flying: 04/2005

there's no come back

I'm moving out of here to msn space, @spaces.msn.com/members/flyingaround

goodbye blogger

Hypothesis tesing

H0: I can get a scholarship
H1: I cannot get a scholarship

If Ho happens, i will go to cornell
If H1 happens, i will stay in singapore, probably NUS

If H0 is tested to be true, there are 2 possible results
A1: A*star scholarship; status: shortlisted for final round interview
Result: Cornell, College of Engineering. Looking for a double degree or joint major in Chemistry and Chemical biology from College of arts and sciences
A2: DBS scholarship; status: shortlisted for psychometric test
Result: Cornell, College of Engineering. Looking for a double degree or joint major in Economics from college or arts and sciences

Let f(x) be the function of my university decision if a scholarship is awarded. among all the variables and so on, there are a few constant terms.

C1: I will be going to Cornell
C2: I will pursue an Engineering degree at least
C3: I have to MAIL TO CORNELL A 400 US DOLLAR DEPOSIT BY THE END OF THIS MONTH

思念三首。from 萤

[守素]思念三首。

寡言发表于 2005-4-11 19:53:30

早安。

　　思念爬上天花板，我就醒了。
　　绵长的，像常春藤绕了几圈，闹钟很吵。
　　　　密不透风。我揉着眼睛。

　　窗帘堵住白天。
　　　　好在牛奶没凉。很甜。
　　　减少一点糖，会不至于心酸。

　　屋外沉沉的阳光很灿烂，
　　　　像我想你的甜与心酸。
　　绵长而密不透风的思念被闹钟打破。
　　　　　　亲爱的，你在想我么？

　　　　　　早安。

颜色

　　白色是我想你。
　　粉红是我很想你。
　　紫色是我太想你了。
　　　　那黑色呢？

　　（我想死你了，亲爱的。）

半缕阳光

　　阳光漫长。
　　裁一缕两缕。绕过地平线。
　　　　假设阳光比地平线，更长。
　　　　　　拴着谁的小指。浅浅的金黄。

　　这边的阳光少了一半，
　　　　我揣着心焦，
　　　紧握，
　　　　　半缕阳光。

Bad news and good news

Bad news: my colleague Li zhipeng was fire on wed. reason: 'he was not suitable for the job'. i don't think it can be counted as a reason lol... they just fired an MIT cum Stanford undergrad like this.

So now i'm under pressure to perform well. Luckily my environmental head mrs sow was very nice, and it seems that mrs har, the overall supervisor for research, is still comfortable with my job.

Just finished the draft of the research handbook. and after an torturing weekend with dreamweaver tutorials, i managed to put up a presentable webpage for the science and math research programme.

shall be showing her my work tml.

'in the workplaces, you intelligence doesn't count much. You got to communicate and let people know what you are working on' :moral of the story

back to the good news.

i'll be sitting for the DBS psychometric test on Sat, and see A*star chairman on the coming Thursday.

well, people tell me 'you flatter the chairman well, then you get the scholarship, then you can leave this small island liao'

and i was thinking 'after four years i'll be stucking here for another 10 years?'

haha, i don't mean singapore is no good. but well, i guess i need time to adjust and accept that, maybe.

by the time i'm free of bond, i'll be 34 liao....

marry a singaporean girl? hehe........

it's a career choice....

life's getting harder

so I'm sitting here, at the desk of 'duty executive' in the general office of the boarding school. on my right hand side there's this computer monitor showing all the 'live' scene captured by the surveillance cameras distributed at all corners of the boarding school compound. a couple was enjoying themselves at one of the benches. people are eating in the dining hall. There's one girl calling home at the orange calling centre. and the rest of the hostel does not have any human activities.

my tution student felt bad after today's hussle, so he asked whether today's session can be postponed to tml. i said yes. anyway i felt tired too, after a 730-1810 working day. luckily tonigh mr wang's on night shift, so that i can slack a bit.

i went for the A*Star assessment yesterday. another 800-1840 torture. 2 hour psychometric test, consisting of 567 true or false questions (e.g. your are satisfied with your sex life) repeating themselves at irregular intervals. luckily it was only 2 hours or i'll be driven mad. anyway phychologists and phychiartrists are just one step away from mad people. the number of questions were distressing, though it doesn't require much thinking. in fact u r supposed to give your first response instead of pondering over, or else u may be ended up being identified as 'over positive' and be called to see some psychologists.... wth

then was the presentation, the most challenging part. 20 minutes to prepare a 5 min presentation. quite GPish, so that was still ok. and there's this 'surprise' 1 min talking after u have drawn a topic from a 'lucky bag'. there were better ones, like diamond, equally bad ones, like mouse pad, clay, window, and worse ones, like bubble...

after that it was lunch, followed by another round of psychometrics. we went through two sets of tests. the first was more comprehension, math and data reading; the second was another torture of 126 questions in 35 min... bleh....

and the crocdile game! those kind of using planks and ropes to cross over a 'river' through some footages. we got no one eaten by the crocdile, though me and another guy was 'handicapped' by having our hands tied up for two planks that had been dropped into the river. our whole team managed to finish the game in the 45 minutes allowed, a feat that was not achieved by the other two.

lastly the negotiations... blah... sth about investment from MNCs, government watch dogs and another government agency acting like 'EDB'. i expected some conspiracy game to take place but obviously it didn't happen. any way we were some how confused and distracted by some useless information given to us, and the 'negotiations' weren't as interesting or 'explosive' as expected.

so now i'll talk about why life's getting harder...

yups work is piling on

need to complete this research handbook by this thursday

as well as a webpage for smrp... wth mrs har told me that her students were doing and asked to hang on during march holidays, but now she's not satisfied with the students work and ask me to do again... and the deadline: this thursday as well!!

bleh... she thought i'm very it-savvy..

yups, and my laptop hadn't have frontpage or anything that can do webpage before this afternoon, when i managed to download dreamweaver....

now... tutorials for dreamweaver will begin...

oh... i'm really long-winded....

i like interviews

well, that doesn't mean i'm good at being interviewed, but i like that atmosphere, whether friendly or hostile

Gmail - appeal for financial aid

International Admissions Inquiries to me
More options Apr 6 (1 day ago)

We have received your e-mail with regard to financial assistance and are
indeed sorry that our decision cannot be reversed.

The funding we have to make financial aid awards to international students
is very small, allowing us to award only about 12-15 students each
year. About 300 students compete for these awards. We use the funds to
try to achieve some diversity in the class. We realize, with regret, that
we cannot even attempt to meet the financial need of all those
international students accepted. Most of the university's assistance to
international students is provided at the graduate level. I am sorry not
to be more encouraging about other sources of aid now or in subsequent years.

We do appreciate your interest in Cornell and recognize that, as is the
reality with many other international candidates, without aid you may not
be able to attend. We hope that, given your academic achievements to date,
you are able to pursue your academic interests elsewhere.
_________________________________________
The International Admissions Staff

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Office of Financial Aid & Student Employment to me
More options Apr 7 (7 hours ago)

Dear Xiang,

Congratulations on your acceptance into Cornell.

Your appeal will be review by the Office of Financial Aid. You will
receive notice of a financial aid adjustment in 7-10 days (once the appeal
arrives in our office) if an adjustment has been made to your financial aid
package.

Please mail or fax your appeal and support documents to our office.

203 Day Hall

Ithaca, NY 14853

Fax: 607-255-5022

Good luck,

Thank you for contacting the Office of Financial Aid.

confused

confusion.

over scholarships, university decisions. blah blah.

the time before my own decision is made.

stupid cornell

cornell refuses to give me money.

life choice

If you have a girl friend or boy friend at this point of time, will you announce to others that you will marry him/her to the end of your life?

Talent is not the most important quality that scholarship agenices are looking for. They are looking for loyalty. In their words, 'passion'.

Well, i feel i do not fit into their expectations.

but anyway, why not give it a try?

career choice is not an impulse at 19 years old.

Today, I asked the A*star chairman of science and engineering council about the challenges faced by their scholars.

'academically no challenge' was the main idea of his answer. and he seemed quite reluctant to go to other fields. he then talked about some nerd/genius who got 3 degrees in 3 years.

so i guess they really want the book worms liao... just study. u don't have to use ur precious brain to think other stuff. just do research.

i feel it is like a 'specialised intelligent slave', the prototype for artificial intelligence

and asked why MIT, Caltech, Princeton and Harvard are not in their selected overseas universities for undergrad programme, he told me he expect the scholars to get the degree in 3 years. and those prestigious schools require 4 years.

yups, anyway finishing a BS in 3 years saves a lot of money for A*star.

life choice

If you have a girl friend or boy friend at this point of time, will you announce to others that you will marry him/her to the end of your life?

Talent is not the most important quality that scholarship agenices are looking for. They are looking for loyalty. In their words, 'passion'.

Well, i feel i do not fit into their expectations.

but anyway, why not give it a try?

career choice is not an impulse at 19 years old.

Today, I asked the A*star chairman of science and engineering council about the challenges faced by their scholars.

'academically no challenge' was the main idea of his answer. and he seemed quite reluctant to go to other fields. he then talked about some nerd/genius who got 3 degrees in 3 years.

so i guess they really want the book worms liao... just study. u don't have to use ur precious brain to think other stuff. just do research.

i feel it is like a 'specialised slave'

and asked why MIT, Caltech, Princeton and Harvard are not in their selected overseas universities for undergrad programme, he told me he expect the scholars to get the degree in 3 years. and those prestigious schools require 4 years.

yups, anyway finishing a BS in 3 years saves a lot of money for A*star.