RIP Eugin Wee - Need answers

If you don't already know, this morning, an NSF was killed by a reversing truck by a fellow soldier. The full story can be found here <- (click)

I'll just quote the story here:

A FULL-TIME National Serviceman (NSF) was hit and killed by a truck driven by another serviceman in Jurong camp 1 early on Friday morning.

Lance Corporal (LCP) Wee Yong Choon Eugin, a Signal Operator, was about to unload stores from the back of the truck at 7am on Friday morning when it reversed into him.

This was all the information that the news report gave. I am not satisfied. 

What exactly happened? Did the truck (probably a tonner?) roll over him? The previous incident involving the officer stated that the truck reversed and crushed him. (I think it was something about the brakes not being set or something I can't remember) What about this one?

The ambiguous nature of it makes it seem like the truck just full speed reversed and drifted into the spot, while LCP Eugin was standing there, and the impact killed him. Which doesn't seem quite likely.

So the alternative explanation was that it hit him, he fell, and then crushed him. But if he was waiting to unload stores, why was he standing (or sitting? or?) in the parking lot? Shouldn't he be waiting further away?

Another possible scenario in my head based on how the article phrased it, was that Eugin had opened the latch at the back, was 'about to unload stores', and suddenly the driver decided he wasn't reversed enough and reversed further, and Eugin got knocked over and crushed or something. If THIS was the answer.... the driver needs to be flogged. 

More questions to be asked - Where was the vehicle commander?(VC) In SAF, all vehicles have a vehicle commander who is usually a 3SG and above (I think it IS a requirement). When the vehicle (especially a large one) is reversing, the VC is supposed to get off and direct the driver into the parking bay. Not only is this to ensure the parking is done accurately, it also prevents such accidents from occurring.

I'd hope for a proper full report to be out tomorrow, so all these can be answered. 

An email to a professor

This is a long one, so I will add a pagebreak to it, if you are bored enough to want to read the whole thing just click  it.

Before reading, some context - 

For the module, PL3235, Social Psychology, one of the graded assignments is an essay. The essay topics, instead of being revealed at once, is going to be released at 'random intervals during the semester', and students have only 3 weeks from the time of topic release to complete that particular topic. (Only have to do ONE essay, of course)

In other words, you have no idea when he is going to release an essay question, and you have no idea what the other questions are about.

If you are wondering why we keep using the term 'ungodly' in the email, yes, this was the lecturer who wrote this on IVLE: 

Oh, the lecture is at 8AM.

how to be random

This is going to be an extremely random blog post. I am feeling really tired but I just felt like blogging because blogging is writing and writing sounds like sleeping and sleeping feels like what i'm doing. Ok fine writing does not sound like sleeping but they both end with ing. Well writing sounds like writhing and writhing is something you do when you are in bed so I guess it's the same.

Who do you think I am? A student? A faculty member? I know the head Tweeter said he was a student in his interview. But I am not the head Tweeter. I am the blogger. Ok I am the head blogger. Adding a head makes me look better right.  I mean without a head I would be headless and that's just freaky.

Talking about heads, how many of you live in halls? You know halls all have different blocks right. I find it very amusing that the heads of the block call themselves 'block heads'. BLOCKHEADS.

What is the point of this blog post, you may ask? Do I even have anything substantial to say? The answer is no. You should stop reading now. Because all you are doing is depriving yourself of 5 minutes of playtime. That's 5 minutes of bouncing in bouncy castles, of playing Pokemon cards, of shooting some basketball hoops, of watching that stupid neverending Taiwanese series, of watching your dog pee on your carpet, whatever stage of life you are at and what 'playtime' means to you.

Have you ever wonder how they derived pi? I mean, if you took basic math you will know that we use the basic estimate 3.142. Some may even think it is derived from 22/7. But I've actually tried dividing 22 by 7, and just by doing it mentally I get 3.143 (3.1428) . That's because pi is NOT 22/7, but derived by some other way.
3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510

5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273 7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132 0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235 4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859 5024459455 3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881 7101000313 7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303 5982534904 2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778 1857780532 1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989 3809525720 1065485863 2788659361 5338182796 8230301952 0353018529 6899577362 2599413891 2497217752 8347913151 5574857242 4541506959

This is pi, up to 1120 decimal digits. I copied this from wikipedia btw. I didn't derive this myself.
Did you notice that 999999 series? It actually has a name. Feynman point.

Wow ok staring at this has made me really sleepy. It's time to go to bed. Why do they call it 'going to bed'. Isn't that gramatically incorrect? I'm pretty sure I spelt gramatically incorrectly because it is highlighted by Blogger's spellcheck but I refuse to change it. I think it's 2 Ms. like M&Ms, the chocolate. Anyway, I am going to my bed, then lying on it, and sleeping. Isn't that what we do. I mean, I'm not married so I dont have sex on my bed. I guess sleep is the next best alternative. Which is what you should be doing besides reading this because you have just wasted 10 minutes of your time. Congratulations.

A reply

If you recall, recently we applied for the Fat Ass Club FASS Club and posted our application as a blog post. We got a reply!. Below the reply is our subsequent response.

Hi there realFASS,

Thank you for your interest in wanting to help the FASS Club under Publicity. After discussion with my other MC members, we've decided that we can only work with you if only you are able to work with us physically, meaning to say, you can't stay anonymous, at least to us. At the MC, we take all publicity of the club seriously as we are a representative body of the students in FASS.

Hence, in order for the partnership to come through, this is what we need from you:

1) Proposal

2) Timeline as in frequency of content updates

3) How this will fit into current publicity efforts

4) Content filtering

5) Amount of say Publication Secretaries (ie Hui Tze & me) have with regards to the tweets

6) Rationale for writing in to us since you guys are already doing well

7) What would you expect from fass club in return for your contributions

Thank you.

Regards,

Red SEO (Mr)

Deputy Publications Secretary

31st Management Committee

NUS Students' Arts & Social Sciences Club

Our response:

Hi there Mr SEO,

Thank you for considering our application to the NSASSC. Unfortunately, we cannot fulfil your pre-requisite of disclosure of identity, so we will withdraw our application. In spite of that, we will answer your 7 questions (albeit not seriously) since you bothered to come up with so many.

1) Proposal

Love is just not staring at each other but is looking at the same direction. Lets look at the same direction sweetheart. Will you marry me?

2) Timeline as in frequency of content updates

http://twitter.com/#!/realFASS

3) How this will fit into current publicity efforts

I don't see how this is a necessary question.

Twitter account = greater publicity. What more is there to explain?

4) Content filtering

Sorry, no. If we were to implement any filter on our content, it is akin to allowing a gun only to fire arrows. That wouldn't hit any target would it? (pun intended)

5) Amount of say Publication Secretaries (ie Hui Tze & me) have with regards to the tweets

Zero, as mentioned above.

6) Rationale for writing in to us since you guys are already doing well

We appreciate the compliment that we are doing well, although we hardly think so. 200+ followers is hardly well, just, sufficient I guess. That aside, why we were writing in was already mentioned in the previous email correspondence.

7) What would you expect from fass club in return for your contributions

This question has also been answered at length in our previous email correspondence. 

Once again, we thank you for your time and effort, and wish you all the best in your society's endeavors.

Regards,

realFASS

Origins of realFASS

Today we sit down with the head tweeter of @realFASS, who only wishes to be known as C, for an exclusive interview.

Good day C! Before we start, we have an odd question to ask you. What makes you think you are popular enough for people to want to read an interview with you?
Firstly, I do not think I am popular at all. We only have 127 followers (at the time of interview), that is far from being popular/famous. Next, some people have actually asked for an interview to know more about realFASS, so I'm doing this in response to that. Lastly, I do have some things that I want to say, so this would be a good medium to do so.

Ok great! Well, tell us about yourself!
I am from NUS, that's for sure. I am from FASS of course. I love wordplay such as puns and the such, hence my creating the fake Twitter account.

About that - What made you create @realFASS?
I was having a conversation with a friend about the recent surge in fake Twitter accounts, with numerous ones related to NUS. She said that some weren't very funny and I was thinking in my head 'Hmm, I think I could do a pretty good job if I made one myself'.
As I said, I love wordplay, I love tweeting about random things, and I could totally picture myself helming a fake Twitter account, consistently producing lame/corny/funny/satirical tweets.

And since @fakeFASS was taken, @realFASS came to be. :)

You often tweet in the plural first person sense, such as 'We' are doing something, instead of  'I'. Is it really a team behind @realFASS?
Of course. We are actually a team of highly-trained monkeys who can operate computers and think of funny things to tweet.

Ok no, I am the lead Tweeter, and I have people who contribute from time to time. Hence I use 'we', as it is more representative of what I am representing anyway. #fassspirit
We have a dedicated blogger though, I hope you like what he has been doing!

You mentioned something about 'what you are trying to do here'. So what exactly are you trying to do with realFASS? What is your aim?
I started off with two main goals in mind:
1) To provide a source of entertainment for all our followers, through funny tweets, random bizarre news, (fake) facts, satire about NUS/FASS, etc

2) To keep FASS/NUS students up to date on latest key official/unofficial events, be it school or non-school related.

The first is obvious - of course I will want realFASS to be as funny as possible, to bring a smile to the faces of our readers/followers (pardon my subconscious switching between I/We ). It makes us happy to make you happy. :)

The next is because of our realization that alot of people are not very well-informed in terms of current events in the school and such. We have people who didn't know when bidding was, didn't know when results were, etc. We want to reach out to these people and give them a convenient source of information through a medium that they are comfortable with - Twitter.

One thing you should have also noticed is that we do follow our followers back. The reason is because we want to be connected to you, and interact with you as much as possible. Remember, #FASScares. If you are a follower of ours and we have not followed you, just drop us a mention and we will do so!

Of course, this blog started because I realize that Twitter was way too short to express some things - sometimes 140 characters just aren't enough.

How will you know when you have attained your goals?
The easiest, most quantifiable way, is of course by our number of followers.
I know we say this alot, but by following us, you ARE directly contributing to more tweets by us because we will be inspired and motivated to tweet more with a rising number of Followers. Also, people tend to follow 'famous' Twitter accounts (gauged by a large number of followers) so it is like a chain effect.

With a large(r) number of followers, we know that what we tweet IS indeed useful and entertaining, and we will thus continue to do as we've been doing. So if you still have friends who don't follow us, do just randomly, casually talk to them about us and ask them to follow us, we really appreciate it. It's not hard. Just click here, and click Follow. Voila.

Another way is by frequency/number of retweets that we get. Retweets are of course the clearest indication that that particular tweet is good/funny/informative/in the right place when your mouse functioned and click retweet. We love it when we are retweeted, as it is also a form of publicity for us.

Anything else you want to say?
Actually, yes quite a bit. We would like to thank certain people who have been with us from the start (in no particular order)- @hahazZ, @auturmis, @fakeMOE, @therealfakeNTU, @cchockolate, @nocommanospace, @gssq, @ladyxtel ... just to name a few.

These people, by random chance or fate, were the first few followers of ours (I think) and have been consistently retweeting our tweets.Without their retweets, we wouldn't have as many followers as we do now. They are also people that we are in constant communication with via mentions (@) so I can remember them quite easily offhand - to those that have been following us a while and also retweet and I left you out - I'M SORRY! Don't un-follow us now okay! @ us more! Then we will remember you :)
Also, some of them we remember because of certain things, like @hahazZ has a distinct sunflower DP, and fellow institution tweeters like @fakeMOE and @therealfakeNTU, etc.

Twitter has been an exciting adventure for me, and it's amusing to see @realFASS soar past my personal account in followers. I hope to reach out to the next generation of freshies this year, but for now, we hope that all FASS Tweeters will follow us! I know for a fact there are many people who do not follow us, for whatever reason it is (e.g. we are lame, we suck, we are not funny, our logo is fugly, they are loners, etc), and we hope we can turn around this reason and get them to support us!

Alright, that's all I have. Keep tweeting, and don't do drugs!

Our job application

We at realFASS made our first job application. We don't know if heavily publicizing ourselves (and hence reaching the ears of higher-ups) would be detrimental to our continuation but we are keeping our fingers crossed. Here's the email we sent to FASS Club:


To whom it may concern,

I hope you don't mind that we don't use the template provided. If you do, hit delete now and stop reading. But if you do that you will be left in the dark and be forever curious about what we have to say. And if you are a cat you will be dead since ..... Ok I shall stop rambling.

First, a brief introduction: 

I am writing on behalf of realFASS. If you have not heard of us, we are a parody/satirical group with a Twitter account and a blog.

http://twitter.com/#!/realFASS

http://realFASS.blogspot.com

On top of our humorous(or so we hope) tweets and blog entries, we do frequently update students on current school events such as CORS bidding, changing of NUSnet passwords, just to name a few recent events. 

Our goals from the start have been simple -

1) To provide a source of entertainment for FASS/NUS students/Whoeverthinkswearefunny

2) To keep FASS/NUS students up to date on latest key official/unofficial events, be it school or non-school related.

So what are we applying for?

We understand you have a Publicity position for 'FASS Identity'. I'm not quite sure what this is, but I'd assume it's just to promote FASS identity and events? (If I am entirely wrong and this is actually a particular event that is occurring, consider this an application for a general 'Publicity' role)

We have a steadily growing pool of followers (currently at 186) with a majority of them from FASS and NUS and the others just following us because we're awesome. (Ok maybe not, maybe we hacked their accounts and clicked 'Follow' without them knowing, maybe we found a bug in Twitter that made random accounts follow us... etc) Thus, I feel we are in a good position to be a publicity agent for FASS Club about whatever events or news that have to be broadcasted. 

More specifically, we are proposing to be your official Twitter account, @realFASS . In other words, no, we do not wish to print fancy posters and give up flyers that end up littering the walkway from Central Library to FASS to advertise for your events. No, we do not wish to overthrow your current/incoming PR team in a violent cutthroat manner.  Instead, we are offering to publicize for FASS Club on a more appealing medium - Twitter. (as compared to emails which I believe many people just delete without reading) 

Our length of commitment should be at least 2 years, maybe 3, maybe 481516, depending on whether we can get any successors to take over the reins.

Why should you accept this / Why are we proposing this?

You will be able to reach a large audience quickly and they'll actually read the message without deleting it. FASS will be known to be hip and happening with such an awesome Twitter account (of course this is through our rose-tinted glasses, maybe we are in actual fact stupid and lame to everyone else.) You can check out our Timeline for the style of tweets that we have. I suggest going back to since our inception in November/December 2010, some of our best tweets were from back then. This will also help you to decide whether what we write is appropriate to be representative of FASS Club, whatever image you hope to portray.

To answer the second question, obviously we will benefit from the publicity involved in being FASS Club's official Twitter account. I would personally beam with pride to see 'follow @realFASS' plastered all over FASS - in fact, I may actually do that myself if this does not go through successfully. Time to recce the security cameras. (I'm kidding, don't arrest me.)

~~~

Anyway, if you have read up to this point, I laud your effort, this has been such a long email. In fact, if you have read up to this point, I would say our chances of success are slightly above 50%, since if you had deemed this outright impossible or ridiculous you would just stop reading and delete it. Or perhaps you think our writing is hilarious, then go ahead and follow our Twitter account. Whatever the case, on behalf of @realFASS, i thank you for your time and effort in reading this and if you do respond, in replying.

Regards,

realFASS

P.S. If you have not already noticed, we are choosing to remain anonymous. 

Checklist for school

Being the number one faculty in NUS, we at FASS always ensures that our students are one step ahead of everyone else. We have our own (fake) Twitter accounts, we have our own bus terminal, and also our own library (they call it Central but if you read it backwards it is lARTnec. We hid the word in there.)

We lent it to the other people because it's in too good a location, and they petitioned to have it too so we had to give in.

ANYWAY, it's back to school tomorrow, and we want to make sure you are prepared for it! Thus, we have compiled a checklist of things that you need, or should prepare, for school this coming semester. Ok, 3, 2, 1, let's go.

10) New clothes / clothing planner

Stop wearing those slippers, singlets, and crappy shorts! Put on some shoes, proper clothes, otherwise you may find yourself featured on @nus_fp ... or basically talked about by everyone. If you live in hall.. I guess it's too tempting to just throw on whatever you grab first. But if you don't... avoid sloppy attire.

Even if you have a belly, this is a nono. ESPECIALLY if you have a belly.

For girls who do dress up and wear nice clothes, it doesn't hurt to come up with a clothing planner. Try to randomize it abit in the sense that you don't always wear the same thing on Tuesdays, etc. Otherwise your friends will start to notice and think hmmmmmmmmmmm.

Of course, all this is unnecessary, but we had @nusfp at the back of our minds when we wrote this, so yea.

9) Money for special reasons

It's the plight that many students find themselves in - At the end of all the rounds of bidding, when school has already started, they still have less than 5 modules. It's time to APPEAL.

What do you need for appeal? A pretty darn good reason to give you the module. Don't have it? Try bribing exchange of benefits. Don't say we asked you to do so. We didn't. -jedimindtrick

If you are really desperate you could try this, but it is a felony to do so , so...

8) A new alarm clock

Missed lecture because you overslept? Couldn't have lunch with your OG because you slept in? It's time to get a new and powerful alarm clock! Because we are the faculty that cares, we have liased with some alarm clock vendors to bring you some unique alarm clocks!

The Jigsaw Alarm Clock
You need to solve the puzzle before the alarm stops! Definitely to wake you up! (If not the alarm won't stop)
For those with higher IQ,  there's a special edition Rubik's Cube version! Solve the cube to stop the alarm!

The Pillow Alarm Clock
A 2-in-1 gadget that is your comfortable fluffy pillow by night, and your irritating vibrating alarm clock by day! It changes texture to become extremely hard and vibrates to wake you up from your deepest slumber! (Innuendo not intended. Stop thinking dirty)

The Target Alarm Clock
Comes with a small laser pistol which you have to fire at the target to stop the alarm! Place it across the room and be sure to have to be AWAKE to hit the target! (optional upgrade to an MP5, an AK-47 or an AWP)

All for $9.99!*
* for a limited period only. U.P. $99.99

7) A fun new game for your iPhone / laptop

A laptop open in front of you during lecture - obviously you are not 'just taking notes'. Tired of stalking random friend's friend's Facebook profiles? (Yes we see you! When the webcast camera is not recording we are actually monitoring students)

So here are some random online games for you to play:

Can you handle many minigames at once? Try out Multitask from Newgrounds!

Got good hand eye co-ordination? Try Winterbells by Ferry Halim! 

On the iPhone, try FreeAppADay to get updated on the latest free apps. Also, check the App Store's top 25 free games regularly, will occasionally find a gem or two :)

6) Foldable Table and Chair
Only have breaks between the peak hour of 12-2? Can't find a seat at the most popular canteen in NUS?
I'm sure many of us have been in this scenario before, and often have to stand around like idiots around the Deck before a space appears and only to have it snatched by some ahtiongs other students before we can sit down.

Entire wooden set folds up to a tiny briefcase which you can carry around easily. Available for $19.99!

Afraid of termites? How about aluminium? Made of the lightest tensile aluminium in the industry, this set folds up to a tiny suitcase that weighs only 3.14159 kg! Only costs $26.54!

Bring your own tables and chairs! This way, you will always have space to sit, regardless of what time you eat. (It rhymes too! so it has to be true! Even these sentences in brackets, cool!)



5) Pre-Morning Stimulant
Have an 8AM lecture/tutorial? (You never know, you may fail at tutorial bidding) Even a 10AM lecture may be difficult for some people who live far from school! (i.e. not in hall)

Thus we present the top 3 'Pre-Morning Stimulants' (or PMS, for short)! (according to a survey done on FASS students in AY10/11 Semester 1)

REDBULL GIVES YOU WINGS!
Available at ~$2 /can at a convenience store near you!
(We can't seem to find any decent stock pictures of the 'fake' redbull, the bronze-colored can which sells at $1 Maybe they're too budget)

NESCAFE @ $1!
For those who think Redbull is too sweet (which is precisely what wakes you up, imo), here's the classic caffeine provider for you!
Problem with coffee is that it makes you want to pee which can be a problem if you have a weak bladder.

COCAINE!
No no, we're kidding. Don't do drugs, kids. It's bad for health.

And last but not least...

4) A fake Twitter account to follow and recommend to your friends 

http://twitter.com/#!/realFASS

Happy schooldays! (Like, you know, happy holidays)


P.S. If you're wondering where's 3, 2 and 1, they're immediately above 10). see it?

Why ZJM is famous

DISCLAIMER: Before I start this post proper, I would like to start off by saying I mean no ill against autistic people, I know some autistic people first hand and I treat them fairly and don't mock them or anything. This post is not about that. They are real people too. And some of them are awesome.  This post was written in a light-hearted manner and should be read in the same manner. If you are easily offended, don't read on.

Now, if you haven't already heard of Zhou Jie Ming, you either don't watch Channel 8 or don't use Twitter (currently #2 trending in SG!)

ZJM = dude on the right

Zhou Jie Ming (going to call him ZJM for short) is an autistic person played by actor Elvin Ng in the current 9PM series on Channel 8. I don't watch it but my mom does, so I can hear the dialogue when I'm using the computer nearby.

ZJM has a habit of speaking of himself in the 3rd person (e.g. "ZJM wants to eat chocolate!") and has certain peculiar habits such as eating chocolate at fixed times. This makes it extremely annoying, almost as annoying as in Tong Xin Yuan when Pierre Png's character was chanting 'Mei Ren Yu' non-stop. (don't tell me you forgot this already)
I think anyone continually speaking of himself in the 3rd person is very annoying, unless you are The Rock.

"Hey noobs, bet you can't do the arched eyebrow like The Rock can do. Yea, The Rock owns all you people with The People's Elbow even though it is the most ridiculously fancy but tame move in wrestling"

 Try it. Go one week replacing all your 'I's with 'yourname'. You'll have no more friends by the end of the week.


So the question lies - WHY is ZJM so famous and well-liked?
A quick Google search turned up a few forum topics on him:

"I want to buy Zhou Jie Ming home and sayang him!!!!" (WTF??)

with some hilarious comments such as :

"Hope he remain like that in real life"

"i going to carve him into my new dining table"

While I don't watch the show, I have caught occasional scenes such as when I am just stoning at my computer so I'll glance over at the TV and see what's going on. I heard Jeanette Aw's acting is horrible that show (even though the shameless ad showing 'impromptu' interviews of passerbys all say that her acting is phenomenal, blabla) I have no comment about that, but after watching Elvin Ng portray ZJM, I have one thought:

He is PERFECT for the role!

If we look at the surface, Elvin is a pretty dashing young man.

hamsome

with a nice body. Don't lie now, you'd give anything to have that body too.

However, anyone who has been watching Channel 8 serials for awhile and have actually seen Elvin (try to) act as a normal person will know this - HE CAN'T ACT FOR NUTS.

I don't know where to begin - His utterly fail enunciation of Chinese words, his mumbling, his expressionless eyes/face... If he could actually act, he would be ten times more famous than he is now, given his good looks.

So why does he fit the role of ZJM so well? Well, as ZJM, he mumbles incoherently, he doesnt articulate his words properly, and his face is constantly expressionless, all these in portrayal of an autistic person I suppose. Oh wait.... PERFECT MATCH! (Read the previous paragraph and this one again)

You have to admit he does a pretty good job as ZJM - the way his eyes keep shifting and he doesn't maintain eye contact with anyone, how he mumbles his lines in a child-like manner. In fact, if this was the first time you saw him act, you would think he is a pretty damn good actor!

Thus, my hypothesis is this -

Elvin Ng is actually an autistic person.

There's no other explanation! He has been like this since a long time ago, and the shocking revelation is this: He is REALLY ACTING when he portrays those 'normal' characters he has played in the past, but in this role, he just has to 'be himself' and he fits it perfectly!

What do you think?

P.S. I realised I didn't really answer the question 'Why ZJM is famous' in this post. Oh well.

P.P.S. We found out that ZJM was trending because people believed a rumor that he was the 6th member of some boyband /and he was the brother of Jay Chou

Dare to eat alone

In today's Straits Times, A16 (main section)
NUS undergrads start campaign : "Dare to eat alone"
http://j.mp/dRHETY

You can read the whole story in Straits Times, but just some paraphrased excerpts to summarize it:

Taken from link above

"NUS undergrads Heng and Jude found this fear of eating alone so prevalent that they set up a campaign to raise awareness of this fear and encourage fellow students to look past the stigma"

"Certainly, more people are afraid of eating alone than those who are not. If you eat alone, you give the impression that you have no friends; you are lonely, isolated and basically it is a negative impression created"

'When contacted, an NUS spokesman said: "The Eating Alone in the school canteen' campaign exemplifies the creative and community spirit that can be found in our students".

We, at FASS, are fully supportive of this campaign. After all, we have to support our fellow undergraduates right? Actually, we have already secretly been supporting this campaign, why else do you think there are less chairs than tables in The Deck? It's all to encourage you to eat alone!

To overcome the social stigma of eating alone, Heng and Jude have came up with really cool Tshirts with their slogan '! dare to eat alone" (The exclamation point is meant to be an 'i' as well as the punctuation. #FASScreativity). Everyone should wear the T shirts and eat alone in the future! This way, the 'odd' people will be those who actually still eat in a group!

This is such a great idea. We will also implement a 'Eat Alone Day' on 14th February where everyone in support of the campaign will wear the T shirt and eat on their own! We shall call this minicampaign 'Eating Alone, Together!" (EAT for short)

It doesn't matter that there's a shortage of seating space in the Deck during lunch hours. After all, an individual's psychological well-being is the most important so we have to overcome this first. Supporters of this campaign should continue to eat alone to occupy as many tables as they can, and then they can laugh at those in groups who can't find a table!

In fact, the follow-up of the 'Eating Alone, Together' Day would be for fellow EAT members to eat together, but they cannot sit next to or opposite each other, have to be diagonally-seated! (Otherwise, it wouldn't be alone anymore, would it?)

Our future ideas for EAT would be to get sponsorship from SDU, and then have our own internal dating service! Excellent for singles isn't it! See, it is cool to eat alone. You may meet your Mr/Mrs Right!

So remember, it's ok to have no friends to eat with, in fact, let's make that the next cool thing. DARE TO EAT ALONE!

FASS lecturers do have humor.

Seen on IVLE:

No, we did NOT photoshop this. Go search for it yourself!

CORS bidding for dummies

This post has been migrated over to http://alanzzzz.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/cors-guide-bidding-for-dummies/

Don't you wish

Don't you wish that these modules were available?

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