OK back to basics time. my math abilities really SUCK. i see the question, sort of know how to do but i just can't follow through. it really is a PITA. sigh... i really need to practice more, study more, and build up fundamentals. only way to excel, or in my case, *survive*. i do not really like math, even though the teachers are pretty okay. my math lecturer sorta talks to himself but well i think at least he knows what he is saying. it's just that we don't get it, or rather us as students are very passive. my math tutor however is very liberal as well as practical. i like him and he might be a little direct but he is a good teacher. kinda like my physics tutor, who by the way also likes to expound on the philosophy of learning. he inspires me to learn math. i just hope i can keep that interest going.

on that note i would like to say that some of the professors here are actually quite good, as in they discourage rote learning and memorisation, something the singapore education system as well as the mentalities of parents and students believe is the only way to learn. sorta like once you rememebr you remember for life sort of thing. i never liked rote learning. i have too short of an attention span to devote to that anyway. it is a monotonous, time consuming process that brings little to no benefit to the student. nothing is learnt. sometimes maybe they learn something but not the essence of it, or do not go throught the correct thought and logic pathways. sigh. how to go through things without rote learning. really hard to break out of a mould.

breaking out. how difficult is it for one to break free from a mould that we have been cast in by our parents and relatives. a mould formed by the inculcation of their values, both good and bad. and when we break free, or think we have broken free, the million-dollar-question would be this. "what next?"

currently listening to: love themes from Love Actually


Bertram awoke @ 4:41 PM with (0) flashes of inspiration

it's the end of the month. a month has passed and so has 6 weeks of school.looking back, i have not done very much, nor have learnt very much. in that 6 weeks if i trained consistently everyday i would have been taking part in the NIE biathlon at least. but i did not. lazy? or just lethargic? or afraid of failing...

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer."
--- Bene Gesserit saying, from "Dune" by Frank Herbert

it paralyses you, makes you doubt, slows you down, leaving nothing but wash in it's wake. how do you overcome something intangible and natural to you? you cannot destroy it, for it has no substance. you cannot banish it, for it has no corporeal form. it is but something we have to conquer, to control, and ultimately use to spur ourselves on. pressure makes performance drop, but it is also what gets things started. if you never start, what makes you think you can't do it? do not think that you would fail before you start doing, or else you would subconsciously doom yourself to failure in whatever you do.

anyways... pain in the arse. my digital camera's ccd (charged couple device) is spoilt i think. got to send it for repair. sigh...


Bertram awoke @ 10:07 AM with (0) flashes of inspiration

just watched another "look beyond appearances" movie. it's "The Girl Next Door". quite a nice movie actually, about a guy liking this girl despite her history as a porn star and no matter what a woman works as, at heart they have always wanted to be loved for what they are. and this guy goes through a whole lot of shit just to be with this girl, and despite being a student council president and a straightlaced guy at the start, he ends up doing a whole lot of crazy stuff, and dragging his 2 best friends with him. but this is one movie i would watch again. another sweet storyline. haha.

i also want to watch "Quill". it's a jap film about a young puppy who was trained as a guide dog to lead the blind and his relationship with his eventual owner, an alcoholic who was initially reluctant to have a guide dog. by the way this is a drama, not a documentary. the dog is sooooooo cute man. can't stand it.


Bertram awoke @ 2:47 PM with (0) flashes of inspiration

currently i am reading The Iliad by Homer... the next book i will move on to would be The Aeneid by Virgil, a text that had inspired Dante Aligheri, John Milton and numerous other authors. hopefully i would also be able to find a text translation of the Kalevala, a Finnish oral history of it's peoples. it's a long ballad passed from one generation to another by mouth and fully committed to memory. hopefully i can get a recording of it as well. heard it once during a documentary about Tolkien and his inspirations to write the Lord of the Rings. apparently the Kalevala was one of his sources of inspiration as well. it is a very nice ballad actually, an epic in it's own right.

strange huh to find a 21 year old singaporean with such interests as literature, classical music and opera, when his peers are listening to techno, going out clubbing, partying, studying or even training (for competitive sports). my girlfriend remarked that i am living in the wrong era, that i read more, know more (general knowledge) and have widely divergent interests from her peers. our peers. to the point that i find it difficult to find someone who shares similar interests in school/class currently. is it just me, or that i am just different? or trying to hard to be an individual? too many angles to look at things make it complicated, much like crystallographic planes in material science (ok now i'm starting to crap, which allows me to more or less helps me to communicate with most of my peers so far).

are we reaching the limits on our creativity? to the point that now much of what we do is centered on improving currently existing products, or writing using existing established literary structures, instead of making wholly new creations that spark a revolution, or start a new trend? what we do, make, write, it is either a modified original or repackaged. even when i write it is based on my own modifications or experience added inside to make it seem original, or my own experiences streamlined into a literary structure to create my expression. is there actually a critical mass, or a limit for creativity, beyond which there is nothing new we can create anymore? or rather we just keep discarding or disregarding the illogical, insensible or impractical?

now i am moving into a period where i have to juggle academics along with my interest in physical sports. how i am going to do that is a big question mark, but i hope to go through this and mayhaps be a successful athlete. who knows?

sidenote: currently listening to Why Can't I by Liz Phair, a lady with a very interesting discography. this song was in the movie 13 going on 30. i love that movie, and i want to watch it again. sweet, touching and is about growing up, to learn about life in an accelerated way, to learn how to go beyond conformity to see what has been there all the while.


Bertram awoke @ 8:47 PM with (0) flashes of inspiration