Ranting #16

Trip back to school

took leave today to go back to school... wanted to collect my SMART card and also the centennial mug, a gift of a commemorative mug as part of the University’s centennial celebrations.... so went school even though the weather today is superb for lazing at home...

had the chicken cutlet from engin canteen that i've been dreaming of ever since i started IA... so happy... even though that meant i'll be overeating again... but once a sem should be quite okay...

went to attend the CEP lecture (my first lecture this sem!) with tax cos i got nothing better to do (good to revise my Yr 1 modules too)... the lecturer was the same...though they have another lecturer teaching them too... (heard that he's super handsome but super dunno-how-to-teach...) but venue changed from the sucky LT5 (which is no longer sucky after renovations) to the leaky and stinky LT7A... leaky as the compressors for the air-con doesn't seem to be working and water droplets were formed and thus dripped onto the unfortunate seat in the 2nd last row... stinky as there's always this stench when u stepped into the LT...

went to co-op to buy chocolates then to collect the mug... wanted to go holland v to buy something for my colleague but ran into Johann, my EV senior... told me about a seminar (though i would say it's more a tutorial...) on Ecology... so went to listen since i've got nothing but time today...

the seminar was on the tropical rainforest in s'pore... pretty interesting to me... lecturer (or speaker) was from Biological Science (botany dept)... pretty interesting talk he gave... very informative yet worrying cos he said that the bt timah nature reserve would be gone in another 100 yrs (though not in my lifetime but still as worrying...) and which some dept actually suggested buying the forest from Johore since s'pore has nothing but money... haha... pretty true...

the part i like most was on the part of strangling figs... the flowers usually germinate on tree trunks... and another thing on figs was about their fruits... the female wasp which feed on the fruit actually lay eggs within the fruit itself... and so when the eggs hatch then they will have to try to fly out... and guess what... only the female has wings and eyes but not the male... the male will have to remain in the fruit (which serves as the lodging and provide the source of food) and be a SEX SLAVE to just fertilise the eggs laid by the female... haha... so interesting... if only we human beings are like that...

just for your info (so can skip if u want...) the speaker (or actually A/Prof Benito C. Tan) said that trees only have an average lifespan of 50 years and leaves only have about 1 week to 2 years... human beings have longer life than them... but some trees can live up to 5000 yrs old...

very interesting module according to Johann... cos A/Prof Obbard actually organise lotsa talks like this and also field trips for this module... but the sad thing is that my batch (and most likely subsequent batches...) will not take this module as it is removed from our syllabus... haiz... it's EV1404... ecology... maybe my whole class should write a petition to ask for the inclusion of this module...

went holland v and bought a new cashcard cos the new SMART card do not have cashcard functions... (unlike the old card... and i have effectively lost the word environmental on my new card...) waited 30 minutes for bus 61 and as everyone knows... when that happens 2 same numbered bus will arrive at the same time... haiz....

the usually shy socially inactive me actually met a number of friends in engin today even though my classmates are mostly doing IA or are in different faculty... quite happy to see familar faces... but i do miss the days when me and regina was walking around the school rushing to go for lectures or tutorials...