Remember the pain that I had to go through when getting the police check? If you haven't, then please read the entry before this to get the whole context thus far. It turns out that pain isn't done with me yet.
When I accepted the slot given to be by the seriously rude lady on the phone, I didn't realize that on that day there are no flights to Canberra such that I will reach there on time for the appointment. Since I was very apprehensive to call again to change the day to a day where there are flights, I decided to look for alternate means of transportation to the nation's capital. After awhile of looking, I found buses that goes there. Caveat: The only feasible bus leaves at 8 pm and arrives in Canberra at 4 am. And my appointment is at 9 am. Nonetheless I took the bus to go there. Knowing that there is going to be 5 hours of very free time, I pre-planned a route to bring a camera and try and shoot around at night until it is time for me to go for my appointment. Not expecting much since my camera isn't great at night plus I'm going to have to live with the noise. Because Canberra is rubbishly cold at night, there is no way I'm going to be sitting still doing nothing outside.
To maximize my energy intake, I had a very heavy and late lunch before going on the bus and hoping to catch some shut eye on the way there. It was a good thing that I did that because the only stop that was made on the way there was at a truck pit stop just past Albury. Had a sandwich and a chocolate milk and this was going to be the only thing I would have eaten for the next 21 hours. The bus was alright, fairly comfortable and they even screened a movie when we left Melbourne, Something's Gotta Give. But for most of the time on the bus I was just playing Words With Friends (side note: Optus has pretty good coverage for me to be able to do this. 3 and Vodaphone users, take note) and looking out of the window. It was a very clear night and for most of the time you would be able to look out and see thousands of stars and even make out the Milky Way. A bit later on, the moon had just risen and seeing this rather large looking half moon hovering just above the horizon was something.
When I set foot in Canberra began what was to be my rather epic "photo walk" for 5 hours. Armed with an iPod and my camera, I set forth to cover at least a half marathon's distance in that 5 hours. The streets were ghost town empty, large open spaces and a lot of parks. Lots of rabbits and kangaroos about as well near the War Memorial site which was rather strange. There was even one time where I was "attacked" by an angry bird. This bird circled around me squawking and even flew past my head just a couple of feet away. This bird practically followed me around for a good distance until I had crossed the road into a park. I think if I were there a bit longer that bird would start pecking my head.
And then the real pain starts. After 5 hours it was time for me to go for my appointment. My legs were super tired and starting to get sore so I was hoping that this police check thing would be over quickly. Went to the section where I was to send in my application and everything is so archaic. You take a number by taking coloured laminated cards from a tray when you walk in. The interior looks like it hasn't changed since Mahathir was in power. The only thing that I can see that was up-to-date were Tourism Malaysia posters on the twin towers and Cyberjaya. I even thought that the potted plant next to where I sat was older than me. This lady came out and started calling out numbers to get the applications for the police check and all I thought was "Oh no. Please don't tell me it is that lady." I was the fourth person called and when she asked for my documents (rather rudely of course) it turns out that I didn't have one of the documents. The documents that was stated in their site were largely inconsistent so I didn't know that I had to bring in this document which was the Australia Visa documentation. Since most Australia visas are electronic visas and attached to the passport, I thought that this wasn't going to be a problem but of course it had to be a problem. The lady said that without a physical copy of the documentation they cannot process the application. So now I am really stressed that I now need to find a place to print the documentation and God knows what other things that can go wrong.
The nearest place it turns out to be was the Australian National Library and that was a good 2+ km away. On my way to the High Commission I noticed quite a number of taxis around. But when I was in need of a fast transport to the library, no available taxi is in sight. So with my very sore legs, I brisk walked to the library. I've had so many frustrations just to get the documentation printed out in the library such as I need to have a library account with them and had some hoops to jumps through for me to do that, some of the computers there blocked GMail (wth?) and the set of computers that did work couldn't send the documents to the printer for printing. So much time lost and I wasn't even sure what sorts of surprises the High Commission are going to throw at me even when I am done. The librarian there was probably the most helpful person I've met today so I was very very grateful to him. After finally getting the things printed, again I couldn't find available taxis to get back to the High Commission as quickly as possible so I brisk walked back again. My left leg socket was starting to act up at this point which is a pretty bad sign.
Got back to the High Commission, a good 1+ hour since I was "ejected" from there, and I took a number. That number was the next number after mine which means that no one else had come for the police check since I've left and the people who were in front of me were still there. Very inefficient but that is probably good news that they are still going to entertain my application. Barely 5 minutes from arriving and getting my things sorted out, the lady saw that I came back and sounds almost frustrated that I didn't call her the minute I reached there and she sounded like she is making a very big deal out of this. At this point, the people who were in front of me went on to see the lady's boss while I sat on a chair near the lady's desk for her to sort my application stuff. In that time, her phone was ringing quite often and all of them were asking for an appointment to get the police check. How she answered them proved to me that she was that lady. I am staring at the face of evil, an evil so vile it makes your blood boil the second she utters a single word. After each call, she mumbles to herself mostly in frustration while I scan her desk to find a name for this person to remember.
Then I got into a glimpse of the "appointment management system". And true enough, it was this calendar log book filled with the names and contact numbers of those who were to come in for the police check. On each day, there were no more than 12-14 names on it and that was the definition of a full day. As I will soon discover, the way they do things around there, they could have served double the number of people and still have time for all the usual breaks and an afternoon nap. Everyone who placed an appointment for a particular day, there is only one appointment time, 9 am, regardless of whether there is no one or 10 people booked in for that day. I soon realize that you could just rock up to them without an appointment at any time they are open to submit the application and they would still accept it. They didn't check whether the person booked in for that day had arrived or rather, they didn't check that the person being served is booked in. This means that ALL of my transportation changes in the past that I had could have been avoided altogether, saving me a lot of money and hassle. I could just go there, pretending like I should be there and things would be fine. Simply and crudely put, they really didn't give a damn about appointments. Oh my blood boils.
Soon it was my turn to see the tiger lady's boss. She didn't say which room it was in. The first room with the door open I see this guy and I asked if this is where I was to go for the police check application. His first reply was "Do I look like a police officer to you?". Got stunned there for awhile because how do you reply to such questions. He did say that this was the right place and I now have a feeling that the following conversation is going to be more of an interrogation. What then happened was a series of questions that had absolutely nothing to do with what I thought a police check (or interrogation) would be like. It's almost like I was being questioned on my loyalty to the country disguised as "general knowledge" questions. Despite my really poor attempt (read: fail at Malaysian political scene) at answering the questions I was issued the certificate anyway. So confused. One more thing to do was to sign a declaration form which was handled by the tiger lady. The couple of people in front of me said that they were a bit afraid of her, out in the open that she could hear it. I think a bit was a severe understatement. So we all signed the forms and she said "You better make sure you sign and attach everything ah. You don't want to see me again or me to call you." I'm sure Death himself would sound less scary than her. And just like that, everything was done. From the time I came in (after I had all the documents) until the time I got out was no more than say 15 minutes. How on earth does 12-14 people in a day be a full day when each person takes less than 15 minutes each?
Took a cab back to the airport and I was pretty glad that I didn't take a cab when I really needed to. It is seriously expensive that it was as though the meter ticked every time I blinked. A 6.5 km journey with smooth traffic and little traffic lights costed me $21! I was nearly broke because of that. The cab driver was an interesting fellow. He was Bruneian and he has been in Australia for 37 years. Quite a nice fellow and even described that he once went to Penang from Singapore on a taxi back in the old days. This is only something I've seen in a P. Ramlee movie. But he asked a very confrontational question when he realized that I had been in Australia for 7 years which was "Why are you still holding on to your Malaysian citizenship?". I gave some lame excuse just to stop the conversation thread. I know my country has some pretty bad problems but I still don't think that it is grounds for giving it up. On that note the cab trip ended, on a weird stance. At this point I'm too tired to think about it. All I want is to collapse on my bed and sleep the rest of the day away.
Some pictures I took along my half marathon walk.
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Turns out that that was just a random stab in the dark. Secret's still safe. For now.
Compounded Disasters
Friday, August 19, 2011
at
4:08 AM
Don't just hate it when you make a tiny tiny mistake in the beginning of the day and slowly that mistake causes some crazy domino effect as the day progresses? You know when the next mistake becomes bigger than the next? Yours truly was involved in such a day and all for a stupid piece of paper. Which I still didn't get.
Starts at 5 am and getting ready to head to the bus station to go to the airport. A couple of seconds out of the door and I realized that I forgot my passport. No biggie, just went back in and get it out. I was aiming to reach the station in time for the 6:10 bus. But thanks to my slight lapse of forgetfulness, I missed the 6:10 bus by 10 SECONDS! No matter, the next bus at 6:20 is the latest I can take and still make it to the airport on time but with little breathing space. Took the 6:20 bus and 10 minutes into the trip I realized that I don't recognize the roads anymore. Shrug it off that maybe they had a newer, more reliable route or that it was still dark and I actually am on the right road. At the 20 minute mark when we should have seen the airport at least, there was nothing but dark flat lands with many many roundabouts. At this point I started to get worried. We finally reached the airport at 7:05 but my flight was in 10 minutes. It was only then did the bus driver announced to all of us that he had taken a longer route because there was an accident on the usual route and traffic had been piling up. Wow. He could have told us earlier instead of having my heart racing for more than half the journey. Ran to the counter and asked if I could still go in (I had no luggage to check in so this shouldn't be too bad if they let me). They radioed the people at the gate and said that the gate had just closed and the plane left the gate. So close. So I had to go and change my flight which another $50 went out of my wallet.
Not to matter because the next flight out was in an hour and can technically still make it for my appointment at the Malaysian High Commission to get a police clearance certificate. Waited there until the appointed time when it was mentioned that the flight was delayed. Still alright although the absence of an aircraft at the gate was a bit sus. 20 minutes later, we got the shocking news...the flight was CANCELLED!!! They can reschedule all our flights to one that is in 2.5 hours from then or have it cancelled and get credit. I had mine rescheduled but I need to see if I can move my appointment to a later time that day but I had to wait for about half an hour because the High Commission hasn't opened yet.
Now the High Commission call was another thing altogether. At this point I was very very annoyed about everything that happened in the past 3 hours and I dreaded calling the High Commission to reschedule. A little context here: I called them a week ago to have my appointment to come and see them and I was put through to this lady who clearly would like to receive no calls at all if at all it were possible. And based on her response and what I can hear through the telephone, it seems that the appointment management system is very archaic, a book and a pencil. And she sounds very irritated at the very least. Every appointment time I suggested, she responds with a oh-no-you-didn't-sounding "NOOoooo" (And I can probably imagine her doing this, except a much older lady who doesn't care about anything than to get back home). After 3 times, only then did she suggest a time slot but not before hearing her flipping pages on a book. After taking my contact details, she ends the phone call abruptly with a very Napoleon Dynamite "K bai!" (Now that I think of it, I think she is like the Malaysian female version of Napoleon. That would explain a lot.). And that was the first call. The second call was to change to another day for convenience. She asked me why I wanted to change the appointment time of which I should have retorted it is none of her business. But, being the very passive me, I just said it was at a better time for me. She released a huge sigh and proceeded in the same way as the first phone call, with the oh-no-you-didn't routine.
So I called the High Commission praying very hard that I will get a different person on the other line, possibly someone nicer like the lady who transferred my call to this department. Alas, Murphy tapped on my shoulder and there she was on the other line. I recognized that absence of all things good in the world and lack of enthusiasm in her tone anywhere. So I told her my situation and asked if it were possible to shift the appointment to later during the day because I can still make it with the rescheduled flight. Again, she gave the oh-no-you-didn't "No." and said something that I can't remember exactly but had something to do with it being the month of Ramadhan. Really?? The new time was to be just after noon and your reason for declining my suggestion is it is because it is Ramadhan?? You could have just said that the day is full and I would have been fine with that. At this point she said that there will only be available time slots in a month's time when Ramadhan is over. My blood was about to erupt from my skin until I hear pages flipping again and said that she can put me in next week Tuesday. What the hell was all of that talk about? (If it weren't for the fact that I am utterly incapable of dropping F-bombs, I would have dropped it there) So I took the slot, she took down my details and ended the conversation with the same "K bai!".
This made me so furious I had to take some time to calm down before I lash it on the next person who was to be the airline staff that is going to cancel my flight and issue me credit. And she was sick so I don't think she needs any more rubbish from people and certainly not from me. She was nice and had her work cut out from all the reissuing of boarding passes so I kept apologizing profusely for the trouble caused. She just reissued my boarding pass and changed my flight on the return flight and now she has to cancel all of that and reissue me credit. I felt seriously bad about it. My breakfast at the airport was sponsored by the airlines and headed back to the city on a very very gloomy day. And not even half the day has passed.
Thankfully that was the last of the frustrations for the day. Met up with a friend, accompanied my friend to run some errands which ended really smoothly, had awesome mini cupcakes and a really good pot of chamomile tea, awesome cheap sushi with white miso soup, a stroll around Costco and later a movie. I think my body couldn't keep up with the rubbish I had today that I crashed soon after for 12 hours at least.
Let's just hope that this day will not repeat itself when I go back there the next week to get that police clearance again. I don't think I can take another day of this again.
Starts at 5 am and getting ready to head to the bus station to go to the airport. A couple of seconds out of the door and I realized that I forgot my passport. No biggie, just went back in and get it out. I was aiming to reach the station in time for the 6:10 bus. But thanks to my slight lapse of forgetfulness, I missed the 6:10 bus by 10 SECONDS! No matter, the next bus at 6:20 is the latest I can take and still make it to the airport on time but with little breathing space. Took the 6:20 bus and 10 minutes into the trip I realized that I don't recognize the roads anymore. Shrug it off that maybe they had a newer, more reliable route or that it was still dark and I actually am on the right road. At the 20 minute mark when we should have seen the airport at least, there was nothing but dark flat lands with many many roundabouts. At this point I started to get worried. We finally reached the airport at 7:05 but my flight was in 10 minutes. It was only then did the bus driver announced to all of us that he had taken a longer route because there was an accident on the usual route and traffic had been piling up. Wow. He could have told us earlier instead of having my heart racing for more than half the journey. Ran to the counter and asked if I could still go in (I had no luggage to check in so this shouldn't be too bad if they let me). They radioed the people at the gate and said that the gate had just closed and the plane left the gate. So close. So I had to go and change my flight which another $50 went out of my wallet.
Not to matter because the next flight out was in an hour and can technically still make it for my appointment at the Malaysian High Commission to get a police clearance certificate. Waited there until the appointed time when it was mentioned that the flight was delayed. Still alright although the absence of an aircraft at the gate was a bit sus. 20 minutes later, we got the shocking news...the flight was CANCELLED!!! They can reschedule all our flights to one that is in 2.5 hours from then or have it cancelled and get credit. I had mine rescheduled but I need to see if I can move my appointment to a later time that day but I had to wait for about half an hour because the High Commission hasn't opened yet.
Now the High Commission call was another thing altogether. At this point I was very very annoyed about everything that happened in the past 3 hours and I dreaded calling the High Commission to reschedule. A little context here: I called them a week ago to have my appointment to come and see them and I was put through to this lady who clearly would like to receive no calls at all if at all it were possible. And based on her response and what I can hear through the telephone, it seems that the appointment management system is very archaic, a book and a pencil. And she sounds very irritated at the very least. Every appointment time I suggested, she responds with a oh-no-you-didn't-sounding "NOOoooo" (And I can probably imagine her doing this, except a much older lady who doesn't care about anything than to get back home). After 3 times, only then did she suggest a time slot but not before hearing her flipping pages on a book. After taking my contact details, she ends the phone call abruptly with a very Napoleon Dynamite "K bai!" (Now that I think of it, I think she is like the Malaysian female version of Napoleon. That would explain a lot.). And that was the first call. The second call was to change to another day for convenience. She asked me why I wanted to change the appointment time of which I should have retorted it is none of her business. But, being the very passive me, I just said it was at a better time for me. She released a huge sigh and proceeded in the same way as the first phone call, with the oh-no-you-didn't routine.
So I called the High Commission praying very hard that I will get a different person on the other line, possibly someone nicer like the lady who transferred my call to this department. Alas, Murphy tapped on my shoulder and there she was on the other line. I recognized that absence of all things good in the world and lack of enthusiasm in her tone anywhere. So I told her my situation and asked if it were possible to shift the appointment to later during the day because I can still make it with the rescheduled flight. Again, she gave the oh-no-you-didn't "No." and said something that I can't remember exactly but had something to do with it being the month of Ramadhan. Really?? The new time was to be just after noon and your reason for declining my suggestion is it is because it is Ramadhan?? You could have just said that the day is full and I would have been fine with that. At this point she said that there will only be available time slots in a month's time when Ramadhan is over. My blood was about to erupt from my skin until I hear pages flipping again and said that she can put me in next week Tuesday. What the hell was all of that talk about? (If it weren't for the fact that I am utterly incapable of dropping F-bombs, I would have dropped it there) So I took the slot, she took down my details and ended the conversation with the same "K bai!".
This made me so furious I had to take some time to calm down before I lash it on the next person who was to be the airline staff that is going to cancel my flight and issue me credit. And she was sick so I don't think she needs any more rubbish from people and certainly not from me. She was nice and had her work cut out from all the reissuing of boarding passes so I kept apologizing profusely for the trouble caused. She just reissued my boarding pass and changed my flight on the return flight and now she has to cancel all of that and reissue me credit. I felt seriously bad about it. My breakfast at the airport was sponsored by the airlines and headed back to the city on a very very gloomy day. And not even half the day has passed.
Thankfully that was the last of the frustrations for the day. Met up with a friend, accompanied my friend to run some errands which ended really smoothly, had awesome mini cupcakes and a really good pot of chamomile tea, awesome cheap sushi with white miso soup, a stroll around Costco and later a movie. I think my body couldn't keep up with the rubbish I had today that I crashed soon after for 12 hours at least.
Let's just hope that this day will not repeat itself when I go back there the next week to get that police clearance again. I don't think I can take another day of this again.
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Roti Planta Dan Satu Setengah Jam
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
at
5:19 PM
Friday night. Drinks and late night nom. Good. 40 minutes of sleep. Bad.
Saturday goes right up to the list of craziest days ever. Woke up barely an hour into sleeping and walked 3 km to the IELTS test centre. Did my test, had coffee, spoke rubbish, had lunch, walked 5 km to sit in at a friend's concert. Had 4 pieces in the concert with Carl Vine's Piano Concerto being my favourite. The music was very very vivid, so much so that for all three movements I imagine environments that matches the music. Very wintery feeling. Dinner, crash at a friend's place for TV and some rather strange wine before driving off to Laverton and back. Supper and clean church to finish off the day. Brain dead.
Sunday. Played for first and second service in church. And then started what was to be a 5 hour conversation among some friends from high school. Everything from talking about the good old days, how Malaysian education really is not that bad but gave up trying to convince people, Malaysian politics, my memorized account of what happened to my PhD, arguments for and against going back home and many other random things. So much fun catching up with them and great to hear some of their stories.
Monday. A continuation of yesterday's set of conversations but this time for 8 hours, hopping from one place to another, eating from one place to another. So much fat and sugar consumed but necessary for the ongoing talk *post-justification*.
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I find it interesting how we can learn to pick up non-verbal facial cues from friends we know for a long time and decipher it before a single word was uttered. Even when there is insufficient context present such as a sudden change in topic, one can still pick out what the other is going to say. I find this quite fun to do especially when you have to call their bluff. Reminds me a lot about the psychology experiment we had to do in my first year.
Also the other thing that I like to play with other people is Chicken. I do this a lot with my sister and she likes playing it too (metaphorically of course. We don't literally drive cars into each other). There are some people that I will never play this with because I know I'll lose but for most I'll pose the challenge. Great way to call someone's bluff and to extract information from others too. Most pull out at the last minute but a few brave ones will press on. In conversations, the brave ones are the ones who will generate excellent material for which I would be very grateful that they didn't chicken out. Ironically I'm pretty bad at this game when I use it in poker.
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Having a new perspective is always an eye-opening experience, you get to see things that you sometimes miss even after having spent much time on a subject. Outsiders poking fun at other people are sometimes the best. A friend who studied in Singapore for high school makes the funniest comments and when he throws Malay language into the mix, it cracks the rest of the Malaysians up while stunning the Singaporeans. Makes me feel slightly better that my official result of C5 in Malay for SPM has not gone entirely to waste.
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Had another poke (actually more like a hard elbow to the side). Feels different from the other pokes I've had before. This was actually serious. Huh.
Saturday goes right up to the list of craziest days ever. Woke up barely an hour into sleeping and walked 3 km to the IELTS test centre. Did my test, had coffee, spoke rubbish, had lunch, walked 5 km to sit in at a friend's concert. Had 4 pieces in the concert with Carl Vine's Piano Concerto being my favourite. The music was very very vivid, so much so that for all three movements I imagine environments that matches the music. Very wintery feeling. Dinner, crash at a friend's place for TV and some rather strange wine before driving off to Laverton and back. Supper and clean church to finish off the day. Brain dead.
Sunday. Played for first and second service in church. And then started what was to be a 5 hour conversation among some friends from high school. Everything from talking about the good old days, how Malaysian education really is not that bad but gave up trying to convince people, Malaysian politics, my memorized account of what happened to my PhD, arguments for and against going back home and many other random things. So much fun catching up with them and great to hear some of their stories.
Monday. A continuation of yesterday's set of conversations but this time for 8 hours, hopping from one place to another, eating from one place to another. So much fat and sugar consumed but necessary for the ongoing talk *post-justification*.
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I find it interesting how we can learn to pick up non-verbal facial cues from friends we know for a long time and decipher it before a single word was uttered. Even when there is insufficient context present such as a sudden change in topic, one can still pick out what the other is going to say. I find this quite fun to do especially when you have to call their bluff. Reminds me a lot about the psychology experiment we had to do in my first year.
Also the other thing that I like to play with other people is Chicken. I do this a lot with my sister and she likes playing it too (metaphorically of course. We don't literally drive cars into each other). There are some people that I will never play this with because I know I'll lose but for most I'll pose the challenge. Great way to call someone's bluff and to extract information from others too. Most pull out at the last minute but a few brave ones will press on. In conversations, the brave ones are the ones who will generate excellent material for which I would be very grateful that they didn't chicken out. Ironically I'm pretty bad at this game when I use it in poker.
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Having a new perspective is always an eye-opening experience, you get to see things that you sometimes miss even after having spent much time on a subject. Outsiders poking fun at other people are sometimes the best. A friend who studied in Singapore for high school makes the funniest comments and when he throws Malay language into the mix, it cracks the rest of the Malaysians up while stunning the Singaporeans. Makes me feel slightly better that my official result of C5 in Malay for SPM has not gone entirely to waste.
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Had another poke (actually more like a hard elbow to the side). Feels different from the other pokes I've had before. This was actually serious. Huh.
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Judging Books By Their Covers
Thursday, August 4, 2011
at
3:56 AM
The past week or so I've been reading this wonderful book by the Nobel prize winning theoretical physicist Richard Feynman whom I have great respect for when it comes to the education of science and math. Well it isn't exactly written by him but rather transcribed by a friend who recorded these stories over a seven year period. It tells the stories of different periods of time in his life up to a few years after he has won the Nobel prize in physics for his contribution to quantum electrodynamics. Each of these stories have a lot of humour in it and as you read on, you'll find that this man is quite extraordinary even outside the realm of his expertise, both academically and in personality.
One of the things that you will pick is that a lot of his peers were always saying that it is in Feynman's character that he can pretty much bluff his way out of anything or pretend to know something. And there is a pretty good mix within the stories of him professing to know and actually does and him professing to know but actually doesn't and yet still manages to get lucky. So it is of little wonder that you begin to suspect that some of the stories that he tells in the book seem a tad made up for it to be true. Unlike the stereotypical view of how most of us view professors of advanced physics, he is highly extroverted, very adventurous and, probably the most unlikely thing, being some kind of a prankster. But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction and quite often times funnier than anything made up (anyone who has heard the tale of my second mugging might be a glimpse into this phenomenon). So I choose to believe that he really is telling the truth without any exaggerations in his tales. He really is a very rich character, a rather street smart boy who grew up during the Depression in Brooklyn coupled with great understanding of how things work as well as being a rather cheeky man.
It's not until the later parts of his life where things really catch my eye. He went through many problems in his life and I was surprised to see how many of these problems that were around in say the late 50s to mid 60s are the same problems I see today, in one form or another. Two of the issues that I know very well both have to do with education. One was how appalling science was being taught when he was visiting Brazil during his sabbatical year and the other was how textbooks were written poorly. The former reminded me a lot about how science and math was taught back home, and I dare say Singapore as well though to a slightly lesser degree. There is a real gap between the technical definitions and jargon used and the real world connection that is lacking in the educating the future scientists and mathematicians. Many lose heart and even more hate these subjects because teachers mainly teach them that it is to pass the test at the end of the year, having zero idea that the seemingly abstract concept has everything to do with that digital content. And that was the situation going on in Brazil when Feynman visited them. The latter is a very bad attempt to fix the former. In the spirit of bridging the gap between real world science and school textbooks, "real world" type problems are inserted in the textbooks but get the focus totally wrong. Worse still, definitions are not accurate, if not wrong, "experimental" data fudged to give the exact answer are examples of dumbing down the science (or sometimes rebranding science) in order to feel like they are closing the gap between theory and reality. Now a decade into the 21st century and I'm still seeing these same problems around, more embarrassingly back home. Of course the principles here don't just surface on education but other areas as well but that would be another story. Another small thing was how he was dealing with legalistic rabbis in training, himself brought up in a Jewish background. Again very interesting to see such behaviour around after millennia of legalistic practice which helps bring to light really just how the Pharisees might have worked in the Bible.
This is one of those books that I know I should have read it ages ago but just never got down to doing it. Whenever I hear someone who had read the book, I immediately get all excited but actually never read the book and so I pulled a Feynman, faking that I've actually read the book. So far I got lucky. But the other interesting thing that I noticed was that of all the friends that I knew had read this book were mostly girls. Even though that these girls, whom as far as I know, had some sort of connection with Feynman's character or even what he used to do, it's still something I wouldn't have expected. But it is also perhaps a testament of his story telling abilities. It's akin to having that uncle of yours sit down after dinner telling you stories of his youth and you just sit there so interested in how he tells his story even if you don't know exactly what some of the words mean. Perhaps it is also why they liked the book. Or maybe they liked his physics. By the way, the girls who read the book were pretty geeky in their own way. Geeks are like hipsters. Both think they are cool and both love things before they become mainstream. I'm all about the geek.
It's a good book for light reading with the occasional skipping of jargon mentioned in the book for those whose brain will shut down at the sound or sight of a science-y word. Most of the time it will not affect the stories. And if you can imagine him telling you the stories in his distinctly Brooklyn accent, that would be most helpful.
One of the things that you will pick is that a lot of his peers were always saying that it is in Feynman's character that he can pretty much bluff his way out of anything or pretend to know something. And there is a pretty good mix within the stories of him professing to know and actually does and him professing to know but actually doesn't and yet still manages to get lucky. So it is of little wonder that you begin to suspect that some of the stories that he tells in the book seem a tad made up for it to be true. Unlike the stereotypical view of how most of us view professors of advanced physics, he is highly extroverted, very adventurous and, probably the most unlikely thing, being some kind of a prankster. But sometimes truth is stranger than fiction and quite often times funnier than anything made up (anyone who has heard the tale of my second mugging might be a glimpse into this phenomenon). So I choose to believe that he really is telling the truth without any exaggerations in his tales. He really is a very rich character, a rather street smart boy who grew up during the Depression in Brooklyn coupled with great understanding of how things work as well as being a rather cheeky man.
It's not until the later parts of his life where things really catch my eye. He went through many problems in his life and I was surprised to see how many of these problems that were around in say the late 50s to mid 60s are the same problems I see today, in one form or another. Two of the issues that I know very well both have to do with education. One was how appalling science was being taught when he was visiting Brazil during his sabbatical year and the other was how textbooks were written poorly. The former reminded me a lot about how science and math was taught back home, and I dare say Singapore as well though to a slightly lesser degree. There is a real gap between the technical definitions and jargon used and the real world connection that is lacking in the educating the future scientists and mathematicians. Many lose heart and even more hate these subjects because teachers mainly teach them that it is to pass the test at the end of the year, having zero idea that the seemingly abstract concept has everything to do with that digital content. And that was the situation going on in Brazil when Feynman visited them. The latter is a very bad attempt to fix the former. In the spirit of bridging the gap between real world science and school textbooks, "real world" type problems are inserted in the textbooks but get the focus totally wrong. Worse still, definitions are not accurate, if not wrong, "experimental" data fudged to give the exact answer are examples of dumbing down the science (or sometimes rebranding science) in order to feel like they are closing the gap between theory and reality. Now a decade into the 21st century and I'm still seeing these same problems around, more embarrassingly back home. Of course the principles here don't just surface on education but other areas as well but that would be another story. Another small thing was how he was dealing with legalistic rabbis in training, himself brought up in a Jewish background. Again very interesting to see such behaviour around after millennia of legalistic practice which helps bring to light really just how the Pharisees might have worked in the Bible.
This is one of those books that I know I should have read it ages ago but just never got down to doing it. Whenever I hear someone who had read the book, I immediately get all excited but actually never read the book and so I pulled a Feynman, faking that I've actually read the book. So far I got lucky. But the other interesting thing that I noticed was that of all the friends that I knew had read this book were mostly girls. Even though that these girls, whom as far as I know, had some sort of connection with Feynman's character or even what he used to do, it's still something I wouldn't have expected. But it is also perhaps a testament of his story telling abilities. It's akin to having that uncle of yours sit down after dinner telling you stories of his youth and you just sit there so interested in how he tells his story even if you don't know exactly what some of the words mean. Perhaps it is also why they liked the book. Or maybe they liked his physics. By the way, the girls who read the book were pretty geeky in their own way. Geeks are like hipsters. Both think they are cool and both love things before they become mainstream. I'm all about the geek.
It's a good book for light reading with the occasional skipping of jargon mentioned in the book for those whose brain will shut down at the sound or sight of a science-y word. Most of the time it will not affect the stories. And if you can imagine him telling you the stories in his distinctly Brooklyn accent, that would be most helpful.
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Chicken Soup for the Reality Television Viewer's Soul
Thursday, July 28, 2011
at
3:34 AM
Masterchef is coming to a close soon with the finals week around the corner. It's been a rather interesting season not so much of the contestants, their character, their personality that they bring to the competition but more of the people watching the show. As I've said earlier that this season's contestants are quite bland compared to the previous seasons and not too many innovative ideas from them too. But there is no doubt that these guys are probably the most privileged group of them all, presumably because of the enormous budget they have manage to garner over the past two seasons plus some clever networking, to meet their food idols (and certainly mine) and to pick their brains. I'd honestly give a whole lot to experience what these fellows experienced because it is a once in a lifetime opportunity (as cliche as that sounds) because even high ranking chefs do not get such privileges.
Over the course of the show, many people who have watched along side with me have very expressive opinions and emotions, even more so this season. Shall not name names but I think it is fairly easy to say who people hate given a quick glance at what has been said out there. Some of my friends have expressed their distaste towards some contestants very clearly and sounded like they are going to break up their friendship with you should you decide to give the impression that you are on the dark side. And of course there are many reasons why they have such loathesome feelings towards the contestants such as "He/She cannot cook, so why is he/she still here?", "He/She is sooooo annoying!" and in some cases citing expletives that are probably not kosher here.
Going one step further to explain "anomalies", some give speculation as to why that contestant is still in the competition. This of course ranges from the show being rigged to favour some people (for example, the Immunity Challenges) and all the way to it is all about marketing. Rigged because there are many occasions that contestants fail to cook anything above average, to put it nicely and yet they are still barely surviving, somehow managing to overthrow season favourites. Marketing because in the end the winner has to sell a good cookbook and possibly more from other avenues like TV and magazines. Of course, it can be both which seems to be what the majority of some of my friends have taken up.
Call me naive and/or overly simplistic but I choose not to adhere to the above mentioned reasons for some anomalous contestants remain in the competition. At least, to a very large extent. How I pass judgment is based on one principle which happens to be a chef-y one, that you are only as good as your last dish. No other dish in the past, no matter how disasterous they are, simply will not matter. You may have cooked several thousands of bad dishes but if you so happen to make a stellar dish, you get praised. To put it in the negative way, this is mostly true in the culinary world, all it needs to tarnish an image is one bad review from just one setting. This of course should not be the case if one wants to be truely objective in their judgment but alas, it is not.
While I'm certainly no judge in the competition nor am I one of the tasters, you can tell a lot about a dish just based on visual textures and even the technique used in the competition (unless you are of the conspiracy theoretic skeptics that say everything is redone until they conform to the producers secret grand master plan to milk the Masterchef cash cow, then I have nothing more to say). Ultimately taste will be the deciding factor which I will leave it to the judges for their criticism, there is no other way. Based on that one principle above, the overall look and the criticism of the judges, I've correctly guessed the winners and losers most of the time without having these notions of contestant annoyances and predisposition to hate/love one over the other. It is so hard to convince people that the decision is right when the person they hate gets praised for a good dish that I've almost given up trying. Bear in mind that the show was pre-recorded and of course some heavy editing would be applied, so it can make any likeable person into the most hated person on television as rather evident from the very first season. But the sad thing is that people are drawn by the drama and the theatre of reality television when, ironically, does not represent all of reality on the television screen. It is hard to be objective when viewing a reality television series because of the emotional bias that comes into play. This is why I mostly hate reality television shows, the unnecessary play on emotions when it does not reflect reality.
Then why is Masterchef (or even the new Renovators) different? Am I being hypocritical? I still hate the drama and play on our rage that this show produces but I channel all my focus to the one real aspect of the show: food (design in the Renovators case). It is exceedingly hard to lie through the process of food even more so when the emphasis is to produce restaurant quality dishes. Focusing on being objective with respect to an element that is hard to fake is the only means of maintaining some form of sanity when watching shows like these, rather that to be caught up with the theatrics of emotion based on something that is most likely edited out of context. And I suspect I am quite alone in this category (as with most other things).
I'd like to suggest some things to think about that emerges from this analyses of approaches to the highly watched show. Most of us who can at least manage a simple stir fry would at some stage cooked for friends or relatives.
Not that simple, eh? This criticism beast.
PS. We are all entitled to our own opinions, certainly not restricted to contestants of a reality television competition. What I'm not suggesting is that there is one answer to who makes it to the next round and I am here to assert that statement and that I am the all-righteous, all-seeing being. What I am suggesting is to look beyond the appearances of the editing and find objective reasons for your opinion. Whining on the basis that a person is portrayed as annoying isn't objective.
PSS. The Renovators are by the same people that brought Masterchef. Same dramatic tones, same epic suspenseful background music style. So observations here should be transferable to The Renovators. Careful now people, design is even grayer than food. Not that I know anything about design.
Over the course of the show, many people who have watched along side with me have very expressive opinions and emotions, even more so this season. Shall not name names but I think it is fairly easy to say who people hate given a quick glance at what has been said out there. Some of my friends have expressed their distaste towards some contestants very clearly and sounded like they are going to break up their friendship with you should you decide to give the impression that you are on the dark side. And of course there are many reasons why they have such loathesome feelings towards the contestants such as "He/She cannot cook, so why is he/she still here?", "He/She is sooooo annoying!" and in some cases citing expletives that are probably not kosher here.
Going one step further to explain "anomalies", some give speculation as to why that contestant is still in the competition. This of course ranges from the show being rigged to favour some people (for example, the Immunity Challenges) and all the way to it is all about marketing. Rigged because there are many occasions that contestants fail to cook anything above average, to put it nicely and yet they are still barely surviving, somehow managing to overthrow season favourites. Marketing because in the end the winner has to sell a good cookbook and possibly more from other avenues like TV and magazines. Of course, it can be both which seems to be what the majority of some of my friends have taken up.
Call me naive and/or overly simplistic but I choose not to adhere to the above mentioned reasons for some anomalous contestants remain in the competition. At least, to a very large extent. How I pass judgment is based on one principle which happens to be a chef-y one, that you are only as good as your last dish. No other dish in the past, no matter how disasterous they are, simply will not matter. You may have cooked several thousands of bad dishes but if you so happen to make a stellar dish, you get praised. To put it in the negative way, this is mostly true in the culinary world, all it needs to tarnish an image is one bad review from just one setting. This of course should not be the case if one wants to be truely objective in their judgment but alas, it is not.
While I'm certainly no judge in the competition nor am I one of the tasters, you can tell a lot about a dish just based on visual textures and even the technique used in the competition (unless you are of the conspiracy theoretic skeptics that say everything is redone until they conform to the producers secret grand master plan to milk the Masterchef cash cow, then I have nothing more to say). Ultimately taste will be the deciding factor which I will leave it to the judges for their criticism, there is no other way. Based on that one principle above, the overall look and the criticism of the judges, I've correctly guessed the winners and losers most of the time without having these notions of contestant annoyances and predisposition to hate/love one over the other. It is so hard to convince people that the decision is right when the person they hate gets praised for a good dish that I've almost given up trying. Bear in mind that the show was pre-recorded and of course some heavy editing would be applied, so it can make any likeable person into the most hated person on television as rather evident from the very first season. But the sad thing is that people are drawn by the drama and the theatre of reality television when, ironically, does not represent all of reality on the television screen. It is hard to be objective when viewing a reality television series because of the emotional bias that comes into play. This is why I mostly hate reality television shows, the unnecessary play on emotions when it does not reflect reality.
Then why is Masterchef (or even the new Renovators) different? Am I being hypocritical? I still hate the drama and play on our rage that this show produces but I channel all my focus to the one real aspect of the show: food (design in the Renovators case). It is exceedingly hard to lie through the process of food even more so when the emphasis is to produce restaurant quality dishes. Focusing on being objective with respect to an element that is hard to fake is the only means of maintaining some form of sanity when watching shows like these, rather that to be caught up with the theatrics of emotion based on something that is most likely edited out of context. And I suspect I am quite alone in this category (as with most other things).
I'd like to suggest some things to think about that emerges from this analyses of approaches to the highly watched show. Most of us who can at least manage a simple stir fry would at some stage cooked for friends or relatives.
- Would we judge a friend who has had their serious fare share of failures before producing one good dish as how we judge a contestant in a similiar position?
- Is it helpful to maintain two separate acts of judgment, one for our friends and one for the unknown person who is cooking our meals ie. should we maintain a bias towards our friends to be a little sugar coated (and sometimes ignorant) in our criticisms while being very harsh on a stranger?
- Shouldn't we just develop one standard on how we criticize without being biased in a way that is always appropriate for the occasion?
Not that simple, eh? This criticism beast.
PS. We are all entitled to our own opinions, certainly not restricted to contestants of a reality television competition. What I'm not suggesting is that there is one answer to who makes it to the next round and I am here to assert that statement and that I am the all-righteous, all-seeing being. What I am suggesting is to look beyond the appearances of the editing and find objective reasons for your opinion. Whining on the basis that a person is portrayed as annoying isn't objective.
PSS. The Renovators are by the same people that brought Masterchef. Same dramatic tones, same epic suspenseful background music style. So observations here should be transferable to The Renovators. Careful now people, design is even grayer than food. Not that I know anything about design.
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6 Easy Pieces
Friday, July 22, 2011
at
2:14 AM
Life outside uni has been very slack even though there are quite a number of things for me to do. With next week being the start of the second semester, I really really want to be back in uni. Perhaps I'll try and sneak into a couple of lectures because unlike most people I know, I prefer to be sheltered in the confines of academic life than the complexities of working and making money. Basically, I need someone to tell me what to do and say I'll earn assignment marks for it. Almost like a game. In some strange way.
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Recently been reacquainted with Disney animated movies and while it has been nostalgic it also further reinforces the fact that Disney still gives unreasonable expectations of love. One that has been blindingly obvious in a lot of these movies is the aspect of love at first sight and they are everywhere. But one that took me this long to realize is that there is a ridiculous amount of flirting as well. If you don't exclaim "Damn you Disney!" I don't know what will. Vote of no confidence for yours truly.
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I am starting to get really annoyed with the whole Games for Windows Live thing. Recently bought Bioshock 2 and gameplay plus storyline has been great so far. Played for a few hours until I realized that I cannot save the game because in order for me to save the game I need to have a profile and connected to the internet. This is not an online multiplayer game (largely) so why do I need to be connected? And so because of that I just lost hours of gameplay. The worst part? The Live component needs to be updated but so far the update process has been unsuccessful so far. And it discontinued riiiiigggghhhhttt at the last moment before download is completed.
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A friend and I have been updating each other whenever a friend of ours became engaged. Because the number of engagement announcements on both our Facebook accounts are starting to get pretty unreal. And it has been unreal for the past year or so. I'm at the age where these sorts of things are fairly common but my friend had it pretty early for her age. This means that soon people (other than my rather nosy mother's-side-relatives) will start poking me about when is it my turn. I'm running out of "*points* Isn't this the best <insert item> you've ever seen? Omg." excuses already. Heck I've even got one poke recently (yes, I'm looking at you, E) and so these sorts of poking might start to gather momentum to other people.
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I think I'm a very boring person. Discuss.
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Feel like I need to do more physics on the side. Quantum mechanics books to spare, anyone?
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Recently been reacquainted with Disney animated movies and while it has been nostalgic it also further reinforces the fact that Disney still gives unreasonable expectations of love. One that has been blindingly obvious in a lot of these movies is the aspect of love at first sight and they are everywhere. But one that took me this long to realize is that there is a ridiculous amount of flirting as well. If you don't exclaim "Damn you Disney!" I don't know what will. Vote of no confidence for yours truly.
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I am starting to get really annoyed with the whole Games for Windows Live thing. Recently bought Bioshock 2 and gameplay plus storyline has been great so far. Played for a few hours until I realized that I cannot save the game because in order for me to save the game I need to have a profile and connected to the internet. This is not an online multiplayer game (largely) so why do I need to be connected? And so because of that I just lost hours of gameplay. The worst part? The Live component needs to be updated but so far the update process has been unsuccessful so far. And it discontinued riiiiigggghhhhttt at the last moment before download is completed.
------------
A friend and I have been updating each other whenever a friend of ours became engaged. Because the number of engagement announcements on both our Facebook accounts are starting to get pretty unreal. And it has been unreal for the past year or so. I'm at the age where these sorts of things are fairly common but my friend had it pretty early for her age. This means that soon people (other than my rather nosy mother's-side-relatives) will start poking me about when is it my turn. I'm running out of "*points* Isn't this the best <insert item> you've ever seen? Omg." excuses already. Heck I've even got one poke recently (yes, I'm looking at you, E) and so these sorts of poking might start to gather momentum to other people.
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I think I'm a very boring person. Discuss.
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Feel like I need to do more physics on the side. Quantum mechanics books to spare, anyone?
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4b
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
at
1:47 AM
- Kick-Ass - Another comic/graphic novel adaptation in the same year as the awesome Scott Pilgrim. Didn't realize that it is actually quite violent and adult-theme-ish than I expected it to be. In fact, the comic series is even worse. Still pretty good with all it's comic book colours and narration but I'd still pick Scott Pilgrim anytime. It's more geek.
- Dave Chappelle's Block Party - Documentary on Dave setting up a block party in New York, him meeting the different people involved whether on stage or behind the scenes or even just the people living around the area where the block party is located. Mainly about the artists that performed at the party than anything else so I guess this is more of a music DVD rather than comical antics of Dave. Though I may not fully appreciate rap (especially the rap of today) I can certain appreciate their groove. They have always been the masters of groove.
- Dead Space Downfall - EA Games sanctioned two feature length animations to be produced around their critically acclaimed game Dead Space. This is the first one transcribing the events before the beginning of the game in Dead Space. This is supposed to explain a little bit more about what had happened on board the Planet Cracker Ishimura that was the basis of the game. Having played this game, this really falls flat in its purpose. There is nothing really new on offer in the animation so the whole animation feels very redundant. No plasma cutters. No rough investigation why the aliens fall quickly if you dismember them. And certainly nothing new about the Captain. If you've played the game, don't bother. Otherwise, don't bother either.
- Spaced - This short series supposedly launched the career of Simon Pegg all about living in a rather dysfunctional apartment building. It took a long time for the series to warm up to me but some funny stuff in it if you persevere. One really cool thing about the DVDs are the added subtitle option called the "Homage-O-Meter" which lists down every film, TV, comic and gaming reference made in the series. That just tickles my inner geek.
- Fallen Angels - Wong Kar Wai. Again. This was supposedly the third story in my favourite Kar Wai film Chungking Express but was cut out because it was starting to get a bit too long and later decided to remake it into one film. In the same overall style of Chungking Express, there are a couple of stories that are intermingled loosely with one another. Much more noir (side note: I think really good noir story telling on film is a dying art. Such a shame) which I absolutely love and he ups the cinematography by mainly filming on a ultra-wide lens. But the stories don't quite flow nicely like Chungking or say Days of Being Wild and slightly confuses me a bit. Being the third storyline of Chungking, you'll see familiar places here from Chungking which I guess is nice.
- How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying - This is the film version of the 1961 Broadway musical about a man who climbs the corporate ladder as fast as he can with as little effort as possible. Quite entertaining but I get the feeling that there's something missing which I'd probably say the feel of the stage. Without me watching the stage version, I'd probably say it would have been a lot different and probably a lot more enjoyable. Of course there are things for me to like, for example 60's colours and motives and fashion (still love it) and songs. Robert Morse's performance is great as the quirky man seeking corporate success.
- Transamerica - This film touches on so many taboo topics on gender and sexuality that one can not stop and think about the issues that surround it. But the film isn't about those issues but the simple coming of age story. Felicity Huffman's performance was really good and you can hardly believe your ears when she speaks in this ridiculously low voice in the film and eyes as how she portray herself as this person in transition from being a man to a woman. It is hard not to see why she was nominated for Best Actress in the Golden Globes (which she won) and the Academy awards.
- Oklahoma! - Another great musical on film. Many memorable songs here and has good storyline to boot. It seems though that the theme here is that if you like a girl you'd be persistent in making fun of her/bicker at her and likewise. If I did that, I'd most certainly be dead. Shirley Jones is so pretty but the character I liked the most was the one who played Aunt Eller. For some reason she looked more like an Ethel to me. Anyway, great musical.
- Crash - Another really good film on racism told by several smaller stories intertwined together (I seem to have a knack for films like these, don't I?). The subject of racism is not new and probably will continue to affect most of our lives, indirectly or not. This film merely highlight some of the actions we take when we are confronted by a person of another colour or race. If we were really honest with ourselves, we are all guilty of this in one way or another which is what makes this film so confronting.
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