Flunked

Totally flunked my aerodynamics test today but luckily i'm not the only one. I guess i'll be getting at most 3 marks out of the 10 marks, 10% weightage quiz.

I'm not super disappointed after the quiz maybe coz i had half expected it already. If the test is going to be easy, it won't be an open note quiz. My preparations were also quite a half-baked effort.

It is definitely a relief to have ended the quiz though. The test was constantly on the back of my mind since last week coz the module is just so hard and i can't seem to fully understand the numerous concepts.

Had my other elective Science or Fiction: Biology in the Popular Media after the quiz. The module is about enlightening us on the facts and fiction of biology protrayed in the popular media like television and movies.

We had previously watched parts of movies like Fantastic Voyage and Inner Space which involved the anatomy of the body like the pulmonary veins, jugular veins, atrium and ventricles of the heart, lymphatics, stereocilia of the ear, antibodies, etc. The lecturer then discussed the accurate depictions of biological facts as well as some fallacies which they made. CSI episodes were screened the following week which the lecturer discussed the feasibilities of the scientific circumstances involved in cracking the criminal cases with the concepts of DNA and cell biology.

This week was Red Planet and Gattaca which goes in depth into the genes, DNA structure and chromosomes. I'm starting to get lost in the midst of polypeptides, alleles, homozygous, ribosome, introns & exons, mitosis, meioisis, chromotids, etc. Really enjoyed the movie Gattaca though. It is proven by our lecturer as being scientifically relevent as well as an intelligent film. Although i've watched it in the theatres before, i had lost any previous memory of it other than knowing the actors and actresses who acted in the movie.

Taking a break after the stress the past few days.... Not forgetting thermodynamics test in 2 weeks time though.

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Busy Busy Busy

Just returned home from Intro to Black and White Photo which finished at 9 pm! Our prof had been teaching us the techniques on how to develop photos this time. Actually i thought there is a special type of machine to put in the film and print out the photos directly, but it is actually not the case.

The photo paper is actually light sensitive as well. We have to put the film on a projector head where it shines light though, then adjust the height of the projector, adjust the focus, use a magnifying glass mirror to make sure that we can see the grains of the film to confirm it is indeed focused, adjust the easel to fit the photo paper nicely and adjust the width of the frame, set the period of time for the light to shine and set the aperture of the lens of the projector, and finally put the paper on the easel and turn on the projector.

This is just the process of transfering the image to the photo sensitive paper but no image is visible on the paper yet. After the above process, we then transfer the paper onto a tray with developer and 'agitate' it for 2 mins. Next, we transfer the photo paper to a stop bath for 30 seconds. We then transfer it again to a tray of fixer for 2-4 minutes before putting it under running water for 3 minutes.

The photo paper is actually like a bigger version of the film except that the images are inverted in colours. After squelching the photo paper and putting it through a drying machine, voila.... the photo is developed.

Actually before developing the photo that we want, we have to make contact print of the negatives so that we can properly see which photos that we want to print. 1 photo paper costs around $0.70 so we must choose a good photo properly or else our money will be going down the drain.

We cut the photo paper into 3 parts to do a test print to test the amount of time required to expose the photo paper and the aperture of the lens of the projector. We expose the photo paper in layers of increasing 5 seconds, the lighter portions being the layers exposed to light with less time while the darker portions are exposed for a longer period of time.

We then consult the professor on what timing is required for the photo to be exposed and a good gauge is to see whether the black in our photo is indeed black and not greyish tone.

Test prints

After doing the test prints, we proceeded to do the full sized contact print to choose and see all the photos that we have taken.

Contact Print

After choosing the photo that we want, we do the test print of the photo using the projector. After deciding on the timing of exposure for the photo, we then do the actual print of the photo that we have chosen.

Finished product!

While doing the final print, i accidentally exposed a photo paper with some of the projector light while i was putting the paper in. One photo paper gone to waste just because of a little mistake. I tried exposing the wasted photo paper with another film negative just to see how the photo paper will turn out to be like.

Wasted photo paper (notice the faint image of my dog and the gates)

During all these while, we were operating in the darkroom and the lights were all turned off except for the safe lights. It was rather dark but we can still navigate around the room with the safe light.

This elective is my most interesting, but most intensive, and most expensive module that i have ever taken. I have spent $45 on 10 rolls of film, $34 on 50 photo papers, $10 on the negative sleeves, and $28.50 on the photography textbook. We have to develop the film, develop the photo paper, and shoot photos with our SLRs in our own free time! That means about 10 hours or more devoted to this module every week!

Gotta study for my aerodynamics quiz tomorrow! I've got little time to spare.

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Hong Kong Trip: Hong Kong Day 4 (Part 1)

Day 4: Hong Kong (23/12/06)

We woke up at around 8.30 am and were raring to go by 9.15 am. We headed to Tsim Sha Tsui via the MTR and walked around looking for some nice eateries. However, there are much lesser eateries there compared to Mongkok, where we are staying. We seem to be walking without any hope of finding a nice place to have our breakfast and we decided to ask a hotel for some recommendations of good food. They told us that there is a nice restaurant in the vicinity called Serenade Restaurant which is located at Hong Kong Cultural Centre along the habourfront.

We headed there via the directions they provided and finally got ourselves a place where we can have our breakfast. We ordered 2 rounds of dim sum and several main dishes, and we were all full by then. The quality of the dim sum is not bad but not as great as the people have proclaimed.

Dim Sum @ Serenade Restaurant


A picture outside the restaurant

The meal costs about $15 per pax due to the expensive and central location of the restaurant. We proceeded to take a walk along Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront.

Victoria Habour with a boat in the center


Five of us with the habour view

We then took the MTR from Tsim Sha Tsui station to Lai King Station and transfered to Tung Chung Line from Lai King to Sunny Bay, and finally transfered to Disneyland Resort Line from Sunny Bay to Disneyland Resort Station. Along the MTR, i read the local news regarding the Singaporean blogger Wee Shu Min and it discusses the income gap creating social rifts in the society. Click here to view the news of Singaporean 'elite' blogger Wee Shu Min in Hong Kong newspaper.

Disneyland Resort Train (Not the same as the other MTR trains)


In the train leading to Disneyland Resort (check out the cute mickey hand grabs)

At the Disneyland Station, some of us including me rushed out of the train to find the ticket booth to buy the entrance fee into Disneyland so that we will not be at the back of the queue as there are quite a lot of people in the train. However, the ticket booths are quite far from the station and seeing that no one seems to be rushing to buy tickets, we walked with our normal pace into the resort. Can't help the typical Singaporean kiasu spirit in us. :)

The tickets in different characters


At the entrance of Disneyland Resort


Nice building near the entrance

There are many quaint looking European styled buildings along the main street and the pavements are squeaky clean. Everything is so tidy and organised within the resort premises. The ticket price is a whopping $70 dollars though.

Our first stop is Tomorrowland. We proceeded to take a ride on the go-kart.

Tomorrowland


Astronauts!


While waiting in the queue for go-kart

We queued up for about 30 minutes as there are a lot of people waiting to ride the go-kart. The go-kart is totally for kids as the maximum speed is only around 15 km/h. There are also guide tracks to prevent the go-karts from knocking against the side walls or falling over the edge. I wasn't steering the go-kart at all and it was knocking the sides of the guide tracks repeatedly as the ride was just too tame and i wanted to get more action out from it. The go-karts are brand new and ultra shiny though.

The colourful go-karts

We proceeded to take the ride in the Space Mountain next.

Space Mountain

We queued up for another 20 minutes and there are repeated video annoucements warning people that the ride is a high speed, high-octance thrill ride. I have serious doubts about the credibility of the words 'high-speed' and 'high-octane' they used to describe the ride after the dull go-kart ride.

We were seated on the tram in the dark building and it's initial speed is quite fast. I had previously low expectations for this ride and it surpassed my expectations. The tram was racing around the dark building and the descent was at quite a high speed. We jerked from left to right and right to left whenever the tram made a turn.

A satisfying thrill ride and our hair were a bit messy when we stepped out of the tram. The speed was good but the angle of descent could have been adjusted to a greater degree though. Took a snap of the photo shown at the exit which was taken during the ride.

A shot of a moment during the Space Mountain ride


A souvenir shop opposite Space Mountain

To be continued....

End of Part 1 (9 am to 2 pm)

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At Home

I'm down with flu and cough over the past few days and hopefully i'll get better soon. Been studying for the aerodynamics quiz today and clarified some facts which is not bad considering the tough nature of this module but i still can't get the Navier-Strokes equation. Much more memorising work and understanding need to be pumped into my brain.

Been researching on Vietnam trip almost the whole day yesterday as i didn't have the mood and motivation to study.

Ha Long Bay (Vietnam)

This picture above is extracted from a travelblog website. Ha Long Bay is listed as one of UNESCO World Heritage sites. Click here to view the itinerary that i have planned. Should be heading there from mid june to early july.

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Developing film

I had my make-up elective Intro to Black and White Photography as the lesson last week was postponed to today.

Today's session was on developing films and we all had already taken a roll of film on our SLRs. I had taken some shots of the historic buildings around City Hall and the rest are mainly around my house and NTU as we only had 3 days to finish taking 1 roll.

Each of us have a small covered tent for us to uncap the negative film cover, cut the starting portion of the unused film, transfer the film to a roll winder, wind up the film on the roll winder, fix the roll winder stem and hook to secure the winder in place, transfer the roll into a container, and lastly screw on the container cover and cap it. ALL THESE STEPS ARE DONE BY FEELING ONLY! The covered small tent has 2 tight hand pockets to place our hands inside and we can only feel everything with our hands without seeing anything inside the tent after we placed all the equipment inside and zipped it up. It is because the film cannot be exposed to any form of light after we have taken it out from the film cover.

I started at around the same time as everyone but more and more people finished the 'tent' work while i'm still struggling with the film and the roll winder. I winded the film and it became very tight soon after and the winder seemed to jam up everytime. I would push my limits by winding more and more until i can feel the negative crumpling. I tried to release it a bit to no avail and i had to start all over again by separating the roll winder.

Stress and impatience got to me soon after and i cannot seem to join up the 2 portions of the roll winder. I pulled my hands out from the pockets and got a new roll winder inside the tent by pushing it into the hand pockets. The same thing happened while my hands were inside the tent and i guess my frustration had overcome my concentration.

Ys tried helping me after he finished rolling his film to no avail as well. The roller grew tighter and tighter and eventually crumpled the reel as a result. I returned to try and roll the darn reel while getting more and more demoralised seeing that i'm one of the last few people who still haven't got the job done yet.

We were not supposed to touch the middle of the film but i got tons of fingerprints and some sweat from my hands all over it due to my many attempts. After heeding some advice from the people who had completed the task, i decided to start from the other side of the film.

After cutting off the small plastic roll at the other end of the film, i proceeded to roll the film with much more ease and less restrictions of movements of the winder. Finally after close to an hour, i had completed the first stage of developing the film.

Next, we followed the professor to the lab area while she introduced us to the numerous steps and stages of the developing process. First, we have to mix 120 ml of developer into 480 ml of 20 degrees celcius of water. We also have to prepare the soft bath and the fixer in beakers as well. We then went into the enclosed darkroom via a black turning dial and it was bright inside. I guess i have figure out what type of light they use inside. With the instructions and help of the lab assistant, we poured the mixture into our containers containing our films for 6 minutes while 'agitating' the film every 30 seconds by shaking the container gently. After pouring away the mixture, our next step is adding the stop bath for 30 seconds. The adding of the fixer for 4 minutes is the final step to fix colours and prevent the remaining light sensitive material to react with light.

We then put the roll of film in running water for 30 minutes and repeatedly dipped the roll of film in a solution for 30 seconds before squelching the wet film between our fingers. We then clipped the ends of the films before hooking them in a hot cabinet to dry the films. We took our dry films out of the cabinet after 30 minutes and cut the films carefully into several strips to put them into the negative plastic sleeves.

Voila! The entire developing film process is done. We wrapped up at 9 pm and examined our films with a magnifying glass on a light emitting machine. Sadly, my film is in a terrible state with scratch marks, fingerprints, and a portion of film (7 photos) which is all black. I guess the overexposure must be due to the repeated taking of hands in and out of the covered tent which caused some light to accidentally shine into the tent.

Hope that my next developing process will be much smoother and the negatives turn out blemish-free.

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Hong Kong Trip: Shenzhen Day 3 (Part 4)

Continuing the tour of Window of the World....

Great Pyramids of Giza (Eygpt)


Grand Canyon (USA)


Mount Rushmore (South Dakota) & Parliament House (Washington D.C.)


New York City (USA) (Notice World Trade Centre behind me)


The ruins of the ancient Mayan Empire (Central America)

Soon after, the sky turned dark and the lightings were switched on.

Eiffel Tower with the new year greetings


Arc de Triomphe (Paris)


The front view of Eiffel Tower


Arc De Triomphe, the flowers, and us


An exquisite-looking European building (souvenir shop inside)

It was 7 pm by the time we left the tourist attraction and took a number of photos outside as well. Only the Louvre is situated outside the complex.

The night view of the entrance


Louvre (Paris)

We were feeling hungry and decided to have dinner at KFC as it is the nearest eatery outside Window of the World. We then took the metro to Lao Jie Station for shopping as Dong Men Walking Street is above the station.

The advanced signboard to guide passengers on their exact location and the route of the train

Shenzhen Metro and Hong Kong MTR & KCR are more advanced compared to Singapore's MRT as they have light indicators to show which side of the door is opening, light indicators to show the next station, and louder speaker systems to make sure everyone can hear the announcements before every station.

We walked around Dong Men Walking Street and there are quite a lot of shopping centres and shopping streets. The shopping scene is bustling but has fewer people compared to the incredibly packed and the immensely crowded Hong Kong shopping districts.

A shot of the main street

Most of us bought some clothings except me as i did not have anything much to buy. The clothings and food are all rather cheap though. Edwin got an 'Oakley' bag that is almost identical to the much more expensive original for around (S$30). Jim and Gs got a pair of soccer jersey shorts and set respectively, while Shiqi got a pair of shoes. We also bought some cheap socks for only (S$0.20) a pair as some of us did not bring sufficient pairs of socks.

We got ourselves bubble tea for only (S$0.40) although the taste is not as good as the bubble tea i drank in Hong Kong. Some of the shops started closing after 9.30 pm and we decided that it is almost time to head back to Hong Kong. After browsing some more shops and asking for the directions back to the metro, we headed back to Lo Wu Station.

After crossing the customs, it was another 40 minutes ride on the train back to Mongkok Station. We reached our Dragon Hostel at around 11.30 pm and we were all rather tired from the walking and travelling all day long.

End of Part 4 (5.30 pm to 12.30 am)

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Super busy semester ahead

Just attended my first session of Intro to Black and White Photo yesterday (as the lecturer was overseas last week) and the intensive workload adds to my already extremely busy semester with weekly outdoor photo shoots which is not within the school timetable.

My Tuesdays end at 8.30 pm, my Wednesdays end at 7.30 pm, while the rest of the days end at an average of 4.30 pm. There is a technical communication project (abstract, proposal, report, presentation), there are 2 chim aerospace design projects that requires the use of SolidWorks and CAD/CAM, there is a formal lab report that should be at least 20 pages, there are 4 horrible tutorials that need to be done every week, and finally there is a presentation and report on a renowned photographer for my elective Intro to Black & White Photography. To add to this crazy workload is to understand Maths 4, Aerodynamics and parts of Thermodynamics.

I have got to shoot my roll of film by Friday as there will be a make-up lesson and the film has to be purchased specially from Peninsular Hotel Shopping Complex.

On a happier note, we get to use the SLRs and brought a Nikon film camera (on loan) home. The elective is interesting but it will take up quite a lot of my free time. We also have to spend money on the textbook on photography, film rolls, negative holders, brush and photo paper.

Aerodynamics quiz is next wednesday. I feel like dying already..........

My weekends are all gone from this week onwards.

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Oscar Nominations!

Complete list of the 79th Annual Academy Award nominations

1. Best Picture: "Babel," "The Departed," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Queen."

2. Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, "Blood Diamond"; Ryan Gosling, "Half Nelson"; Peter O'Toole, "Venus"; Will Smith, "The Pursuit of Happyness"; Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland."

3. Actress: Penelope Cruz, "Volver"; Judi Dench, "Notes on a Scandal"; Helen Mirren, "The Queen"; Meryl Streep, "The Devil Wears Prada"; Kate Winslet, "Little Children."

4. Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin, "Little Miss Sunshine"; Jackie Earle Haley, "Little Children"; Djimon Hounsou, "Blood Diamond"; Eddie Murphy, "Dreamgirls"; Mark Wahlberg, "The Departed."

5. Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza, "Babel"; Cate Blanchett, "Notes on a Scandal"; Abigail Breslin, "Little Miss Sunshine"; Jennifer Hudson, "Dreamgirls"; Rinko Kikuchi, "Babel."

6. Directing: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, "Babel"; Martin Scorsese, "The Departed"; Clint Eastwood, "Letters From Iwo Jima"; Stephen Frears, "The Queen"; Paul Greengrass, "United 93."

7. Foreign Language Film: "After the Wedding," Denmark; "Days of Glory (Indigenes)," Algeria; "The Lives of Others," Germany; "Pan's Labyrinth," Mexico; "Water," Canada.

8. Adapted Screenplay: Sacha Baron Cohen and Anthony Hines and Peter Baynham and Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips, "Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"; Alfonso Cuaron and Timothy J. Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, "Children of Men"; William Monahan, "The Departed"; Todd Field and Tom Perrotta, "Little Children"; Patrick Marber, "Notes on a Scandal."

9. Original Screenplay: Guillermo Arriaga, "Babel"; Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis, "Letters From Iwo Jima"; Michael Arndt, "Little Miss Sunshine"; Guillermo del Toro, "Pan's Labyrinth"; Peter Morgan, "The Queen."

10. Animated Feature Film: "Cars," "Happy Feet," "Monster House."

11. Art Direction: "Dreamgirls," "The Good Shepherd," "Pan's Labyrinth," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "The Prestige."

12. Cinematography: "The Black Dahlia," "Children of Men," "The Illusionist," "Pan's Labyrinth," "The Prestige."

13. Sound Mixing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Dreamgirls," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

14. Sound Editing: "Apocalypto," "Blood Diamond," "Flags of Our Fathers," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."

15. Original Score: "Babel," Gustavo Santaolalla; "The Good German," Thomas Newman; "Notes on a Scandal," Philip Glass; "Pan's Labyrinth," Javier Navarrete; "The Queen," Alexandre Desplat.

16. Original Song: "I Need to Wake Up" from "An Inconvenient Truth," Melissa Etheridge; "Listen" from "Dreamgirls," Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler and Anne Preven; "Love You I Do" from "Dreamgirls," Henry Krieger and Siedah Garrett; "Our Town" from "Cars," Randy Newman; "Patience" from "Dreamgirls," Henry Krieger and Willie Reale.

17. Costume: "Curse of the Golden Flower," "The Devil Wears Prada," "Dreamgirls," "Marie Antoinette," "The Queen."

18. Documentary Feature: "Deliver Us From Evil," "An Inconvenient Truth," "Iraq in Fragments," "Jesus Camp," "My Country, My Country."

19. Documentary (short subject): "The Blood of Yingzhou District," "Recycled Life," "Rehearsing a Dream," "Two Hands."

20. Film Editing: "Babel," "Blood Diamond," "Children of Men," "The Departed," "United 93."

21. Makeup: "Apocalypto," "Click," "Pan's Labyrinth."

22. Animated Short Film: "The Danish Poet," "Lifted," "The Little Matchgirl," "Maestro," "No Time for Nuts."

23. Live Action Short Film: "Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)," "Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)," "Helmer & Son," "The Saviour," "West Bank Story."

24. Visual Effects: "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "Poseidon," "Superman Returns."

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Nominations Tally (Reuters - Jan 23, 06:07)

"Dreamgirls," a musical drama inspired by Motown group the Supremes, scored a leading eight Oscar nominations, but was omitted from the coveted best picture and directing categories, organizers said on Tuesday.

"Babel," a bold examination of the woes afflicting humanity in the early 21st century, followed with seven nominations, followed by Spanish-language adult fairy tale "Pan's Labyrinth" and the British royals drama "The Queen," with six each.

The mob thriller "The Departed" and the Africa-set drama "Blood Diamond" picked up five nominations each.

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Hong Kong Trip: Shenzhen Day 3 (Part 3)

We continued walking around the miniaturized wonders of the world in Window of the World.

Buckingham Palace (London)


Big Ben (London)


St Basil's Cathedral (Moscow)


Blue Mosque (Istanbul)


Big Teapot in ???? (Someplace in Middle East)


Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italy); I'm pushing it slanted!


White Houses in a white town (Someplace in Europe??)


Some nice-looking buildings in Europe


Notre Dame Cathedral (Paris)


Lovely quaint building


We are on top of a tiny bridge!


Windmills (Netherlands)


Nice castle surrounded by a moat (The temperate trees in the background are nice too)

Are we in Egypt?

Unfortunately, we cannot remember all of the names of the less famous monuments or buildings that we have taken photos with. There are so many wonders of the world inside the tourist attraction and the memory in our sd & xd cards were rapidly reducing. We were also walking briskly from places to places as the sun is setting soon and we still have some areas that we have not explored.

To be continued...

End of Part 3 (4.30 to 5.30 pm)

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