Wolf Can Fly, Too

 I went to a wedding today.

And the short messages that I can post on Plurk is not enough to do it justice =).

So, the only Singaporean in my lab was married last October, and it took them a whole six months to plan out the reception; at least, the 'Chinese' side of it. The guy from my lab is a Malay Singaporean, while his wife is a Chinese Singaporean. From what I've gathered from various conflicting sources, they registered last October, had a Malay wedding reception for the groom's side of the family at some point before tonight, and had the Chinese style reception tonight... err... I meant yesterday evening (as it shows Monday the 31st on my computer now). (By the way, the side bar for Vista is actually quite helpful if you have a wide screen, but back to topic for now.)

Anyway, the last time I've been to a Chinese style wedding reception was ten-ish years ago, I did not know what to expect going into it, and apparently Aerospace engineers across the world have the same problem with making decisions: it takes them forever, and everyone is willing to go along with other people's plan with none wants to lead. For example, the amount of gift money was debated upon among the people in our lab for two weeks, and the amount was not finalized until the evening before; the method of delivery was constantly changing, and instead of having an envelope ready, we had to improvise a bit at the reception desk. But now back to the wedding itself.

The reception began with a short slide-show of the various stages of life of the bride and groom, followed by the entering of the couple following a flower girl through a fog-covered doorway. The walk through the dinning hall, and cut the ceremonial cake, and the meal began. This is where the wedding became interesting, though. The light was turned down and waiter/waitress streamed in with large plates with 'cold platter' and a LED light on it, more fog and light flashing, and some loud music. The light came back on, the waiters/waitresses proceeded to the other side of the room, removed the flashing LED lights, and served the first course. Some where between the third and fourth course the bride and groom went out and changed their clothes, and re-entered the dinning hall with more fog and flashing ceiling lights. This time they poured the ceremonial 'champagne' (non-alcoholic, I believe, as the groom is a Muslim), the family of both the bride and the groom went on the stage, and they performed three long howl/battle-cry/cheer(?) before drinking the champagne, which, from what I've heard, is a Singaporean tradition of unknown origin (maybe I should ask the groom at work tomorrow... I meant today...). Anyway, everyone proceed eating until we reached the sixth course, which is fried noodle 'for those who did not have enough food' according to a Singaporean who sat next to me. The desert was yam paste with sweet potato and coconut milk, which a girl at my table proclaimed 'this is too sweet.' People started streaming out as soon  as they finished the desert (another Singaporean tradition, maybe? The last wedding reception I've been to saw a lot more socializing, and the one before actually has a dance-party afterward.)

最近...似乎都在瞎忙?

當然,目標是有的...就是盡快把資格考報告生出來...

不過...似乎每天做的就是跟那些圖文奮鬥,

然後...好像整個周末...都是在跟OOo打交道...

說真的,我之前從來沒有把章節拆開成不同文件寫過...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw9Z70p2MlI&feature=related

很棒的一首歌呢...

我知道看這個blog的人不多...不過...也是因為這樣,才能暢所欲言吧?

今天,我第一次發現,原來一首歌的影響力,有多麼的大,

讀著其他網友在下面的留言,突然覺得,人生,至少在這一刻,是美好的...

你曾經問我...離家這麼久...會想家嗎?

我告訴你...習慣了就好...

你曾經問我說...該怎麼適應無止境的相遇和別離,

我的回答,還是習慣了就好...

人生,就是與環境不斷的妥協,不斷的習慣...

不知道為什麼最近幾天整個不在狀態中...

報告打來打去,也只是靠著咖啡逼出來的文字的堆砌...

一點靈魂都沒有...

我需要靈感啊...|||

不然今天寫的東西...明天再讀八成會整個刪掉重來吧...|||

不知道為甚麼...最近用火狐上痞客邦都上不了?

一直在首頁那邊不斷的死循環,load, reload, load, reload...

常常早上起床走去公車站的路上,突然有些靈感,有些分享想要跟大家說...

可是,等到我回家可以用自己的電腦的時候,那些感動,那些靈感,都不知道躲到哪裡去了?

12/28號,算是值得紀念的一天吧?

So despite the fact that I'm supposed to be working on my 80+ pages report, which, by the way, I've only finished around 30 pages, I went out to see Avatar in 3D with a couple of the guys and gals in my lab. I haven't made up my mind on what to think about the movie, though... it's definitely a typical Hollywood movie, but at the same time there might be something just a bit deeper than skin deep in the movie. 

The setting of the movie seems surprisingly similar to a wild west movie, with people exploring/exploiting the frontier for resources and land. One old movie that the plot reminded me of, but not the same in most context, was Dances with the Wolves. In addition of blurring the line between two significantlly different cultures, Avatar challanges the line between two different species. Another interesting plot line in the movie was the planet that could think, and would strike back against invadars who would disrupt the "balance" of the land, and has the ability to transfer ones consciousness into another "vessel".

There's a few interesting points in the movie, though, that got me thinking, like "would you turn on your own kind if what they're doing is against your conscience," which reminds me of the German officers that turned on Hitler in WWII. The movie setting is also similar to the current Middle Eastern war, but yet there are some subtal differences.

Anyway, if you want to watch the movie, you should watch it in 3D. There's definitely a lot of eye candies and wow factors involved. Although I do find the "love" scene between two large blue aliens a bit disturbing...

I have just seen the new Hollywood  blockbuster, 2012. One thing is for sure – it is most definitely a Hollywood film; full of unnecessary “climax,” the infamous digital clock counting down, the selfless American President, the unlikely romance, and the barrage of pseudo-science. But since it's Hollywood, and since it's just for entertainment, I'll let those slip.
The story began with some Indian scientist called up his American colleague regarding some geological anomaly. Turned out that he's not the only one making the observation on the abnormal behavior of the neutrino capturing water pit (please ask my friend Pinghan for more information on this,) but is the first one to make the connection that the event was triggered by the solar/galactic activities that happened every 4 billion years or so. The clock has started ticking, and not much time is left for the world as we know it.
The governments around the world decided to combine their effort and start building arks in the Himalayas, collecting animals and precious artworks while raising funds for the project by selling seat/tickets to the very wealthy peoples around the world. Shifting time to 2012, the disasters strike way before the predicted schedule, and the governments were caught off guard: not enough preparations were made to save everyone on the planet. California slips into the Pacific as massive fault line scarred the earth, the Yellowstone becomes the site of a super volcano, and Hawaii is engulfed in flame. The people who have clue as to where to find the arks fought their way towards Tibet. Drama and suspense ensue as everyone trying to get into the arks.
Can the world turn upside down as the movie depicted? Most likely not. Seismic activities  are usually slow, and large cracks in the land, like the East Africa Rift, will generally not happen over a few years, let alone the formation of a hundred feet deep crack over a few minutes. Another major problem with the plot is that they had the main characters flying through/out of volcano clouds, which has been demonstrated to be nearly impossible by multiple incidents of airliner loosing all power from their engines due to fuel injector clogging by the volcano ashes. It's just a movie, so quite worrying about the end of the world.
The entertainment value of the film is great, at least for those who saw it for the first time. I doubt that people would enjoy it as much on revisits, though. The CGs are decent, but at points you can clearly tell that what you're looking at is a CGI object instead of a model/mock-up. Whoever directed this film was using the suspense factor to excess, so the reactions become more like "not again..." instead of "OMG!! RUN!!!!"

Just a bit of an update.

Yes, I'm still alive, been busy, though. The program I was working on is up and running, and I should be getting back most of the data by Monday. After that it's just postprocessing and writing up a report. Hopefully I'll be able to turn that report into a publication, not sure if that will work out, though. We'll see.

Life's been decent lately, there's a couple of German exchange students in my research group for this semester, and since we're all about the same age, we would hang out together and do stuff like traveling around, going to restaurants, the Oktoberfest (with German food and beer... and some badly pronounced German here and there...)

The end of semester is approaching, though, so I should become fairly busy very soon... I'll send another update later this week, hopefully =)

Right, so...

I've been kind of busy for the past few weeks working on my year one progress report. With that out of the way now, I got a week off from my superviser.

So... I'll be flying back to Taipei tomorrow =D

It has been a while since I last updated my blog. A long while. It is kind of funny how fast time goes. I moved out from the dorm on the 11th of June, but for some reason, mostly because of my roommates being too lazy, we did not have internet connection at the apartment until three weeks later. It doesn't really matter to me as much, though, since I spent the first week at home in Taipei, and the second week on teaching assistance duty, meaning that I wouldn't have much time for web-surfing anyway. I honestly think that they need to review what they teach in classes here for their aerospace curriculum, though. Teaching students how to use Fluent is useful and all that, but considering that the students in the class have just finished their sophomore year, I really doubt the effectiveness of the course. Yes, CFD is just a tool just like the wind tunnel, but you have to have certain knowledge about the subject to be able to interpret the results, to know why things turned out the way they are. Without those understanding, CFD is simply a colorful figure displayed for your viewing pleasure and nothing else Anyway, enough about work. Here's a funny story. My dad and a couple of his college buddies decided to go mountain climbing as part of a retirement celebration for a friend. So the four of them packed up their bags with food and clothes and, guess what, whiskey and Chinese white liquor, and off they went. To be honest, though, that mountain wasn't that hard to climb, considering that I've climbed the most of it, save the last segment to the top due to bad weather, when I was 15. Yes, it is the highest mountain on the island, but thee trail up the mountain is pretty straight forward. Just follow the path and you're there.

So I went out to the ultimate frisbee gathering today.

And ming you, it's the first time I've played in a year and a half.

It feels good to be running and diving and getting grass stains on my shirt. And it feels good to be in the sun and sweating just because I can. Makes me realize that I'm alive and still young. It never really hits me as to how out of shape I am until today, though, and I guess it's not too late for that realization.

And since I've had so much fun in the evening, I decided to dine out at the one and only Outback in Singapore. The steak tastes great, but I think it'll be the last time that I spend 50 SGD (~$35) on a meal. I really need to start saving up if I am to build a computer this summer. I've got all the components picked out, but is waiting so I can kind of spread the expenses over May and June so it doesn't look as bad on the bank statement (honestly, though, I doubt that'd make any difference, if at all, with the interest rate I'm getting.)

Anyway, it feels good to be running around, playing sport with human being instead of jogging in the darkness of the night. Makes me feel like a vampirer, if you know what I mean. Well, that's all for now, Cheers.