The reason for me to write this entry is because I would like to discuss Java. No, I’m not referring to the island of which is part of Indonesia nor am I referring to the coffee. It is a programming language. Of course, for a similar problem, it can be solved or be implemented by other language. The following write up is just about my own personal view.

So let me get started.

The reason why is because I work with it. It serves as my preferred language for almost any situation. My current job as an application developer for a local company also sees me using this language.

First, let me write a little bit of history.

My first exposure to programming and computer languages, short of HTML and Javascript, was actually Java. I was taught in this language during my polytechnic years. During my studies, I’ve used Java to developed several applications starting with Swing-based to enterprise-based. As the years go on, I’m beginning appreciate its simplicity compared to C/C++ alongside its powerful nature when compared to interpreted language like Python (which I learned in my first semester study at NTU).

One of its simplicity can easily be the result of the massive library that comes with it. Oracle alongside with many other third-party developers have made Java so feature-rich that I can easily just import a library, a class or a jar file and solve problems. For example, I want to create an application to send an email. With Java, I don’t need to worry about the intricacies of handling email operations such as establishing connection, authenticating with the mail server, preparing the email and then send them over. There’s a library for that and I just use it. It makes life very simple. Multi-threading in GUI-based application is also simple with the SwingWorker class, generics (a recent implementation) and auto-boxing.

Also, Java somewhat adhere to the MVC model. MVC, for those who don’t know, stands for Model-View-Controller. It is simply a way to describe that what you see on screen is call the view and it is somewhat independent from the controller. The view handles user interaction while the controller performs the operation such as task delegation. One great example in the context of Java is its Swing platform. The view is the UI while the controller are the Event Listeners and their corresponding handlers.

Secondly, I believe Java is the best language because of its object-oriented design. Everything in Java are objects and to even begin coding, you need a class where you define the main function, also known as method, from which the application will start from. Object oriented programming gives the flexibility when it comes to solving problems such as those requiring relationships between entities and helps to encapsulate a lot of complex operations. Whenever I solve problems, I always can solve them better when I visualize them as entities with relationship and how are they all related. With that, I can easily translate them and implement them using Java. Of course, there are problems which can easily be solved via static or procedural-based programming but causing unnecessary complexity in codes when solved the object-oriented way. However, the general problems that I need to solve at work are object-oriented and relationship based. Object-oriented programming to me is indirectly tied to simplicity because in Java I can easily have many anonymous inner classes and sub-classes which can be very helpful in the problems I solve.

Thirdly, it is highly portable compared to other more flexible and powerful languages like the C++ or C. In general, you really just need to write the code once and it will work everywhere. The runtime will interpret the bytecodes as it is.

The fourth aspect is due to its speed. Speed in both senses: developing a client-based application and executing the program. If I want to develop a client-based application using Java and there’s a need for GUI, I can just fire up Netbean and start coding away. Netbean already had an inbuilt designer which allows me to design GUI with speed. A few click of the mouse, I can rapidly build up a simple high-fidelity prototype of a screen or an application.

The speed also refers to its execution speed. Compared to the old version of Java, it is now as fast if not faster than C++ in its execution. The JIT compiler, commonly known as Hotspot, is very efficient. It automatically knows when to compile what code and when to store those commonly used codes, etc. A Java application’s start up time is comparable with those of  C++. Of course, in the past, the runtime was slow but now, there are many great engineers and programmers working behind the scene to make the runtime run as efficiently as it is.

Finally, Java have underwent a great deal of changes since its inception as a language for interactive television. Now, it is a language which runs on millions of devices ranging from your smartphone to your desktop machine. If needed, I can easily port an application from Swing to another designed for the mobile phones.

For a long time to come, I believe I will continue to code in Java. However, I will also move onto another language, specifically C/C++ because of their nature. Many real-time applications are coded in C/C++ due to their close-to-metal nature without the overhead of interpretation. Device drivers are after all coded in C and sometimes C++.

Highly parallel codes are also written in C-like language. For an example, CUDA or OpenCL.

Example of a Java Program:

public class TestProgram {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    }
}

And another video about Java. Rather old but I love it.

Now it’s still CNY period though I had already finished my visitation of relatives. I’m seeing shops putting up post-CNY sales. I hope everyone had a great CNY.

The reason for my lack of updates is because I’m not really sure what to write on this blog anymore. Maybe I should somehow get myself writing about things that interest me such as technology and computer hardware. I do write those in the past but recently, I don’t feel like writing them anymore. If you want more information, you can always google it.

After months of running, jogging and exercises, I injured my knees already. Now my legs always have this tingling feeling and sometimes a sting when I walk, stand or move my legs in an awkward manner. It is especially pronounced if I stand on bus and the bus suddenly stop. I will be paying the doctor a visit soon to determine what was wrong.

One update which was long overdue is that I managed to pass my first semesteral examination. The grades aren’t awesome but the key was that I passed and I’m happy about it. Now with this new semester, I seek to do better than before and that’s about it. After working for so long (my personal view) is that results aren’t everything. What is the most important thing is how much you’ve learned.

With regards to work, I’ve been fixing quite a number of bugs and also in the process of implementing something new while modifying an existing function to suit the new implementation. It’s going along smoothly but bugs are bound to show up. And so, I shall wait till the software is tested while I continue to work on it.

I believe that is all I’ve got to say for this entry. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of things are now on Facebook, which I am also reducing the number of status update with regards to my life on there.

Some interesting news which I thought I would share.

http://www.techspot.com/news/47257-amd-radeon-hd-7950-is-out-more-affordable-cards-coming-in-q1.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120130171909.htm

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/01/24/supporting-sensors-in-windows-8.aspx

Before I move on to the nasty stuff, let me first say that the holidays wasn’t exactly a vacation for me. I was working and working and spend a few hours hanging out with friends. Not that I want lots of break but well, I guess, the whole month was good for me.

If you’ve notice, I took so long to update my blog. It’s because I don’t really have the energy anymore to update it. The amount of content in my head is dwindling because the things I want to say are just sometimes too overboard. It’s restrictive and it’s like strangling me but well, what can I do?

But that doesn’t stop me from airing my grievances. I’m literally upset by what happened and thus the following way of writing.

The first word of the day that I wanted to say is: “disgusted” and why is that so?

For the first time in 24 years, our train service literally broke down, stranding thousands of passengers and causing great amount of duress and confusion. That was like weeks ago and thus far, the train service, I have yet seen any improvement. The poor response by the staff was in fact a true showing of how our supposedly good preparation for emergencies fell flat on its face. On another note, during the train breakages, the ventilation were down causing hot air to accumulate rapidly. Window was forced to be broken.They can come up with thousand and one excuses but it just showed one thing. They were incapable of responding properly. What if there’s a fire and smoke was filling the cabins. Let everyone in there die of smoke inhalation? A good system always have triple or quadruple redundancies. So I believe apparently on our so call great public transportation, there’s only two? I had never been this dismay and disappointed by how our public services work. Yes, I know there are lots of red tapes and unwritten rules but I’ve never really expected it to end up like that.

It was always claimed that we are a transportation hub, etc, etc. However, some foreigners who I spoke to claimed otherwise. The true transportation hub is either in Taiwan or Hong Kong or even Japan. In order to be a true transportation hub, the transportation services must be in tip-top condition despite maybe the over-population. It was apparent that SMRT was never ready for the outburst of ridership. In school, we were always taught that the government and by extension, related agencies are forward looking; in fact, they are able to see what is going to happen 5 to 10 years ahead. However, did they not see this coming? Have they gotten too complacent with their so called track record that now it came and bit them in their own ass. That’s my view on the whole situation and thus I’m utterly disgusted. In fact, I’ve already lost confidence totally with the transportation service.

Before you choose to call me slanderous but think it through before reading the following. Why am I thinking that way? Is it because it’s a general thing, etc?

From what I know, public transportations are suppose to run on a non-profit basis and have government subsidies. Thus far, I see that only our local public transportation are for profit basis which makes it even more distasteful. Have we all degenerate into pure-profit, lack morality type of society?

Yes, if they want to make it for profit basis, then at least prove that since we the passengers are paying such a barbaric amount of fees, then the services are of the “worthwhile” standard. But no, they raise the fee, they claimed that they are able to increase their net profit but at what expense? Stranding thousands of passengers in response due to some fault they didn’t detect in the first place which should have been done? What kind of degenerate behavior is that? Did they spend the money on maintenance or are the money used to pay fat salary, atypical of those in American corporates. Another leman brothers perhaps? High-paying leadership but without brains for the most common sense of things?  It is because that’s how I feel with all corporates. For some reason, the majority is so focus on profit generation that they have no responsibility to the surroundings and their customers. Only when customers all turned away, then they shift the blame to market forces. That’s what I call cowardice. They simply don’t dare to admit to their mistakes.

Looking at all the speeches by the director made it crystal clear. She didn’t really have the courage to take the blame and try to shift the blame away to someone somehow. The speeches are scripted to make it sound like she’s truly sincere and her body language told me otherwise. And beside, who knows behind those closed doors of theirs. Lack of transparency I say. Maybe those professionals who are trained in micro-expression and body languages along with psychologists can tell me whether I’m right or wrong.

Every time I take the train now, and every time it stops for no reason, in my head, I was already thinking it was another typical lousy service. Another stoppage, blah. Atypical. Now, I don’t care what good track record they tell me. It was already obvious from one mistake. Like how mistakes cost people their job, their life, etc, one mistake is enough to cause me to see SMRT like all the other profit-based organization. Ineffective, too big and too inefficient and money leeches. You may disagree but I’m keeping this thinking and thought until the day I die.

Another failure of the SMRT? The use of human drivers. For some reasons, human train drivers were unable to gauge the speed of the train and make timely judgment on whether to stop the train or not. Were they not trained or are these drivers scholars but without the brains on practicality and technicality? Were there no communications between trains on where the earlier train was and move the current train accordingly to prevent sudden stoppage in the middle of the track or something? What’s the matter with them? Did they have no common sense? There were countless of time when the train just stops like that and the inertia simply caused most of us to topple over. Have these drivers thought of those senior citizens who might not have a sit or wait, maybe they didn’t. I nearly sprained my ankles several times from these sudden stoppages. It is also distracting my train of thoughts and my reading. The tranquility of music in my ears and reading a book is interrupted by the incompetence of one driver who can’t gauge the right speed and time. Maybe I’m self-centered but other than me, there were many disgruntled passengers too. Also, some of the trains were just so dark that I can’t read properly. Maybe SMRT will just tell me don’t read at all. Yeah, if they do that, it just shows how they don’t care about comfort while maintaining the idea of rapid transportation of the masses. Maybe they forgot the original concept of Mass Rapid Transit. That just adds to why I said the fees were barbaric. I get no comfort; I get squeezed like a fucking sardine (forgive my language); I get train breakages.

So don’t tell me about increasing population. If you are forward looking, then make sure your train capacities can cater to that so that everyone gets a great ride. After all, you are a for-profit corporation and you got large stashes of cash. Maybe if the top get some pay cut and divert those money to those areas like maintenance and equipment purchase, it might be better. But wait, maybe they are too enticed by the money that they don’t see how commoners like us feel. Atypical. Or wait, they have too much scholar employees who have no experience or technicality in matters of maintenance? Maybe they lack the out-of-box thinking? If that is a fact, then that just show straight As students are typically useless in real life. I’ve met my fair share so you may choose to argue with that but I know what I saw.

So what’s next?

A bus driver who lost his way. another atypical situation where for-profit organization fail. No further comment on that. The last one will be our taxi services. Same thing. There was never a price differential so that there are competitions among  the providers. They just monkey see monkey do and trying to justify their reasoning with some poorly derived excuses. Another disgusted stamp on that.

So what should I do now? I’ll still take the train but with the mindset that it will fail or stop at random times since they aren’t using computers and Artificial Intelligence to drive the train or maintain the networks. From the rumors I’ve heard, maintenance weren’t done on proper basis and so yeah. Leopards never change their spots. I will adopt another mindset every time I take the train.

I believe this new year is a great time for us to reflect at what we had done and how we should do it better so that blunders and failures like those of SMRT never happen.

That brings me to another note. Many developed nations have fire safety requirements such that all apartments and buildings were fitted with fire escapes, fire alarm system and smoke detectors. Why our HDB didn’t install these?

Lastly, something which is close to me: R&D & supercomputing.

From some of the conferences video I saw, it became apparent that Singapore’s R&D sector is totally lacking innovation and too profit-oriented. It was another atypical situation with the top being the same exact thing. It is always about profit, profit and more profit but never about other things.

Singapore don’t have supercomputers like the Americans, Europeans, Chinese or Japanese do. It is simply because we don’t have a need for them and why so? All the immediate returns, profit-based researches done in Singapore don’t need supercomputers. Supercomputers in US, China, Japan and even Europe were typically used for computing the weather, seismic activities, computational fluid dynamics, and even particle collision. Not only Singapore don’t have a particle collider simply because we don’t have space to build one but many of these researches were not conducted in Singapore. We don’t have any world renown seismologists, physicists,  chemists or even astrophysicists. These are the areas where supercomputing can play a big part in researches. What I believe Singapore don’t see is that non-immediate return type of research can be good for the economy. By having such an industry where people perform decades worth of research on things like finding HIV cures, Singapore can benefit in the long run because we will gain the recognition and further boost our status as an innovative nation. But no, our government is too focus on profit already. Don’t tell me it is not true because I can see with my own eyes. And based on the comments made by two of the renown researchers who left Singapore for America after working here for several years. Then our prime minister claim there is a need to increase R&D funds but in what? A lot of things worth researching are not done here because of lack of space or lack the idea or lack the need since they can’t generate money in the short run. It’s just utterly disgraceful.

There are many indirect ways of increasing profits and wealth but yet many in Singapore prefer to take the sure and practical way. No wonder Singaporeans in general are so lacking in creativity and innovation. Until now, other than Creative, I’ve yet seen any technological companies in Singapore which can rival those of the United States. Singapore apparently is just INCAPABLE of doing so. In terms of innovation, United States and China ranked are ranked 1st and 2nd respectively with Europe and Japan trailing behind. It is not just technological-based innovation but rather everything else.

Every single science news I saw were mostly from these big countries and I don’t see any from Singapore. There are some small ones but never big ones like finding a new planet around certain stars or making a breakthrough in engineering some new material. So the comment I have is: CAN SINGAPORE STOP BEING SUCH A FUCKING USELESS COUNTRY?

Look at United States and Chinese’s military and even Japanese. Look at how advanced they are while over here, we conscript so many but don’t have the technological prowess. We can’t even project our might outwards. Compare that with Israel who apparently can project their military anywhere in the Middle East with little American aid. Vastly different too.

Furthermore, look at our local infrastructure especially infocommunication. Yes, we installed fiber network but look at Japan. They fucking had fibers for years already and look at their capabilities now. Look at Northern Europe, they rolled out 4G networks already. United States are in the process of rolling out 4G network. Can we for once stop being the follower and be the leader?

WHAT IS THE GODDAMN FUCKING PROBLEM WITH US!!!! Jeez.

We are small yes but we have the GDP per capita like those of the developed nations but yet we can’t do things like them. Since our resources are people and their brains then fucking use that! You can chain up all Singaporeans and use their brains for computational purpose for all I care since the brain is a powerful computational device.

THE KEY IS ALWAYS INNOVATE, INNOVATE AND MORE INNOVATION!

STOP BEING A FOLLOWER BUT BE A LEADER!

And if Malaysia or Indonesia fucking get their hands on fission nuclear first and we didn’t go fusion nuclear at the same time, I’m leaving this forsaken place. That is the challenge I’m issuing. The ITER project is slant to start operation by 2026 and so Singapore have until then to make some advances in the field of tomahawk design, plasma control and generation, and laser-based ignition for fusion of deuterium/tritium and start fucking contributing to the ITER project for that matter! Damn it!

And don’t fucking tell me that one X-sat we put up in space is good enough. I WANT FUCKING SINGAPOREANS ON THE MOON BY 2040.

My life is rather boring. Now that examination is over and I’m working back at my company (the same one which I was working at for the past one year), this vacation ain’t really a vacation. The good thing is that I’m getting paid almost twice the amount I was getting paid every month during the past few months when I was working there. For 5 weeks, I would say I’m very satisfied with the pay though there ain’t OT to be claim or any medical claims. It doesn’t matter. I hope it’s sufficient to last me through my second semester.

Also, I bought some new games, specifically Ace Combat Assault Horizon for PS3 and I completed it the very next day after I bought it. Now I’m aiming for some other games which I’m not sure what.

Sometimes, I’m not even sure what to write here. I also want to watch Mission Impossible, so I asked my friend. Next Friday will be movie night then.

The other thing is that I noticed I’ve slightly slimmed down a little. My pants are now freaking lose even though the belt remains at the same level of tightening. Good sign. I should keep up the constant runs that I have every other day.

I guess that’s all.

Yesterday, I just had my first paper. I’m not sure if I’ve done well for it cause there are quite a number of sub questions which I know I answered wrongly. Maybe I will get some marks from there but one can never be sure. So now, if I pass or even get a B, I will be darn happy.

So, I still have got like 4 more papers to go, namely Introduction to Computational Thinking (a programming-based module), Discrete Mathematics, Engineers & Society (something like Social Studies or history) and Great Ideas in Computing, a brand new module for this brand new course structure. What we had for past year papers don’t really proved to be very useful to what we are learning now though there are some questions that were similar. Good for practicing the key concept but at the end of it, it’s still depending on how much you really know and apply across everything.

One thing about studying in University is that, it’s vastly different from poly. It’s much and way tougher and require lot more energy. Some of my friends used CCA to relax while me, I prefer video games, reading and watching videos. Hanging out with friends can be stressful for me since I’m not really a social person. I only choose to hang out with a few people.

As I’m doing my revision, I’m also drafting my own notes for the sake of understanding better everything that I learn and see if I can translate them into my own words which sounds correct. Of course, sometimes mistakes still happen and my friends, who read it, helped to correct those mistakes.

I hadn’t had much of a chance to go back and write my novel. Though this upcoming December holiday, I may do just that. I will go back to my company and do some work for a month and during weekends, I guess, it’s novel writing time. It’s time to fix some things that were wrong in it.

Also, recently, I have been buying quite a number of health supplements to help reduce cholesterol, improve my memory and cognitive functions and also my general health. Lots of vitamins, ginkos, and many others. I am constantly adding more and more as and when I can. I have a intention of living past the average age of 90 and if possible, technology allows, live past 200. I don’t intend to leave this planet at such a young age. True old age is when I have learned everything and done everything. If not, it’s still too young to die.

One more thing is that, I’m actually craving for Japanese food, raw salmon and all that. However, if I am to eat those, I can only eat them on weekends or after my exam now. Even after so long, I guess I don’t really have much to write about.

School assignments are boring, posting them here is like pointless. School results, now I guess, it’s not about results anymore. I guess I have switched to being more of a results = how much I truly know. Someone getting better results means they know more than me and thus I want to know more. Results is no longer about status for me now. I just don’t want people to call me stupid anymore. Even my relatives still do that from time to time. They bring up the old times when I know my learning ability is uber slow. I had learning difficulties then. Now, I’m trying to catch up all the things that I have lost. So I’ve managed to see how far I had come in life. How much I’ve learn and grown. But there are still parts of me which is still the same. Those parts, most likely will never change. A little bit of predictability is good. At least people still can say they know me instead of claiming me to be some total stranger who changed drastically.

I guess that’s all for now. It’s late into the night and I’ve got some shows to watch.

Every hour, turquoise-green inverted funnel-like pseudo-structures would appear in space, fifty thousand kilometers from Earth. It was the tearing of space during the opening of a hyperspace window. In the third millennium, such was a common sight. If anyone were to peer in closely through the hole at the center of the structure, past the fury display of ultra-hot multi-colored plasma streaks, they would see a massive tunnel enclosed within a cylindrical pure opalescent blue wall with sliver of white streaks running along the surface. A dark speck could be seen in the middle within seconds of the opening of such window. As soon as one would open his mouth and say ‘A’, the dark speck within would be thrown out at high-hypersonic speeds before the window closed in a dwindling display of whitish-blue light before dissipating into nothingness. Upon materialization in real-space in fractions of a second, this dark speck would grow into spaceships. They came in a variety, ranging from ovoid shapes of fifty meters long to the mammoth oblong rectangles of a kilometer long, five hundred meters tall and forty deep.

One such window opened one-point-four-five million kilometers from Earth, just a short distance from Lagrangian point 1. This window was slightly larger than the average and was of a slightly darker turquoise-emerald color. A short time later, a massive oblong rectangular, almost trapezoid, object shot through the window. The object was a massive ship of nearly one-point-five kilometers long with dark, radar-absorbing paint on its hull. Along the lower section of the hull, almost at the mid-point of the ship’s length, were words painted in white: Victorious, Behemoth-class. White ionized flames shot out of the hundreds of maneuvering thrusters situated along Victorious’s hull while the sixteen rear cone-shaped thrusters reduced their output of ionized flames. A short time later, Victorious came to a complete halt.

The Victorious was the Terran Federation’s premier battleship. As its christened name suggested, it always emerged victorious in any battle it was engaged in. Its tens of missile pods, zero-point energy cannons and MacroLaser turrets would ensure of that. Its Cyclonic-Slapper shield and point-defense systems would ensure no enemy weapons even get close enough to damage the ultra-thick superstructure. Powered by six zero-point engines with four more in reserve, the Victorious’s sublight speed could hit point-six that of light speed and was the fastest battleship known in this sector of space. Its six oversized hyperspace drive cores provided the Victorious the ability to travel hundreds of light years in a single opening of the hyperspace window; most ships would have to drop out of hyperspace after every one hundred light years to ensure their hyperspace drive cores don’t overheat and suffered irreparable damage. Most enemy commanders who encountered the Victorious in the field would initiate a full retreat. Stubborn enough commanders who chose to fight usually never saw the light of the next day again. The ships belonging to these commanders would be obliterated till there weren’t any parts left to salvage or return home.

Due to its legendary status, even with Terran Federation’s military, everyone thought that the captain was some old man with a massive wealth of combat experience. Adding to the mystery was that no one ever saw the true face of the captain, except for Victorious’s seven hundred crewmembers and some of the top officials in the government who kept the Victorious captain’s identity a state secret. Little did they know that at the helm was in fact an eighteen-year-old named Brandon Barrowsky, the Terran Federation President’s second son.

Brandon was standing by the window of the recreational deck when Victorious dropped out of hyperspace, staring out at the vast space. Space around was mostly black with the exception of the light from the Sun and the trade ships that shuttled hundreds of tons of goods between the thousands of colonized worlds of the Terran Federation. If Brandon was looking out for any ship around Victorious, he would find none. There were no other ships within two hundred kilometers of Victorious as many feared it. But that didn’t mean that it was all alone in this universe. There were many other military ships of similar sizes and equally powerful but none were within range. Most of them were docked at the military outpost. The outpost was a two hundred kilometer wide at its center, a hundred kilometers tall and fifty kilometers structure in a geosynchronous orbit around Earth, servicing countless number of military ships, ranging from resupplies to repairs.

He turned his head gently when he heard footsteps approaching from behind. Once Brandon’s eyes registered who the person was, he recognized the person immediately. The person was a teenager about his age, about the same height as he was at five-foot-seven, with skinny long arms and a handsome, boyish face and dirty blond hair. Every facial feature on the face was placed apart at an optimal distance. He was in fact Brandon’s older twin brother, Jayden.

“Hey, lil’ bro!” Jayden greeted as he raised his hand.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” Brandon asked with a slight irritation in his voice before he turned his attention to the vast black space again.

“Just checking on you. You seemed a little off the whole week,” Jayden said as he approached closer, standing beside Brandon. “Do you want to tell me what’s wrong or do I have to pry it out your head?”

“I’m alright. I just miss home that’s all. I miss the meals that we have together as a family with mom and dad. I’m tired too.”

“Oh, I know how you feel. I’m feeling exactly the same way but—” Brandon interrupted before Jayden could finish his sentence, “I know we are twins but there’s this difference. I don’t handle such situation with such coolness.”

Jayden bit his lips together and his eyes went shifty. He was suddenly embarrassed by the fact he had to be reminded that his twin brother had this slight difference. He went closer and hugged his brother as he always did whenever his brother was feeling down. And it usually cheered Brandon up. So this time wasn’t any different.

Then the communication devices which hung by their ears began beeping. The communication device was a two centimeter oblong black rectangle a hook at one end, which was used to hook securely to the ear. The two brothers tapped the small button on their respective devices and blue translucent holographic strips appeared in front of their eyes. A turquoise sine wave appeared in each of the strip, signaling that this was a voice-only communication.

“What is it?” the brothers asked in unison.

“Captain Barrowskies, the Chief Admiral is ready to receive,” a husky voice said on the other end. The twins recognized the voice immediately for it belonged to the Chief Communication Officer of the Victorious, a thirty-five-year-old man, Lieutenant John Caviar, who served on the Victorious for the whole of his military life.

“Roger that,” the brothers replied in unison. “Transport us down.”

“Activating Transportation Beam,” John replied.

A few seconds later, the fabric of space-time around each of the twins began to loop onto itself, slowing down time drastically. Objects began to blueshift as photons’ wavelength began to decrease. A small fraction of a second later, they soon found themselves encased in an opalescent ovoid, almost diamond-like exotic energy lattice. It resembled a bird cage made out of pure blue energy. Occasionally, milky-white streaks of energy surged through the empty spaces between the skinny poles of the lattice. Then each pole rapidly widen, merging with its neighbors. And when it was over, each of the twins found himself in a solid and opaque ovoid, almost diamond-like case with opalescent surfaces, which soon rapidly took on darker shades of blue until they became black. It all happened within a second. At quantum level, the wave function which represented the physical location of each of the twins’ quantum lattice—which itself represented all the molecules and their quantum states that defined each person—was transposed. The transposition of the wave function resulted in the swapping of the object’s physical location in real space. When the location swap completed, the process reversed. That was when the twins found themselves in a brown octagonal, tubular room.

The twins didn’t need to study the room as they knew where they were: The Federation Central Fleet Command Transport/Receiver Room. It was where all the transportation of personnel and receiving incoming transportation took place if one was to meet the Chief Admiral of the Federal Space Navy. They were standing on a raised white hexagon platform with three-step stairs protruding out from the middle of each side. Overhead, the polylight strips gave the room a warm white glow and with the white walls, the room took on an ultra modern look. Two Federal military soldiers, dressed in their dark and dull combat exosuits, stood guard by the side of the arch doorway with their gauss automatic carbines pointed at the ceiling and their facial expressions didn’t seemed to reveal anything. They were all straight faced however at the sight of any threat appearing on the transportation platform, they would spring into action without hesitation. The soldiers posted to this facility were of the best from wherever they came from. These soldiers were also further given the Federation’s best genetic modifications therapy to further boost their already superior reaction time, combat abilities, healing and regeneration, and strength prior to their postings. Unlike conventional soldiers, these soldiers were trained to deflect any attempts at telepathic influence or attack. Even the most powerful telepaths on this side of the galaxy could only maintain up to four telepathic influential connections to these soldiers. And that was with extremely intense mental concentration. After thirty minutes, the telepath would either burn out or die from excessive brain hemorrhage.

The twins stepped down from the platform and that was when a man dressed in the Federal Navy’s standard blue uniform came in and greeted them. Genetic modification allowed the man to stay in his late thirties and maintain a slim profile, hiding the actual age of late sixties. His hair had no trace of any whites or grays and was cut to the standard military length. There too weren’t any wrinkles and he was still as suave as the twins remembered during their childhood. He was Rear Admiral Joseph Adam, the Personal Assistant to the Chief Admiral. Despite the title, Personal Assistant, sounded like some secretary of a company, it was in fact a high-ranking military position that deserved respect due to the office he was in. And not just anyone could simply be the Chief Admiral’s Personal Assistant as it would require someone with years of experience and a colonel-equivalent rank or higher. The trio exchanged hugs which were uncommon within the Federal Navy. But because of the twins’ age, the adults always treated them as little kids. In Joseph’s case, he had always been a fatherly figure to the twins especially now that their biological father was always so busy with politics. So in this case, the hugs were more on the personal level. However that didn’t mean there was no mutual respect when it came to official business. Of course, the twins didn’t blame their father for not being around most of the time. They understood completely what his job entailed.

“Admiral Adam, what are you doing here?” Jayden asked, mildly surprised at Admiral Adam’s presence.

“I’ve got some free time and would like to enjoy a conversation as we walk through the corridors,” Joseph replied with a big smile on his face. He gestured to the doorway he just came through earlier with his hand, and the twins went through first with Joseph trailing behind. Upon exiting the doorway, they were walking along the long L-shaped corridor which led to several rooms with arch doors. A large oblong rectangle window took up much of the wall at the far end of the corridor—just before the bend—offering a grand view of the vast metropolitan below. At the end of the bend was the Chief Admiral’s office. As the trio walked, there was total silence and the twins’ walking pace ensured that they were a couple of inches ahead of Joseph. Sensing something was wrong, Joseph picked up his pace and placed his arms on the twins’ shoulders as he walked in between them, “So how have you boys been?”

“We are fine,” Brandon replied quickly, hoping to prevent his brother from divulging what he had been feeling for the past few days. Jayden glared at his brother before looking up at Joseph, who was at least four inches taller than them, “I’m fine but Brandon is not. He’s been feeling down for the past few days onboard the Victorious.”

“No, that’s a lie,” Brandon protested.

“Now, now, boys, be honest.”

“It’s nothing. I’m just exhausted from everything. I just wanna take a break,” Brandon replied. There were tones of sadness and tiredness.

Joseph ruffled the hair on the back of the twins’ heads, “Well, after this, the both of you can go on a long holiday. I believe the crew of the Victorious does deserve some shore leaves, especially after the past few successful missions against the Valsek Empire.”

The twins simply eased into a smile, “Really?”

“Yes, my personal promise. I’ll let the Chief Admiral know.”

For the next five minutes as they went winded through the corridor, they chatted about what had happened so far, sharing some of their experiences. They even had talks on what they thought about the Valsek Empire which brought up a well of emotions that were bottled up within the twins. Their mother was killed during a battle with the Valsek Empire’s legendary Fourth Fleet over two H-congruous planets in the Forhorn System. That was three years ago but the pain was still there. It was also the time when their father decided to leave the military as he was particularly angry at the bureaucrats for requesting the Victorious to focus on small time pirates instead of the actual threat. So their father went on to bid for the president.

The Valsek Empire was a thousand star system wide civilization consisted of mostly silicon-based life form, known as Valsekies, and had been fighting against the Terran Federation since their first contact four hundred years ago. It wasn’t a war over resources but rather because they were simply different life forms. Both sides simply fought out of fear of each other. Countless billions suffered bodyloss, even more suffered crippling wounds and there were millions actual deaths. The bodylosses and the wounds were nothing. Those that suffered bodylosses could easily have their consciousness and memories transferred to re-cloned bodies. Those who suffered missing limps or organs could have parts replaced with lab-grown versions which were derived from the person’s stem cells. But for the twins’ mother, she didn’t want to have anything to do with cloning. She believed that a person should only have one original body. So she didn’t have any consciousness and memory backup. But sometimes, the twins wished that their mother weren’t so stubborn and went for the backup procedure. Now nothing could bring her back. The only satisfying thing that brought some form of comfort to the twins’ emotional roller-coasters was their father’s policy on the Valsek Empire. With their father at the helm, the Terran Federation had been extremely successful in their battles. There were also times when the Terran Federation military brought the fight to the Valsekies, colonizing some of their planets in the process.

Before they knew it, they were standing just outside the large rectangular metal sliding door leading to the Chief Admiral’s office. Joseph stepped forward and slide his hand over the biometric scanner located to the right of the door. The door slid open with a hissing sound as hydraulics did their work and beyond the door was a massive oblong rectangle office that was partitioned into two sections. The first section contains the main office area for administrative staffs and the cubicles housing these staffs were arranged in a grid manner. Behind all that was a medium size room which was the Chief Admiral’s office. There were no windows of any sort in the room. Overhead, polylight strips arranged in a grid manner provided the warm and lighting needed.

Joseph led the twins through the main office area. Some of the staffs greeted them warmly while some ignored their presence and were engrossed in their work. Translucent and large blue holographic screens continuously changed their display contents as fingers danced away at the holographic keyboards of various colors. Before long, they were standing at the Chief Admiral’s oak door and Joseph gave it a light knock. The Chief Admiral answered almost immediately, “Come on in.”

Joseph opened the door and went in first with the twins following behind. The office was yet another oblong rectangle with sparse furniture scattered around. It was much spacious than they initially thought when they saw the way the walls partitioned. There were some natural plants and even a few cacti at the corners of the room. A large brown oak-analogue desk was in the middle with a large holographic screen and keyboard. The Chief Admiral was seated behind the desk, busy typing away at the keyboard when they walked in. There was a sense of trepidation as they were after all in one of the Federation’s most respected office. They walked towards the desk slowly as if they were kids about to be reprimanded. They stopped just a couple of inches behind the three chairs which were placed in a row, in front of the desk. The trio straightened up, saluting and greeted, “Sir.”

The Chief Admiral looked up and his fingers stopped typing. He was in his late nineties but had the appearance of someone in his mid-fifties without the wrinkles and fats. He was a handsome man with brown eyes, an average-sized nose and curly brown hair that was cut to military standard. If he had stood up, he would be at least two inches taller than Joseph and was of a muscular build. The Chief Admiral was also a person who followed strict exercise regime and only eat just enough to fulfill his daily calorie needs. His exercise regime allowed him to be the fittest in this whole office. Unlike most terrans who received gene therapy only after their tenth birthday, the Chief Admiral was a designer child. His genes were tuned towards perfection while he was just an embryo, making him vastly more intelligent than most. He was also much tougher and had rapid regeneration ability. He was also one of the most powerful telepath, almost rivaling the twins. The twins, being fellow designer children, were officially recognized as the Federation’s most powerful human beings alive at the age of fifteen.

The Chief Admiral returned the salute before gesturing with his hand at the chairs. “Gentleman, please take a seat.”

The trio took their seats and stared intently at the Chief Admiral, waiting with anticipation. Four days ago, Brandon and Jayden with the help of the Victorious and the Federal Intelligence Services located the Valsek Empire’s Fourth Fleet and their next destination. The twins had always wanted revenge on the Fourth Fleet and had in fact spent considerable resources tracking their target’s movements. It was determined that the Fourth Fleet would make a stop at the Caridous System where the enemy had a small refueling outpost. Little did the enemy know the Federation had a small fleet of frigates in the system for a scouting mission; so the frigates were notified of the incoming enemy fleet and they went into hiding within the atmosphere of a gas giant known as GB-X9042 and using the gas giant’s powerful magnetosphere to scramble enemy scanners. That group of frigates had since been reporting back any findings they made. Two days ago, they reported that the Fourth Fleet had arrived and begun their resupply mission. As of two hours ago, the Fourth Fleet was still there. So Brandon and Jayden submitted a mission plan and a request to go after the Fourth Fleet an hour ago. It was a golden opportunity. Not only would the destruction of the Fourth fleet help bring on a sense of payback, it would also help the Federation Navy in general. Without the Fourth Fleet, the Valsek Empire’s Navy would be vastly crippled. For some reason, instead of letting the twins know of his stance on the mission over the Navy TransCOMNET, the Chief Admiral had requested the twins meet him in person. So now, here they were sitting in his office.

“Well, I’ve read through the mission plan and all. The amount of resources devoted to this operation is tremendous even by our standard. And what if the operation fail? We would lose a lot of men and ships—”

“But Sir, it’s the Fourth Fleet. If we don’t deal with them now, they would still be threatening all our future operations—” Jayden said, interrupting the Chief Admiral only to be interrupted himself when the Chief Admiral raised his hand, palm facing them.

“Let me finish, Captain. I didn’t say no to the operation. I asked you to come here personally because of two things. First, I want you two to be able to look me in the eyes and tell me you can do it,” the Chief Admiral said, his voice was still calm. If it was any other senior officers, they would have raised their voice in respond to Jayden’s interruption.

The twins simply looked straight, their faces devoid of any emotions. The air around them began to fill with their confidence, “Yes sir. We can do this.”

“Good. Second, I had made some changes to the battle plan to make it better and stored it in this data disk. I don’t want to pass it to you over the communication network for there might be spies,” the Chief Admiral said as he waved a yellowish, oblong rectangle disk in the air. “Next, I want you to take the Sixth, Seventh and Ninth Armada for this mission. They are currently the most combat ready with their full complement of three hundred ships each and all crew positions filled. They are already in position alongside the Victorious. Wipe out the enemy. I want nothing of them left. That’s all.”

Smiles began to form on the twins’ faces but Joseph was still frowning at the idea. He knew about the mission but due to the nature of the Fourth Fleet for they had not lost a single battle even against overwhelming odds, Joseph feared for the safety of the two kids and Victorious. Till now, the Victorious had been their trump card against any enemy forces and if they lose the ship, it might just spell the end of the Federation Navy. But if they won, it would seriously put a major dent in Valsek Empire’s ability to conduct future operations.

“Thank you, Sir. We shall now get ready,” Jayden replied as he grabbed the data disk.

The Chief Admiral nodded, “Good hunting and good luck.”

The trio stood up and saluted which was returned. Then the trio spun around and went out of the office, heading back to the transportation room. On the way there, they didn’t speak much. The twins were still feeling elated and Joseph didn’t feel there was a need to spoil the mood despite how much he was against the mission. Unable to control his emotions, he started pouring out his dread into the surrounding air and the twins’ telepathies picked it up. The twins stopped dead in their tracks, forcing Joseph to stop too.

“Admiral Adam, what’s the matter?” Brandon asked as he turned around to face Joseph. Jayden had also turned to face Joseph which made him blushed.

“. . . I’m just worried about you boys going out on this mission. It’s extremely dangerous. What if you boys don’t make it back? How the hell am I going to answer to your father?”

“Admiral Adam, don’t worry about us. We will make sure we come back alive. Don’t forget that we still need that break of ours and you promised us,” Brandon said with a smile.

“And the best thing you could do for us is to pray for us though we know there’s no such thing as God. Three thousand years of science had proven that much. Well, whatever it is, let’s just hope that the enemy has no reinforcement. Maybe you could help us along that line,” Jayden added and his facial expression had turned serious.

“I’ll do what I can. Just be careful. When you boys come back, the break will be waiting for you. Just make sure you boys are still alive to use it. Death is definitely not my idea of a holiday break.”

“Ha, we agree. And for insurance sake, we went for a consciousness backup procedure just before we came down here. Those memories of ours are currently en route to the re-cloning facility as we speak. There are of course multiple copies.”

Joseph nodded his head and smile. He gave them a hug each before they proceeded on to the transportation room. The twins got up to the platform and bid their goodbyes. Then Jayden opened a channel to the Victorious with his communication device, “Victorious, we are ready to transport.”

The next thing the twins saw was the familiar sight of the Victorious’s arrow-shaped bridge. At the front of the bridge was the one piece window that offered a view out. Scattered around the bridge in a petal-pattern were computer consoles which the six bridge crewmembers would use for communication, weapon control, shields and many other things critical to the operation of the ship. Hanging overhead was the large central holographic screen which the bridge crew would use to display any important information.

John was standing beside the twins when they appeared on the bridge. Jayden turned to look at him and handed the data disk to him, “it contains the newly updated battle plan. Communicate it to Sixth, Seventh and Ninth Armada. They are joining us in this mission.”

John grabbed the data disk, “Yes sir.” John immediately ran over to this console, plugged in the data disk and started transferring the information to the three armadas via the secure Navy ExoCOMNET. Once all the armada commanders acknowledged they received the battle plan, Brandon opened a secure communication channel to the three armadas from his command post. Jayden meanwhile had the crew ready as soon as the go code was given.

“Attention all commanders! I believe you had received the latest battle plan. So we will operate in accordance to the plan but if the situation calls for it, we will adapt to any changes. We shall not fail in this mission. The operation will commence on my mark,” Brandon said before he paused to scan across the bridge. Every one of them was looking at him full of anticipation. “Mark!”

At that instant, hyperspace windows opened in space in front of the six hundred and one ships. Seconds later, they were all pulled in by the vast gravitation field generated by the windows.

#

Several hours later, the six hundred and one ships dropped out from hyperspace just two hundred and ten kilometers from the system’s third gas giant. It was twice the size of Jupiter with thick, various blue and white bands of methane gas swirling around the planet at hundreds of kilometers an hour. The same gas giant was home to the Valsek outpost and the three hundred strong Fourth Fleet was in an elliptical orbit around it.

Even as they traveled through hyperspace, the federation ships received constant updates from the hidden frigates. As a result, the six hundred and one ships were able to exit from hyperspace at the precise moment and distance with their weapons already powered up. The ships’ automated target acquisition systems immediately locked on to their targets.

Then the six hundred and one ships fired their weapons. The Valsekies didn’t even have time to react.

Blue laser and gamma beams shot towards their target at near light speed. Enemy shields shimmered violently in the red and purple spectrum as they tried to deflect the ultra high-energy blasts, releasing ultra-hard radiation in the process. Following closely were quantum missiles with anti-hydrogen warheads. They streaked out of their pods towards their targets at hundreds of gees of acceleration as their ion thrusters shot sizzling hot iridescent ions which resembled miniature shooting stars when viewed from far. The enemy ships’ point defense systems shot out red lasers as they tried their best to take out the incoming missiles. Missiles that got through bypassed the enemy shields in an act similar to quantum tunneling. The missiles exploded within the space between the ships’ superstructures and the shields, blanketing the ships in series of massive scarlet explosions. The ships’ superstructures buckled under the intense explosions. When the explosions died down, spots of charred metal could be seen. The already battered enemy shields began to falter in a display of red and orange flickers. The final nail into the Fourth Fleet’s coffin came in the form of kinetic projectiles shot by the Federation’s zero-point cannons. These silent, relativistic projectiles destroyed their target through sheer kinetic energy and needed no explosives. As projectiles struck their target, energies on the order of several times that of the impact which killed the dinosaur were released. For that brief moment, local space lit up brighter than the parent star.

By the time the explosions died down, only space dust remained. With the mission over, all six hundred and one Federation ships jumped back to hyperspace and went home.

Admittedly, I didn’t do a good job transiting between the scene. The ending seemed abrupt but well, I wrote this whole thing in under a week and didn’t exactly plan it out. It was a rushed job. Just to mention, I also made some grammar fixes before uploading this copy. The original copy, I can say, it’s atrocious.

I participated in the SPH-NAC Golden Point Award which is a local competition meant to find new generation of literary writers. I actually had high hopes that I would win but now that the prize presentation ceremony is next week Thursday, 27th October 2011, and the guidelines stated that they would notify the winners via mail closer to the date, that hope is long gone. It’s already Friday and the ceremony is just five days away, so I concluded that I didn’t win anything. I promised in my Facebook status that I will post up the science fiction short story which I wrote and I will do so soon. The purpose is to let people scrutinize it and see where it went wrong. Just note that my style of writing is prosaic and I don’t use flowery language or sentence structure.

As a result of me not winning, I’m feeling rather dejected and depressed cause I intended to use this platform to confirm whether I’m a good writer or not. It was also to confirm whether I’m a good storyteller or not. So apparently, I’m not.

But life goes on and I still have my school and work to contend with. So I will try and get myself out of this minor depressing state and move on. Yet for now, let me rant, whine and engross in self criticism:

I guess I was never good at anything in particular, just a little bit here and there. If I’m good, programming should be so easy that I can score 100 / 100 without studying but I don’t. If I’m good, I won’t be struggling with Mathematics of any level. If I’m good, I won’t be struggling with getting my English right. If I’m good, I won’t be what I am right now.

So now that is done, I will sign off this entry. Ciao.

Of course, I had some other strength. I’m good at programming. Not the best or god-like but it’s one of my stronger aspect. Some people says that a programmer should be good at mathematics. Yes, a programmer should but it also depend on what kind of programmer a person is. Is he or she a business-based programmer or gaming/graphics programmer or game engine programmer or even high-performance computing related programming. All except maybe for business-based programming, requires a strong Mathematics base. If not, the person will suffer badly since he or she would not be able to translate Mathematics problem into steps and codes.

I had a small birthday celebration on Oct 1, 2011. It was a family steamboat at home and I invited my friends, Benjamin, Samuel and Kenny over. I intended to keep it small and dislike big crowds. I don’t really celebrate birthdays anyway. After the steamboat, we had a small cake and a few cups of sparkling water. That’s about it. One thing though, I’m very happy with the gift given to me and the cake. Sometimes, things don’t need to be so grand. Just a few close friends and the day can be very fun, well, depending on how each person sees it.

Upon going back to school and upon receiving the second assignment for Introduction to Computational Thinking, I went back home and did it. Although many of the stuffs weren’t thought yet, I am able to pick them up quickly. That’s why I always say that a programmer should be very adept at picking up new languages or even understanding a new language. And I meant programming language.

Also, the past week, I’ve been spending quite a lot of cash; those cash were used to buy games. So I got SOCOM 4 and Rage. Rage is a title that I’ve been waiting and it’s made by id Software. The person behind it, well, John Carmack and many others. But the launch itself was pretty screw up due to the lack of proper drivers and certain bugs within the game that caused the game to break apart. There were texture pop-ins, corrupted textures, severe screen tearing, etc. The problems can range from being so bad to manageable depending on the computer system and player. Some system simply exhibited corrupted graphics such as random colors appearing everywhere, artifact lines running across the screen of various colors or total mess of color blobs all over the whole screen. Texture pop-ins were fixed with the use of a large texture cache through the use of a configuration file and the creation of a cache folder meant for the game to store its shaders and graphic data. Without the folder, the game apparently had to stream, decompress and compress game texture on the fly from the installed directory, resulting in lousy performance. By having the cache folder, the need to do dynamic decompression and transcoding is reduced.

I enjoyed the game and had literally spent hours on it. I just completed an hour and a half ago. I love the game and may go back to play it again. There are just so many stuffs that I have yet done and get the achievements for.

Also, I’ve bought Peter Hamilton’s Manhattan In Reverse short stories to read. Him being one of my favorite authors, I can’t simply don’t read that book although I admit that I didn’t buy the other books such as The Confederation Handbook, The Greg Mandel trilogies, Second Chance At Eden, The Misspent Youth and maybe some other titles. But those that I’ve read, were seriously good and I personally feel no one writes better than him. People might disagree but that’s just my view. Despite that, I’ve also started reading a new trilogy written by Michael Cobley and it’s called The Humanity’s Fire. The first book, Seeds Of Earth, couldn’t be found in Singapore, so Benjamin got it for me as a present. He specially ordered it from overseas and had it shipped here. I’m really glad and grateful for that. Of course, I went ahead and bought the second book, The Orphaned Worlds.

Well, with school stuff being so hectic and overflowing, I’m struggling to find time to read my books, write my own book, do programming work for the project that I’ve and play games. Sometimes, a wrong juggling of time resulted in me doing the wrong things at the wrong time. It’s so difficult but it just had to be done.

Also, later this month is the Singapore’s Writer Festival. It meant something to me cause it is also the week when results of the Golden Point Award is announced. I do hope that I win the competition but I know my standard. I’m sure I will be kicked to the rear or something. There are just many good writers or hidden talents out there. If I can even win a consolation prize, I will be damn happy cause I know at least my work meant something or had a certain standard.

Other than that, well, I guess it’s time for me to sign off. I will post more later.

I have been enjoying school thus far despite the occasional stress. Well, in our daily life, stress is inevitable so it doesn’t really matter once a person knows how to manage it. For me, I’ve been doing exercises and lots of gaming. Exercises helped to relieve some of the stress and clear my head. With a clearer head, thoughts seem to flow much smoother.

That aside, I also want to say that I will be having a light birthday celebration with my parents and some of my really close friends on Oct 1st, which is also Children’s Day, in Singapore that is.

I had also gotten Gears Of War 3 on Tuesday after school. And guess what. I had finished playing it just yesterday and I love it. I love the storyline and the graphics and also just generally the whole game. You see, when I play games, graphics alone don’t just satisfy me. I want a good story or should I say, really epic stories but that being said, not many games today focus on the story telling aspect. It’s mostly about profits now and game developers just dump out whatever is the market requirement. The only epic storylines that I can find in today’s games are from Mass Effect series, Gears Of War, Modern Warfare series and those are the shooter games. Maybe the upcoming Rage will change all that, knowing id Software always make great games. Crysis series wasn’t really that great. The story telling aspect of it, well, you don’t see scattered newspaper and stuff you can collect to read more on the backstory. Maybe some of the scattered radios in the game do tell something but it’s still mostly a run and shoot. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the better titles for me in terms of telling stories and I love the theme: human augmentation with mechanical parts. Pure RPG games featuring hack and slash, well, those aren’t my type so I won’t comment on them unless its theme is science fiction related. Medieval-based RPG well, they are just so boring though they feature magics. I prefer to use guns and lasers or super advanced sword featuring plasma-type blades are fine.

On the consoles, well, I mostly play shooter games too. As you already knew, I bought a PS3 to replace my previous irreparable PS3. I bought 2 games for it and they are Resistance 3 and Killzone 3. I love those games. Oh, resistance 3 and Killzone 3 are good at their storylines too. You see, as long as it’s science fiction, I tend to have some bias towards them cause I simply love the genre. Besides, today science fiction are slowly becoming non-fiction. Many things are possible now so one day, there might not be any more science fiction but rather modern fiction.

At first, I fret about university life and the new people I’m gonna meet. Making things worse, I didn’t go for any camps. But now, my social life came back to normality. I made some new friends and it’s not as stressful as the first two weeks of school. Thank goodness. May Eva smiles on us.

Oh, before you start wondering who Eva is. It’s simply a character from my novel which is a super Sentinel Intelligence that has perception across the whole galaxy. Due to her vastness and computation capabilities, she also took on a god-like status. And since humans love to treat something we don’t understand or know or all powerful as gods, Eva could satisfy that condition.

One more thing. Close-mindedness are people who refuse to listen to other views. Those who excessively believed in the paranormal and said those who don’t believe as close-minded, are usually closed-minded themselves. One thing about psychology is that it taught me to understand one thing. Only people who are of certain type can make the very same claim of others. So if one person tells you how the whole world is corrupted, the person himself or herself is usually corrupted. It’s like you are looking at the mirror and saying those things. Everything goes back to you.

So ciao.

You must be wondering why I used those words to describe my current university life. It’s arduous because of the things, especially new things, that I have to learn. Some of the things were never ever taught in secondary school or primary school or even poly. In fact, my maths tutor this morning said he expected we already learn proving methods and making equations balance out in middle school. Translation: Upper Primary and Lower secondary school. (Did I mentioned that he was utterly pissed when most of us were like complaining we don’t understand and it’s too hard. He said it should be the case. We should already know) Well, I believe we did learn equation balancing (making left and right hand side equal even though we added new variables) but it was so long ago and wasn’t much used for five + years. However, proving? We never learnt that. In fact, if I’m not wrong (someone correct me on this), my current knowledge is that in the US or many other western countries, Set theories, logic and calculus were all taught part of the Upper Secondary School education. So why is it, we aren’t taught those in Singapore?

My Technical Communication tutor said that, “We have to unlearn what we learn in order to learn things the University teaches.”

Well, is our MOE style of curriculum for teaching primary and secondary education correct? In a sense, it’s correct otherwise, how did we end up where we are. But is it 100% correct? I don’t think so. I still remember the way my maths teachers taught me about algebra equations and laws. They only simply said do it this way cause it is like that. I don’t remember being taught how to reverse and the teachers simply assumed we know how to reverse. For me, well, I am never ever good in mathematics so, I can’t automatically know how to reverse certain things or why certain things is done certain way. I need to have the algorithm and instruction listed down to me one by one. That’s how I learn. I need to form relationship between steps in order to understand something. That’s why I’m good at programming. Everything is in steps.

But I made it here to University so I can’t complained why things are so hard. It’s just that I need the right method of being taught in order to do well. Apparently, nowadays, no one does that anymore. Everything is just assume. Come on, we are not proving maths here, so let’s don’t assume this and that. Of course, I still seek help from friends whenever I needed it. I need people to translate mathematical symbols and the steps to me in plain English. Just like how our laws are written in black and white, step by step (or so it seems).

Painful, well, it  was kinda mentioned as part of the above.

Those things aside, of course, it’s everything else as mentioned above. It’s fun and interesting cause I’m learning things new and I made some new friends. Everyday, it’s something new. I do look forward to school now. I expanded out my conversations to the people in my lab group but didn’t really add them on Facebook yet; I can’t seem to find them. Maybe tomorrow, I will ask them for the email address. It’s high time, I expand my social network again.

Other than that, I’ve also gotten several assignments. One of it was actually a programming assignment which I received last Thursday. I finished it last Sunday and the deadline is Sept 30th. I’m fast but what do you expect? I’m a programmer, so according to my general rule of thumb, if you are a programmer, you are expected to understand any new programming languages faster than the rest by at least 65%. The only thing different between the languages are just the syntax. And oh, the worse analogy is actually actual human language. They are different.

I still feel privileged that I am studying in this university, which recently had jumped several places in terms of ranking. On the other hand, it is a testimonial to what I’ve achieved since the days of me being ridiculed and looked down upon by family and my primary school teachers. Now I have proven to that Mrs. Ong (my form teacher then, not sure if she’s dead yet and I hated her drastically) and my relatives that I have reached and achieved things which you people never thought of. At least, I’m satisfied with the things I’ve done.

So what’s next now? I’m not really sure. I will just sign off here.

xD