The term gone by

Wow, into the last weekend of term already.

Will be a really hectic end to the term, after an uncharacteristically relaxed 5th week with a few lectures canceled. Making up for it now with 4 supervisions to complete before I leave. But that's not all.

Stuff that needs to be done next week -
1) project proposal, bu 5 Dec
2) collecting payments, and tidying up cf accounts, including arranging for word alive payments and possible alteration of booking
3) planing games for houseparty
4) changing flight dates, maybe.

Work this term
Work has been good - it's not that I'm coping any better, but I am at the very least progressing through some parts of the course. Found several people to ask when stuck at stuff, and have very helpful supervisors. Would really like some time during the holidays to work and have them around, but I dont know if I might be in the mood to work when it's so cold, and when meals won't be that regular at college. Also there may be a fee for changing flight dates, will have to weigh these factors.

QFT, QCMFT, and particle physics are really nice courses. have really good lecturer for particle physics, and awesome supervisors for QFT and QCMFT. Glad to be given this opportunity to learn these subjects with the resources available, but kinda feel like I'm not making the most of it. I feel the urgency to learn as much as I can here while i have access to these resources, before I have to do it on my own if I go back home after this.

On the other hand, I can't wait for this hectic lifestyle to be over. Hope to enjoy the comfort of staying at one place permanently, and feel at home in it. Though I fear that the lack of resources may stifle, and that I'll miss the things I take for granted here when I'm back home - the space, freedom, and managing my own life.

yeah, just reflection arising from the anticipation of impending doom of the last week...

Online Condensed Matter Field Theory Textbook

Kleinert, H.: Gauge Fields in Condensed Matter,World Scientific (Singapore, 1989)

Singapore? 1989? Gauge fields in condensed matter? hm...

lolcatz

Physics people

Ed Witten

Arxiv entries

Reminiscence - looking back upon the good old 90's

Watch CBS Videos Online

Schizophrenia that is America

I dont know about you, but while watching scenes of jubilation all over the world (even my friends at home are holding a party to celebrate Obama's victory) that the election of Obama into office has ignited, I can't help but wonder at the phenomenom of the schizophrenic organism that America is!

One moment, they elect a warmonger into office that carries out the collective desire of the people to unleash hell on their enemies, but alienanates the country from the rest of the world; and the next moment they elect a black man who becomes the darling of all the alienated people around the world. 

I am astounded at my own enthusiasm for Obama becoming president, and I reckon that is how many people in the world feel. I am personally hopeful that the progress of science will be facilitated with Obama in office, and I reckon that people all over the world have their own individual reasons for being enthusiastic at Obama being the president. It seems like he stands for the opposite of everything that is bad about America (and there are many things going wrong in America today), simply because he is black and having a black person as president itself represents such a radical change.   

It will be interesting to watch which of these expectations come to fulfillment in the end. It's not that I'm sceptical, but it is just inevitable that not all the expectations will be realised. 

Nevertheless, let's toast to the president of the world!

Election Fever

Whoa, I'm actually anxious about the US elections - anxious for Obama to win... When the first of the numbers showed Obama behind, I actually freaked at the thought of McCain being the next President. But the numbers has since changed, and it looks like Obama's now comfortably ahead. 

The figures as of 0105 GMT 5 Nov 08

Here's to the first Black President of the world's declining superpower!

A quick note

wanna revise fourier transform from the IB notes online...

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gio10/nst.html

Print out chapter 3 and 4...

First proper update from Cambridge

Yup, entering the third week of my last year here. and it's been quite good. 

Flight

Was nice - interesting taking the A380. Watched 3 shows - Prince Caspian, Hancock, and one more, cant remember. Interesting watching Prince Caspian - found some scenes familiar, while did not have any impression of others. Took me some time of figuring out where I watched it before, before i realised that had left it on while dozing off on the flight back from shanghai. 

Accom

have a very comfortable room this year, with a nice view of a garden. Fridge and sink in the room, while shared kitchen and toilet. So not bathing as often now :S

Work

On top of 2 of 3 courses this year, and attending another 2 more maths courses.

Quantum field theory (on top ~ sorta)

Particle physics (on top ~ sorta)

Quantum condensed matter field theory (arh)

General relativity (maths)

Super symmetry (maths, nice)

There's a project work too that has not quite taken off yet, but hope that it'll work out soon.

ECA

Gainfully channeling my energies into a lot of christian stuff - CF (monday, friday nights), Focus (tuesday nights), Ciccu (saturday afternoons). Great to be serving productively. 

Doing the book of Luke now in focus, and John in CF. Good stuff.

Also taking up rowing - can't leave Cambridge without experiencing this for myself. Will be waking up real early on wednessday and thursday mornings. I wonder how long this will last.

Freshers

No official kids this year, but have a singaporean fresher staying in the same house, and it's nice to be able to pop by someone's room to chill for a when i return. 

Cooked a few times, and went shopping once. It's been nice. 

Stress relieve

Also playing the Command and Conquer pack I brought from singapore. nice way to destress... finished zero hour, and now moving on to the original generals. started half life too! 

yup, that's the stuff that'll mark the sentiments of my last year here... quite well settled generally :)

rally -> slide -> 5 year lows.

Witnessed following piece of the BBC headlines change throughout the day...


And this graph explains it all...

Magnetization is still confusing,

but this is helping somewhat to clear the confusion.

And a history of magnetism.

Cool Game!

http://fantasticcontraption.com/

Stanford Computing Course

Whoa, I should check this out in detail sometime... SEE

Politics

Hm... just found that Ron Paul's good! Wonder what happened to his campaign.

A good essay

on THE FUTURE OF COPYRIGHT

Installing Eclipse C SDK on Debian.

Install latest version of java
generally following this guide.
but had to add contrib to source first and update it.
add contrib to etc/apt/sources.list;
apt-get update;
apt-get install java-packages;

Check this to configure the right version of java.

Edit:
Found an easier alternative to installing java on debian.

VMware, qemu - some websites.

Playing with linux on a vm now, using my external hard disk to house the new OS, and vmware to run it. Here are some good webpages...

Tutorial on creating a hard disk emulator for vmware

VMware
Wmware wiki
Vmware website

Qemu
Qemu wiki
Qemu Download
Qemu Doc

And google's releasing chrome soon!

For the record - back from china

yup, back from the middle kingdom, and was it an enriching experience!

second time visiting china after 13 years (went there in 1995), spent 4 weeks - 2 camps in Beijing, 10 days in Jiangxi province at linchuan and ningxia, and another 5 days in shanghai.

In Beijing, visited great wall twice, the summer palace, as wells as all the city center attractions like the forbidden city and tian an men. Also saw the olympic venues on the way to the great wall, and saw Beijing being transformed from a chaotic construction site to the ordered end product.

In Jiangxi, visited a number of villages that were turned into tourist attractions - they collected a fee from the tourists, and were very neatly managed, but housed villagers going about their daily lives. Also visited jindezhen, the place that produced china.

In Shanghai, visited some shopping district, the bund, sun yat san's residence, and the water village. With Ling and aunty mavis showing me around...

Another quick post from china

Just an update to jot down some interesting phenomena...

Came away from debriefing for camp one today. Went through ups and downs. It's interesting how we all have common feelings/sentiments when we are put through the same situation, down to the fact that all of us are showing pre-flu symptoms - that of the pain behind the nose, which I thought I was the only one to experience throughout my life. Thankfully there are medics among us who have miracle nasal sprays for this problem, and which I have just administered to myself as I'm typing. Must jot down it's name and effectiveness for future reference. Please pray for this nevertheless.

Also on another note, I've been on the great wall twice this camp. To ju yong guan with the hebei teachers, and to badaling with the rest of the isec teachers on our camp.

alright, internet time is quite limited... signing off.

A quick picture

Us at the temple of heaven