ARGH!!!

Annoying, annoying, annoying, annoying!!!!!

I've been staring at the same question for my graph theory applications homework for the past half hour and the problem does not seem to vanish from the question paper! Why didn't I have the power to glare away difficult questions?!

Argh!!!!

I feel so stupid sometimes. More so now that I'm in university than ever. University just makes me feel dumb. I look at those questions and I start to wonder if there was something wrong with my understanding capabilities. Why can't I seem to understand what the stuff is talking about? It doesn't help that these academic stuff seem to like to drown students in gallons of technical jargon and weird greek symbols.

Really, these people have to start to realise that the rest of the world is speaking english!

Its not just graph theory, but everything else too! I had gotten back the results for my latest prob and stats test and it was pretty bad. I don't think that it was a consolation that the test was just a "bonus" and that it didn't matter as long as one did well for the finals. Not when I happen to see a guy scoring 47/50 for the test, which was supposed to be difficult. And upon review of the answers, I realised that I didn't understand the concepts as well as I thought I had.

Argh... Seriously, I feel dumb...

The other modules, operating systems and digital photography, are still okay. Not like I am flunking them, but neither am I ace-ing them.

Was it a problem with my focus, or was it because I am not studying hard enough for it? Perhaps it was my study habits. I should start to reviewing the lectures everyday... Start to evolve into a total geek...

Dear all,

you are gathered today for the demise of the once fun-loving and vivacious Ho Jie Hui. She has vowed henceforth to become a total geek, devoting all her time to her studies and letting nothing come between her and her books except food, drinks, the occasional toilet breaks and Gintama.

With her evolution, it would not be surprising to see her sport thick glasses, messy hair with several bald spots (due to the excessive pulling of hair when frustrated) and a bad tea-breath from all the cups of tea that she consumes.

Let us take a quiet moment to reflect on the lost moments where she allowed you to annoy her because she had the time to be annoyed. Now, she would just be annoyed at her books. Joy to all who will be saved from her annoyance.

Amen.

:-D

Ahh... that feels much better. Hey, blogging (or whining about personal stuff) really does wonders for one's mood. Sigh... Back to staring at the next question of the homework. Damn...

Yvoire

After working hard (or trying not to play too much ;-D) I decided to join my friends to a trip to France again. This time, it was on a tour, with a bunch of students, to the medival city of Yvoire.

Yvoire (yee-vo-ahr) is situated on the banks of Lake Geneva, which means it is about 2 hours of a leisure boat ride from Lausanne's Ouchy harbour. For 30 Fr, it was a pretty good deal. The trip included the transport to and fro with a guided tour of the city. Instead of saying that it is a city, it is more like a village that is really a tourist destination. Tourism is definitely the main trade there, as could be seen by the many shops selling really touristy stuff like toys or souvenirs.

One can certainly see how Yvoire got its reputation as one of "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France", or the most beautiful villages of France. It has a picturesque view of Lake Geneva and the buildings there are small and quiant (read: restored for tourism) and has a chateau, a garden and a church that are of tourist interest. Unfortunately, we did not visit any of these 3 places. :-p Well, it wasn't due to the lack of trying. For some reason that I did not catch (because the tour was conducted in French) the chateau seemed to be off limits and the garden had an entrance fee of 7.50 euros. Since all of us were not really interested in flowers and that we had only 1 hour left to explore, we decided to skip it. I think the flowers all around the village is impressive enough.

Indeed, you can really tell that spring is here. Not just the presence of the blooming flowers, but also from the swarms of flies that seem to decide on congregating in the village today. Maybe swarms was an ovverstatement, but the flies were definitely a nuisance. The absence of most insects is a definite plus for winter.

Moving on, the town of Yvoire has 2 ports and fishing seemed to be the number 2 dominant industry, after tourism. I didn't really understand what the tour guide was saying, but it seemed that in the middle ages, a duke realised the stategic position of Yvoire and decided to fortify the area in order to secure the lake for some battle. And thus, strong walls and the chateau could seen, restored to its formal glory as I believe, from its past disuse.

One could see that the French people took pride in preserving the place, even if it was only for tourism. The flowers looked very well taken of, the streets were clean, fountains of portable water were around. Even the medieval houses that are now shops and restaurants are all well preserved, with most windows having a trough of flowers adorning it.

Makes me think about Singapore. Sigh, due to the space constraints and the turnover rate of buildings, it is a miracle that we even have a building, not to mention several buildings, that are well preserved and still in use. I guess its because the usefulness of the buildings in a cultural and commercial sense (more commercial than cultural, perhaps) outweighs the costs of maintaining and replacing them with newer ones.

Anyway, picture time:
A monument for some war, I think, outside the tourism office. Note how the tulips are in bloom.
Tulips seem to be the favourite flower here.
The entrance to the village proper.
The chateau of Yvoire, as captured from over the head of an unknown guy.

Just a disclaimer: It is not that I like France in particular. I would LOVE to go to another country but it seems that just nice France is the closest country that I can go to without taking too much time to travel.

Anyway, I am planning for a trip to Budapest, Prague and Vienna with some friends for early next month, before the exams (I like to live dangerously... Or not...) That's 3 countries in a shot. Ha. Looking forward to it! Especially since I heard that one could get a good meal in Budapest for like 5 euros!

Definitely looking forward to some meat. MEAT!!! I can finally afford to eat decent meat then!!!
Not frozen, not in the form of some mashed up burger, but really SLABS of steak dripping with awesome-ness!

Ok, I better end the post here before I salivate all over my keyboard.

Ciao~!

Pictures Galore

Sorry to take so long in posting the pictures. I had been busy studying for another test. Now that it is over (don't ask how it went...), I have a little time on my hands. So, here are the pictures!

Here are the three friends whom I travelled with. From left, Jessica, Esther and Felicia.
This is a park in France, near the Notre Dame.
This is outside a cathedrale that was closed in Cannes.
At Palais Longchamp in Marseilles
Some one was giving out free dessert as a promotion to their product. Free food means second helpings s'il vous plait!! :-D
A very cool picture of me taken by Esther. I look positively murderous!! :-D Watch out. Don't annoy me or I'll knock your head with my deadly camera and slap your face with my painful maps!

A quick break between studies

I have forgotten how nice it was to have a shower without worrying that my teeth would shatter from excessive chattering...

Aftermath of the France Trip

Hi!

Did you guys enjoy the Chronicles of France? Hope you guys didn't strain your eyes too much when reading those entries.

Anyway, I did promise to write about the weather before I left for France but I didn't have time, so let me make up by writing one now.

The weather in Lausanne is much warmer now. I can store the huge winter coat that I have and just wear the seater I have when I go out. However, the temperature can still get pretty cold sometimes, like the past 2 days where it had been raining.

We are in the transititon from winter to spring, although its now more spring than winter. The flowers are blooming and the birds are all coming out. Yea... Its definitely spring when the insects are out to bug you.

The trees were still bare and ugly when I left for France but after a few weeks, the leaves have grown back (and I realised that they were the same trees that I saw in France) and the neighbourhood seemed to have gotten more colourful.
This picture was taken just after I returned so the trees looked a little nicer.

Anyway, I had gotten back my results for the midterms. It turned out that I had not done as badly as I had thought I would get. Whew... The teacher was really very lenient in his marking (I think...) and so I got 58/78 (don't ask me why it had such a weird denomination) which is about 74%. Not too bad, but the average for the test was 80% (10 people got 100%... What the hell...) so I had gotten a little below average. But that grade seemed to be common, since the passing mark is 66% (or 4 out of 6 points).

Here, I don't have to worry about the bell curve, but I have to at least score 66% for a pass. Easier said than done... I'm trying. Its definitely not easy, but its attainable, something like the workload in NUS, except that its much easier since I don't have to make time for work and tuition.

Oh yea, I can post up the group pictures of me and my friends from the France Trip so I'll be doing that pretty soon.

See u ard!

How to read the Chronicles of France

Dear people,

I have completed the Chronicles of France.
Unfortunately, I don't know how to post it such that the first book would appear right at the top.
As such, here is what I am going to do:
Click on the books below and it will jump to the proper pages so that you can read in order.

Book 1

Book 2

Book 3

Book 4

Book 5

At the bottom of each book is also a link to the next book, so you can read it all in one shot though I wouldn't recommend it as it would be too hard on your eyes...

Have fun!!

Last Book of the Chronicles of France

Yay! Rejoice! We are at the last book of the Chronicles of France. 2 more days to go. Are you having a caffine high? Really, stay away from coffee. They leave your breath smelling bad.

Again, a gentle reminder to read this in a well lit room, with the screen 50 cm away from your eyes and turn off all your beeping devices!! (:-D)

Day 8 of the France Trip

I wasn't in the best of moods after being shocked awake so early in the morning, but since this was a vacation, my normal mood returned pretty quickly, after breakfast and a cup of hot chocolate at a roadside cafe. :-D I love doing that in France, especially in front of beautiful buildings. Its so frenchy...

We walked along the streets of Marseille and just explored the city since there were very little attractions to see. But, not before visiting some places that looked promising.

We wanted to go to Chateau d'If, the french version of Azkaban, opps, I meant Alcatraz. :-D
However, due to bad weather conditions, all the boats were not heading to the Chateau. And I quote the lady selling the boat tickets: "La mer, c'est ça" (the sea is like this) and her hand mimics the rolling wave action.

The port at Marseille is supposed to be busy with fishmongers with their fresh catch, but when we went there, it was pretty quiet. Perhaps we were too early... So, with our main attraction, Chateau d'If downfor the count, we had to go to the other places. So...

First, took a bus to the oldest abbey in Marseille, the abbey of Saint Victor, and took a look around. While there, we took a stroll (or rather, we got a little lost) around the area and saw this bakery that was famous for their navettes. Navette is a type of pastry that is supposed to be a Marseille specialty. I didn't buy my navettes from that store because it was so expensive! They were like 8 for 12 euros! No way!! So I bought the next best option, cookies. Haha... Anyway, while strolling along much later, I found another shop that sells navettes at a much affordable price, and so, I bought like 8 of them for 5 euros. So much cheaper right!!! But then I might just be paying for the brand and the packaging if I had bought at the first store.

Next, we went to the Notre Dame de la Garde, which was a really cool basilica. It is dedicated to Mother Mary with the aspect of her as the Lady for sailers and voyagers and so it has those marine crests around the basilica. Then, we to the Palais Longchamp, a really cool and magnificent place, actually, more like the facade of a palace, that had a huge fountain and really majestic columns. Great for pictures!

The Notre DameMe and the Notre Dame

Palais LongchampCloseup of the main guy in the fountain

After all those running around, we finally settled down and just took a seat at the opening of the port and watched the setting sun.

Day 9 of the France Trip

We checked out of the crappy hotel as early as we could and boarded the train to Lyon, making sure that we did not miss the train like the previous time. In the end, we were about 40 minutes early for the train. Ah well, more time for me to study...

We had breakfast at Macdonald's at the train station after before boarding the train to Lyon. It was my FIRST time eating Macdonald's in Europe. I hadn't even ate Macs in Switzerland cos it was SO expensive. But then when we saw the price for the brunch menu, it was really reasonable, 6 euros for a burger, a yougurt, 2 pancakes, a tea and an orange juice. I know, if you translate into SGD, it would be about 12 dollars and its insane to pay such prices for breakfast. But hey, we are in Europe, and 6 euros is really really decent for such stuff already.

So anyway, Lyon. Lyon was nice...

After checking into the hotel, we decided to chill a little in the nice hotel room and decide on our destinations. But the first destination that we have to head to was the tourism office.

Its like a habit. Once you get to the next town, locate the nearest tourism office to get a map and a transport pass, if needed. Maps are essential to travellers. I've lost count of the number of maps that I took from this trip. Many of them are pretty torn up by the time we left the city.

At the tourism office, we bought a city pass for the next day and I bought a book on Lyon. I figured that since we didn't know what was good in Lyon, and the picture book looked really nice, it wouldn't hurt to get one as a souvenir, like the one in Louvre or Chateau de Versailles. Never mind that my backpack was 10 kg and books are not the best things to bring along a backpacking trip...

Ah yes, did I mention that Lyon was nice... Its like a not so touristy Paris. Though Lyon has lesser attractions, it also has much lesser tourists, and it all added to its charm.
I think we are all suffering from the tourist-cathedral fatigue as we were already losing the enthusiasm of visiting churches that are out of the way. But, the Basilique Notre-Dame (another one for Notre-Dame) up on Fourviere hill is superb! Easily comparable to the Notre Dame in Paris! While the exterior is not as impressive as the Notre dame de Paris, it has 2 levels in the interior. The lower level is dedicated to St Joseph, the husband of Mary, while the upper level is dedicated to Mother Mary. Again, gold inlay, gold gildings, gold paint... Colourful murals, impressive statues, beautiful facades... The churches in France must have been really rich to do this huh?

Anyway, out of the Basilique, one could get a panoramic view of the city. Oh Oh!! Did I mention the very quaint tram that we had to ride to get up the hill? It was really something straight out of the old days! Too bad the picture I had for the tram was pretty bad.

Sorry for the sudden outburst... Umm... Let's see...

From Fourviere, we then walked down the hill and stopped by the Roman Theaters ruins that was near the Basilique. That place makes a great place for pictures too. I heard that it's used not for outdoor concerts.
On our way back to the city, we met this really nice lady on the bus. She was laughing at us during the ride as we were chatting about the places we should go to for dinner. Lyon was our splurge-for-dinner destination because we've heard so much (or rather it's my friend who had heard so much)about the gourmet in Lyon. Finally, unable to ignore her any longer, my friend said "why don't we just ask the lady behind you (me)? She have been listening and laughing at our conversation for some time already."

I was like: What? Are we embarassing ourselves? Not again?!

:-D

Anyway, the lady was really nice. We asked her about any restaurants or places where we could get good food for a reasonable price. Her instant answer was "In France?"
In the end, she pointed out a nice pub where we could have a decent meal and chill out for the evening for a reasonable price, and so, off we went to that pub.

So, to cut a long story short, we went to the pub, got dinner, then ordered beer on top of the wine that was included in the set. We all got rip-roarin' drunk and left the pub swiggin' on a bottle of wine.

Or so it would be if the alcohol was free and we were back in Singpore with someone to drive us home and we don't need to care about parents breathing down our backs. :-P

We had a fun time at the pub. We did order beer, but it was only2 mugs shared between 4 people, so it was ok. The food wasn't honestly great, but it was decent and affordable and the company was great. Thus, overall, it was a very enjoyable night. (The beers might have something to do with it too ;-D)
End of Day 9

Day 10. The last day in France!!

It was the last day of the France Trip and I was facing it with a mixture of Yes-I-get-to-finally-go-back-soon (I was kinda missing Switzerland... Or maybe just getting tired) and No-Aww...-I-still-wanna-stay-and-play-in-Lyon kind of feelings.

We checked out of the nice hotel that gave us extra towels and checked our baggage into the train station's baggage lockers before heading to the Old Town to do some exploration.

Today was basically a museum day, since our city pass includes free entry to museums and the free use of public transportation. We went to 3 museums.The Museum of Religious Art, The Museum of Automations and the Museum of Miniatures.

The first 2 museums were so-so, but the Museum of Miniatures was really awesome. Very detailed little pieces of art and stuff! One wonders how the creators don't suffer from extreme myopia...

After the museums, we went to this place where many shops selling Lyon specialties are. The place was really cool. I love that place... I bought a Lyonnaise Saucisson, cured meat that is a specialty of Lyon, and a big packet of soft sweets that I think is also a specialty. I was almost sad when we had to leave to catch the train back to Geneva.

It is very suficiant to say that I was very happy when I left France with a bagful of souvenirs and 4 blog posts full of memories.

Are you guys satisfied with my accounts?
Be nice, I spent an entire day typing these four posts instead of enjoying the nice weather at the lake. My eyes are about to pop out...

So as something nice for all you nice people who sat through god knows how many pages of stuff that I had written and almost 5 pots of coffee (are you still drinking that?) ...


A nice picture of me and the Palais de Justice in Marseille! And....
Me and the cheeses in the market in Lyon!
Autographed pictures are at 5 euros a piece. Grab'em while stocks last!! :-D