In Continuum.

This entry shall be a quick update on the things that have come to pass in the past week. I think we ended off with the Coldplay concert that happened on Monday, and I am still experiencing the withdrawal along with Justin and Kevin - especially the latter. Kevin has been in a sort of depression after the concert because of how good it was, and I understand. It's like that thing I said earlier about graphic novels, you feel sad to know that any graphic novel after Watchmen is never going to be as good, let alone better. To know that every concert happening after this one is going to be worse, at least for a long time, sucks. Well, the concert was worth every single cent, and we all know it. Nobody can walk out of the concert thinking that it was just another normal concert with people dancing and singing on stage. It was something different entirely, and I don't expect a concert to top that experience anytime soon. Kevin probably shares my sentiments as well, as you can see from the videos that Justin took of him during the concert. He looked like he was trying to whip the people in the row before him as he swung his head back and forth during the songs. That is not to mention how he got so high after the concert without a single drop of alcohol.

The days that followed were days of assignments, assignments, and assignments. There is a reason why the word "assignment" begins with the word "ass". It is a word within a word, because one word describe the whole. Yes, assignments are pains in the butt, like sitting on a chair sprinkled with thumb tags. A major conspiracy between the lecturers is evident, considering how everything came together on a single week, everything converged in such an uncanny way, that you cannot help but imagine all the lecturers sitting around a table, discussing the best way to burden the students even more than we are already burdened. I think we should pile this assignment on top of this speech, I think that would create the greatest amount of stress amongst the student cohort, says one. I agree, says the other. I shall also set this date over here to coincide with yours, the final draft of my paper should also be due on this day, not to mention the quiz on the day after. They probably on that arrangement and unleashed the beast upon us all at one go. I must say that their plan worked, because no one dares to say that they got through this past week unscathed. Everybody has a bruise here and a cut there, and no one has been spared at all. It has been a tiring week, and it will probably be the case until the end of it all. Oh dear.

Still, I am looking forward to the coming week because I have turned into a sort of workaholic. I think it is because of my Macs, and I am not even exaggerating here. I think the applications in my Macs really make me want to work, because they are just so nice and easy to use. Create a presentation? Sure. It takes a while to get it right, but the result is always so rewarding to me. I'm serious when I say that applications like Pages and Keynote makes me want to work, work, and work some more. I suppose it is a good thing, and I do hope that it has yet to cause a dent in my social relationships, whatsoever. Just give me a Mac and an assignment, I'd get the work done. There is a certain sense of accomplishment as you go through the presentation slides made on a Keynote. The way that the words dissolves into the background, the way the graphs comes into focus afterwards, and the way the graphic shifts and moves around the slides - it's awesome. That is not to mention the fact that I have tested it out with my Remote Keynote application on my iPod Touch - everything is working seamlessly. OK, I am bordering on geekdom now, in which I shall return back to normal form. As much as work has been a trouble and pain in the ass, I must say that I am enjoying it quite a bit.

Anyway, yesterday was supposed to be the worldwide event with everybody turning off the lights in their house for an hour. The Earth Hour, or something like that, and I am a sucker for events like that. However, I started to think about the inconveniences involved in sacrificing light for an hour and started to have seconds thoughts about participating in it. I had work to do on my Macbook, and the whole Earth Hour concept did not include turning off computers or television sets. Just lights, which I thought was fair, until I realized that my house would be in complete darkness if I did attempt to go through with it. So I figured I'd twist the concept around a bit. Instead of turning all my lights off for an hour, I'd just use a table lamp for two hours straight. But anyway, it's not like I have lights turned on in my room anyway. I have a love/hate relationship with the main light on my ceiling, and I have a thing against white light. Which is why my room is usually lid only with the lamp on my table and the one behind my bed. The rest of the house, though, I had to turn everything off myself, and that was exactly what I did. The whole house was darkened by the time it was 8.30, and everybody in the house (My mother, sister and I) were working only with lamps. Yet, I felt a little disappointed that my entire neighborhood was still brightly lid by the time it was 9. I mean, I even tried to look for a darkened house with activities inside, and I couldn't find one. Nobody seemed enthusiastic about the idea though, contrary to what the newspaper said this morning.

In truth, I think if the government really wants to reinforce this, they should just shut off power plants or something like that. Turn off lights in certain districts, shutting them off and letting everything rest for an hour. You don't expect common citizens to want to participate in something like that, because most people are not going to be persuaded. The main reason is because by turning off the lights for an hour, it is really a symbolic thing and it doesn't have any short term resolutions. You don't see a sudden change in our environment just by turning off the lights off for an hour, and people love to see results. If doing so will have a visible difference in our night sky, then we'd probably all end up doing it without a problem. The problem is that we can't see the difference we can make instantaneously, and as a result we don't see the need to do what they are wanting us to do. Or rather, we don't see a motivation to do so, which is probably why so many people couldn't be bothered about it. I think they should just turn everything off in the country for an hour every year. You know, shut everything that can be shut down in the country for that amount of time and see what happens. Of course, airports should be kept running and security should still be in place. But everything else like street lamps in secluded places, turn them all off. Plunge the country into a state of complete darkness for an hour, and see what happens. It'd be interesting, and the fun is only a switch away.

I have to dedicate a part of this entry on the newly opened italian restaurant downstairs of my estate called Buono. I have seen many shops and restaurants there before, including the very first convenience store and then the restaurants afterwards. There was that modest Thai restaurant that had a short lifespan, and then now we have this italian restaurant, which is really the branch of another restaurant down the street in Serangoon Gardens. I had my dinner there this Friday, the second time that I have dined there. Third, if you want to count that other time when they made a home delivery to my home (Yes they do that without extra charges). I must say that the food is pretty awesome, though a little pricey. Yet, the serving is pretty generous, and you get a pretty filling dinner with about twenty dollars each. The pizza is huge, and much cheaper than what Pizza Hut has to offer - and better. Thin crust pizzas for the win, ladies and gentlemen, and this restaurant only makes thin crusted pizzas. This place is filled with Caucasians day in and day out that you start to feel like you are not in Singapore after about five minutes sitting in there. It is so popular that people would come and ask what time would be more suitable for them to come back, because the place has been fully booked. Yeah, it is pretty awesome.

So yes, the semester is about to end, and I hope that this blogging thing won't stop anytime soon. In the mean time, I have to go back to doing some work I suppose, lightening the load next week somehow. I am just glad that I am somehow ahead of the curve, and I intend to keep things that way for the most part. Here's to the end at the far side of the road, and let's power through till the end together.