To Wee Shu Min

It's tough to be intellectual. It's tougher to be intellectual at a young age. Tougher still to be an intellectual teenager in Singapore, where stuff that happens doesn't get into books of any genres of fantasy, romance, epic, or even casual social criticism. But you've got to learn. Learn to remain and feel wise even if you are not changing things.

This should be empathetic and educational at the same time and good for you if you want to grow into a healthy happy young woman. You might not take this though, since you're an intellectual. After all I too think psychoanalysis is somewhat jokey.

But there.

Whatever.

Van Dyke

This guy, who's presently one of those probably rheumatic faculty member over eighty with mouth lined with decaying lunch matter in Stanford University, said, about matching inner and outer boundary solutions in perturbation methods:

The m-term inner expansion (of the n-term outer expansion) = the n-term outer expansion (of the m-term inner expansion)

I've decided that he'd definitely one of those guys who smugly creates verbose, grammatically mystifying one-liners that are supposed to look smart and make people's life difficult. In other words, he's an American.

Ok now I feel better.

Bessels, In-N-Out and The Big Lebowski

So dudes, I had my first Friday night in Stanford that I didn't spend doing homework on. First of all, it started with the invitation from a girl in my class whom I thought went to MIT for undergrad, but who really went to CalTech, a place infamous for its brutally abused and dishonoured Honor Code. In any case, this girl looked nice when she smiled, and had learnt Bessel functions in undergrad while I hadn't, so I thought, now there's someone I want to get to know. So she sent out an invitation to eat In-n-Out burgers, drink white Russians and watch "The Big Lebowski". And I went for it.

For the first time I went to the genuine Californian In-N-Out for its much reputed burger and milkshake. I'm still not ready to confirm the quality of their cheeseburgers, for, after I consented to a topping of onions, the taste of a thick layer of the latter totally obscured those of cheese, burger and amazingly even the milkshake. Neither did I touch the white Russian (a mixture of Vodka, Kahlua and milk so it looks like a nice light-chocolate blend of Thai ice tea) for, dudes, after showing a positive result to the Mantoux test, which swole my arm for a whole week, and after taking three chest x-rays in less than three weeks to confirm that I'm indeed not suffering from TB, I'm on antibiotics that causes severe liver damage if I turn alcoholic. So, yes, I just watched Big Lebowski and rest of them friends drank white Russian. The friends are all local, true-blue Californians (the girl in my class is "Palo-Alto-local"), and who therefore must appreciate the dude. I didn't get to hear too much of him though, cuz no sooner had we started the video than visitors started arriving at the apartment. A girl called Heather, who was supposed to bring two men, came bringing none, and was trying to take two movie-watching men out of the apartment to a dance party. When she didn't succeed much, she removed her white jacket, shared a chair with one of the men, had him engaged in conversation while drinking red wine (according to her friends vodka isn't as effective on her). Then a Nancy and a Diane and three other guys wearing Stanford-imprinted college apparel streamed in to (and eventually out of) the apartment. It wasn't till twenty minutes before the movie ended that the placed got quietened down.

So I decide now that I'll borrow the movie from her again. I mean the CalTech girl. If I ever do that'd be the third time I'm watching it. I'm taking this etude of the Californian spirit really seriously you know. And I'm sure I'll get better at it. Today, even with the ins and outs I still got a lot more than what I did two years ago in Jo's apartment.

So that was my Friday night. Now are the eigenvalues of problems with Bessel function solutions equivalent to the intersections of the Bessel function graphs with the x-axis?

Why are the Singaporeans so self-conscious?

Poor Singaporeans. They are the internal organs of a semi-transparent larva. The country's too small, the skin's too thin. Too many eyes in the shrinking world watching them. Too many accents to juggle, too many types of cultures to strike a balance with. The Singaporeans are like the adolescent immigrants struggling with identity issues in the big big world. Is this the inherent debate of a small country who, by some amazing-growth formula got into propserity in a daze?

More abstract extensions

Like pinching out three worms out of the whole wriggling mess, I identified three names that are annoying similar: Laplace, Lagrange and Legendre. Could anyone give me a concise and precise list of what these guys did? To think that the French had headed the enlightenment and generated so many mathematicians. Who would have thought they're now equated to fuzzy romantic pictures, accordeon music, Parisian kisses and colorful, lazy afternoons?

As for housemates, my conscious nags me that I'm not being honest with my opinions of them. (It wouldn't do to be honest with oneself in every situation in life, but I just can't learn that.) But it wouldn't do too for me to send them the link to my blog. So, I've determined the rectification to be an alternative description of the ladies who are living under the same roof with me right now. That is - I take time to get to know people. So no matter how great they are for the time being they could only be an intrudingly brilliant parade of personality for me.

As for Californian sunshine, which has more or less disappeared at this season, I would still insist that it's not my idea of the ideal kind of weather. Stanford takes out the sense even further by blowing blasts of cold air through classrooms in October. But even so I don't miss the blazing, cloudless sun that causes shadows to dance in front of my eyes hardly before I get into any shade. The mild and watery afternoon sun that appear sometimes these days is alright.

As for Wells Fargo bankers at the university branch, well, they remain inefficient and unintelligent.