I was reading the math book i borrowed., Mathematical Journeys. Very interesting and it starts everything from the beginning and gets each chapter up to Olympiad-like standard. There was this simple game mentioned, Nim. Fun game, isn't so mathematical, but if you want to win, you'll be need to express the numbers using binary representation (And I'm not going to tell you more).

Next i found some stuff that I've been looking for, mainly the paper in which i copied down some math stuff at nyjc library, the day before GP paper. I remember that i was just browsing through this mathematical gazette magazine while i came across this article talking about whether e^pi or pi^e was bigger. I had noted down the major parts of the proof at that time, but only managed to find that paper today as i was flipping through one of my memo pads. Here's the full version of the proof:

Also, i went cycling today, saw my teacher along the way. Today was quite adventurous, there were some parts where i got to drive at high speeds. It was better that the previous downhill since this one was longer. I also went to explore this park near potong pasir station and found many runners there, it's a good place to run. Only thing is that it's not sheltered (it's a park, remember?). Then there was this time when i got onto a raised platform at a high speed; my water bottle flew out of the basket infront (and due to faulty breaks, it took me about 40m to stop). I tried it again with some strategy and this time, my bottle did the jump but landed back in. Cool huh?

Updates...My refrigerator spoiled the day before yesterday. the freezer was alright, but the main compartment was at room temperature. After a few of my experiments, the technician was called in to fix it. He replaced some parts. Well, it has been loyally serving my family for about 6 years now, so it's expected.
Today, i went down to the national library. After searching for my mom's library card yesterday night(found it in my previous wallet), i did some cleaning up in my room. Oh yes, and i also finished reading the novel. Actually, there were 2 novels in that book, but i don't feel like continuing to the next one, so that's 45 cents worth of stuff(refer to previous post)...Like the previous time, i went to read some newspapers and then, since i had lots of time this time, i went to explore the other parts of the central lending library.Magazines, fiction and non-fiction... since there were not enough good math books available for borrowing, i got myself 2 of them, Mathematical journeys, and another book on Olympiad. I've read them before at nyjc library, but i just wanted to try some more problems. And besides that, i got myself a Macworld magazine!! And i spent some time looking at math stuff at the reference floor. finally, i discovered the tangent rule (you know, we have the since and cosine rule...). These rules, i think, just try to relate the length of the sides of a triangle (any triangle) to it's interior angles, using the respective trigonometric function.
One more thing: I went down to the immigration authority to check on the procedures on getting my student pass renewed for NUS( if i get in). Since the one for nyjc will be expiring on the end of next month, i'll have to cancel my student pass before that date(31st april) and they'll give my a month more to stay here . Hopefully, i'll get my posting results by then preferably by 20th May. Or else, i'll have to apply for social visit pass. Well, i'm glad that Lavender (where the immigratino building is) is just a bus ride away from home :)

I've been reading a novel, to entertain myself. Quite interesting. Seems like, i bought it ages ago. This is what i can remember: It was the opening day of the Big Bookshop at Toh Payoh and by luck, i happened to be there. i remember that i bought a whole lot of things there, an encyclopedia, dictionary, an atlas... And there was this novel, by Dick Francis. The book i bought has two of his novels, For Kicks and Flying Finish. According to the label on it, it was supposed to go at $12.90 (it's a hard cover book). Guess how much the price was: 90 cents!!! FOR A HARD COVER BOOK!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT????.Well, after coming back home, i started reading it a few days later, but went to sleep after the first 2 pages or so.
Also, i remember that they were selling this encyclopedia that came in several volumes (about 20 or so). I'm not sure if it was Britannica, i remember that it was being sold for about $40! I really thought of buying it, but I've already bought a lot and think: What a kid who just started working on his secondary school science textbooks supposed to do with all those volumes? They would just rot in a corner, like this novel did, till i picked it up a day ago.

Cycling!!!

I went cycling this evening- normally, during my runs, i'll run over to the end of the 2nd Bishan park and turn around. But now, since i've my cycle with me, i decided to explore a bit. I found out that beyond that park, there was the lower (or upper, i forgot) reservoir park. And i went into and around it, and did some more exploring. In the middle, since i've not been riding my bike for so long, some parts of it sort of rusted, but after some oil, it seamed to be doing fine.
At Bishan park, there was this dog show competition going on. I stood a while with my bike near me to watch the dogs run around compete. When i tried to set off, i had trouble turning my bike's handle. Even on the road, i had to use a lot of effort to turn it. I was thinking that i should have sent it for servicing before riding it. But after forcingly turning it a few times, it became okay. So i continued to explore. Throughout my ride, i noticed that the handle was only abnormal if i stopped for some time. I even stopped at a bus stop to examine it closely, but found nothing wrong. Maybe it's because that particular joint is getting rusty. I loosened (not by my hands of course, i did something else :)) the nut at the joint, and after that it was pretty fine.

Came across some monkeys along the way. Some of them are really bold; there was one that 'shouted' at me as i drove by( NO, i wasn't so near it, i was just being a good boy, by smiling at it as i went past). Also, i encountered some really steep slopes along the way, so fun! there's nobody to catch me speeding in my bike:)

shrinking photos

Okay.., I've not been blogging for a long while now, some updates:
I'm now able to appreciate the weather in Singapore a lot more.

I'm done with the NTU entrance application. Somehow, i finished writing the essay (it took me very long since i wasn't very much used to writing about narratives) and filling in my non-academic particulars (i had a lot of difficulty squeezing them all into 200 words. They have quite a good counting system that's different from the one that Microsoft word uses. for eg. "council05 to o6" is considered as 3 words while "council(05 to 06)" and "council (05 to 06)" are counted as 4 words; very smart...)
AND i also managed to get an appraiser to write about myself :)
I was offered some scholarship stuff at the end and was brought to another site at where there was another looong form. I nearly fainted when i saw it; I'm going to start working on it tomorrow morning. The scholarship form needs another appraiser. But the essay there is of the same topic, weird... i also had a lot of trouble getting my passport sized photo to their stringent specifications. My best is this: Below is the original



and below is the edited one:

Went down to nyjc this Monday, hoping to get my testimonial, but it wasn't ready yet. So, i ended up helping some J1s prepare for their math block test. It was fun. I enjoy teaching and in the process, i enjoy making things complicated. ;)
I'm going to start calling them up tomorrow for my testimonial.

I also need to do the essay for the university scholar's programme, and send in my supporting doccuments to NUS and NUS, and prepare things for my appraiser.

Yesterday. Since it's past 12, the day before yesterday, i went down to sch in the morning, expecting to get my testimonial and SGC, but ended up having to write my name down for them to print it. Now, i need to go back on Mon to get it. Can't wait to see it.. :)
Next, I filled up the NUS application at night. My printing system got screwed up when i tried to print the acknowledgement page. What actually happened was that i had clicked 'print' before the page finished loading. The trouble was that the page was longer than i expected it to be, since i didn't realise that my filled up form would be below the acknowledgement page. So, out of 9 pages, only 5 printed properly, with some parts of pg 6 missing. After this printing, i wanted to order a print of the last few pages, and i did it. For some reason (i forgot), i canceled this printing job and was trying to get it to print some other pages. The cancelation message somehow never got to the printer so it got sort of 'stuck'. And i couldn't print. So, after a long time of trying to troubleshoot all by myself, i gave up and tried to get my old printer to print. That worked, but the ink is low quality, i'll explain in the next post. But after struggling to get my new printer to continue to print, i figured out somthing: I couldn't save that acknowledgement page, getting a screenshot would be good, but it's quite long, i got it anyway. And since restarting my printer didn't seem to work, maybe restarting my comp would- but that page would disappear- so it won't. Finally, i saw this "send this page to gmail/ blogger thing" when i right click on the screen. Sending it to blogger didn't seem to work as well as i wanted it to, but sending it to gmail worked! it was excellent! that's all.

1:19 A.M

I thought of blogging now but it's such an ungodly hour. I'll get some sleep (or maybe do some maths) and come back in the morning. I really wonder how so many ppl can be online now...It's crazy...
Briefly, i went to sch and at night, applied to NUS. There, done.

oh man... i think i left one of my cables in India, the one that i'm supposed to use to connect my handphone to my computer...terrible, terrible....It's supposed to be in the cables bag, together with my camera's mini-tripod, but it's not there, though the other cables are. Let's just hope that it's stuffed somewhere elsein my baggages. I did a through check before i leave and the last time i saw the cable in india was like 1 month before i left. It's going to get more screwed up-they are moving to a new house right now. They did the house warming yesterday.

NUS, NTU, SNEC

Went to NTU open house on saturday and NUS open house on sunday. They were quite fine and one thing that i couldn't help noticing is that they gave away so much free stuff! And due to the paper quality of the prospectus and flyers, they should be quite expensive. I estimated that i got about $40 worth of stuff from both unis! Now i know where my money goes to if i get into an uni. I also got to get a much clearer picture of what uni will be like. NTU has a lot of accomodation facilities while NUS is short of them (as i heard from a few of the students there). Well, it's surprising that they let us stay in Prince George's Park residences during the Pre-U Seminar. I heard it's for the USP people, but not too sure. Should be expensive, though. Also, i heard that nus is a little short of students to participate in their overseas programmes, i heard from a few of the students there that it get really competitive once you are in. Well, i guess i've to get in and see for myself.
Also, i've sent in my application form for Australian National University. Should be getting a reply in 3 weeks' time.
Today, i went to National eye care centre to get my colour vision deficiency cert updated, i was still having the 2001 version. So i had to do some test alogside with it. My short sightedness seems to be stbilising. My left eye's power is 50 deg below my left spec lens, so it's now overpowered. and my right eye has gone worse by 50 deg. Since the last time i got myself a new pair of glasses was in september 06, i expected my eyes to be worse by about 100+ deg. Glad that it came out fine :)
I had to get the back of my eyes checked. They dropped some eye drops to dilate my pupils, sothat the doctor can look at the back of my eye. My left eye responded very well to the drops and only needed 3 drops. But my right eye was more stubborn and needed 6 drops (that's the max that they can give to a patient. I was getting quite worried cos my right eye became painful just after each drop while my left eye felt pretty normal). Because of those drop, Overall, i had to wait for about 2hrs. The report came out to be fine, my eyes are perfectly normal, apart from the red-green colour vision deficiency and the shortsightedness. (Nope, they didn't mention the stubbornness of my right eye) And there was also this test where a machine blew a puff of air onto my eyes to check the pressure. I had to do it several times as my eyes kept blinking.
Lastly, i've been reading my math olympiad notes till late in the night. I only slept at about 3 am yesterday night and ended up waking up at 10 in the morning. My sleeping pattern is all screwed up now. But it's so fun!

Forgot to blog about this: on tuesday morning, i felt my bed shaking slightly, due to the earthquake in Indonesia. I was quite doubtful at first, but after being unable to shake my bed in that same way by shaking myself on the bed, i was convinced that it's something unusual. It was just for about 4 seconds. I was thinking of running down, but no one was panicking. So, i didn't bother. Then later, i saw in the news about the quake in Indonesia.

I went down to the idp office today, that's where they help you to apply to Australian universities. I was told that i can be guaranteed a place in any of those unis. So, i was thinking of going for ANU. My first option has been NUS, so far. What i got today maybe one-sided view. So, i'm going to NUS tmr, or during the open house to know more about their programmes. Going back to India for IIT is nearly off my list for now :)

I've been reading up a lot on universities. Also considering some scholarship programmes.
My bicycle has rotting for the past 6 months. I just pumped the tyres with the pump, which was also rotting. The cycle chains are all rusted, i haven't tried it yet, but i really need to send it for servicing sooner or later.
I've been thinking of applying to the university scholar's programme at NUS. I know i'm not going to get it, but i'm just going to give it a try. It's going to be a very good experience, if i can get into it.

Well, it turned up slightly better than my optimistic expectations, AAAA (dunno if they sell this battery, maybe i'll have to fix 2 AA's together)But my GP is a C6, quite bad i think. Could have done better. S-papers, okay, expected, both merit. That's all. Now to run around applying for universities. So fun!

and here is the marathon certs that i received:

my first 42.195km!

Still super busy-i'll be quick here:
Pessimistic expectations:
Math-B
F-math-A
Physics-B
Chem-C
GP-D7
S-papers- U for both

Optimistic expectations;
math-A
F-math-A
Physics-A
Chem-B
GP-B4
S-papers-Physics-U
math-s-Merit

I've been super busy since i came back. It's really wonderfull to be back-no pollution, low traffic, nice people, Rain( haven't seen it for 3 months). Lots of things to do here-updating the computer,fixing back my room, unpacking, organising and so on. No time for patient blogging.