boom dee yah dah..

One of those moments where a song gets stuck in your head.. like SERIOUSLY stuck in your head and you can't help but want to share it.. =)

What amazes me is how they managed to get ALL the ppl from the different documentaries in Discovery Channel to sing their lines.. amazing.

..and even more amazing, how a simple song like that with only 4 chords can sound so incredibly catchy. Try to see if you can resist not watching it a second time.. hah =P



Astronaut 1: It never gets old, huh?
Astronaut 2: Nope.
Astronaut 1: It kinda makes you want to...
Astronaut 2: Break into song?
Astronaut 1: Yep

I love the mountains, I love the clear blue skies...
I love big bridges...
I love when great whites fly...
I love the whole world...
And all its sights and sounds...
Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da!

I love the ocean...
I love real dirty things...
I love to go fast...
I love Egyptian kings...
I love the whole world...
And all its craziness...
Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da!

I love tornadoes...
I love arachnids...
I love hot magma...
I love the giant squid...
I love the whole world, it's such a brilliant place...
Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da, Boom-de-ah-da!


================= EDITED ON 10 APR 09 =================

Figured that I've got some visits to this post with people trying to find the chords to this song so figured I just might as well put them up, it's a heck of a song anyway.. =)

The 4 chords are: C Am F G

Just repeat them throughout the whole song.. 1 bar each. And if you're intending to play along to the little video clip above, it's in the key of Db (or C#). So the 4 chords would be Db Bbm Gb Ab.. or just clip a capo on the 1st fret and play it as above..

enjoy!

My Hero

After what seems to be a semester long-gone by, I flip the papers today and I see a familiar face in it.

Picture courtesy of ST PHOTO: SAMUEL HE

The story goes that apparently Prof Michael Heng (also mentioned in my HRM journey here) has probably had it quite enough with NTU’s process of awarding the tenure to their staff.

Now any student in NTU will probably profess that the standard of their lecturers have more room for improvement above anything else. Even though they ‘claim’ that there’s a list of things that they look at when they re-contract their lecturers/professors, any student will tell you that it’s just a pile of crap. All they want is research papers.. even an article sometime ago on the NewPaper mentioned this.

It’s common knowledge that the lecturers who have stayed on in NTU are just good at publishing papers. It’s evident when you look around and see that there are some who seriously can’t lecture/teach/mentor for nuts, you can’t understand a thing they say, they have no heart in teaching, it’s so evident that no one’s benefiting from them, but yet, they are still there semester after semester, year after year.

Yet, there are the few who are so good at teaching, get wonderful teaching feedback, are so helpful and genuinely interested in the student’s academic and learning process, but yet, they have left/did not get their contract renewed. And you wonder what’s going on..

It’s simple, the students aren’t the customers in NTU. The interested of NTU is clearly and evidently not in the standard of it’s students.. they’re just more interested in trying to publish papers in their name to try to UP their overall rankings. But sadly, the adverse is only so and it’s a dumb strategy if you’d ask me, we all know that the ranking for NTU has dropped and even the head says that it’s an ‘impossible’ thing to happen. But it has. What irony.

The fact that Prof Heng and the other profs actually went their way to get some closure on this matter just goes to show the seriousness of the condition in NTU. It takes someone like him who’s willing to fight for what he believes, and I respect him so. It’s probably also about time that NTU sorted itself out. First there was the ridiculous triple-sharing thing that they proposed, then this.. sometimes it really just feels like NTU’s not so much an institute but more like a money-hungry orgranisation. So really, if you’re doing ur A-levels, completed ur diploma or coming out of the army.. do consider wisely if this is such an environment you’d want to be in. For me, I’m just glad to be coming out in a few months.

On a side note, reading the full article on the Straits Times, it seems Prof Heng’s the only one willing to put his name down, the others who were interviewed merely did so on condition of their anonymity.. now that’s a man who’s true to his words, practicing what he preaches, daring to stand by what he says and fighting for it. That’s the kind of man I admire. No apologies, No nonsense, No bullshit from NTU.

Gratified

I made it.. and I’m thankful. One, I made it through the week.. now I can finally see the term break just over the horizon as it’s slowly making its ascend like the dawn of a new day, over the rather gloomy and tiring term.. a nice break to look forward to. Albeit there’s the fyp and stuff, at least it’s a chance to catch a breather..

Two, I’ve also made it.. 225cm. For a person who can’t jump since day one, I’m pretty pleased with myself for hitting it just after 2 weeks of training.. Finally managed to get a Pass.. it’s amazing how much deterioration can happen to the human body when you start to slack and shave off time spent on training..

Long story short, I’m thankful for making it through.. all glory to God.

And yes, as promised here are the only 2 pictures I took at bukom. Funny.. I didn’t realize that I didn’t take any photos of the tens of ‘mickey-mouse’ fishes that we caught. Probably didn’t want to risk another “I dropped it into the water” accident.. grr..

shh.. yes, we were fishing just under the no-fishing sign..

Continuum

While clearing the cobwebs away from my blog, I’ve been trying to decide what to write about, to keep the posts counting. Then I figured that amongst the so many things that’s happened, I’ve once again lost that ‘spark’ to write at length about anything in particular..

As a consolation (to myself), perhaps I’d at least try to list what some of these things are. Here goes:

- ok, there’s the bukom trip and some pictures that I managed to take. And of course the many ‘mickey mouse’ useless fishes that we caught.

- there’s also my polarizing filter.. have been wanting to get down to take more pictures with it, but somehow, I just haven’t found the time for it.

- then there’s my hike that I took with Joel and our wonderfully wood-roasted chicken, to Tom: next time we’ll take u along.. =)

- there’s also some pictures I’d like to put up, like the cell gathering at benson’s and my makeshift bbq-cum-grill thing with dar.

Ok, so maybe on the next few posts I’ll try putting at least some pictures up.

Beyond that, I’m just looking forward to the break from school.. next week’s break-week so I can get a breather and spend some time with my hamsters too.. but then again, there’s the fyp to bother with. Bummer.

Ambivalent

..that’s how I feel. Once again it’s back to haunt me.. counting the service days when the inclination probably first started, that would make it about 4 and a half years. For the past 1640 days of my life, I’ve toyed with the idea of joining the army and taking it up as a career.

Ya I know that to the every other person and his brother, it’s a stupid, most-ridiculous thing that I ought to be doing.. especially now that I’m about to graduate with an engineering degree. What’s more, if I actually wanted to, I should have done it 3 years ago, my tuition fees and hostel fees would be paid for and I’ll even get a handsome allowance monthly. I’ve also heard how my parents aren’t too crazy about the idea and trust me, as far as supportive parents go, I don’t quite want to push it.

But for that many days, I’ve had to battle this conflict residing within me. This relentless urge to join them. And no matter how hard I try, the moments that I can eventually flee my mind from it will soon be short-lived as something somewhere somehow along the line will remind me of it time and again..

I’ve always thought that the feeling will go away when I leave the army, but anyone who’s talked to me as of late will realize that it hasn’t. In fact, now that the career fair is here, and I’m looking around for a job, the yearning hasn’t been this much stronger before.

Against all common knowledge, I can’t seem to find the reason why I want to join in. Perhaps it was the good times I had, but definitely, as much as I’d like to blot it out, there were definitely times I don’t want to ever go through again.. never. Perhaps it was the camaraderie that’s hooked me.. I’m not honestly sure. In fact, I don’t know why, but it just appeals to me. Waay more than any other jobs..

I don’t want to read too much into it either, but it doesn’t help that previous attempts to secure some for of a job didn’t really get through.. from the countless failed attempts at getting a scholarship (like one of them mentioned here), to the ‘kiv’ replies of my interview.. I don’t want to read too much into these ‘closed doors’ but at the same time, I also know that there’s no such thing as coincidence. I simply don’t believe that anything happens ‘by chance’.

I’m tired of fighting it.. wise words anyone?