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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - 02:50 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Time For School

I seriously should get about breaking blog posts up into smaller tidbits instead of letting them clump together.

Significant visit of the week was to the McKinsey offices at the Centennial Tower (near Suntec), as our CVWO prof had kindly arranged a session with some of his contacts there to give us a quick runthrough on time management and résumé writing. Their conference room was equipped with an Avaya phone through which one of their number conferred freely as a disembodied voice - pretty neat!



One strong recommendation was to view Randy Pausch's one-hour long talk on Time Management (above), which I admit I haven't. There's a 21 page transcript which should take less than an hour to digest, and which I'll get to very soon.

The next main bit of good advice was to follow the time management matrix from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, a book which I had read but not really taken to heart.


Source: Elemental

The idea is not to do unimportant stuff (everything in Quadrants III and IV), and reduce Quadrant I by pushing them into Quadrant II. Only problem is that the boundaries between "true recreation" and "time wasters" is blurry...

The third gem was the "Two Minute Rule" - if something can be done in less than two minutes, just do it now. Makes sense most of the time, since rescheduling it would likely take a large chunk of the time needed to just finish it.

As for the curriculum vitae, the major things I caught were that it should be no more than one page (as in one side of a page) long, since HR people typically spend just seconds scanning through it, it should be focused (not much choice with a single page), and that any format used (e.g. chronological) should be consistent; I'll get onto that too, soon.



Second Last Semester

The CORS Schedule is out! Let's see what remains for my undergrad career - the FYP, two level 4000/5000 Computing modules and a Life Sciences module (LSM) for my main degree, and six Level 3000+ Economics modules for the other one. So for this semester I'll probably grab two out of the three from Comp and LSM, and leave the last one for the final semester. I've been waiting to take Game Development with a friend for quite some time, so that's fixed together with the FYP. So:

CS4101 Honours Project (No fixed lectures/tutorials, but certainly will burn time)
CS4213 Game Development (Lectures on Tue 2-4pm at COM1/204, Labs: Mon 10-12pm/12-2pm, Tutorials: Wed 3-4pm/4-5pm, Exam: 2nd Dec evening)

Is that my two day week gone? Wait wait relax relax *takes deep breaths*... Computing labs are often optional for help to be sought if required, yep. So that's only Tuesday and Wednesday accounted for.

Surprisingly not that many Level 5000 modules available in this semester, and of the remaining lot the most appealing is probably CS4243 Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, with lectures on Monday nights and labs on Monday or Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm or 4-6pm (exam 29th Nov afternoon).

For Life Sciences, I've already taken Genes and Society as a GEM, and LSM1304 Microbes, Environment and Man has lectures twice a week (Mon/Thu afternoons, exams on 28th Nov afternoon). LSM1301 General Biology looks promising with lectures on Tuesdays or Fridays 12-2pm, and some labs on Wednesdays (exam on 29th Nov afternoon), but is not a default recommendation to fulfil the Life Sciences requirement (bonus: edchong says was a reasonably slack, mug/flip textbook module). I guess I'll have to ask about this.

Now for the three Economics modules - EC3312 Game Theory & Applications to Economics is a sure pick that I've been looking forward to, and it slots in neatly on Wednesday mornings 10-12pm (exams on 26th Nov morning)... but has tutorials only on Thursdays and Fridays.

Why? Why must this happen to me???

Can't take EC4101 Microeconomics Analysis III this semester due to a non-negotiable examination clash with CS4213 either, and I don't really feel like taking macro if I can help it. EC4332 Money and Banking II sounds good, though - lectures on Mondays 10-12pm, with tutorials on Mondays 2-3pm, 3-4pm or Tuesdays 12-1pm, 1-2pm. That is, if I go the Monday route.

CS4101 CS4213 LSM1301 EC3312 however means a Tue/Wed/(Thurs or Fri) week, which is still pretty good and allows me to indulge in game theory. EC3304 Econometrics II is out due to a clash even if I desired to take it. EC3341 International Economics I is a conundrum - it sounds interesting enough, but its lecture starts at 8am on Tuesdays. That isn't so bad by itself, but the tutorials would then be either 8-9am or 9-10am on Wednesdays. Ah well. Sacrifices have to be made. Early examination on 22nd Nov though. EC3361 Labour Economics I also lies within my sphere of interest, sort of, and has lectures Thursdays 10-12pm and a lot of good tutorial slots (Wed 4-5pm, 5-6pm and Thurs 2-3pm, 3-4pm), so I guess it's in. Late exam on 5th Dec afternoon however.

So, ideally, I'll be in school from 8am to 4pm on Tuesdays for three lectures (EC3341, LSM1301, CS4213). Wednesdays hopefully will start at 9am (not 8am again, please!) with the EC3341 tutorial (what's it with industry and early mornings?), then flow into game theory with EC3312 till 12pm, a LSM1301 lab from 12-2pm or 2-4pm and finally the CS4213 tutorial at 4-5pm. Thursdays will then start with a relatively late 10am EC3361 lecture, followed by an EC3312 tutorial from 12-1pm or 1-2pm, and the EC3361 tutorial at 2-3pm if possible.

CS4101 CS4213 LSM1301 EC3312 EC3341 EC3361 it is then, leaving Mondays free for long sleep-ins after any EPL Super Sundays, and an early weekend beginning on Fridays. Brilliant! Now hopefully nothing disrupts my cunning plan, like LSM1301 not being allowed to fulfil the Computing LSM requirement, or thousands of bid points coming crashing out of the blue...



Wet Wet Hamsters

Also, I've been spending quite a bit of quality time with the hamsters. In response to an opinion roughly paraphrased as "who the hell names their hamsters Ham G. Bacon and Fish F. Chips???", I have to say that according to name-stats.com, Bacon was ranked #1041, Fish #1377 and Ham #1617 in the 1990 USA census for last names. Not that many Chips around yet. (Interestingly, when the Straits Times did a feature on unusual names, stuff like Sandy and Woody came up - I'm rather sure these are not that common, but not that rare either, or have I been misguided by certain celebrities using them?)

But back to the hammies. Being quite a conscientious owner if I say so myself, I did my own reading up on hamster care, and the consensus on baths was: DON'T. Not with water at least, give them sand. I naturally passed on this advice to my grandma, who just as naturally didn't let it get in the way of Maintaining Hamster Hygiene And Getting Rid Of That Hamstery Smell. I only found out recently that she had been giving them regular soap-and-water rinses (with a professional hairdryer session thrown in for free), but since they are still far from dead I guess things turned out all right.

One thing I've got to say, a soaked hamster must be one of the most pitiful looking creatures on Earth, maybe second only to a shaved hamster. First impression: Pinkish rambutan with brown spines.


Uh oh.



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