day of firsts

Today was a rather interesting day. A few firsts happened.

Firstly, I was late for lecture. It’s not because I woke up late or anything. I just underestimated traveling time from kent ridge terminal to my lecture theatre. I noticed that if I go to school at around 11 am there is hardly any traffic so I usually only take 40 mins or so to reach school. So, I figured I need only leave the house at 10. ended up being 5-10mins late. Fortunately the lecturer was still revising earlier lectures.

Secondly, as I entered the lecture, I noticed a very big difference in the seating arrangement. There is usually this group of girls that sit in front of me, behind me but never beside me. Yet there they were all lined up in my row. I told you some girls are having a turn of heart on me… muah haha… ok seriously out of that group 2 are already attached and the rest are friends. Out of that group, I was fortunate enough to sit next to someone for only the 2nd time in my past 2 years in NUS. Ok to be fair I only knew that person last year but I like to exaggerate. Haha… Anyway, I always thought sitting next to that person would be fun and I was proven right today. The previous time I sat next to her was in tutorial so we didn’t get much chance to chat. To be fair, the lack of “sitting opportunities” with that friend was not because she was avoiding me or anything. Once you have a “favourite” row it’s hard to switch over just to sit with someone else. Tongues will probably start wagging. That is the “ba gua” nature of uni life after all…haha… the last thing anyone wants is unfair rumours...besides, switching rows is so unecesary it just feels weird if you do it..so you can’t blame either of us for not taking any initiative. but it was refreshing wasn’t it? =)

There was another first with regards to my project. I feel very proud of myself today. For the first time, I actually felt like a mechanical engineering undergrad because I applied a lot of principles into my design project. Design is one half creativity one half engineering. At least that’s what I would think. But before today the project was practically 90% creativity. Sure the ideas needed some details but they never stretched beyond simple geometry. Yet today I had to apply quite a few formulas and rules to design a component that works. And it felt good. I think lawyers and doctors would find this hard to understand. What could be so fun about calculating? I thought engineers avoid calculations as much as possible? Well… yes we do like to simplify things but there are still some basic ideas we need to use. in fact, I was proud of the fact I used those basic ideas to come up with a reasonably good design. At least I would like to think so.

This design project has confirmed my passion for challenges. I love challenges; which probably explains my willingness to pursue girls who are the most difficult to win over… haha…but seriously, design is fun because it poses a challenge to me and I want to meet up to it. I realise I may fail often but at least I can say I kept trying. And once in a while, you think you come up with a great idea and you feel good. so I think that spells the end of my PhD dream. I realize I prefer design to research any day. But I’ll still try for masters, especially since I have the added bonus of knowing I will probably not be the only one staying another year in school. *wink*