Not really a science person

I'm so totally determined to do well for my sciences this year! I don't really enjoy being in triple science as much as being in double humanities, since textbook science is so dead, but getting 9A1s is one of the more important goals I've set out this year. Thus, I'm forcing myself to enjoy science, but maybe I'm starting to appreciate how amazing life-forms are, and the wonder of symbiotic relationships of different species in Creation.

So I'm studying for my Coordination & Response test tomorrow, and I'm supposed to memorize the anatomy of the human eyeball and how each part enables us to see, as well as the topics on hormones and the nervous system.

Okay. So for internal structure of the eye:
(i) Sclera: tough white outer protective covering that protects the the eyeball from mechanical damage.
(ii) Choroid: middle layer of the eyeball. Two functions - (a) Pigmented black to prevent internal reflection of light; (b) contains blood vessels that bring O2 and nutrients to the eyeball and removes metabolic waste products.
(iii) Ciliary body: Contains the ciliary muscles that contract and relax to control the curvature of the lens. Connected to the suspensory ligament. Contracts when focusing far, relaxes when focusing on near objects (<7 m).
(iv) Lens: transparent, circular and biconvex. Elastic. Can change thickness in order to control the focal length (refracts light on the retina).
(v) Aqueous chamber: Filled with aqueous humour, a transparent and watery fluid that (a) keeps front of eyeball firmed and (b) helps light to refract into pupil.
(vi) Vitreous chamber: Filled with vitreous humour, a transparent and jelly-like substance that (a) keeps eyeball firm and (b) helps to refract light onto the retina.
(vii) Retina: innermost layer. Light sensitive, containing photoreceptors consisting of rod (black and white) and cone (colour) cells. This is where images are formed. (images are normally focused on the Fovea/Yellow Spot, which is rich in cone cells to aid in night vision.)

Proverbial 10-year series questions revisited:

What happens when you step from a dark room into bright light? (this is a reflex arc)
- Increase in light intensity
- Receptors in retina stimulated
- Sensory neurone in optic nerve transmits signal to the brain
- motor neurone acts on the effector (iris)
- circular muscles on the iris contract, radial muscles relax. (They are antagonistic)
- pupil constricts, allowing less light to enter the eye.
- is light intensity is high enough, squinting may occur to prevent excessive light from entering and damaging the light-sensitive tissues inside.

What happens when you read a book and look up to view a plane in the sky?
- Change in focus from short-distance to long-distance
- Ciliary muscles relax, pulling on suspensory ligaments. They become taught and pull on the lens.
- Lens becomes thinner, less convex and less refractive. Focal length is increased.
- Light rays from the faraway object enter the eye and are sharply focused on the retina.
- Photoreceptors are stimulated. Nerve impulses sent to the brain via optic nerve. Brain interprets the object.

(when focusing on near objects, ciliary muscles contract, suspensory ligaments slacken, lens becomes thicker, more convex, and focal length is decreased. Light rays enter, focused sharply on the retina, etc. etc.)

On the Nervous System:
Made up of two components:
1. Central nervous system
2. Peripheral nervous system

1. CNS:
Brain - controls voluntary actions by generating nerve impulses. Also controls cranial reflexes eg. salivation
Spinal cord - Transmits nerve impulses to the brain. Also controls spinal reflexes e.g. knee-jerk reflex.

2. PNS:
Cranial Nerves from the brain - Transmit impulses from receptors to the brain, motor nerves transmit impulses from brain to effectors.
Spinal Nerves - sensory nerves transmit impulses from receptors to spinal cord, motor nerves transmit impulses from spinal cord to effectors
Sense organs (receptors) - receives stimuli from the environment

NERVOUS TISSUE - consisting of neurons:
1) Sensory neurons: transmits nerve impulses from receptors to CNS
2) Relay neurons: found within CNS, transmits nerve impulses from sensory neurons to motor neurons
3) Motor neurons: transmits nerve impulses from CNS to effectors

REFLEX ARC
Sensory neurone -> relay neurone (spinal cord)* -> motor neurone
*signal also sent to brain.

yawn sleepy.

empty shell

Just got off the phone with my best friend in primary school whom I haven't seen since sec 1. Talked about schools and stuff (he's in St. Pat's now) and reminisced about the old days, even though they may or may not have been all that pleasant.

I guess I'm feeling kinda lost and distant right now, which is perhaps what happens when one hasn't really had much connection on an emotional level with anyone else for days. It's not like an utter lack of attention, but rather a sense of superficiality in conversations and interaction. So yeah I feel like a delocalized electron and this reminds me of Chemistry SPA which I'm taking tomorrow.

Plus, I'm sick of the little half-hour enforced reading slots. We are forced to sit cross-legged in a stuffy hall that hasn't had any ventilation for the entire night. The air-conditioning isn't even turned on. Thirty minutes is rather short a duration for serious reading, but in such awful conditions, even lesser reading is done when the mind is focused on that pressing discomfort.

God, help me to see how you work in my life all the time, even though I'm oft so ignorant of your faithfulness.

While preparing for 2 debate tournaments, an entire musical, presentations, announcements, and not forgetting homework, I'm pretty sure scrapbooking for the Japan trip would have been the last thing on my mind.

Anyone interested in watching The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly? It's NC-16. 94% on Rotten Tomatoes =D

that You and Me song

ZOMG! I've finally found this song after, like what, 5 years? (tear)

Hola! Que pasa?

We've emerged as champions in the recent TJC invites! With Andrea clinching best speaker for the semis and the finals! (So admittedly the finals started to become awry and reminiscent of our first SRJC finals, but I prefer not to feed the thought, thank you very much.) Also caught up with Judith from pl! I last saw Judith ages ago and I'm still hating myself for missing the CAP portfolio submission dateline, blah.

Anyway, my sister in her coolness has informed me that Broken Social Scene is coming to Singapore as part of Esplanade's Mosaic Festival! I hope it won't turn out like my wanting to go to the Yo La Tengo and Kings of Convenience concert, only to decide to buy tickets too late, then becoming depressed, etc.

Is this post revealing too much of my habit of procrastination, or what?

raise your soft palate and say something clever

O level results are out tomorrow!!!!!

Hope that current sec 4s taking HMT will be happy, or at least, satisfied with their results! :D



The video for Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds is so... trippy! Cool.

And I remember watching this French animation called La Planete Sauvage and it's disturbing and beautiful at the same time.

Full of vexation come I

Heath Ledger died.

I am being tormented by a weird bug under my desk that's lying on its back, dying and beating its wings helplessly against the cold floor. But I'm really repulsed by bug-like things, even in pictures. Their furry, spindly legs and glossy compound eyes are, to me, one of the most revolting things about them. I hate the sensation of feeling their light scratchy movements on my skin, or the buzzing they make next to my ear.

At the same time, I'm struggling with the ol' National Geographic African Wildlife Photographer dilemma. Can I just sit at a distance and not care about its life wasting away before my eyes? Should I euthanize it out of its overturned misery? Is it right to assume that the bug has reached the end of its short little existence, and not care for it? (Besides existing in my already-traumatized mind.)

Maybe if I wasn't so revolted and afraid of it, I would have allowed it to fly off, out through the window. In the light of this internal struggle that I face, however, my will to help the bug is undermined by my own fears and prejudice against such insects.

And the flapping and buzzing has ceased.

A large, oddly shaped beetle died. But no one cared. (And I have just unintentionally coloured in a lovely shade of Emo in my post.)

Thank God that the presentation during contact time went fine! I was already preparing myself to face a bored, distracted audience, but phew, they laughed at some points, although the humour was really totally unintended.

Links

The Sundance Film Festival is now on! I wish I was there :(

1960s gospel choirs are really so interesting.

I'm really digging British Sea Power's Waving Flags. Even though it's arena rock.

I don't really like the new MacBook Air. It's a tad too flimsy in my opinion. And, it doesn't have a dvd drive.

Get me some macaroons from Ladurée in Paris and I'll be forever grateful.

I want to visit colette!

I also want to go to the park and play with my holga!

loves holga

moar funny pictures

ROAR. I want a kitteh.

Yesterday:

Went to island creamery to try the tiger beer sorbet with my sister!
But I preferred the teh-tarik flavour. Tiger sorbet had a dry, crumbly sensation when I tried a scoop. Teh tarik, on the other hand, was creamy and full of yummy condensed-milk goodness. Will be going back for more.

Went to burlington square to get the rolls of 120 film for the holga! Came home to discover that the take-up spool for the film was still at the film-developing shop with Unkind Counter Woman. Nearly screamed at Unkind Counter Woman when she stoically informed me that it's probably Thrown away already lah. I tried to look displeased. She checked the changing-box and I saw my poor spool there, apparently forgotten to be returned to me after processing. "Is it your spool?" says she with an accusatory eye that gleamed with suspicion. How most impertinent, I thought. Too irked to be there any longer, I walked off in a huff, chewing a Mintie (I really love Minties).

On a deeper level, I am amazed at the non-existent service standards that I have seen in Singapore. I've been to other countries and the shop assistants are all smiles when you step in. They welcome you and don't mind if you're only there to peruse without buying anything. They say thank you and you exchange greetings with them when you walk out. There is mutual happiness.

In Singapore, you enter a shop and most assistants stare on with a nonchalance that sickens me. The customer is treated with little respect. Maybe that's just our culture and our way of life, but I think it's one that I'm definitely not proud of.

I must watch Atonement!

Today, we broke to the semis!

Today, I'm just sick of being singled out because everyone thinks my commitments lie elsewhere.
And because I have O levels this year, and because it's only right that I study for the sake of my future, and because I have so many responsibilities—wow, I am therefore in the wrong for being so enthusiastic in my co-curricular activities.

Of course, I am expected to prioritize. Especially since everything is vying for commitment commitment commitment. I am thus supposed to appease everyone. But when I look at how other people go home once lessons end, have absolutely nothing on during weekends, and spend their time loitering around, I wonder whether I've made the right choice to be the busy and distanced person that I've become.

So, you'll have to strike a balance between the amount of your commitments and your free time, you would probably say. Okay, yeah I try to. But it would be really great as well if there were people who were more willing to accept that I can't devote my time to me delivering their expectations of me.

Well, I don't go to school just to study, or sing, or debate, or lead, or help people do announcements. I go to school to glorify God. You'll probably be like, yeah, in what way? I want to lead a life that pleases Him, but it's just so hard when too many things occupy my mind, and when people say that you're supposed to deliver this and be that model student, and you're supposed to influence people. I just wish that sabbaticals were legitimate reasons for taking a break off school.

But other than that yeah I'm fine. Could have been finer though. -.-

On a more superficial note, I really like watching Japan hour.

I must watch Juno!

Hey,
To everyone who feels alone in their sorrows, or misunderstood, or wronged, yeah, maybe it's alright to be melancholic for a while. Just remember the people who are willing to listen and understand you regardless of who you are. Because you've made a difference in my life, and you are oh-so quintessentially You, no matter how screwed-up you perceive your day to be or how crabby you may be feeling. :)

Old

Was talking over the phone with Elizabeth earlier, and to our horror, we realized that we're aging! And I have a strange haircut that my sister claims to evoke memories of Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. I was like, 1) I'm not female, 2) I don't have vixen eyes and a pixie-like face and 3) she doesn't have an indent on her chin. She was like, yeah, and I was like, yeah that's why yeah, so we're were like, ok yeah okay.

Please bear with me while I try to fulfill my Meaningless Paragraphs quota for the day, since I have been way too serious and overworked for the past few weeks to the point of madness in class, as Cheekit can attest to :P

ANYWAY,
Yay! We're champions for the MJC tournament held last Saturday. We went to have an unofficial celebration at White Sands, where we were treated by Lucas to hongkong cafe food and then went for ben & jerry's downstairs, where we accidently glanced over an entire section of flavours and bought second-rate ones :(

My voice feels weird. Esther thinks I sounded like I had marbles in my mouth during Avid Reader Book Sharing Time.

Hooray for the endocrine system! We're doing hormones for bio now.

Hey it's me again, and no, I did not die/involve myself in a hostage crisis/become a hermit/fall into a well

This is my first post as a moody, self-centred, sulky and temperamental 16-year-old! Not exactly thrilling, but I hope you get my drift anyway.

Anyway, I'm really thankful for how everyone had remembered my birthday! (And Leonard's, and Karling's, and Amos' i think.) It has been really memorable :) And I'm not saying that because I feel obliged to do so!

Just some of the pictures that I really treasure, along with the books/notes/cards/ben & jerry's ice-cream/cookies/cake that I've received:


I went to New York New York with my family and they sorta-surprised me with a fluffy pink candyfloss heart. I heard my mum conspiring with the waitress, and not expecting anything too loud, I was surprised by their tambourines and maracas that they shook as they sang happy birthday, as the entire planet seemed to look on. And I was about to taste the baileys-espresso-chocolate concoction then. But it was cool in a funny way.


Elizabeth, Ruimin, Esther and I finally went to Haji Lane! It's a nice quaint place to shop. Plus, I met my primary school senior. She's working in one of those quirky vintage indie shops with two levels now and has cool quirky hair.


I like the refurbished shophouses. And you could see all the creative Haji Lane-types walking down in their funky garb.




We roamed the halls of Laselle too! The synthetic campus lawn is like, my new favorite hangout. (Except for the whole inaccessibility issue and all.)





And I like eating at The Soup Spoon.

Park that car
Drop that phone
Sleep on the floor
Dream about me

2007

Well. 2007's gone. I guess I'll leave the disappointments of last year between God and me, like during reflections and retreat last night.

Anyway, I have quite enjoyed the whole experience of seeing my friends mature (in a way), though sometimes I feel alienated from them as they go through their own personal struggles. I have also relished the last few days of 2007, where I had the last lunch of the year with, among others like Limin and Joey, Elizabeth and Ruimin whom I haven't seen since like forever. And we had this minor freak-out/delayed realization that we're all older and I'm 16.

The last few hours of my year were spent in church listening to a message about God's goodness and devotion (although it wasn't as straightforward as I would have like it to be). YF went to NUS for reflections and retreat! There were still people in the labs then, and it was so odd. I dozed off during sharing (and embarrassingly so), and we walked to west coast park for breakfast at McDonald's.

Talking to Zizhao on MSN now! I really miss going around school with our usuals, doing acts of randomness! I miss the piano area! Etc.

Quite depressed now, actually. Oh well. I hope to make it past orientation through to my birthday.