my moral check and balance

it's really difficult trying to readapt my mindset back to studying the more mathematical subjects as i tread ever closer to dealing that elusive coup de grace to this wretched semester. not the least when my first two papers - microecons & philo - are more writing and content-based as compared to the remaining two - calculus and management accounting - which are more solution based. this seemed especially so for philosophy and calculus which are scheldule in succession, most unfortunately. yet interestingly so, in the course of mugging for philo, i've come to realise that there appears to be many techniques used in maths (especially so in statistical hypothesis testing) which are very similar to those employed in argument evaluation. such as a method of a provisionally assuming a statement to be true in order to test its validity, called modus poens where If statement P is true, then C will happen. Since P is true, therefore C must be true. the same method is employed in hypothesis testing where we the validity of a second hypothesis is tested by first assuming the contigent initial hypothesis to be provisionally true and then going on to test it. so it's probably not surprising that the ancient greek civilisation could produce thinkers like plato and pythagoras.

this semester was a total disaster, not the least for my philo and calculus module. failure for both modules is a very realistic possibility. in hindsight, i could probably try and offer mitigation and self-denial that it was the early morning lecture schedule for both that prompted me to miss a good 1/3 of the lectures. but procrastination is procrastination. something's gotta give, whether it's my irregular sleeping habits, or that ever-so tempting super nintendo emulator on my hard disk. i'll be in yr 2 next sem, and every score will count towards my majors. i can't afford to fuck up anymore.

it's is times like this of self-loathe, self-evaluation, and affirmation that i really wished i was still residing in trinity college. staying off-campus has its perks - cheaper rent, own choice of food etc. but what it does not account for is that sense of communal interaction which college provides. i've got great housemates in the bach pad, but i've come to realise that the nature of our interaction is basically just somewhat functional. we gather about twice a day only when we do our cooking in the kitchen, or when we approach each other to ask questions about exam stuff, and beyond that, we pretty much keep within the constraints of our own rooms. it's just rather different in college, and that's probably becos' of jeremy.

jem lives 2 rooms down the aisle when i was staying in trinity, and i could say he's the most unassumming and down-to-earth fellow i've ever met. since jem always works late, and me trying to catch up with all the work i missed, i would always pop over to his room to disturb him outta boredom or to just cook noodles together and talk cock. jeremy is my source of moral check and balance whenever i need some affirmation as to why i should so fucking fooling around and get serious work done not the least cos' i think he's embodies many virtuous traits which i find sorely lacking in myself. for a start, he's 2 yrs older than most of the other singaporean guys cos' he actually worked his way after army to save up for his own overseas education. i recall that in the midst of the smacking winter cold last semester, jem was the only one who refused to buy a heater cos' he 'din want to splurge unneccessrily' and only relented after he fell ill from the winter chill. jem's always been the consistent hardworker, and amicable mr nice guy, so much so that he's often taken advantaged of. there was once when i was stealing a quick cig break outside the courtyard at around 3am in between rushing an essay, i saw jem rushing to the lab in uni. apparantly his project mate left him for dead, and jem had to do take over and do that fuckhead proj mate's share of work even when he had a major test coming up 2 days later. and he did so with hardly much complain, it was only when we reasoned it out with him that he strengthened his resolve to report his fuckhead proj mate's dearth in academic integrity to the unit coordinator.

jem shares a similar story with many other poly graduates studying overseas who were unable to secure a place in our local universities as a result of the high entrance requirements levied on poly grads. it wasn't the case that jem had crappy grades, on the contrary he was among the top 15 percent of his polythenic's cohort as he said. yet it wasn't even good enough for him to enter NTU engineering. when i see people like me who despite getting crap results for A levels and even an E in physics being offered a place in NTU engineering by virtue of the fact that we took the A level route; while arguably more capable poly students like Jem are deprived of a place in local universities, i seriously question our government's ingenuity in tertiary education policy. do they serious trust someone like me, who barely understood what i was taught for 2 yrs in physics to be an structural engineer more than a poly graduate with a decent score like jem? with that in mind, perhaps the nicole highway tragedy wouldn't come as such a shock after all....



me and jem: even a terrorist needs some moral affirmation from time to time