unlimited

Lately, my life has been cluttering up with assorted stuff. Explains the dearth of posts recently, it does.

Working on Inky Hands is one major time eater. I'm designing the graphics, plus I don't know CSS and I don't know Dreamweaver. I've to learn as I go but CSS can get quirky, because IE and Firefox don't have the same implementation. Things go weird, or not as expected, and I've to go search for yet another hack to make things work. Don't get me wrong, it's fun doing it =). Pretti colors...

Then there's university applications. Not that I've actually started, but I've been thinking about it a lot. Definitely. Just not writing any.

Class is starting to get to me like never before. Everything used to be so easy. I suppose going to school dead on my feet doesn't help... I could get through okay, but class tests are looming, and suddenly they don't look friendly at all. Suddenly there's talk about previous chapters, when just yesterday it was 'Whatever we've learn since you came back'. Gnnh.

There was also the CAL Graduation Ball/prom recently, for the intake prior to mine. I was photographer. I finally bought an external flash for the occasion too =). The photos largely came out okay, and I'm happy with that. The prom itself went moderately well, no big mess ups. It could definitely have had less little mess ups, but then , I don't know how well these things normally go anyway. I missed my school prom after all. I was going to give next year's prom a miss, but now I think I'll see how things go. For one thing, seeing everyone dress up is interesting. It's like a glimpse of the future. Now all this formal clothing is dress up, but one day, perhaps, it'll be our uniform in society.

And there's always frisbee, and tennis, and guitar lessons, hours already dedicated.

Next month shall see no rest. December is shaping up to be busy. Two or three trips, primary class reunion (which I should attend at least once before everyone goes their own way), editorial board work, applications, etc. A2 revision is a must, considering I've not been paying attention. And I might even taking driving lessons, if all that other stuff doesn't get in the way.

Three magics. There were three magics today.

First, is the Harry Potter kind of magic. I watched Goblet of Fire today with my entire class (save one). Good way to relax after the whole AS exam thing. I mean, besides the other 3 movies (Sky High, Zorro 2, Chicken Little) I watched in the exam period. The special effects were especially nice, although the scenes felt too short. Sort of like empty promises. For example, the quidditch tournament takes place in this amazingly tall stadium that seems largely a stack of balconies. But you don't actually see the tournament, the scene ends when it begins, if you catch my drift. Some parts seemed a bit incongruous (Dumbledore, most powerful wizard, walks around in what appears to be pajamas??), the acting not that terrific, but it was a good show, worth a watch.

Next, real world magic. As close as we can get, anyway. Prestidigitation, sleigh of hand, etc. There was this guy, friend of some friends, who came over and showed us some card tricks. Not knowing how magic tricks (in general) are done annoys me. The urge to believe that maybe there's some devilish, otherworldly thing about it is tempting, but too easy. There's probably some logical explanation. I was thinking about it, and maybe it's because (for the instance of cards) there's a card that's just that much longer, or perhaps because of some extra trick I didn't catch. I suppose learning out how it works ruins the fun somewhat, but still... I've always liked knowing things =). Or at least, being able to reason things out. My virtue and my vice, this.

The third magic is the magic that is everything. The magic 'why?' and its associates in curiosity. You know, the questions every little kid asks: Why are we alive? Why is the sun yellow? The questions get more unanswerable as they age. Why can we appreciate beauty? Why do we consider sunrises beautiful? Is God out there? All these questions, unfathomable, and limitless in their mystery, their magic. Like prestidigitation I won't understand much of it but whatever I can, will be wonder beyond compare, wonder buoying me upwards to greater wonders that I hope I shall have eternity to plumb the depths thereof.

Update: I think I may have been a bit wrong about the card trick, I've been googling and it doesn't seem so simple, actually. Also, when it comes down to it, magic isn't some form of fantastic power, nor cheap gimmicky effects (mix one part of this in though), but rather a very dextrous show of skill and concentration, on the magicians' part. It's always real masters of an art that make it seem so effortless and simple. Musicians are another good example. So I like to know how tricks work. It doesn't mean that I don't appreciate the art and effort put into it =). Playing the piano is basically just moving your fingers in the right order quick enough, but that's just looking at it simply.


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Ehh, anyway, my exams are over! Time to do everything I've dreamed of doing! Time to change the world! ...

Well, maybe a little later, though I'm running out of tomorrows around here. I forsee too much time on the net, guitar practise, daydreaming, reading, and, in order of possibility, coding, writing, maybe magic (rather fun, haha). World changing things, um... Can't think of much. I suppose making sure the A-Level mag gets out okay is somewhat significant, since based on the fact that I've not received any kind of order, and the deadline's for publisher submission is pretty soon, we're goners. Why don't I ever find hordes of responsible people? *sigh* I suppose not being one myself is a problem.

Somehow I'll get through days, avoiding all uplifting events like water passes around a rock.

I am formless as water.

(Though spineless would make a better metaphor)

Briefly now, since I've my final exam tomorrow (whee!)

I don't study much, at least not as much as I see others study. To be honest, I don't think much of it is study. Part of it is trying to understand what should have been wrestled with when it was being taught, or at least, sometime soon after. Not a day, or even a week, before an exam. The other part of studying people do is going through past year questions. It reinforces understanding, largely, but after a point, the only benefit is perhaps catching some of those questions which are repeated/in similar vein. This is especially helpful because sometimes, unusual questions are asked, questions that lie in the outlying, muddy reaches of the syallbus' intent. The examiners don't want to repeat the usual types of question, not only because those can be varied easily, but also because, hey, everyone's reading up those questions so much. Better to try something new, something different, eh? Or at least, reuse one of those rare tricky questions.

Which again causes people to work through mounds of work, reinforcing what they know until it's diamond-solid, always hoping that the next tricky question they see will help.

Somehow, this feels wrong.

Exams should not be about trying to find out obscure facts (though I admit enjoying waving obscure facts in front of people). Maybe sticking rigidly to the syllabus will encourage yet more formulaic, 'cookbook' studying, but after all, the purpose of the exam is to test the depth of understanding of the pupil. Whether the student knows little obscure bits of knowledge shouldn't matter. Unfortunately it does, some times.

But don't take my word for it =). I'm just an A student resentful for the few questions he can't answer because he was too lazy to do many past year papers--I mean, some people work all the way back to 1985, or something. 1985?? I don't care whether the question came out in 1985, I wasn't even born yet!).

Disclaimer: I'll cheerfully admit that yes, if I had done at least some papers, I would've gotten that valuable reinforcement. Case in point: Math.
...Or maybe it wouldn't have helped. You never get to know.

It's been about a year (and 4 days) since I started this. Coincidentally, this is also the 100th post. I should've gotten it out earlier but I was lazy =b.

Well, this blog has been around for a year, but the first I heard of blogging was long ago, in 2001. First entry was on 7th December, 2001. I made a simple page in ugly html =), but I never did bother to put it online. It was too much trouble to keep editing the pages... no blogging software, back then. Here's an entry for the 15th of December, 2001.

"I have just finished watching two David Copperfield (real name David Kotkin, I think) shows back to back, and it started me thinking - how does he do all that? All that levitating and illusions and other tricks, I mean. Wouldn't knowing detract from it all? Yet I feel that I am past joy already, to a place where I believe that I know too much too soon, making me more of an aloof spectator to this world, puttering under the guise of a normal human being to observe the machinations of this world. I have this unerring longing to understand, to know how everything works. Curiosity killed the cat, so the saying goes. But I'm no cat. All I want to do is understand. To know. To be omniwise, omniintelligent. Or at least as close as I can get. But, I guess that only applys to whatever I am interested in. This kind of longing is, more or less, the lazy, lie-back-in-your-chair-and-wait-kind."

I gave up the html and switched to various notepad replacement programs, eventually. It evolved into a sort of journal, one I've kept almost without fail until today. It's less refined than this, of course. More on whatever I feel like writing.

I wonder how this blog will be in 5 years. Still around? Same address? How will it look? What kind of tone will it have? Which naturally leads to the question, where will I be in 5 years? Hopefully, not staring at a screen too much.

Anyhow, I've changed the banner again. My 1 hour banners, because that's the average time I spend on them (usually with a crash in the middle, too). I'm still not entirely satisfied, but it'll have to do. Need something to mark the occasion =).

Now, off tangent, there's an interesting discussion on why God allows atrocities. I think it's less acerbic than a lot of debates on the topic, the people respect each other, and they do try to answer the question with not so much of the 'maybe God just doesn't exist' kind of statements. The part where they raise Plantinga's solution is especially interesting.

"[It] proposes that perhaps all persons suffer from transworld depravity, that perhaps the actual world, though not the best possible world, is the best one that God could bring about, if he is to respect the free choices of the creatures therein."

It's in the second half of the page, and there are lots of links to various resources too. Incidentally, the wiki on it is good too (it's also linked to on the site). I can't believe I've never heard of it before.

Lastly, if you've noticed the new 'Recent Sites' sidebar, you'll see that the link to the discussion is there too. I kinda like that addition, because I occasionally stumble on interesting things, but I wonder whether all this extra stuff will eventually make the page load significantly longer.

Here's something I'm technically a part of. Inky Hands. It's sort of an uppity... no, I mean upmarket, literature magazine for Malaysian teens. Submit something! Or at least spread the word. Maybe start a Get Inky movement, or something?

Anyway, I did the bottom banner, what do you think? Usurping the older banner, seen above it (top banner is a promotional thing). Asides, I haven't done much for it =). Exams and all. Speaking of which, no major crises recently, so I'm feeling better about my chances of 5As.

I was supposed to put up some Wise and Profound, but I saved it as a Draft, because I got halfway through and then felt too lazy. I don't feel like doing much nowadays, except maybe peer timidly at the stack of uni applications and study (at least playing com games isn't on the list anymore!).

Oh, and practise playing Wake Me Up When September Ends (Greenday). It actually sounds somewhat like the song! I'm that bad at the guitar. No 'axe' or amp or pedal or anything, except my old humble classical guitar. And a pick. But I still (almost) make music. Most surprising, and encouraging... Anyone selling a secondhand electric guitar, cheap?

After my exams end, I have great plans for this site. I'm still not satisfied with the redesign and the banner on top. I'm going to attack sites on CSS and Dreamweaver and may even consider buying one of those ridiculously expensive books on either CSS, Dreamweaver, or more likely, some code. Java, PHP, ASP.NET... something I can use to work on websites. I used to learn Visual Basic, after all, though I never did come up with anything useful except a savegame hack for the great ascii game Nethack. My books are buried somewhere, I suspect, possibly along with my Visual C++ books. That, I never got past 'Hello World!'.

Code... seems to me the ultimate in 'geekiness' (above examples arranged in roughly ascending order of geekness). It can be interesting, though, something like puzzle solving. Trying to get code to do what you want it to do, or, more often, do something it should be doing. Mostly I just find the whole thing fascinating, after working as much as I have so far on Inky Hands. Starting a site and trying to make it work, make it big, is a compelling experience. Another day, another thing learnt, another skill.

Or am I touched by Web 2.0 (a.k.a Bubble 2.0)?

(FYI: Bubble 1.0 was the first internet bubble, the dotcom crash, that thing. I don't exactly know much about it, except that it involved hope, and then bankruptcies)

The Statistics paper was yesterday, and it went unspeakably bad. Let us not speak of it.

Except to say that, yes, maybe I should be studying more and spending less time on the com. It's one thing or the other, it seems. Surfing, shows, games, etc. Thing is, on the computer you don't need a really strong attention span, and you don't need to concentrate on much for long. Especially when it comes to surfing, which is the main distraction.

See, after a while your brain fizzles and it gets used to the rapid pace. It copes by not retaining anything for long, so it can prepare for the next bit of info. Already it's retaining too many seperate threads of thought. This site, that site, this site again, blink, blink, all faster than the mind can think. Not only does it have to deal with new stuff, it's got constantly pull up old bits to update and file away.

It weakens the brain, I fear. For one thing, I've headaches and my eyes sting. At best I just feel numb in the head.

I suspect I'm losing at least a little mental acuity. Plenty of breadth - I can tell you about the latest iPod, new version of hacked OS X for Intel, WriAShorStorWe, research on absinthe, trebuchets, the meaning of zeitgeist, the upcoming Microsoft Live and Messenger 8.0, Wordpress, CSS, why Pluto might cease to be the 9th planet, how to make small talk, Edison's lightbulb, and that was just yesterday.

Depth, now there's something else. Do I really need to know all this? Is it pertinent? I mean, it's nice to know and all, but really, it doesn't do a thing for my quality of life. It especially doesn't do anything to be a better person or to help me achieve my goals.

I admit that it's okay in small quantities, but I do far too much of it, that it disrupts my life. It's okay as a hobby, finding out about stuff. Everyone needs a hobby (or a truckload of work). It just shouldn't wreck one's life. I need to find... balance. For that, I shall need self-control, discipline. Nasty words, but that's the truth of it.
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Off-tangent now, a short digression. I starkly realised yesterday that I'll be off to university next year, for at least 4 years. Probably more. I also realised that it means I won't see my little brother grow up. He's only 9 this year, still has a long way to go. At that age, you're still learning about the world, and how to fit in. Since my dad's not entirely useful (IMHO), I feel like I've got at least some responsibility in helping my little brother grow up all right. Not make the mistakes I made. Really, he's still got so much to learn, so much to see and do.

Yeah, so it's probably more of my parent's business than mine, but what's family for, if not to look out for one another? I often fall short of that noble sentiment, but it's still true. There will be some regret in going off to uni...