Monday, 18 June 2007
What a good dinner
Received an email from Diana yesterday and learnt that she was going to University of Sydney in July to study Masters in peace and conflict or something like that. That's good. Might take the opportunity to visit her in Sydney before next semester begins. Haven't seen her in a while. Can bring her to eat good food in Sydney.
Been watching some random stuff lately. Most random of all must be "Drawn Together", the reality tv for cartoon characters. They put a number of cartoon characters in one house a la Big Brother style, toss in some dumb, stereotype, sex, suicidal, racial, lame jokes and make it into a comedy cartoon. "Watching it will decrease your intelligence level" warned Jay Shen.
Also watched Victoria Secret's Fashion Show, or "The Greatest Show on Earth" as claimed by Seo Yeon. Well, the highlight of the show (for 2006) must be the dance by Justin Timberlake performed to "Lovestoned" and "My Love". Awesome man! Also watch it for Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio and Gisele Bundchen. Totally HOT
One more exam to go! yeah
Monday, 4 June 2007
Exams coming
Friday, 1 June 2007
Steven's Stories
Well, exams are coming up pretty soon, so haven't had the time to blog. Today marks the end of teaching period and the entering of the crucial examination phase of the semester. What better way to sum up the whole semester than with stories told by my lecturer for Risk Theory STAT 3035, Dr Steven E. Stern.
To see how he looks like, checkout: http://ecocomm.anu.edu.au/people/info.asp?Surname=Stern&Firstname=Steven
The "Clearly" Story
This is a story about Norbert Wiener, the famous mathematician. During one of his lectures in MIT, he was writing down equations on the board and then he said "CLEARLY, xxxx = yyyy...". He then paused and stared at what he had just written for a while, and the subsequently exited the lecture hall. All the students were stunned and dumbfounded. "Why did the professor leave the room?" "Is he coming back?" So they waited, for a while, for some time, for a long time, but the professor did not reappear. The students were confused at this time, whether to leave or to stay. At this moment, Norbert Wiener came back into the lecture hall, and continued "Yes. Clearly, xxxx = yyyy."
For information and more interesting stories about him, checkout:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener
The "Light is brighter" Story
One day, this policeman was patrolling this shanty part of town. He was walking along this dark alley, and along the two sides of the road were gutters filled with thrash, a whole lot of thrash. As he continued walking, he saw ahead was a man under a bright street lamp. This man was dressed in tuxedo, wearing a tall hat, and surprisingly, rummaging through the rubbish in the gutter. This policeman was rather intrigued by the scene and decided to ask the man what he was doing. "Hi sir, may I ask what you are up to?" "Oh I'm searching for my watch which I've lost," replied the man. So as a kind policeman, he decided to help the man search for his watch. After searching for half an hour through the piles of stinking rubbish filling the gutters, they still have not found the watch. So the policeman decided to ask the man "Are you sure you lost your watch here?" Which the man replied "No, I lost it over there [points to another pile of rubbish in a dark area], but the light is brighter here."
This story was used by Steven to describe our use of approximations to find an answer to various variables throughout the course.
The Pot Story
As a clarification, the pot here refers to pot as in pots and pans, not pot as in the other meaning, you know... Yeah, so before I start with the story, I must let you know that this story is not funny. It is as it is, just a story.
So there's this big financial company which is embarking on this project and needs to employ a talent in this field for the job. They sent out ads for the job, and received thousands of applicants for the job. So the selection panel decided to set up a test for them to complete, which helped them to eliminate the number to about a hundred. Which they then proceed to conduct a few rounds of interview which managed to land the final two applicants for the job. One is an actuary and one is a mathematician. So the selection panel was at a lost of how to choose between the two of them. Then this statistician who was among them, who hasn't spoke throughout the whole time, came up with an idea. The others who never quite took note of the statistician the whole time, decided to listen to him, since they had no other plans. So the actuary was called in the next day, and the mathematician the day after.
The next day, the blurry-eyed actuary came in early in the morning, and met the tester. "So what do you want me to do for the test?" The tester asked him to proceed to the adjacent room. In the room was a pot of water in the centre of the room, a window on one side of the room, and a boiler in one corner of the room, which was connected to a power socket on the wall. The tester said "The test is to show that you can boil some water." The actuary was rather confused by the request, but then since he has came so far, he might as well proceed with it. He took the pot of water from the centre of the room and placed it on the boiler, flick on the switch, wait for a couple of minutes, and showed the tester the boiling water. The tester put a tick on the sheet of paper. The next day, the mathematician came in, and proceeded to do exactly the same test. He too showed the tester he could boil the water in the pot with the boiler. So back to the selection panel who couldn't understand the test. The statistician came up with another idea for a test. So the actuary was called in the morning of the next day, and the mathematician in the afternoon.
The actuary came in the next day and asked the tester for his test. He was told to proceed to the next room. The room was the same as the other day, except the pot this time was on the window sill. So the tester told him to show that he could boil some water, again. He proceeded to fetch the pot of water from the window sill to the boiler and then heat up the water to boil. So the tester gave a tick on the sheet of paper. Then later on, the mathematician arrived. He went into the next room, and it was as the actuary has seen, the pot of water on the window sill. The tester told him to boil some water as the test. So gleefully, he took the pot of water from the window sill, and put it in the centre of the room.
The End.
FYI: The mathematician got the job.
That's all folks for this time. I'll be away in Central Australia for the next 12 days. So hope it'll be fun. will come back with loads of pictures. Adios
Friday, 18 May 2007
A Rainy Day
A view from my window, of this dark and wet day
Another piece of good news (or bad news): My Investments lecturer fell sick and lecture was cancelled this morning. Had an additional hour of sleep to make up for rising early this morning. Yeah, I hope she doesn't give us a make-up lecture. Bet she must have overslept due to the rainy weather, and provided that excuse. Sneaky, but a good one at least.
Haven't had a lot happening, just some small random stuff. It's "random act of kindness" week, so the rules of the games are: we are assigned one person to be kind to, and what you do is up to you. Well at least what I did was to give my RAOK some chocolates and biscuit and sweet. Well I received plenty of stuff myself from my RAOK, will show you guys the picture sometime, after I gather all the stuff I received.
Read news about the Inter's win against Roma in the 2nd leg of Coppa Italia, but it wasn't sufficient for them to turn round the 1st leg deficit. Pretty upset about that, but well, we have held the trophy for 2 years consecutive now, time to give others a chance. Hopefully Man Utd will win the FA Cup this weekend, against Chelsea.
Well, rain has stopped now but still seems pretty wet outside. Media player is playing "I don't know you anymore" by Savage Garden. A slow nice song to go with the general mood of the day. Would be better if I was sitting by the fireplace with a mug of tea/coffee to go with it, but it ain't happening. Gotta be contented.
Monday, 7 May 2007
We are the Champions!!!

Sunday, 29 April 2007
Sweet Victory!!! What a comeback! On sight for the title
Down 2-0 against Everton, Man Utd came back to score 4 goals and win the match! O Shea, Rooney and Eagles, and thanks to old boy - Phil. This is one of the sweetest comeback created by Man Utd, and all the more sweeter with Chelsea's draw with Bolton. Go sing the Blues idiots!
Now 5 points adrift of Chelsea and 3 matches more to the end of the season. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
This is the first live football match I've watched this year and I'm glad that I got the chance to watch it entirely. Really worth the time to watch it even though I got some scares in the first half. Was screaming the whole time man. Phew sweet victory at last!
Alright then back to some updates about my life. Been really busy recently due to some assignment deadlines. Had 2 assignment deadlines and 1 mid-sem exam on fri 27th april. Really hectic. 1 more presentation this coming friday and 1 assignment the following friday. So haven't really got time to blog.
Have been playing a lot of ping-pong aka table tennis and pool lately too. The after lunch and after dinner games help me to "exercise" and digest better. Otherwise it's hard to start work after meals. Also had a wine + chips + beer + tim tam + biscuit appreciation session with some friends on friday night after submitting all those assignments. Well just another reason to drink and unwind after surviving the week I suppose.
Hopefully I can post some recent photos of the Hot Air Balloon Fiesta on my blog soon. They had some really nice balloons this year, like the one with Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc. Well then, ta!
Thursday, 19 April 2007
Bateman's Bay: 18/02/07
Poor Hannah was the 2nd victim to be "thrown" into the sea, well, we didn't really throw her in, just pretended so as to scare her. Guess who was the 1st victim? Lim-peh
Along came an unknown sexy girl
Idea for the next Survivor: Contestants will choose who to bury next
Hannah discovered something unusual lying on her seat
Yunjin wins the bragging competition
The male and female lead for the next James Bond movie
Remember the scene from Finding Nemo?
And Finally my favourite shot of the day....