To Give Up Freedom

This will be my first post of many to come. I've introduced a new "NS" tag for National Service. That being said, my posts will naturally be less often now that I have to be in camp most of the time. I'll be giving up my civillian life for a new one from tomorrow, temporarily for 2 years. I'm looking forward to it, yet I feel rather nervous. There have been so many views, opinions, perspectives, sides coming from people of all ages that I have no idea what to expect at all. I guess all this means that it will be a personal experience, hence the varied responses, and it'll be up to me to decide whether I'll enjoy it or not.

Someone said to me, "Like it or not, you're gonna spend 2 years of your life there. You could do it dragging yourself along, cursing and swearing, or you could embrace it, and maybe learn something. At the very least you'll be more physically fit." I suppose that's what I'll do then. After all, what does not kill will only make one stronger, and they can't touch me anyway; I have a place, an inner sanctuary (like Siddhartha would put it), which keeps me strong and at home. No matter what comes from without, can never touch me within.

Lifelong

Two of my cousins tied the knot. Two weddings within a span of six months. One not very long after getting to know each other, while the other for almost a decade before they decided to settle down. The last wedding I attended before these two was probably in primary school, a long long time ago. Then, it was just food and drinks. Now, it seems so different. I looked at the bride and groom, smiling so merrily throughout the whole night. What's in it? Finding someone whom you'd treasure for the rest of your life... Coming home day after day to the same person... How could someone do that? It's almost like a spell, like magic... inexplicable, as my glimpse has taught me.

I really wonder about it many times. Most of the songs composed are about love. One way or another. Each bring a new perspective, new aspect. It's much easier to believe the lyrics now. Before that, these songs were beautiful to me because of the tune. So clearly, "love is a many splendid thing" to quote Nat King Cole.

There are quite a number of friends who have seemed to have gotten someone. I wonder how they feel? Is it different from the way much older adults feel? What about those who are in their late golden years? Does a relationship like this feel the same way throughout? These thoughts race through my mind as I watch the bride and groom down the isle, up on to stage, toasting with everyone...

My time will come of course. Best not to rush it. This is very mature stuff, and only time can prepare one for it. Life never has a dull moment. Another day, another thing learned.

Accelerated Learning (Part III)

Logic. An ability to judge an outcome or solve a problem based on a set of steps by following reasoning. Logic is something like a pattern. It's consistent and follows steps. It's also a very valued asset. Why else would there be so many engineers doing all kinds of different jobs from finance to management to actual research? A person isn't born with logic in him/her however. It has to be taught. But logic is slightly more than a pattern. It's a pattern of patterns. The common rule of rules. So while it cannot be imparted explicitly, it could be taught implicitly - through trial and error.

The basic toy which involves putting the right shapes into the right holes allows a child to learn his first pattern. Other similar puzzles like jigsaw and it's many forms also introduce other patterns to be learnt. If the child continues to "collect" these patterns, logic will be established. While this would take seemingly long, it is likely how we learn logic anyway. The important part is to teach it continually for logic paves the way toward self learning and faster learning. It also allows one to perform well in mathematics - one of the most important skills in life. And mathematics will also continue to reinforce logic thus granting an upward spiral of improvement. More about that some other time though.

If you've probably realised by now, logic is also known by a more quantified form as IQ. It is a measurement of how well someone is able to spot patterns, able to draw relations, able to predict outcomes. While there is no doubt that genetics do play a part, I believe that with much exposure, one would be able to improve his logical capabilities and thus his IQ by substantial amounts. There have been courses to train IQ, and they have worked, although my belief is that they train one for the test rather than the IQ. Regardless, it nevertheless proves that processes can be trained if given enough chances. Since logic is a process, the same applies.

An interesting fact is that logic doesn't have to be taught through language. The toy with shapes and holes that I referred to earlier proves that. So teaching language and logic simultaneously would ready one with basic life skills rather fast. After which, one should add in basic mathematics for convenience.

Time Again An Adversary

Throughout the past two years, I've been thinking, "Let's put this for the holidays or the end of IB", and each holiday has given me little time to get through my to-do list. Not forgetting that my to-do list only consists of things I personally want to do, when one takes into accounts events like parties, gatherings and interviews, that list becomes really inexhaustive for one to plow through. It's almost like homework. I now have a backlog of things I want to enjoy; all accumulated from two years of rather stifling IB education.

I'm not complaining, but that's because I've decided that it was all worth it. But maybe others might think differently. Let's reflect a bit on it shall we? Our school hours bring us right into the late afternoon, on the brink of evening just about everyday. On days that don't, we have CCAs to contend with. Weekends are free, but most of us have our own activities, not to forget any projects and homework that was not done during the week. On top of all, we need our own time to relax, to do what we like best, whether it's gaming, playing the piano, running, cycling, writing, or even bartending =D. We do get some rest during holidays, but most are packaged with some project or preparation for a major test (IOC, WL, Common Test, Math Port, etc). Of the few chances, those one day declared holidays, that we receive, no surprise we seize them for activities as well, like class outings, or sometimes just catching up with work.

It's a packed schedule indeed. But I believe our results proved that it's all worth it. We reap what we sow don't we? Now that we've plowed hard, sown and fertilised, the first season has begun to bear fruit. Soon, we'll all be given a new plot of land to do the same, and it's only with lessons from the previous crops will we know what to do and what not to. Boy, have we learnt much. So higher grounds we shall seek!

So well, the main point is: I'm running out of time! Oh noes! I'm not even halfway into my to-do list, and here I am with only exactly 3 weeks before enlistment. You can't retrieve two years of life in just two and a half months. Guess I'll have to put it off till after army. Doesn't that sound familiar? sigh.

But... but.... but!!!

A great ending to a great chapter of life! The news should be passing through the editors now, and tomorrow, it'll appear in the papers that we have upped our standards yet AGAIN! How long can this go? I wish it'd be forever, but that's not possible. It's not bad that I managed to predict all but one of my own scores, and hence, I feel that I got what I deserved, which makes me rather joyful and thankful! There could have been screwups like what I've experienced before. I have certainly done my best in the papers, and so I have no regrets whatsoever!

However, there's disappointment, and I suppose to a certain extent, anger at the inexplicable regarding the one component that felled me from my self-predicted target. I put in my best, and I really mean my very best into my research paper. It was my pet throughout IB, a 3997 word essay that I had fun doing, every single bit of it. Guided by whom I feel the best Physics teacher I've met to date. Vetted through by the most meticulous physics teacher when it comes to meeting IB rubric requirements. Yet, I've been chosen to be one of the few exceptions who gets an A (predicted) --> C (actual).

Well that's life I guess. Can't have everything you want nor everything you think reasonably achievable. At least my subjects were good. Praise the Lord for that!

But I'm definitely sending in my EE for a re-mark. This doesn't feel right.

Crowd Fluidity (Part I)

We may be people, but somehow we still act as particles when brought together in large numbers. Large as even in several hundreds is good enough to exhibit fluid properties. It would be quite apparent from a bird's eye view of a crowd that under normal motivation, i.e. no extermination threats or rare opportunities that increase directional flow towards maybe a store offering sales of over 50%, that as a crowd moves along its way, it flows.

When moving along corridor where human traffic is largely one way, it's quite noticeable that the faster traffic is in the middle of the corridor than at the sides. Even though there is no direct contact with the walls, I believe there is some sort of psychological contact. This could probably arise because everyone has what socialogists consider a social space, where if someone whom you are not familiar intrudes into it, you feel uncomfortable and there's an instinct to move away. This psychological contact makes humans slightly bigger than what we physically are in terms of particles, and makes our interactions rather elastic. It also explains why there's an apparent "friction" between those at the sides of the corridor which causes them to move slower. What about people in the center who are slow? Well, any person who isn't inconsiderate would automatically drift towards the sides to allow faster people to move in the center simply because of a perceived "social pressure".

There will of course be exceptions to this which brings about the next point — consciousness. Matter and particles, physically, are not supposed to be conscious and not have any higher order purpose (i.e. not like us they only want to be energeticall stable, not rich, not happy, not anything else). As human beings, we flout that property and so are probably limited to acting as fluids. However, I have an argument against that. Recall that a mole of particles isn't particularly large in volume and because of that, all fluid experiments indeed involve a vast number of particles as compared to any crowd at the local mall. If it is possible to gather such large numbers of people for analysis of fluid dynamics, then by the sheer numbers, analogous to CLT, the stray ones who are out there to ruin your day would cease to matter in the study. What is more is as quantum mechanics has it, each particle of matter does behave in an entirely random and unpredictable fashion; at least random in our perception. If there was a bigger being observing our movements, perhaps it would also be perceived that each of our behaviour is likewise unpredictable and random.

So I would hypothesise that there is fairly enough evidence to suggest that we behave as fluids under certain conditions. To add on to that, I will then analyse the behaviours of this fluid.