— aka.spvn

So I’ve always had this habit of writing one of these New Year’s Resolutions posts at the start of each year… except this time this post has come almost 2 months late. I’ve been really hesitant about keeping this blog going, considering how I barely even use it. But yet I just can’t bear to let it go. I already regret letting my previous domain go, so I guess I’ll just keep sticking with this one.

So this was last year’s list:

Resolutions for 2012

1. Read more – eh… did that, kind of…
2. Play the piano more – nope… I think I’ve pretty much given up on this one.
3. Write more – definitely didn’t do this.
4. Get off the computer more (my poor eyes) – nope.
5. Excercise. Excercise. Excercise. – definitely did this more… at least when school started. But of course I wasn’t exercising at all previously so even the little bit of basketball I played is considered as having exercised “more”.
6. Get a job before uni starts – worked at SOTA! At least I fulfilled one of my resolutions.
7. Do some coding for fun – Kind of did this… but gave up real quick.
8. Complete NaNoWriMo for the first time ever – I realised that I won’t be able to do NaNoWriMo for the next couple of years because it’s way too close to finals
9. And finally, because she’ll kill me if I don’t put this on here, be even nicer to Charlotte. – Kind of did?

Seeing as how I barely managed anything from my list last year, I think I’ll have to come up with a more feasible list this year…

Resolutions for 2013

1. Read more, really want to keep reading more.
2. Write more, I want to stop letting this blog rot away
3. Exercise. Feels good to start playing basketball again after two whole years of not touching it.
4. Keep studying hard. I really am a changed man since uni began, I’m actually paying attention. Wonder how long I can keep it up.
5. PLAY MORE GAMES. I can’t believe I’m spending so little time playing games nowadays till the point where I actually have to put this in my new year’s resolutions.
6. Get an internship?
7. Code an actual program for once?
8. Be nicer to Char. 4.5 years and still going <3

Well I can’t think of anything else for now. This should be quite a relaxed recess week seeing as how I only have two mid-terms and just two “essays” to write over the week. Hope this sem goes just as smoothly as the last one did.

Ok I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last blogged. 5 months in fact. So much stuff has happened in my life and I never noted down a single thing. It was only this past week when I was forced fork out 60 bucks just to renew this server and domain for another year did I realise that I really should make better use of this site. I guess I wanted this blog to be full of “thoughtful” posts and musings rather than being treated as a diary, but that’s just stupid. (Also I’m usually really lazy to write “what-happened-today” kind of posts)

NUS

University started. It feels kind of weird to think of myself as being a Uni student now. University has always been this murky unknown, unlike every other prior phase of my education. 6 years of primary school, 4 years of secondary school, 2 years of JC, 2 years of army… then what? Suddenly there’s no structure to it anymore. Heck there’s more structure in the working world than in uni. With an office job, you wake up at 7, go through a boring day till you reach home at 7 (if you’re lucky) and spend a few hours doing what you want, go to sleep, then rinse and repeat. That’s a typical working day.

There’s no such thing as a typical day at uni. Your timetable’s different everyday, your schedule is different from one week to the next, you have CCAs, you study different things every 6 months, etc. There’s just so much change, all the time… which is precisely what makes university life so damn fun.

For the record working life is way easier than studying for a degree. But studying for a degree is insanely more fun than working. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t slogged it out in an office for a couple of years will understand this. You do have less things to do at an office job, and you don’t have homework or exams. But the same damn schedule and tasks that repeat themselves all the time make working life a chore. Studying is way harder, and way more effort is required. But the constant change in your life (something that students take for granted) just makes it all worthwhile.

Not to mention you actually have friends instead of colleagues. I remember the first time I asked my parents what the word “colleague” meant and they told me it’s what you call people you work with, I immediately wondered why they didn’t just use the word “friends”. I mean, everyone in my class was my “friend”. We’re just all friends aren’t we?

Studying in NUS also meant that I got to move into Tembusu College at UTown. For the first time in my life, I had a room to myself. I could come and go as I please. The freedom of having your own place 5/7 days a week is just absolutely AWESOME. I could sleep whenever I wanted to, study when I wanted to, where I wanted to, etc. It’s a breath of fresh air really. Having to do your own laundry and stuff like that is a really small price to play. Not to mention UTown is a really nice environment to live in. Not to mention there’s an entire complex opening up next January. Can’t wait to get back there in a few weeks.

Studying is also actually pretty fun and not THAT hard. At least not in my first semester. I mean it’s way tougher than anything I’d ever done before, but after watching Char put in so much effort and still struggle for two whole years made me prepared for what was to come. For the first time in my life, I’m actually paying attention in class (well, mostly…). I’ve actually paid FULL attention to a few two hour lectures this sem, something that was previously unthinkable. The exams are hard no doubt, but there’s always the bell curve to the rescue. At least now when I make careless mistakes in math it all evens out because everyone else makes careless mistakes as well (hopefully ). Getting the results in about 4 days, quite hopeful

Pool… again!

The holidays thus far have been used for almost nothing but catching up on all the games I’ve missed out on, and pool training. First time in my life I’m actually seriously training at pool. It also just struck me recently that the last time I played snooker seriously was 5 years ago back in secondary school. I never realised how much time had passed since that period of my life. I never treated pool seriously, always felt it was just too easy to bother putting effort into. I remember when I would switch over to a pool table for awhile after playing for hours on a snooker table, suddenly every single ball seemed so damn easy to pot. Almost every single shot on a pool table was unmissable as long as it was a remotely reasonable shot. I could run a game of 8 ball in one visit to the table without controlling the cue ball at all, because regardless of what ridiculous shot I left myself with I’d just pot it. 9-ball was way harder of course, but I always felt that snooker was a more worthy investment of my time.

Gone are those days of course, for now I struggle with even some of the simpler shots on a pool table. 5 years of not playing really does take its toll. Of course, now that I’m actually putting in the effort to train, pool isn’t as easy as it seemed. Well 9-ball at least. It’s just quite annoying that I have to take the time to get my accuracy back, and makes me really wish I had never stopped playing snooker. But then again 5 years ago I never considered the possibility that I might end up getting a chance to represent NUS at pool. That being said, I do hope I get into the school team eventually, it’s still too early to tell and I have no idea what my chances are. Though I have to say that putting in so much effort and not getting a chance to represent the school would be quite disappointing.

Well I think this has been a sufficiently long and rambling post, so it’s time for it to end. Off to watch more of the Mosconi Cup!

So I’m more than a week late to the whole “new year’s resolutions” party, but to be fair I’ve never actually done up any resolutions in the past. School life always followed such a rigid, predictable system that there seldom was time to think of stuff other than school. But now that I’ve left formal education for more than a year I’m starting to see why resolutions might be important. That being said, here’s some off the top of my head:

1. Write more…
2. … no seriously write a TON more.
3. Exercise more
4. Sleep earlier everyday
5. Find some way to earn money now that ReviewColumn is down for good.
6. Read more
7. Keep up with current affairs
8. Find some use for this site
9. Come up with an idea for a new site (it’ll be big if I can actually accomplish this one)
10. And finally, because she’ll kill me if I don’t put this on here, be even nicer to Charlotte.

And that’s it for now I guess. I’ll probably amend this list slightly over the next few days if I think of better stuff. But for now, seeing as how it’s already 11 and I have work tomorrow, I’m already failing #4.

Goodnight Sunday, hello Monday.