Updates

It has been 2 weeks since I last wrote an entry and there are many thoughts in my head that I will like to pen down. Finally, I get the chance to sit down and type them out. The first on the list would be my opinions of the modules I took last semester - just like what I have done for the first year.

CS3230 (Design and Analysis of Algorithms) was fun and easy. I managed to get around this module and did pretty well for it without putting much effort into it (like not studying for it at all). CS3243 (Foundation of Artificial Intelligence) was a horrible module. I did not like the professor at all as he kept changing the key points in the assignments and he was not clear about what he wanted us to do. Shafeeq and I were always joking about how he will screw us badly for the module and his title which was "Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Chair Professor". For the final paper, I found out to my horror that I didn't study one topic which was 9% of my grade for the module. Thankfully, it was an open-book examination and I figured it out in the last 15minutes and tried to draw something that looked like a planning graph. I was expecting a poor grade for that module and I will need to exercise my SU option but it turned out that I got A for the module. I must have smoked Chua Tat Seng again.

I didn't do that well for MA2101S (Linear Algebra II) and it pulled my grades down. Dr Ku, the lecturer for MA2108 (Mathematical Analysis I), holds the record for giving me lousy grades. I really hate his style which was to set very simple mid-terms and hit you very hard with an extremely tough final paper. I was rather upset with myself over the final paper as I felt that I could have done way better and gotten an A. I made too many careless mistakes in the final paper. MA3233 (Algorithmic Graph Theory) was a topic I like, so naturally I put in a lot of effort into it. The proofs found in the module turned out to be quite fun and I wished that the final paper was slightly more challenging. Nevertheless, I must thank Dr Ng for doing such a good job.

I got the CORS survey feedback from Steven this afternoon. I am very happy that my students graded me pretty good for IT1005. In fact I got 2 nominations for Best Teaching Award and I was the only teaching assistant from IT1005 to get those nominations. I am very proud of that. Felix did slightly better than me and I suspect that it is because he gives weekly pop quizzes. I should do that in the future.

Right now, I am reading the following courses: CS2100 (Computer Organisation) - Shafeeq said it will be fun so I decided I should try it, MA2202S (Algebra I), MA3111S (Complex Anaylsis I), MA3265 (Introduction to Number Theory) and SSA2202 (Changing Landscapes of Singapore). I am starting to not like my choice of choosing a 8am lecture. It is because I have to wake up early to get caught in traffic jams thanks to parents driving their kids to school. Getting stuck in traffic jams really makes me grumpy before the day even started. However, MA3265 is not that bad so far, as Professor Chan is not too bad and I am interested in Number theory.

Now school stuff aside, I would like to talk more about my Europe trip which I never really gotten down to doing it. I really enjoyed communicating with people that I have met along the trip - people from all over the world, people with different religious, racial and cultural background. Communicating with people is only possible because they speak languages that I know. In this aspect, English is a good bridging language as so many people understand it though not everyone has a good command of it.

This reminds me of a story that a Swedish couple (They speak good english) I met told me. They were trying to get to a train station in France but somehow they got lost. So they tried asking a frenchman for directions using the words "train", "zug" and "tåget", but the frenchmen couldn't understand. In desperation, they use their hands to make the gesture of the train along with the sound "chu-chu-chu". Then the frenchmen understood and said "Oh le train". They said it could be because the French refuse to understand English even though the way they pronounce "train" is similar to the way it is pronounced in English.

We were told many times by the government to speak good English and not Singlish. This made sense now that I have visited Europe as no one outside Singapore understands Singlish and when we need to communicate with others we cannot speak Singlish. We need to speak English that the rest of the world can understand, and not Singlish. It seems like I can switch between Singlish and English naturally. When I speak to Singaporeans, my English becomes more Singlish, but when I am speaking to other nationalities, somehow I don't speak Singlish.

I was looking through all the websites on graduate studies in mathematics. It dawned to me that I have to learn French and German as according to most universities I need to be able to understand two languages from the following list: French, German and Russian. I am so not going to learn Russian, so I am left with French and German. The reason is because most mathematics literature are either in English, French, German or Russian. Time to pick up more languages.

(Mun Thye: This is definitely more than 800 words.)