaay older than when she started. Second, I didn't have a person who taught me bass all the time unlike her. I had to figure a lot of stuff out on my own with little or no teaching and with lots of frustrating trial and error on tone-deaf ears. And thirdly, she would have the benefit of more experience by virtue of her age. Youth isn't always wasted on the young.
Went out for some drinks and then went back home to crash.
The following day, I missed church thanks to my sister waking me up early in the morning via noises and bumps downstairs. Basketball and captains ball soon followed but not without meeting up with Lydia and Brandon to do the long delayed physical wedding photo album. I'm clearly the least efficient of the lot but what matters is the final product. Dinner later with a bunch of friends and I was hooked on the specials menu they had because it sounded so good. Risotto with crab, garlic, chilli and saffron. *drools*. Unfortunately, the rice was a bit undercooked and there are no other flavours in the rice making it bland. Crab was cooked great but unfortunately that's the only good thing. So much drool potential on that dish but fails to deliver. Sigh. On the other hand, there was a good conversation going on although I think it was mainly between two people. Quite sad actually. But it was a really intellectually stimulating one but I guess no one either thought that far or would think about it at all. And then drinks at 1806 in conjunction with Yee Meng's birthday. They have really nice drinks there. Should go there more often. And after a few drinks, you really must have McDonalds fries. They are like the awesomest thing in the world.
Game update: 2/3 done with Supreme Commander.
News update:
The integration between man and machine is drawing ever so near.
Some people have no life, yet they are highly respected in their respectively communities for their feats or achievements.
Nice abstract.
Some bold claims on Singaporeans and Malaysians in the political scene in the aspect of news reading and reporting. And Rithmetic.
Interesting statistics on Malaysian citizenship. Or lack thereof.
Sounds like he was predicting his future when he penned that song.
MIT people completed a DARPA $40,000 challenge in 9 hours when it could have gone for 9 days. Talk about thinking light years ahead.
Who knew that wireless technology came from trying to answer a question about exploding black holes?
Something for Christians and non-Christians to think about.
I'm sort of jealous
I wish I had what they have
Mistakes do happen
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Praise God on your academic achievements!