Dinner Reunion

Yesterday was fun! Productive day, and also had a good dinner at the cool new foodcourt in Wisma. Heh the old gang together again, and with a surprise appearance of Soph, for some reason that I didn't find out. Ah, it always feels good to be back in that gang again...things are simpler in there, and the whole experience is more...acute, somehow. More immediate, I think. Anyway, it's nice to resurrect old running jokes, and to see how well they've stood up to the test of time.

Oh yeah...maybe it's cos we get all sorts of strange notions on the fly. Whatever we did yesterday, I'd better not record it here, cos if the authorities can catch people for slander on blogs, they may be able to implicate us while reading this =P But it's that kind of spontaneity, that degree of throw-all-caution-to-the-wind, all-out bizarreness that I realised yesterday night that I really miss. At the time it seemed outrageous...but with the benefit of hindsight it seems more and more like a good idea. Witness what Fruits and Veggies has become; that was a spur of the moment thing too. Heh, I guess we just click that way. Some sort of alchemy at work in our destinies =P

Needless to say, though, I've given up trying to make RJ's experience into 4N. There can never be another 4N. Whatever fondness I feel for 1A now, it's different qualitatively from the bonds that exist still within that old class. Heh I wonder, though, what Soph thought of it. One evening with six CHS guys. Though I have to admit that we're not exactly representative of our batch...

I was rather surprised when we actually did end up studying last night. Well, not studying, actually, but we actually had notes out on the table. HC people are pathological, I swear. Seeing Joel with his impressive mounds of history around him is intimidating. The sheer amount of work they do (and they intimidate each other into doing) is remarkable in itself. Suddenly I have this notion to start doing essay plans for all the subjects like there's no tomorrow - and what do I find today in my inbox than question banks for all the E Hist topics? Mmm...looks like an orgy of work next week =P

The time is really running out to 8 Nov, and yet the immediacy of the exams hasn't really set in yet. Heh, have even been spending a chunk of time on planing the escapades for after the exams. I think maybe it's cos I've settled into a calm and stable routine, so it dilates my sense of time to make it look like I've got more time than I really have. Probably it's also because after the O's the A's don't seem to be all that alien. Hmph...but an insecure part of my mind keeps trying to psyche me into panic. Well, a certain degree of urgency is useful to bolster motivation, I guess, as long as it doesn't run amok.

TSA today was...interesting. I hate those mathematical questions that ask you to calculate time. So many opportunities to be careless. Heh, and the essay I wrote was rather dubious I think. 30min for an essay question that, under normal circumstances, I would spend more than an hour on. I chose to do a question on poverty, whether it can ever be ended, and if more aid is the solution. After the prelim GP paper, I was thinking of reproducing Naomi Klein's tract. But time constraints...in the end only touched on the complexities of the issues superficially, cosmetically, by mentioning that what I said in the essay must not be taken as the end-all. On hindsight, if I'd kept my wits around me better, it'd probably have been better to focus on one aspect of the problem only, instead of going for the broad overview.

Among the SPS people, I have to say there isn't that degree of suspicion and acrimony that I've come to associate with uni apps. Heh I guess everyone just tacitly agrees not to mention the topic. Well, we all try our best not to intrude into others' chances, I guess. I for one appreciate the effort; it certainly removes lots of unnecessary stress from everyone. But now the next stage of the game is the interview...bleah, really don't know what to expect from an interviewer whose profession and workplace has nothing in common with my application. Heh, I kind of worked out an answer to why I'm interested in SPS, though. I realise, after careful reflection, that all the Sim games I have are basically built on sociological systems. Simcity is more of an economics engine, but sociological indicators like health and education and approval are also used, and the objective is not only to build a rich functioning city, but also one that's livable. And of course there's the arch-sociological-simulator of all time, The Sims. I guess originally my fascination with sociology was thus rooted in a desire to understand the principles along which the Sim games were built, and to find out how come a computer game can so eerily reflect real world principles.

But of course, whether I'll actually dare to tell Prof. Barnes that my interest in the subject is based on computer games is another matter entirely =P I wonder if he'll be amused if I did...

pondered by phoenican @ 22.10.05