It was more than a month ago but at least it's here. London is quite a nice city if the air is a little less polluted I think it would have been one of the nicest city I have been to. Note, nicest, not most beautiful.
playing with lomo again
Old Naval Academy
This flagpole reminded me so much about my midshipman daysIt's been four days after my exams ended and still haven't sort out the photos to be printed. Since digital photography came into my life, the numbers of photo I have in my computer sort of exploded. However, the number of times I have actually look at them, compared to printed ones actually reduced. I have decided to print some of the more memorable ones so as to admire them more frequently and as a backup, just in case my computer crash or something. The next amazing thing about digital photography is that you can manipulate the photos any way you want. Although it requires lots of reading up and lots of time, I think it's worth it. Photos are usually the best encapsulation my memories so they should be as beautiful as possible. Some of the photos after I "lomograph-ed" them. For the uninitiated, Lomography is done using a camera that sort of distort the colours and act some random blurness in the photo. Photographs are supposed to be taken spontaneously from the hip. Since I can't afford a lomograph (it is being monopolised) I am just getting some kick of it via photoshopping.
Dog sledging in Kiruna
Cigarettes bin in Olso
Marina in Olso
Statue in OlsoJust had my first every exam in Denmark. The first one in a long long time. It's also the first one that I can actually bring my laptop in, switch it on and left it there for the whole duration of the exam. It was there for the sake of being there, being a kiasu Singaporean, I just brought it there to provide me a false sense of security. If I don't, I doubt I will ever get another chance to bring a laptop to an examination. The paper itself was of sec 3 physics standards and open book. In SG, I would have expected it to last 2 hours, but they gave us 4 hours and i managed to read 1 chapter of manga (just so I can boast to others), took a 5 min nap and had 1.5 hours to go before submitting my paper. The Portuguese guy next to me was even faster, he took almost 45 min less than me. I took a quite glance at his answer script and I guess he was just aiming for a pass, skipping the last question almost completely. The grading system here is very straight forward, something like the O and A levels, where a certain grade is given after you hit a certain mark. Much unlike the bell curve system in NUS where you will never know what kind of grade you'll get and you are praying that everyone do as badly as you after the exams. At least I know I won't fail here. 2 more exams to go before my end of sem trip!
MSN does wonders. Why? I can get updates of the latest happenings from Singapore. All the exciting events and recounts from friends of mine who thinks I should be kept in the loop. What a good way to deter homesickness. Thanks to MSN, and the
The management from Kampsax (a hostel that is occupied by mostly Danish students, much like the 6 halls in NUS) must be damn pissed to put up notices on every single container in campus village (a congregation of container-like structures that is meant for international students, analogous to PGP with regard to only the population make up). I wonder who is the person caught stealing a barstool.
Arsenal never fail to amaze me with the style of football they play. Yet, they seldom produce the result that the fans, or rather I, hope for. For the third consecutive season, they won absolutely nothing. At one point in time, the team had a 8 point lead and I thought it would be their season. Yet, a few weeks later, they self destruct and lost games they should have won, rued chances a few yards from goal, let it goals that should have never been scored and made defensive errors (please sell Senderos) as if they were school boys. The loss against Man U more or less sealed their fate, and they should really question their policy on the transfer market. If they only they have a little more depth in strenght, they may very well be en route to the the Champion League semi and EPL title. Sigh, another sad season when everything started so well only to disappoint once again.
I am so addicted to Mythbuster that I am neglecting all forms of work. It must be the engineer in me that prompt me to watch MB. Yesh... I am typing this as another episode is being buffered. Isn't it cool to do things you always want to do? At least for me, I always have the urge to test whether certain things are true but never did I find any time nor will to carry them out. I wouldn't mind getting paid to do such stuff.
Long due photos of Budapest, an amazing beautiful city with amazing night view, nice people along the street and incredibly rude service staffs at entrance of most sightseeing spots. It has an wonderful transport system that does it job. Prices there are comparable to Singapore and at times cheaper.
after 3 reports and 1 presentation, I decided to youtube for some stress eliminating clips. Here's what I found
Other than cross time zones, this is my first ever artificial shift of time. One less hour of sleep isn't that much but still significant enough to cause some rambling here and there.
The ideal of shifting time is still kinda new to me. I always thought that time is absolute and precious enough to piss people off when enough of it is wasted. I guess I was wrong. Time is more manageable, changeable and not absolute. Examples are in abundance. Singapore can alter its timezone to match the major financial hubs in Asia. Time can be push forward so that we can make full use of day light. Small islands in the pacific ocean can be put into "special time zones" to match their home country. It is fair to say time is just another human creation. However, people like me are still manipulated by it more than manipulating it. I guess I just need to try harder at managing my time (such as finding time to blog about my trip in budapest and prague). I shall start by sleeping now!
Being a Singaporean, tropican, equatorian,.... in short, someone who had never really traveled to winter countries implies that I have never seen snow prior to my trip to Kiruna, where I saw more than enough snow to last me a few years. However, the feeling of snow falling infront of your door step, your window next to your study table, the path you take everyday, is just something special. So our trigger happy selves took the better of us and we behaved like how you would expect tourists would, infront the Pyramids. Just that this time, there isn't any major photo-friendly backdrop, just pure snow flakes falling from the sky and a minimal amount of sunlight
Look at my surprised face! I always thought I have a careless attitude towards seeing snow. I was so wrong.
Look how high I jumped.( me, Jialiang and Kendrick)
More jumps to tame our excitment( me, Baolai and Kendrick)The weather here is so cold that I feel more nua than when I was in Sg. Which explain why I seldom update my blog other than the fact that there is nothing much to blog about. I have also reached the stage where I can wear singlet and shorts to stay in my room where the average temperature is 22 degrees and gain the ability to commute short distance in below 5 degree climate with shorts (,thick winter clothings) and havaianas flipflop.
Some photos before we reached our destination of the day, Christiania:
random street in CPH
famous candy shop, with a looonnnggg history
ancient lift beside the shop
Graffiti art in abundance
How come prices of everything is increasing yet my allowance isn't. With the increase in hostel fees, it will cost about 1.9 K a semester to stay in hall, an increase of 270 bucks. This will definitely make poor students poorer. Is running of that hall really that expensive? In 3 years time, it will cost more than 2.2k per semester.
The weather is getting better as we speak. The sun is shining right into my room and I can wear a tee shirt in my room with the windows wide open. How I wish everyday will be like this. Just attended the indoor climate class. The comfortable temperature people desire is in the range of 15 to 20. I can't imagine the electricity bill if we do it in Singapore.
Starting of a new term in an entirely new environment is not exact new to any Singaporean but this time round, it's an entirely new country, culture and climate for me. The day started off with a change of classroom which implies that I had to walk in the chilly wind for another 200m. From the 4 hours thereafter, I realised 2 things-- danish students are hardworking and the younger the dane the better their spoken English. The lesson style here is more personal. The prof made an effort to engage everyone in the small class setting which is different from the tutorial class in NUS. Tutors in NUS should buck up. Well, I miss international week now where there will always be someone to talk to.
building a tower to hold beer cans
This the where I am staying now..... It is exactly what it looks like, a container. Anyway the room itself is about the same size as my room in sheares, just that is less furnishing which makes the room looks kinda spacey.
I am typing this at my extremely long transit wait at Amsterdam, Schiphol . It's 6.40am here and I have to wait till 10am for my connect flight to take off. Since I don't have any euros with me, I can't do any shopping and therefore, here I am, typing this.
The airline I took, KLM or Royal Dutch airline's flight isn't as bad as GL described. I managed to watched 3 movies (with a small screen in front of the seat not a common TV screen), Shrek the third, F4: Rise of the Silver surfer and Curse of the Golden Flower (lousy show) listened to a few songs and catch up with lots of sleep. The meals served are not exactly wonderful but you can't expect that much a few thousand feet up in the sky right?
After hearing almost as many horror stories from as many Malaysians in Blk C, I feel kinda worried about the trip. The flooding and demonstration just make things worse. Furthermore, my body is aching all over from 3 consecutive days of floorball-ing. Subtly, I've lowered my expectations for an exciting, exhilarating, fun-filled road trip to just a safe and sound one. But my 6th sense just tell me this trip will be a funfilled one.
Lightnings! Haven't seen them at such close proximity for a long time. I wonder what the lightning struck. Everything seem to be in place. Maybe it's the ultra efficient lightning rods on top of every building doing their jobs. Adults pacify children by telling them that lightnings only strike those who commit evil deeds. What will the children think when they know there such a thing call lightning rod? Will children that grow up in this internet era think that it is okay to commit crimes since there is lightning rods to be struck in their place?
