Steph's Friend

Friday, December 14, 2007

Christmas & STARS & Other Misc Stuff

It's been a long time since my last post. Let's see what I have to say...

1. Christmas gifts.

Yup it's that time of the year again where I need to shop for gifts for my friends in Medan. Sadly, I won't be going there as I am busy with my Uni stuff...like choosing which modules to take. Yes...yes...STARS Planner can take up a lot of your time. Actually, I have other stuff to do other than planning for my timetable for my next semester.

However, I still get to taste Medan food! For example, I got to eat Mee Tiong Sim! In case you don't know. Mee Tiong Sim is kinda like wantan mee. However, the noodle used is very different. The best part of it is the wantan. It's nice man! Too bad I didn't take a picture of it.

2. Choosing a UE and GE for next semester.

Yes. This took quite sometime. I have been wondering. Would you take an elective that is easy so that it will pull-up your GPA (eg. BASIC1001: How To Kill A Mosquito)? Or would you take an elective that you like even though it is challenging (eg. SCIENCE1001: Nanosystems In Modern Humanistic Societal Platforms)? Please feel free to input your views on my tagboard over on the left.

After talking to a few people and listening to what they have to say. I have grouped all of their suggestions into 2 groups.

The first group says that you should take an elective that is easy. The reason given was simple. If it's easy, then it would be able to help increase your GPA. However, if it's easy, scoring would be difficult as more people would get an A.

The second group says that you should take an elective that you are interested in. Why? If you are interested in the subject, you would put in the effort to study it. Sounds logical doesn't it? But what if you take an elective that you like let's say..."ART1001: Sewing and Knitting for the Modern Man"?

Let's say Tom like to sew and decides to take ART1001 because he's very interested in sewing. When he enters the tutorial group he realized that there are other students who are much more professional in the subject then him. They sew better and some can even sew with their eyes closed! This automatically places him at a disadvantage, even though he is interested in the subject.

Another example. Let's say Jane, a Humans student is interested in "ENG3.142: Engineering Sciences For The Modern Citizen". She takes the module and realizes that there are a lot of Engineering students in that module! What a shocker that is to her! Without knowing it, she is already disadvantaged because Engineering students definitely have an upper hand in an engineering elective.

Looking at Tom and Jane, it's quite disheartening to see two students who choose an elective because of interest only to find themselves disadvantaged. Sad right?

That's why they implemented the SU option! If you like an elective and after a few weeks, you realized that it's difficult you can just SU it. Of course you still need to pass lest an ugly "U" appear in your degree.

I heard from somewhere that the other university allows students to SU a subject after knowing their result. However, the university I am in does not allow students to SU a subject after their results are known. NTU students have to decided whether to SU their subjects before the final examination. Good? Bad? Well you decide.

So what did I do? I choose an elective that I am interested in. At first I choose one elective (I am not going to say which one it is. Let's call it A). It was easy. Exams are only in MCQ! Oh how we all love MCQ. We have been doing MCQ questions from pre-school and all the y way to (can you believe it?) University!

The field the elective touches on was a familiar field to me. So I took it. However, after some advice from the people around I decided to choose another elective. Why? Because elective A was kinda simple with no real applications to my course. So despite the fact that it's simple (and easier to score), I switched it with another one that sounds difficult but has a practical aspect to it. I pray that I made the right decision. By the way, elective A is pretty famous in the STARS Planner. It has over 1200+ people on the wait list.

3. Another story.

I remember at this point of time last year, I wrote a pretty lengthy story. The title was "The Value Of Honesty In A Relationship". Should I write another one? Maybe with the theme of Christmas?

So why not write another story? Hm...I am a bit hesitant as all stories have the same plot. Boy and Girl meet. Some problem surfaces. Boy and Girl get back together. So it's pretty boring. I tried an experiment in the story "She Likes Me?" by placing myself in the story itself. Haha...that drew quite a response. Hm...maybe I should try something new...

Or maybe I should just read my textbook...lol.

4. Comments on the tagboard.

At times, I receive comments from anonymous readers. Interesting.

Sometimes. I wonder who they are behind those words. Is he/she someone I know? Is he/she from NTU? Does he/she talk crap like me?

Of course the fact that they name themselves as "Anonymous" with the big "A" means that they don't want me to know who they are. Fair enough. But sometimes I just wonder...do I know them...hm...

5. Blog renovation.

Should I renovate my blog? Those two stick men at the top have been standing there for ages with the same pose. I myself won't be able to do that. Maybe I should renovate...but the thing is that it takes time.

I remember how much time I spent just to come up with the current skin and MAKING SURE that it's browser compatible. You know Firefox and IE have some compatibility issues that you need to look out for when coming out with a blogskin. The html and css coding...wah...it really took a lot of time.


That's quite a lot of stuff. I guess I should stop now.
Enjoy your Christmas holidays :)

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