Spending too much..

I always keep track of my spending monthly.. just in case i overspend.. BUT i still overspend for March. Grand total of $500 plus personal spending... not including those fixed spending like bus fare and filial money to parents. *grasp* I think coming Apr shall be more thrifty. Need to save more for UK.

Talking about UK. I went for the Imperial Admission Interview with this Admission Tutor, Dr Omar Matar. He was staying at The Regent Hotel!!! So high class.. when I entered the hotel, I was practically the only Singaporean there (all the other locals were hotel staff).

So he was interviewing everyone in the Business Centre. Well Imperial must have paid for all the expenses because he even had his own personal assistant from the hotel! And one by one we went in for the interview..

Been through so many scholarship interviews in the SAF, I am practically immune and well-versed in interview situations. I could almost predict the questions he will ask and true enough, he asked the exact questions in my preparation list. But (yes there is always a but) he caught me with an unexpected question. Something that the SAF interviews never prepare me for.

Question:

"If I were to give you coffee, sugar and milk. How would you mix them in order?"

AH!!! What kind of question is this? I thought it was a psychological question because most interviews are about your thinking and attitude. But where is the psychological part to this question???

I really cannot comprehend. So I gave a rather layman answer.

My Answer:

"Sugar. The milk will cool down the coffee hence the solubility will decrease."

Correct Answer:

"Milk. It will increase the volume of the mixture hence increase the solubility."

UrGH!!!! I almost wanted to smack that guy in the face! What kind of question is this!!!

Ah.. nevermind.. However I really had a bad feeling about this interview. Not just the question, but the general gut feeling is bad. Hope I didn't screw it up.

One more item for prayer book. - "Get a seat in the Chem Eng Course in Imperial"

HappYness

Just caught "The Pursuit of Happyness" on my comp (resisting the urge the correct the spelling error~!). Before that, I had the impression that it is a so-so type of movie and fair enough first 1hr of it was really So-So. Merely talking about a typical American family trying to make ends meet and eventually (like other shows) the mother would leave the house. So all thats left is the father and his son.

And the show continued with the father still trying to make ends meet, with the usual unlucky stuff happening to him.

However the true meaning behind only showed up when it was about to end.

In narration, the father said,

"When Thomas Jefferson declared independence, the word "happiness" was mentioned couple of times. But how would he know that it would be a pursuit of happiness, just like happiness could never be achieved."

I finally understand the father's happiness was not about the money nor the food. He was pursuing all these for his son. His happiness was found in being able to provide and care for his son. Well I guess that goes to speak for all the great fathers (of course including our Father in heaven!) out there, who would slog their life working in pursuit for this "happiness". Something so intangible yet fulfilling.

Republic Poly =)

Just got back from a 3 day symposium at Republic Polytechnic about Problem-Based Learning.

It was kinda a Deja Vu for me as I had to rush from lectures on research papers to workshops for 3 days, which reminded me of schooling days. But I have come to realise that my "studying skills" have decreased drastically!! I was unable to copy quick enough and kinda got "lost" in the midst of lectures! Sucks... However I believe it is because of the difference in lecturers. Those lecturers in RP are mainly Professors and Doctorates, whose thoughts are very hard to comprehend. (VJ lecturers were much more "user-friendly")

Nonetheless, it was a great learning experience and I believe teaching in places like RP can be quite enjoyable with the extravagant environment and facilities. (no wonder there were debates on cutting the Education Budget.. Haha) And the revolutionary idea of having no tutors but purely facilitators to "guide" the students instead of traditional teaching is very interesting yet skeptical. No offence, but I don't think students of this generation are disciplined enough for such a "freestyle" learning system. I believe students must be taught in the "freestyle" way since the very beginning, such as primary school. Only then, will this new teaching method work in tertiary level like polytechnics, otherwise students after being under the traditional teaching method for 10 years (pri and sec) will be more inclined to abuse the system.

Next two days will be another course for me. This time is Knowledge Management.

From what i gathered, it seems to be the "in" thing among corporate companies now? Companies wish to learn the systematic way of knowledge transmission from batch to batch as they realise valuable knowledge which are not documented are often lost in the midst of changing of employees (since job hopping is so common now).

Read a book about KM.

And it says, "...., hence Knowledge Management is making tacit knowledge, explicit. It is critical to avoid focusing on gadgetry and disregard how people in organisations acquire, share and create new knowledge."

This is something new to me, as I have always thought KM to be similar to Library Catalog where detailed dating and ordering of documents is the core. Yet, the book says it is about the people who holds the tacit knowledge. Hmm interesting, I really wonder how can tacit knowledge be explicit. Lets hope the course will answer my question.

Oh just received the notification of an interview with Imperial College on my Chemical Engineering application! Yeah!!