Sunday.

The Olympics are over by a week and for most of us I think life has probably somewhat returned to normal.

I’ve been waiting for the results for the course I did during the summer semester, and somehow I think the way that CityU releases results is quite strange. It announced that results are available from 27th August, but up till today I still haven’t got them. I called the various departments and the answer I got was that results are available for viewing from 27th, but it doesn’t mean that they definitely would be available. Individual departments may delay their announcements, and there’s nothing the academic registration office can do about. I thought that was a bit weird, as most people would expect the results would be available when the date of release is announced, and even if results would be released late, I’m sure not many people would expect the results to be still unreleased 5 days after the scheduled date. And according to whoever that I spoke to, it’s actually even possible that the results won’t be released until mid-September.

Sometimes things like these make me appreciate NUS much more, really.

Olympics.

This weekend has been a wonderful one. First of all, a long weekend that wasn’t planned:

It was the first time in my life that I have really experienced a typhoon signal 9. To be honest, at times it does feel a bit scary when the wind was so strong. But at least it did give me an opportunity to watch a bit of Olympics.

But of course, today was the end of the Olympic Games, and I am beginning to wonder what’s there to be done after the games are over. It’s like, there’s no more games on TV, no more chasing after the scores, no more wondering if Phelps is going to win his next mdeal, no more whining about how Singaporeans don’t treasure their medal winners and insist that they should be born in Singapore… oh man, life is of such emptiness after the Olympics are over. Damn.

Olympics are over. Oh dear.

Olympics.

The biggest story of the day here in Hong Kong has to be Liu Xiang pulling out from the 110m hurdles. Every headline of every newspaper was covering the story, and then there are people with tonnes of conspiracy theories saying that he withdrew because he was afraid to lose, or he was under the orders of the Politburo to withdraw because it is deemed too much of a lose-face thing if he did not win the gold medal, etc, etc… Sometimes I wonder, are there really so many conspiracies in this world? He’s injured, he has to withdraw, end of story – at least that’s for me. It’s a shame that we wouldn’t have the chance to see him grace the tracks this Olympics, but I guess things like that do happen, don’t they?

Shame that we can’t see Liu Xiang flying down the track this Olympics. But I’m sure he’ll be back.

And then there are some Singaporeans who are upset that Singapore won the silver medal in the women’s table tennis competition, citing that the players were all born in China so the medal really isn’t Singapore’s. I mean, how myopic can Singaporeans be! If they are so against people like Li Jiawei or Wang Yuegu to be representing Singapore, then why don’t they send their Singapore-born kids to play table tennis? And if that happens, they’d better keep their mouth shut if they get shut out by opponents 11-0, 11-0, 11-0 and not complain about our athletics being not up to standard. The whole deal is, when these foreign atheletes take up Singapore citizenship, I’m very sure they represent Singapore with all of their hearts. And this scheme works both ways – when the Singapore team is winning, people will be more interested in the sports, and subsequently increase their participation. Nobody would want to be associated with a losing team, would there? So I’m perfectly happy with Li Jiawei representing Singapore (she’s been in Singapore for the past 13 years already and people still choose to remember that she’s born in China rather than being trained in Singapore, FFS), and I think it’s an equally happy moment for me to see an athlete representing Singapore, regardless of where he or she may be born in, winning something for his or her adopted homeland.

Li Jiawei – winning the silver medal for Singapore in the women’s table tennis team competition. Kudos to her, Yuegu and Tianwei for bring home an Olympics medal. I’m sure Tan Howe Liang, the last Singaporean who’s won a medal in the Olympics Games, would be delighted as well.

Hey, did anyone even make noise about the Lions winning the Southeast Asian Football Championship twice in a row? Daniel Bennett weren’t born in Singapore, y’know. Or is it because Li Jiawei was born in China that’s why this lot of foreign-talent-bashers hate her so much?

To be absolutely honest, it’s really difficult to dislike Li Jiawei. She’s good in what she does (ranked 6th in the world), she’s cute and she’s born on the Singapore National Day – what more can you ask for?

Li Jiawei – just how can anyone not like her?
Image: Singapore Table Tennis Association

HDTV.

I’m still being marvelled by the excellent quality of high definition TV. It’s almost like watching TV has become watching art pieces. Even playing on the PS3 is much more fun nowadays with the HDMI cable. Sometimes I think I’m just a junkie for these kind of technology gadgets. That said, the iPhone just doesn’t seem to set my heart pumping.

My notebook is giving me a bit of problems today, and I spent quite a bit of time looking after it. When I was on IE, this irritating malware is always instigating me to download and install it, so much so I got so irritated that I downloaded a copy of Firefox. Then now Firefox keeps crashing on me. It’s not fun trying to spend hours running spyware checks, examining registry entries, etc, to try to clean up a PC.

I should have just stuck to my Mac, FFS.

Olympics in HD.

The past week was all about preparation for the New Student Orientation, and now that it’s over, I think I finally would have a bit of free time here and there.

I’ve finally gotten my HDTV set up and now I can watch the Olympic Games in high definition! The whole deal about HD is that the picture quality is indeed much better than the conventional analog technology. The pictures are sharper, and I think even the sound is better too. Fascinating.

I’ve signed a new contract yesterday, meaning that I’m going to stay in HKBU for another year. Most of the terms and conditions of the contract are similar to the last one, so I don’t think I’m complaining. Haha.

I think I still need sleep.

Typhoon Signal 8.

I woke up this morning and realized that the typhoon signal 8 had been hoisted – meaning that I didn’t have to go to work (at least for the duration that it was being hoisted). But because my sister was actually due to fly back to Singapore this morning, she was a bit upset about the typhoon, thinking that it might disrupt her flight. For a start, all bus services were stopped, meaning that she can’t be taking the airport bus, so in the end she had to take a cab to the train station, and then took the train to the airport. Oh well, weather is really unpredictable.

For some reason I was feeling very tired, so when I was back home after seeing my sister off to take a cab, I went straight back to sleep. I woke up at about 1 for my lunch (ended up I could going go to the supermarket and get some microwavable food). Because it was kind of cool outside with the heavy wind, I went back to sleep again, waking up occasionally to check if the typhoon signal 8 has been lowered. The deal is that if the signal 8 has been lowered, we would have to go back to work, provided that the office hours of that day is not going to be over by the time we reach office. So when the signal 8 remained hoisted at 4.30, I was quite relieved as it technically meant that I didn’t have to go back to work! I happily continued my sleep.

To be absolutely honest, there were supposedly quite a few things that I need to be doing in office, but I don’t think anyone would complain with an unexpected day off in such a way. Of course that would mean more work to be done tomorrow! But at least I know I’ve gotten quite a bit of rest today, so I should have more energy for tomorrow!

Typhoon.

A typhoon suddenly built up yesterday and today the typhoon signal 3 was hoisted – I think it’s a good change from the hot weather that has been wrapping Hong Kong for the past couple of days. Come to think about it, I think this year has not been as hot as it was last year. So perhaps it’s a good change. Anyway, there are still a lot of things to do at office, and hopefully once the orientation period is over I could have a good break. There are a lot of places that I want to go and do, and I hope to have the time to do it once this “difficult” period.

Quite a few things on my mind, but I haven’t really been able to get down to really think about them seriously. Busy life.

Busy.

The past couple of days have been extremely busy for me. Well, it’s that time of the year – university orientation!

Unlike my student days, where there isn’t really a so-called official orientation period organized by the university, we at BU are now planning and cracking our brains for the upcoming orientation days. At the same time, the past few days were the registration days for the freshmen, and there seemed to be a million and one things that I have to be looking after.

Anyway the next two weeks or so look to be equally busy, and I think the only time when I can really take a breather would be September – I hope to be able to go for my Japan trip then!