| For you I’ll seize the frontier cities and the stars in the heavens |
Crystal, 20, year 2 Life Sciences student in NUS, minoring in Communications and New Media.
Mail: crystalho.com@gmail.com
Blog Header: lyrics from Born to Love- Mayday /
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January 2016 /
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Monday, January 25, 2016,
8:32 PM
My favourite food in and around NUS
Fried Fish Soup with/without noodle/rice
Love this flavourful soup with condensed milk ($4). I tasted my friend's bowl without condensed milk and it's just as good, but I prefer it with condensed milk. Can be found at UTown Koufu.
Fried Rice with/without pork chop
Din Tai Fung goodness - a generous serving on a plate for just $3.50 (without pork chop) and $4.50 (with pork chop). You can even add rice for just $0.50. Don't take my words at face value, try it for yourself @ UTown Koufu, Noodle House stall today. :)
Xiao Long Bao (Pork Dumplings)
To complete your Din Tai Fung meal, look no further: also in UTown Koufu is the dish of 6 xiao long baos for just $4.50. The skin is slightly thicker, but taste wise it's the same :) Found at Sichuan stall.
Aglio Olio
Unbelievably cheap and extremely delicious Aglio Olio ($3.20) located at Yusof Ishak House foodjunction. There's a taste that I can't quite place: I hazard a guess that it's the aroma of it being cooked in chicken fat that lends the spaghetti strands its mouth-watering flavour.
Fried Meatball Noodles
Noodles can be changed to any type that you prefer. I really, really love the meatballs which taste like nuggets (perhaps even better!) in ball form. What's more, this bowl of noodles with soup is only $2.50. You can also get a dish of 8 meatballs for the same price. Found at Engineering canteen (Technoedge)
Tomyum Yong Tao Foo
Lastly, but certainly not the least in terms of flavour, Tomyum Yong Tao Foo from NUH ground floor Kopitiam (not the one in one@ Kent Ridge). What's special about it is that it's a dry version of Tomyum and it certainly packs a punch. Probably with less calories since it's a dry version. $4.60 for 6 items (before the 10% discount with Kopitiam card).
Sunday, January 24, 2016,
11:35 PM
How I bleached, dyed and cut my hair!
**carried this post over from my previous blog!**
Instructions at bottom, below pictures
My orange hair!!!
Turqouise hair, supposed to be more bluish but cos I didn't bleach my hair enough it turned out green.
Bottom looks black cos I did a strand test for the red dye to see how it'd turn out.
Check out the blood!
Red is a massacre, when I washed it off it was like a 100 periods in one day.
What my hair is now. It seems to be getting lighter and lighter the more i wash it. I hope it doesn't suddenly turn green. If your hair isn't bleached and it's dyed red, all the red will just wash off and the hair will be brown. I read something somewhere about how red is the fastest colour to fade but one of the most difficult colours to 'take out' of the hair.
I used plastic gloves for both bleaching and dyeing. Can get one pack of 100's from hardware/mama shops for ~$1+.
These plastic gloves can be used for those box dyes you get at watsons/guardian/ntuc also, cos I successfully dyed Jackson's hair black with the gloves, so the comb etc is pretty much extra. Liese black dye didn't manage to cover his turquoise hair, it turned his hair ash green and faded to a dark green after a few washes. Revlon black dye, on the other hand, is super duper unnatural jet black hahaha.
How I bleached:
I bought bleach powder and 30% developer from Venus. Cheap, about $1.9 and $2.9 I think, so each bleach + developer set will cost you <$5. They have 40% but the higher the % the more damaging. Proportions I did by trial and error, from what I read should be 2 parts developer : 1 part bleach powder, but I normally put one packet bleach with one bottle developer and end up having my mixture very powdery. A good mixture would be 1.5 botttles developer and 1 packet bleach. I left it on about 15-30 mins, watch and see what the colour of your hair is. Wash it out immediately.
Tips:
Try not to wash your hair for a few days before bleaching, if you're doing roots, to protect your scalp. If you have some facial oil or something rub it along the edges of your hairline and on your scalp so that the bleach doesn't burn and it doesn't hurt so much.
I started bleaching cos I didn't wanna pay upwards of $40 to do my roots at a saloon. If you're gonna do your whole head, do it at a saloon first.
How I dyed:
I used la riche directions dye from qoo10, for around $10. Will be even cheaper if you use qcoupons and all that. For pastel colours, your hair needs to be super bleached/light blonde before the pastel colours will really show, so I suggest getting your hair done at a saloon first before touching up with la riche dye when you want to.
I did my orange hair at a saloon so I had it bleached and coloured at the saloon, It wasn't orange enough for my liking so after my colour faded I would redye my hair with super bright orange from la riche.
Section your hair if it's long. I usually start from my hair ends and work my way up to the roots. Just scoop the dye out of the tub with your gloved hands and apply on your DRY hair. So long as hair looks 'wet', the dye is on your hair and should be pretty even. For the back of my head i just apply whatever excess dye I have and pray that it's even haha it generally is or you can get someone to help, Leave the dye in for about 40 mins then wash off with water. The dye is conditioning, so your hair will feel softer after washing it off.
One tub will cover long hair. For short to medium length you'll use about 1/2 tub. Just apply, the hair is covered when it looks like it's wet.
Tips:
Red or red-based dyes like orange or pink will fade EXTREMELY fast, within 6-8 washes, so if you don't want it to fade so fast, wash your hair less often, or just don't do red based colours haha.
Blue or green based dyes last super duper long even after many washes. Very worth the money. Can last more than a month.
However, the red-based dyes are easier to wash off surfaces/your skin than the blue/green based dyes. Use make up remover to try and get the blue dye off, even then it might not come off so gotta wait a few showers before it goes away. Blue dye will stain :(
I don't comb the hair at all when the dye is in, I did that the first time I dyed and lost so much hair.
How I switched from orange to turquoise hair:
I left the bleach in for about 30 mins and washed it out. Then I used toner from la riche for about 20-30 mins and washed it out. Toner is to get rid of the brassy/yellow tones in your hair to make it white-ish. Then I put in the turquoise dye.
How I switched from turquoise to red hair:
I just covered with la riche red dye. I read that red neutralised green to turn brown, but mine is still pretty red! It's dark brown/black indoors and bright red under sunlight. I think a dark red is needed to cover the green though. I tried other reds and orange on a few locks of Jackson's hair and they turned golden hahaha.
How I cut my hair:
I followed the instructions from this link: http://andthenwesaved.com/how-to-cut-your-own-hair/
Just part hair into 2, tie the hair tie on each side above the length where you wanna cut and snip below the hair tie.
Super pleased cos it took so little time and saved me a lot of money. I wanted a choppy straight cut so this worked for me.
Warnings:
Do all of the above at your own risk.
All of the above is what worked for me. The DIY haircut only works for people with wavy hair I think, cos with straight hair, any mistakes are very visible.
I also lost a huge amount of hair, around half of it, and I'm not sure if it's due to the bleaching or the la riche dye. It was a gradual loss of hair for about 8 months.
Just google for bleaching/dyeing hair to get more info!
Labels: hair
Monday, January 4, 2016,
2:45 AM
Things The Squirrelmanbaby Said
How the term 'Manbaby' came about
Hilary (https://dayre.me/tieponytail) coined this term to describe her husband Andrew, and her father, who are apparently manbabies based on their antics that she describes on Dayre.
I decided to call Jackson a manbaby too since he whines (a lot) and likes being sayanged (stroked on the back of his head), but thankfully he doesn't have as serious of a manbaby case as Andrew.
Then I realised he looks very much like a squirrel when he smiles with his puffy cheeks.
Case in point: (yes you look cute with squirrel cheeks okay)
So I joined the 3 words together, and voila!
The 4 cases of whining so far...
1. Veh long never eat with you edi...
Context: we were walking back to our hall rooms when he said this after we finished eating dinner in the dining hall.2. Weh hard not to fwown leh... pain
Context: I was plucking his eyebrows. I told him not to frown as it made it difficult to pluck.
3. Why the apple so hard wan? Is it meeee? Or is it the apple?
Context: He gave me 3 'free passes/vouchers' to use for my birthday. I used one to get him to eat fruits regularly. So he buys fruit cups as he's too lazy to eat apples, or buy and keep fruits in his room. So he was complaining about the apple slices in his fruit cup.
It's you, squirrelman.
4. Wut? I don't wanna look like a liddel boy outside. I wanna look like a manly man. So when I'm outside I will shift the hair to one side and then when I go home I will push it back and ask for sayang.
Context: I commented how his fringe made him look like a young boy as it fell in a bangs style instead of a side bangs style.
I"m sure there'll be more whiny manbaby moments to come
Labels: boyfriend
2:17 AM
NUS Module Reviews
My first post on this spanking new blog, and it's about NUS modules! Hope it's useful for you if you googled for a review.
Academic Year 14/15 Semester 1
CM1401: Chemistry for Life Sciences
I'm not chemistry-inclined and have never done well for it beyond O levels. Even then it was pretty mediocre.This chemistry module was a horror for me and I didn't put in much effort to study as well. I failed this module (got a letter grade F) and retook it in AY 15/16 Semester 1.
If I remember correctly, the grade percentage for this semester was:
10% tutorial participation (just attend all tutorials)
30% for both Physical and Organic CAs
60% for finals
Grade percentages changed in 15/16 Semester 1.
LSM1103: Biodiversity
I don't remember the grade percentages.CA grades were lab and field outing attendance, as well as research paper writing assignments.
Do your cheatsheet well for the practical exam. If you do your cheatsheet by yourself, you'll know where to find what you wrote. I remember not having enough space so I just skipped the entire portion on mammals, thinking that they couldn't possibly have mammal specimens in the practical exam and true enough they didn't.
Final exam is open book, would be good to have the textbook on hand, otherwise it's fine with the notes as well. I know a friend who didn't buy the textbook. If you do get one you could just sell it on Carousell later on.
Final exams were MCQ format. I remember that the portion on plants was tricky in the final exams, and a huge part of the tested portion came from the plants practical, with lots of reference to scientific names and comparisons, so there wasn't much time to refer to my notes.
LSM1104: General Physiology
Again, I don't remember the grade percentages.
Finals were also MCQ format.
I found the lectures pretty sleep-inducing. Largely a memorisation-based module.
Labs for this module as well as LSM1103 were quite simple and fun.
NM3228: Interactive Sequential Art
You could visit my blog for this module at: http://crystal-isd.tumblr.com/I mistook the module name as Interactive Sequential Design while I was creating the blog name and that's how it ended up as "isd".
Pretty fun module, with not much brainwork, seeing as readings are comics. The lecturer gave surprise pop quizzes on the comics though, a single question. Example: "what was the character doing in the story" and I probably flunked those as I didn't read some of them. Unfortunately, the days that I didn't do my "readings" were the days she chose to have those pop quizzes.
Grade percentages as follows:
Participation (Attendance, IVLE forum, the abovementioned mini pop quizzes, tutorial critique)
- 10%
Blog- 10% (refer to http://crystal-isd.tumblr.com/)
We had to detail our assignment work-in-progress [meaning how we conceptualised our assignment and how we got to the final product,] reflect on in-class exercises and what we learnt.
A total of 4 assignments- 50%
Refer to the tumblr for what each assignment was about.
Basically the 1st assignment was the simplest: tell a story in 5 pictures.
2nd: Do a comic.
3rd: Do a webcomic.
4th: Do a webcomic that involves choosing between 2 options and has 2 endings (branching)
Final Project- 30%
This was quite crazy as we were expected to do up a fully functional webcomic with branching and all, preferably with music and animations. Thankfully one of my group members could code and had a tablet, with great drawing skills. Most of the work was done by her while my other group member and I coloured the comic using Photoshop and I copied and pasted the animation codes many times.
Our comic can be found on tinyurl.com/meepokqueen. We had to do 20 pages of documentation as well, of our conceptualisation process etc.
This module was a crash course in Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver for me. I had a lot of trouble making the collage of 5 pictures as I had no Photoshop skills whatsoever, not to mention the further assignments. If you are creative/can draw/have a tablet and have the above digital editing tools on your computer as well as the relevant skills to use them, the module is a piece of cake. However, I'm pretty pleased with the "crash course" on those digital editing softwares as I can now use them for other assignments like designing posters and whatnot. All the skills I gained from this module are pretty useful.
Even now, when I read comics, I have the "occupational hazard" of identifying what comic techniques were used and where.
LAK1201: Korean 1
It would be advisable to have sufficient prior knowledge of the language before choosing to take Korean 1. A lot of my peers already had exposure to the language before this module. I feel that checks to ensure that people truly do not have knowledge of the language are not thorough enough. They just make you sign a form saying you have no prior knowledge.I got this module through the Language Preparation Programme (LPP), so I got this module for only 1 bid point.
Project: write a script with group members, follow it and film a video.
14/15 Semester 2
I took 6 modules in this semester.
LSM1101: Biochemistry of Biomolecules
Horrible module again.I think it is largely memorisation and some application, though. For Prof Sudhakar's portion, he tested on the pictures in his notes, rather than the words in his notes.
MCQ + structured questions for finals.
LSM1102: Molecular Genetics
I didn't dislike this as much as I disliked LSM1101, but labs for this module and LSM1101 were just torturous to me.MCQ format for finals. Some application based questions.
NM1101E: Communications, New Media and Society
I didn't attend any lectures at all except for 1. After that 1 lecture I went to, I decided it was a waste of my time as the lecturer just mumbled on and on and I had to rush to Science faculty for another lecture. Finals tested one question on a video that was shown during lecture though so I guess it would be good to go if you have time.10% for tutorial participation
The other 90%: 3 assignments and final exams
"For this assignment, you will prepare a report on issues of relationships on new media." (also includes an interview and recording of the interview)
"For assignment 2, your task is to come up with a interface design solution that addresses the challenges of relationship management on a social network."
"For this assignment [3], you will assume the role of an independent communication consultant who is working with the Media Development Authority to raise awareness among 13-18 year olds about appropriate relationship management strategies on social media through a communication campaign.
Analyse the issue and write a short
report on it for the MDA, outlining the key elements of communication strategy
for the campaign."
I can't remember the percentages for the 3 assignments, but they were all individual take home essay assignments. Final exams were MCQ format, 60 questions. I remember finishing in about 25 minutes and I left early after checking repeatedly.
Get the textbook. Most of the things tested were from the chapter summaries in the textbook.
Read the assigned readings.
Bell curve is pretty steep, I got about 75% for all 3 assignments and am quite sure I got 57 or 58 questions right and I got a B- overall.
LAK2201: Korean 2
I got a D+ for this module and U-ed it. Didn't put in consistent effort and studied several days before tests. Lectures and tutorials were terrifying and stressful for me as I couldn't keep up.It felt like a huge jump from Korean 1 and lessons are now taught in 95% Korean.
I went on a super fun Language Immersion trip to Korea in Yonsei University during the May-July summer break, so the LPP programme wasn't a complete waste (you don't get to continue in the programme unless you score a C and above).
SSA2215: Biophysical Environment of Singapore
4 Labs: 10% each1 midterm: 10%
Finals: 50%
Even though it says "lab", labs were more like lectures. Just listen to the lecturer talk and take notes, at the end of each lab there'll be an open book quiz which accounts for 10% of your grade. 2nd or 3rd lab was a self guided (own time own target) field trip (go with your groupmates) and answer questions based on the field trip.
The midterm is also 10% but it's not very worth it as it's 100 marks and involves heavy memorisation (fill in the blank passages, 1 or 2 marks for each blank kind of thing).
Format for finals: MCQ, fill in the blanks passages, and 2 essay questions. The first half of the module was more about rocks, geology, etc, whereas the later half was more appealing to me and involved topics like corals, seagrasses, water management in SG and green spaces in SG.
1 essay question for each section of the module.
ES1541: Exploring Science Communication through Popular Science
Felt like I could've done a lot better for this module if I'd put in more effort for the group and class presentations (graded).
Generally an interesting and easy compulsory module for Science Faculty students.
Don't remember the grade percentages.
15/16 Semester 1
I put in more effort and did much better this semester, thankfully, and managed to pull my grades up.
LSM2103: Cell Biology
60% CA
Prof Thilo- Topics: Apoptosis, Cellular basis of ageing, obesity and diabetes, Parkinsons' Disease, cancer
make a video on mitochondria: 12%
draw a diagram explaining a cell signalling pathway: 8%
2 IVLE quizzes
Prof Sudhakar- Topics: Protein sorting and trafficking, nuclear transport
Research paper writing assignment: 10%
1 IVLE quiz
Prof Ee Sin- Topics: Cell cycle (detailed analysis of mitosis and meiosis)
2 IVLE quizzes
all 5 IVLE quizzes take up the rest of the 60% CA grade. One of our quizzes wasn't counted as apparently people 'cheated' by emailing their correct answers to other people. The marks for that quiz ended up not being counted and the grade percentages were upped for 2 latter quizzes.
Final exam: 40%
Final exam was open book and extremely application-based. Your notes wouldn't help you much.
For Prof Sudhakar's portion, again, he tests on the pictures/examples/experiments, so look for the recommended textbook Molecular Biology (Lodish) to read the explanations for the experiments. Pay attention to his tutorial as he drops hints, as much as possible. I feel like he mumbles a lot and I can't catch what he says.
Prof Thilo's portion of the exam: even though he covered many topics he only tested on a single research paper.
Prof Ee Sin's portion: his part was the least application based, but you need to piece together lots of different information from different parts of your notes.
No labs! Hooray.
ST1232: Statistics for Life Sciences
I found this module a relatively easy one compared to CM1401.10 weekly IVLE quizzes: 20%
Mid term: 30%
Final exam: 50%
Cheatsheets allowed for both midterm and finals, one sheet double sided. If you can manage to use one side for midterm then you can continue writing on that piece for your finals cheatsheet. Then again, if you rewrite your cheatsheet you'll get to refresh the concepts.
Do the past year papers Prof Vik gives for finals and email him with questions/consultations. He replies pretty quickly. I remember emailing him on Thursday night and he replied Friday morning at 9am, and there was a consultation going on at 10am for questions regarding the past year papers. There were only a handful of students in the room so I guess we benefited, but not by much because in the finals only one of the questions was repeated and it was a simple one. The tougher questions in the past year papers were not repeated.
CM1401: Chemistry for Life Sciences
4 Physical chemistry IVLE quizzes + 1 survey: 5%Physical chemistry midterm (25 MCQs) : 15%
Organic chemistry open book, physically present IVLE midterm (15 MCQs): 15%
Organic chemistry IVLE quiz (MCQ): 5%
Final exam: 60% (both physical and organic, 30MCQs and open ended questions)
Prof Linda was much better this year as she used worksheets during lectures and I could see how the concepts were applied. I also had her as a tutor for my tutorials this time round and it was much better than the previous semester. I feel like she's incredibly smart but also blur. In the finals a symbol came out in an open ended question that she didn't teach or include in the materials for freshmen, but thankfully I saw the symbol in materials she gave to my batch of students, and was able to do the question. Not sure if that made any difference in my grade as she later sent an email clarifying that the grades would be adjusted accordingly.
This year they switched the organic chemistry professor to a younger one, Fung Fun Man. It was mostly e-learning videos of the topics (filled with his jokes) and no physical lectures, but there were "optional" physical lectures in which he didn't lecture but had mini ungraded quizzes and then went through the solutions. His lectures were interesting and not boring to sit through thanks to the jokes, and it also helps that he's cute and has a nice voice. (haha @ you squirrelman)
This semester I think the department made it easier for us to pass thanks to more MCQs and more continual modes of assessments.
PR1301: Complementary Medicine and Health
2 lectures per week, no labs, no tutorials.Plain memorisation of herbs, techniques, concepts, therapies and whatnot.
Midterm, project and IVLE forum participation: 40%
Final exam (125 MCQs in 2 hours): 60%
The herbs! 28 herbs to remember, names of the herbs, functions, illnesses they treat and contraindications and so on...
Project was to make an A3 sized poster (soft and hard copy) about one of the topics in the module in a group of 3-4 students.
Midterm was open ended, 8 true/false questions, support the answer with a few statements. There was one question which was phrased extremely weird and very misleading.
Final exam: I thought it would be difficult to finish 125 MCQs in 2 hours. That's like less than a minute per question, so you really have to know the content well. In the end I managed to finish it with about 20 minutes to spare as I did the questions as fast as I could.
Bell curve seems to be steep as I thought I did pretty well for finals, but got an average grade.
NM2219: Principles of Communication Management
Taught by Prof Francesca Nathan. I remember seeing her photo in her byline in The Straits Times. She was a journalist previously, which I suppose gives her experience to teach this as a subject and she also gave some examples of her previous career during lectures.Tutorial attendance: 10%
Lecture participation: 10%
3 Group presentations: 10%
10 IVLE questions about unclear concepts in readings: 10%
Midterm (MCQ + short essay): 25%
Finals (MCQ + essays): 35%
IVLE questions: type a question every week on an IVLE assessment on something that you're unclear of in the reading for that week. This format is pretty good as it prepares you for that week's lecture and also keeps you up to date on your readings.
3 group presentations: my group had 6 people so we just split the topics into 3 pairs and thus we only had one topic's worth of work per week, instead of having the whole group work on each topic and having 2 people to present.
I liked the buzz time (videos) during lectures but I didn't like having to discuss and then share during lectures about the videos.
MCQ questions for midterms and finals are kinda tricky.
I was quite thrown off by the weightage of marks for the essay question in finals. 100 marks for the essay question? 35 marks for one part?!
NM3210: Cybercrime and Society
Research paper (groupwork): 20%Group presentation on research paper: 10%
Tutorial attendance: 5%
Reaction papers: 5%
Tutorial participation & debate: 10%
Final exam: 50%
The research paper was to write about a type of cybercrime in an Asian country (but not Singapore). It is marked by your individual portion and the conclusion is a group effort and given a grade as a group.
I thought it would be good to be less stats heavy for presentation but thankfully I didn't get my groupmate to change the presentation as that seemed to be what she was looking out for: she wanted to see stats and various laws in your paper and presentation. Groups that had less data in their presentation got questions from her and slightly lower marks (my groupmate peeked at the mark sheet).
Reaction papers are just reflection papers about that day's tutorial that you had to write and submit at the end of every tutorial. She wants short ones, no more than a page.
For this module there was a game involved: Second Life. It was to replace one of our normal tutorials. We were basically sent on a wild goose chase to search for items to get instructions and finally pinpoint the criminal in the game. And at the end of it all, receive the question for our reaction paper that was to be submitted in hard copy. I spent sooo much time to solve the "mystery" because of learning to navigate in the game, finding the miniscule items, and then realising I could have skipped one of the stages entirely.
For the final exam: 10 MCQs, 30 Short answer questions and 2 essay questions. I could've done better if I'd memorised properly. I wasn't expecting so many SAQs when she said SAQs were involved. I was expecting more MCQs. However, the MCQs asked pretty specific questions like names of organisations etc and I couldn't really remember so I guess that part was good.
The 30 SAQs and 2 essay questions were simply copy and paste questions, all memorisation. 30 SAQs directly from lecture notes. 1 essay from a reading which I thankfully read and had something to write about but wasn't too sure of, the other essay involved a chapter which I didn't study very well. Each essay was 10 marks, but she didn't give much space for us to write- half a page per essay question, meaning one entire page for 2 essay questions. She wanted us to answer like the reaction papers.
This is the end of my incredibly long first post, posting a few more in a bit!
Labels: module reviews, nus