Post graduation dinner and get together with TB030

Looking at my last entry, I realize I haven't been posting for two months already! Gosh. Here's the much anticipated entry for everyone.

Work has been pretty much the same like my intern days except for the additional portfolio I'm handling. Will continue my work until my national service enlistment in September.

Last week had a class outing and a send-off dinner for Ronald, who enlisted last friday. Like most guys, I fear the day of my enlistment. 2 years is no kidding for someone who prefer home more than outside environment.

Had dinner at Moonfish Restaurant, Marina Square, with a handful of TB030 classmates, namely, Sharon, Willy, James, Yao Sheng, Ivan, Chan Hui, Faith, Noi and Nadia. The ambiance at the restaurant was fantastic, the same goes for its service and food. After dinner, we took a stroll - a long one, to The Coffee Connoisseur (TCC) at Boat Quay to chill'. The bean bag seats are cool, though half the time, Faith and I were fighting over it.

All thanks to Sharon for taking her time to organise the dinner and the treat at TCC. :)

Graduation ceremony this thursday. Graduation to me is always a bittersweet experience to me. The sweetness of moving on from a stage in life yet the bitterness from reminiscing the wonderful moments spent.

Here's some photos we took on the post-graduation dinner. Enjoy.

10th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining

Things happen when you least expect it. My team came up first in the data mining competition for the Polytechnic category for the 10th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD 2006).

The twist to this is, there's only 2 teams competing in the Polytechnic category, and both teams belong to the same course in the same polytechnic.

While rushing the competition at the short time frame, winning the competition wasn't on our minds, we are more keen on finishing up our work for submission. It came quite a surprise when the results are announced.

According to the committee, the winning factor was our submitted report. Quoting the lecturer,

"... you have given a better analysis and interpretation of the mining results than some of the participants in the University category."

The prize giving ceremony is going to be held at Hilton Hotel tomorrow during the conference. We are expected to be there early in the morning at 8am.

Back at office, my job scope is expanding vertically. I love the challenge though it gets tiring sometimes.

On a last note, more interns are joining in at my office. I'm sure they are going to liven up the office's environment. :)

Latest development in brief

Drat! I so want to go for Jason Mraz and Damien Rice concerts. But tickets for both concerts are sold out. Oh well.

Work wise, I have settled down pretty well. Met a few familiar faces, Kenny working nearby and Wei Jie taking the same bus as me. Oh, and the occasional lunch with Amanda.

Just last week, a company approached me to design a website for them. I would have gladly took up the offer to kill time if I wasn't working now. In any case, I told the company I would pass their offer to my friends who are keen.

I'll be making a trip down to SMU during lunch the next day. Not there yet, but praying hard.

Back soon, hopefully bearing good news. :)

Life back at PMO

Getting back to the good ol' office lifestyle is pretty hard for now. Still used to the late night sleeps and indiscipline lifestyle.

The modern and swanky national library building is a complete different environment compared to City Hall. People there are as friendly as usual, had lunch at Billy Bombers on my first day with fellow colleagues.

My job scope remains the same, more or less. But went the extra mile by writing an enquiry system which I'm really impressed with.

Work aside, I realised national service helps to cut extravagant spending. At last week IT Show, almost bought a LCD monitor but rational thinking makes me ponder whether is it necessary to get one now since I would be spending half my time during the 2 years national service in camp.

Oh, I'm a proud owner of a Sony Ericsson K600i now. Here's a picture, courtesy of InfoSync,

Also, the pictures from Meeting Young Minds. Enjoy.

Meeting Young Minds 2006

I felt a huge void in my life at the end of Meeting Young Minds, the annual course event where students from Business Information Technology showcase their FYP projects to guests and friends.

At the closing of Meeting Young Minds where students gathered for debriefing, I was overcome with acute nostalgia for my days in Temasek Polytechnic. From the marvellous duo performance by Gareth and Baldwin to the heart to heart sharing by BIT lecturers.

One particular sentimentalizing moment was when Ms. Yvonne Ng cried when she tried to share with the students her thoughts on our cohort. She is one of the few people that I'll be forever grateful, as a liaison officer during my internship, my supervisor for final year project, my tutor for E-Business Management and Practice of Technopreneurship, and a mentor I can speak to when in doubt.

The end of Meeting Young Minds was a closure to our 3 years of polytechnic education. In these 3 years, I have an interesting school life with friends and tutors I can count on. My group of first classmates, TB030, I have enjoyed our friendship very much and will continue to treasure the bond we built from this long but seemingly short 3 years.

My last semester classmates, especially, Amanda, Muslihah and Carolyn, it was a short semester yet we manage to establish a good rapport with each other. I enjoyed the car rides we have together after lessons. :)

To everyone, thank you for enduring my blunt and assertive behaviour. I mean no harm just often gets carry away. I wish every one of you all the best in your future endeavours.

Yes, I finally decided to get a job after much pondering. With the family trip to Taiwan cancelled, I guess there's no reason for not working.

Starting next week, I'd be back at Prime Minister's Office at the new national library building (NLB) in Bugis area. Pretty much a challenge having to work and participate in the PAKDD competition.

Next entry would be the photos I took during Meeting Young Minds. Till then.

After Polytechnic: Reflection

I realise I have been doing quite a bit of self-reflection these days. It suddenly hit me that I have now progressed to the next stage of my life.

With polytechnic life gradually coming to an end with the upcoming MeetingYoungMinds and the 10th Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD 2006) Data Mining Competition, I have been deliberating on the next stage, continuing my education.

If only entering local university is as easy as polytechnic admission, I would not have spend countless nights planning on a "what-if" contingency plan.

Spotted a few good books while browsing through at Kinokuniya. One of it is about bad manners, not your usual dose of proper etiquette, but an exploration on the degradation into bad mannerism. Quite engaging after reading the first page.

Perhaps I'll spend the holiday reading books while waiting to be enlisted.

Dilbert's Theory on Salary

Happen to chance upon this interesting theory,

Dilbert's Theorem on Salary states that engineers, programmers and scientists can never earn as much salary as business executives and sales people.

This theorem can be supported by a mathematical equation based on the following three postulates:

Postulate 1: Knowledge = Power (Knowledge is Power)
Postulate 2: Time = Money (Time is Money)
Postulate 3: Power = Work/Time (As every Physics student knows)

Proof therefore follows:

Knowledge = Power (From Postulate 1)
Knowledge = Work / Time (From Postulate 3)

and since Time = Money,
we have: Knowledge = Work / Money (From Postulate 2)

Solving for Money, we get:

Knowledge x Money = (Work / Money) x Money
Money = Work / Knowledge

Thus, as Knowledge approaches zero, Money approaches infinity, regardless of the amount of Work done.

Conclusion: The Less you Know, the More you Make.

Sister going on a long business trip again, poor nephew of mine going to miss her badly for this 2 weeks. Saw her itinerary and gosh, she's practically travelling the world in a short period of 2 weeks. Singapore to New York, Buenos Aires from Chicago, Buenos Aires to Frankfurt via Brazil, followed by London and back to Singapore.

After Business Intelligence paper, there's just the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERM) paper the following week and finally a short period bliss before national service enlistment.

In the meantime, I'd better start revising intensively for ERM. Till then.

Last day of Polytechnic

The last day of school today and my mind is telling me that I am going to miss Temasek Polytechnic very much together with the lecturers that I have developed a close bond with.

Why the blame on others when something goes wrong? Looking at the discussion forum for one of my subjects, most of the people seem to blaming the teaching method for the cause of a number of reasons.

It takes two hands to clap, the logic goes for learning. You can't expect to do well for tests or project if you don't put in the effort to attempt the problems or to understand the subject.

While I understand the end of semester test fiasco disadvantaged most of us, but it's not the subject or teaching method that is at fault, so why the wrongly accusation?

With the long vacation ahead before enlistment, it's time for me to make a decision whether to get a job or just enjoy life while I can. Coincidentally, the Commission contacted me recently to ask about my availability. Both choices are equally tempting, but I know once I get comfortable with either option, there's no stopping.

Final Year Project Presentation

For staying out late in school, from 5pm in the evening to 9.40pm at night just to help students to rehearse for the final year project presentation, it says so much about the supervisor's commitment to her students.

I am simply thankful to our wonderful supervisor, Ms. Yvonne Ng, for all the preparation she went through with us.

Thanks to the rehearsal and trial run and also the hard work of the group, the final year project presentation went off smoothly without any moment of panic throughout the duration of the presentation.

With the end of the presentation, our work for major project finally come to an end, at least for now. I expect minor changes to be done to prepare the system for Meeting Young Minds this coming March.

The talk by the Dean of School of Information Systems, Professor Steven Miller, of Singapore Management University was an insightful one. Although I tend to take such promotional talk by universities with a pinch of salt, it somehow strike a different tone this time with ex-students from the polytechnic sharing their experience. They are just so confident of themselves in their way of expression.

I'm not sure if Information Systems Management is my cup of tea, but I'm giving a try for this year admission.

Career Guide: Interesting figures

Knowing that I am graduating in a few months time, sister kindly got me a career guide to provide me with an additional avenue of information to plan ahead.

While I don't have the intention to work after my national service, the career guide is still a good reading material. One of the few interesting pages are the average monthly gross starting salary for polytechnics and universities.

Do you know that Business Information Technology diploma holders earn more than their counterparts from the pure business stream and information technology stream?

Although NUS is one of the top 25 universities in the world, business graduates from NTU and SMU are earning more than NUS graduates? SMU, being the youngest university compared to NUS and NTU, its business graduates earn the most?

Just to forewarn my readers, the above comparison is not an accurate benchmark of the worth of each university. Just some interesting statistics to share.

It's saddening to see how people throw away their humanity in this competitive race, treating friends as foes, just to satisfy their greedy desire to be the first in the race.

Before signing off, a little thanks to Amanda for the belated birthday gift. Really nice to know some of the new people in this semester class.

Intensive weeks ahead.

Just when one deadline is gone, the other starts approaching. It has been a busy semester with things getting quite intense now.

Final year project due in 11 days and 1 day later the due date, it's final year presentation.

Starting to feel the adrenaline rush in me.

My polytechnic attempted to set a world record for the greatest cumulative distance covered in 24 hours. Here's an outline of the event, ripped from the school website,

TP will be the venue where the next Singapore and Guinness World Records will be set! On 5 January 2006, Dr William Tan, a medical doctor and an accomplished sportsman who contracted polio at the age of two and is paralysed waist down, will begin a 24-hour hand-cycling feat at TP's Sports Stadium. This is an entirely new experience for him because until now, Dr Tan has been clocking in world records on the wheelchair!

TP applauds Dr Tan's can-do spirit and is proud to be the venue for this historic event. To further make this a more memorable event, staff and students of TP will attempt both a Singapore Record as well as a Guinness World Record alongside Dr Tan, by achieving the greatest cumulative distance covered in 24 hours! Some 5,000 staff, students, alumni and supporters are expected to participate in this exciting start to 2006!

Surprisingly, I was able to complete 10 laps (approx. 4 km) without break. As a matter of fact, you are disqualified if you walk instead of jog on the track.

Set me pondering why I couldn't get a pass for my 2.4 km NAPFA test.
Term test grades are out, it seems that my worries are uncalled for.

Saw an interesting news on Channel News Asia today. It's a supplementary news after the interview with Soundbuzz.com management. It makes mention of bloggers having to pay for license to play music on their blogs, at $1000 for every 10 songs.

Gosh.

2006: Happy New Year!

Ah, 2005 finally come to an end.

Looking back, 2005 has been quite an eventful year, the Australia trip with friends, internship at the Prime Minister's Office, et cetera.

Ushering the new year, 2006, we have deadlines for the various projects. Quite a turn off actually, but it's the last semester, so I'm not complaining.

Next milestone in this year? National Service.

Hope things go my way in this new year. For now, I shall look forward to the coming Chinese New Year celebration.