Apparently I have a penchant of dealing myself really really hard hands and running with it. This comes from the decision to take part in this year's NaNoWriMo. Due to their site change, you can track my progress here instead. I'll update the widget counter when it is available.
It's going to be yet another slice-of-life with a little bit more action than the last two novels. I think I will take this opportunity to point out some uh interesting phenomena that I have observed while being in the work force for the last couple of years. Obviously this is fiction, so take everything that will be written as such.
Oops look at the time. Gotta get some work done here. Till next time.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
L'il Kids
So let's see. I've been in the US since Aug 13, 2011, and for all practical purposes and intents, I haven't really been mingling with the local Singapore populace. I suppose being a graduate student means that one's priorities are different as compared to when one was still an undergraduate. That and the fact that as a graduate student, I have an office to spend the day in to get some thinking/research done, while as an undergraduate one was ``doomed'' to roaming the corridors and the campus in between classes, which helps in the whole ``socialise with your fellow students bit''.
I think it'll be really funny/awkward the day that I join the SSA's activities. Heheheheh... but I suppose I'm used to that. Must remember that I am geeky and that it is completely normal to treat the undergraduate folks as l'il kids who haven't seen the world. Yes, it is very evil, but fully justified, considering that I am a good 4 years older than most of them?
Anyway, enough of random ranting, back to work I go. I'm starting to love this...
I think it'll be really funny/awkward the day that I join the SSA's activities. Heheheheh... but I suppose I'm used to that. Must remember that I am geeky and that it is completely normal to treat the undergraduate folks as l'il kids who haven't seen the world. Yes, it is very evil, but fully justified, considering that I am a good 4 years older than most of them?
Anyway, enough of random ranting, back to work I go. I'm starting to love this...
Monday, October 24, 2011
NaNoWriMo 2011?
November is coming, and I'm still debating with myself whether I should take part in this year's NaNoWriMo, considering everything. I mean, I have Eiko with me now, and should serve as an incentive to help push things forward, but somehow I am scared that I might just run out of time to get all things that need to be done while doing NaNoWriMo.
Oh choices, choices.
I do have a story to tell for NaNoWriMo, but the caveat is that I have at least 2 to 3 other ``big'' writing assignments that need attention. So putting aside that one hour per day to write my 2000 words to hit the magical 50k words within the month sounds a little... painful. Anyway, I have around 5 to 6 days to make a decision. We'll see how this goes.
Oh choices, choices.
I do have a story to tell for NaNoWriMo, but the caveat is that I have at least 2 to 3 other ``big'' writing assignments that need attention. So putting aside that one hour per day to write my 2000 words to hit the magical 50k words within the month sounds a little... painful. Anyway, I have around 5 to 6 days to make a decision. We'll see how this goes.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Broken symbol.ttf on Ubuntu
Having weird ``infinity'' symbols for bullets when opening some PDF on some flavour of Ubuntu? It turns out it has to do with a bug with the symbol.ttf font. Here's how to rectify it (as gotten from here).
- If you don't have fontforge, install it first with
sudo apt-get install fontforge
- Open up symbol.ttf in fontforge. On my system, it is located at /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-symbol-replacement/symbol-replacement.ttf/symbol.ttf
- In fontforge, apply Encoding->Force Encoding->Symbol, followed by Encoding->Macintosh Latin, and then File->Generate Fonts... (set to Truetype), ignoring warnings and save.
- Remove the old symbol.ttf and copy the new version back into the same location, probably as root.
- Run the following command:
sudo fc-cache -v
Sunday, October 09, 2011
家
在美国的读书生涯中，我几乎从来没有特别想家的感觉。不过在这两个星期内，我不禁回想着家。或许是生活太复杂吧，还是最近的种种错则而导致我出现想家的念头。
家是个很奇怪的一个组织：当你和家人在一起时，有时会出现种种默察，而这会导致你觉得你的家人似乎在整你。不过，一旦你离开了家，不久后你就会产生想家的念头。可能是人生常情吧，每个人都需要有一种归属感，而家就是能产生个人归属感的一个东西。当你最需要人关怀的时候，你就会想起家。
或许在这深造的生活方式太紧张了吧，也可能是因为我最近又受了伤之类的，所以我会想起家。以前的我简直不把家的重要性放在眼里，如今我觉得除了家以外就再也没有设么重要的东西了。有个家的归属感的感觉最好。
好了，我累了，错别字好像有要重出江湖了。我看我因该去休息一下，这么一来我就有精力来挑战未来。
家是个很奇怪的一个组织：当你和家人在一起时，有时会出现种种默察，而这会导致你觉得你的家人似乎在整你。不过，一旦你离开了家，不久后你就会产生想家的念头。可能是人生常情吧，每个人都需要有一种归属感，而家就是能产生个人归属感的一个东西。当你最需要人关怀的时候，你就会想起家。
或许在这深造的生活方式太紧张了吧，也可能是因为我最近又受了伤之类的，所以我会想起家。以前的我简直不把家的重要性放在眼里，如今我觉得除了家以外就再也没有设么重要的东西了。有个家的归属感的感觉最好。
好了，我累了，错别字好像有要重出江湖了。我看我因该去休息一下，这么一来我就有精力来挑战未来。
Funereal #2
Ahem.
I lay there within my half-opened casket, serene as a man can ever be. Right there next to my glass-covered top, my aged but still lovely wife weeps to herself. Oh the sorrow, the pain! Yet she maintains her dignified poise, melancholy notwithstanding. Comforting her with an arm around her shoulders is my eldest daughter, lovely, tall and dressed in the deepest black that one could think of. She has always been my pride and joy, for being first-born meant she was the child I held the longest and watched over the most. Her husband stands quietly near her---it is not his place to be in deep mourning; his role is mostly supportive. My other daughter flanks my wife on the other side, silently sobbing to herself; she's not as tough as my eldest, but still she has her strong moments, but now was not the time. My son stands in front of my portrait, his head bowed, face unsmiling, tearless, serious---I have brought him up well, it seems, for stoicness was one thing I thought every male should have about him, to never look emotional in front of others other than those close by.
The monk finally finishes the prayer that he was chanting to free my soul of my earthly shackles. Already I feel a little lighter. My wife's weeping intensified, and if I weren't already dead I would have leapt up to her and hold her and tell her once more how much I love her and don't really want to go. With a solemn bow, the monk steps away from his position and the pallbearers stepped up. The lead pallbearer gave a final bow to me, before closing the lid of my coffin. With a silent one-two, the pallbearers lift my casket upon their shoulders and walked solemnly into the antechamber behind the curtains. The small cortege behind me filed out of the main area and shuffled up to the viewing room on the second floor.
There, they got to see the funeral home workers lift up my casket and slowly bring it to the conveyor belt that fed into the gaping door of the furnace of the crematorium. My wife, stoically strong thus far, finally wails audibly, dignity be damned, while my daughters try their best to comfort her while stifling their own tears with little effect. Confronted with the final inevitability, even my son's eyes were tearing.
The funereal home workers gently pushed my casket onto the conveyer belt and stepped back, their heads bowed in respect. My casket rolls gently down the conveyer into the furnace, where I get consumed by the flames for the last time. While I know that I am dead, I leave knowing that my son and daughters will carry on with life, and that they will take care of my lover till the day comes that she joins me for true eternal bliss.
Saturday, October 08, 2011
It's Saturday Already?
It's yet another Saturday morning, and again I'm sitting at my study desk next to the window, the only time that I can get decent illumination from this desk. That corneal abrasion episode took away a good chunk of my time as I shuttled to and fro doctors, instilled eyedrops like clockwork, worrying about how scary the final bill will be, worrying about how all these down time is affecting my already burgeoning workload.
It's not easy living life without support, especially a life where everything needs to be pre-planned and time-managed from start to end. In the bid to obtain a life where I have a slightly less mundane existence, I find myself in a life that requires inordinate amounts of self-discipline just to pull things off. Such is the irony of life. And just when I thought I could put all those years of self-discipline behind me too.
I think at this point, the one big thing I can say about the PhD programme is that it is one long struggle between doing things and finding enough time to deal with the whole life aspect of things. Life has a strange way of creeping up on you when you are not really noticing, and what happens after that is usually quite complicated, since in life, you have to deal with more than just yourself; there's always someone or something else in the equation that you need to look out for.
Okay, no real mood to wax lyrical. Need to get some stuff done so that I can... work on other stuff. Till next time.
It's not easy living life without support, especially a life where everything needs to be pre-planned and time-managed from start to end. In the bid to obtain a life where I have a slightly less mundane existence, I find myself in a life that requires inordinate amounts of self-discipline just to pull things off. Such is the irony of life. And just when I thought I could put all those years of self-discipline behind me too.
I think at this point, the one big thing I can say about the PhD programme is that it is one long struggle between doing things and finding enough time to deal with the whole life aspect of things. Life has a strange way of creeping up on you when you are not really noticing, and what happens after that is usually quite complicated, since in life, you have to deal with more than just yourself; there's always someone or something else in the equation that you need to look out for.
Okay, no real mood to wax lyrical. Need to get some stuff done so that I can... work on other stuff. Till next time.
Friday, October 07, 2011
Clean Bill of Health?
The nightmare of 2+ weeks is just reaching the end, and none too soon I might add.
A day-long travel out to Bloomington, Illinois is nothing to scoff at, considering that it is a 60-mile journey one-way from Champaign-Urbana. Factoring in the fear of the unknown meant that I added a generous buffer to the overall time that I was willing to spend out here in Bloomington before hopping on the long-haul bus back home.
That last 1%---finally there is some closure. The expert has spoken; there is no medical risk of the epithelial ingrowth colonising the entirety of my cornea, and that any procedure that would be done will be done so under my own comfort level. The gist of it is that the corneal flap has folded back slightly, and it is under the ophthamologist's opinion that it wouldn't post a problem unless I feel discomfort from it, i.e. things like having ridiculously dry eyes for extended periods of times, sudden change in astigmatism, or random feelings of foreign bodies within the eye itself. In short, that 1% isn't going to matter unless it is actually affecting me, then I can always go back to her to have her lift the flap and scrape of those epithelial cells, all under local anaesthesia of course.
Probably the best bit of news I have heard in a while.
Right now, I'm in no rush to get back into Jujitsu training---still need to alter my gi a little (damn thing is still too damn long in spite my ``best fit'' sizing). Also, while that 1% is declared medically insignificant, I want to give it just a little more time to recuperate, and until I can get hold of some of those protective goggles. Calling those things protective goggles is kind of strange, when in reality there are really spectacles with particularly sturdy frames. Might as well, considering that I have been thinking of updating my prescription for a while now for long-range work like driving. I asked the doctor if it were normal of me to not use my glasses when working on the computer, and her reply was that my eyes were lazy; since I was already myopic to begin with, the eye just refuses to use the eye muscles to accomodate for the nearer vision given the correction. This happens only because the level of myopia that I have now is sufficiently low that objects placed just at arm's length distance away just happens to be sitting within the comfort zone of my eyes' focal length. Well I suppose I'm going to keep doing this as I don't really see a need to fix anything---worst case I'll see if I can get a greatly reduced power for close range work, mostly to fight the astigmatism that can distort things.
I was feeling quite listless over the past fortnight, considering that I couldn't really do any of the physical activities stuff that I liked doing due to my corneal abrasion (Jujitsu and geocaching). But today, I think I had my share of venting out these frustrated energies through the long walk to and fro the ophthamologist's office from the long haul bus stop. The Google Maps' estimated distance for the route along the main roads was estimated to be around 2.4 miles, and I walked both directions, plus a mile here and there when I slipped off to pick up some geocaches along the way. All in all, I think I walked about 10 kilometres today, not counting the daily 7 kilometres of cycling I do to get to office and back. I bet I don't even get to clock such mileage back in Singapore heheheheh... yet I find myself willing to take walking as a valid mode of transport here. For fun, I used my GPSr to track how fast I was walking, and it turned out to be, on average, 3.7 miles per hour, which is roughly 5.9 kilometres per hour. Not super fast, but fast enough to make the time quoted for walking on Google Maps irrelevant.
And so, my Thursday is almost done, spent in a different town getting expert advice on my eyes because the town that I am based in had no such experts. Such is the strangeness of life. Now the only thing left to do for this episode is to wait for the medical bill and see just how much 20% of it really is, and then figure out how to pay for it without using up all of my allowances. I am hoping that the cost isn't too drastic, but I can't be sure only because no one seems to publish the consultation rate. According to Mangesh, my colleague/labmate, those rates are hardly published because they change according to the health insurance provider. Talk about stratified sampling for sales. I just hope that the part I need to pay is reasonable enough.
Alright, enough of ranting. I should probably start to walk towards the pick up point and wait for the bus. Hanging out in another university's student centre is a little weird and disconcerting, particularly when it's evening and there's no one about. I must be missing something here I suppose.
Till the next update.
A day-long travel out to Bloomington, Illinois is nothing to scoff at, considering that it is a 60-mile journey one-way from Champaign-Urbana. Factoring in the fear of the unknown meant that I added a generous buffer to the overall time that I was willing to spend out here in Bloomington before hopping on the long-haul bus back home.
That last 1%---finally there is some closure. The expert has spoken; there is no medical risk of the epithelial ingrowth colonising the entirety of my cornea, and that any procedure that would be done will be done so under my own comfort level. The gist of it is that the corneal flap has folded back slightly, and it is under the ophthamologist's opinion that it wouldn't post a problem unless I feel discomfort from it, i.e. things like having ridiculously dry eyes for extended periods of times, sudden change in astigmatism, or random feelings of foreign bodies within the eye itself. In short, that 1% isn't going to matter unless it is actually affecting me, then I can always go back to her to have her lift the flap and scrape of those epithelial cells, all under local anaesthesia of course.
Probably the best bit of news I have heard in a while.
Right now, I'm in no rush to get back into Jujitsu training---still need to alter my gi a little (damn thing is still too damn long in spite my ``best fit'' sizing). Also, while that 1% is declared medically insignificant, I want to give it just a little more time to recuperate, and until I can get hold of some of those protective goggles. Calling those things protective goggles is kind of strange, when in reality there are really spectacles with particularly sturdy frames. Might as well, considering that I have been thinking of updating my prescription for a while now for long-range work like driving. I asked the doctor if it were normal of me to not use my glasses when working on the computer, and her reply was that my eyes were lazy; since I was already myopic to begin with, the eye just refuses to use the eye muscles to accomodate for the nearer vision given the correction. This happens only because the level of myopia that I have now is sufficiently low that objects placed just at arm's length distance away just happens to be sitting within the comfort zone of my eyes' focal length. Well I suppose I'm going to keep doing this as I don't really see a need to fix anything---worst case I'll see if I can get a greatly reduced power for close range work, mostly to fight the astigmatism that can distort things.
I was feeling quite listless over the past fortnight, considering that I couldn't really do any of the physical activities stuff that I liked doing due to my corneal abrasion (Jujitsu and geocaching). But today, I think I had my share of venting out these frustrated energies through the long walk to and fro the ophthamologist's office from the long haul bus stop. The Google Maps' estimated distance for the route along the main roads was estimated to be around 2.4 miles, and I walked both directions, plus a mile here and there when I slipped off to pick up some geocaches along the way. All in all, I think I walked about 10 kilometres today, not counting the daily 7 kilometres of cycling I do to get to office and back. I bet I don't even get to clock such mileage back in Singapore heheheheh... yet I find myself willing to take walking as a valid mode of transport here. For fun, I used my GPSr to track how fast I was walking, and it turned out to be, on average, 3.7 miles per hour, which is roughly 5.9 kilometres per hour. Not super fast, but fast enough to make the time quoted for walking on Google Maps irrelevant.
And so, my Thursday is almost done, spent in a different town getting expert advice on my eyes because the town that I am based in had no such experts. Such is the strangeness of life. Now the only thing left to do for this episode is to wait for the medical bill and see just how much 20% of it really is, and then figure out how to pay for it without using up all of my allowances. I am hoping that the cost isn't too drastic, but I can't be sure only because no one seems to publish the consultation rate. According to Mangesh, my colleague/labmate, those rates are hardly published because they change according to the health insurance provider. Talk about stratified sampling for sales. I just hope that the part I need to pay is reasonable enough.
Alright, enough of ranting. I should probably start to walk towards the pick up point and wait for the bus. Hanging out in another university's student centre is a little weird and disconcerting, particularly when it's evening and there's no one about. I must be missing something here I suppose.
Till the next update.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
But I'm Only a Student...
There are some days in my life that I wish I were dead or non-existent, and it seems that today is the day.
I went back to the optometrist today expecting good news. Well in some senses, I did, as the wound is healed at 99%. Except that 1%, that lousy last 1%. Something wrong with that 1%---it wasn't healing fast enough; that 1% was at the periphery of my corneal flap. Maybe some epithelial cells have made their way past the flap from the initial injury, causing it to possibly be the start of an ingrowth. Possibly. Prognosis is good though, but it means I have to go elsewhere to get this checked out by someone more qualified than what we are having at the local hospital/clinic.
Except this somewhere is a good hour's drive away. In the US, this means at least 60 miles, or around 97 kilometres. 97 kilometres. Bye bye busy day.
And of course, I have tons of things that are due this week. Thankfully, I've gotten enough of them done, so I'm left with one major item to clear, not counting this cross-country doctor's visit. And now I have to coordinate with a kind soul who will take half the day off to drive me all the way out there and back.
This is starting to be a really costly (opportunity cost) incident...
I went back to the optometrist today expecting good news. Well in some senses, I did, as the wound is healed at 99%. Except that 1%, that lousy last 1%. Something wrong with that 1%---it wasn't healing fast enough; that 1% was at the periphery of my corneal flap. Maybe some epithelial cells have made their way past the flap from the initial injury, causing it to possibly be the start of an ingrowth. Possibly. Prognosis is good though, but it means I have to go elsewhere to get this checked out by someone more qualified than what we are having at the local hospital/clinic.
Except this somewhere is a good hour's drive away. In the US, this means at least 60 miles, or around 97 kilometres. 97 kilometres. Bye bye busy day.
And of course, I have tons of things that are due this week. Thankfully, I've gotten enough of them done, so I'm left with one major item to clear, not counting this cross-country doctor's visit. And now I have to coordinate with a kind soul who will take half the day off to drive me all the way out there and back.
This is starting to be a really costly (opportunity cost) incident...
Monday, October 03, 2011
Corneal Conundrum
Break my arm and I can still work with the other one, albeit slowly.
Break my leg and I just limp about, working mostly unimpaired, though I probably need to watch my weight from lack of activity.
But bust my eye and my spirit is broken, having neither the will nor the ability to actually see what I'm doing and thus get things done in a smooth fashion.
That last statement is basically how I have been feeling for the last fortnight---the inability to see clearly is always annoying and makes it really difficult to concentrate. Indeed, calling humans visual creatures is a most apt description.
It is not that my right corneal abrasion isn't healing; it is doing better each day compared to the last. It is the fact that it is healing too slowly relative to the norm that is making my attending optometrist worried. Such is the complication that comes with a general predisposition towards inflammation, and the fact that my cornea itself has undergone some structural changes via LASIK.
Do I regret having LASIK done then? No, I don't. It just isn't safe to be traipsing all around the world with an effective eyesight that required -15.00 dioptres of correction. I think the expensive take-home lesson here is that I should be careful with what kinds of sports that I am doing. A year of Aikido didn't increase the risk of anything happening to my eye---most of the stuff we do involves mostly the hands and twisting the body into interesting positions so as to throw someone. But Jujitsu, it's different; the take downs are many and highly varied. I should be more careful with this sport than I did with Aikido, since the integrity of my cornea has been breached twice by now, and we all know that structural integrity takes a long time to recover, particularly for something that begins as fragile as the cornea.
Anyway, that's all the time I have for random ranting. Maybe another post will be up on Friday or something... I don't know. Currently having to juggle too many things at once means that I have little to no time to myself to do reflections and other ``personal development'' things like writing journal entries or even stories or poems.
Break my leg and I just limp about, working mostly unimpaired, though I probably need to watch my weight from lack of activity.
But bust my eye and my spirit is broken, having neither the will nor the ability to actually see what I'm doing and thus get things done in a smooth fashion.
That last statement is basically how I have been feeling for the last fortnight---the inability to see clearly is always annoying and makes it really difficult to concentrate. Indeed, calling humans visual creatures is a most apt description.
It is not that my right corneal abrasion isn't healing; it is doing better each day compared to the last. It is the fact that it is healing too slowly relative to the norm that is making my attending optometrist worried. Such is the complication that comes with a general predisposition towards inflammation, and the fact that my cornea itself has undergone some structural changes via LASIK.
Do I regret having LASIK done then? No, I don't. It just isn't safe to be traipsing all around the world with an effective eyesight that required -15.00 dioptres of correction. I think the expensive take-home lesson here is that I should be careful with what kinds of sports that I am doing. A year of Aikido didn't increase the risk of anything happening to my eye---most of the stuff we do involves mostly the hands and twisting the body into interesting positions so as to throw someone. But Jujitsu, it's different; the take downs are many and highly varied. I should be more careful with this sport than I did with Aikido, since the integrity of my cornea has been breached twice by now, and we all know that structural integrity takes a long time to recover, particularly for something that begins as fragile as the cornea.
Anyway, that's all the time I have for random ranting. Maybe another post will be up on Friday or something... I don't know. Currently having to juggle too many things at once means that I have little to no time to myself to do reflections and other ``personal development'' things like writing journal entries or even stories or poems.
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