A Path Beyond

Four minutes to midnight, a lot of things to write about so I might as well sum up the past few days.

Saturday - didn't join the class for CIP because I went night cycling with some guys from YA. Total of 8 people, me, joseph, jialiang, joshua, lionel, marshall, david and one more guy... i think it's chris or something. Anyway cycled from 7pm to 3am, total around 60km. By the end I was so tired I could barely cycle up the slope to my house.



Anyway this is the route we followed, we stopped at the esplanade cos we were too tired to continue. Stopped for dinner at ayah rajah, rest at harbourfront and ramly burger at KTM railway station. I'd say the trip was really quite fun, although the part at sentosa was very tiring.

Spent most of sunday at home, didn't go service because I was too tired. Dinner at bistro delifrance with my family.

Monday - Poly class celebrated my birthday! I didn't really expect it since I'm not that close to them and don't really talk that much with the class, but they proved me wrong and even bought a cake. It's sort of like a class tradition where they celebrate the birthdays of everyone in the class. Honestly, I was very touched that they actually took the time and effort for this. Even both of my own cells didn't mention my birthday.

I'm working on a new flash project, it's a game. Coming soon.

| HCH - 11:36 AM |




Actionscript!

Started learning actionscript (scripting language for flash) yesterday!

Here's my first complete project! The blob jumper!




| HCH - 5:00 PM |




Improvised Slingshot Crossbow

Repeated Monotony has officially claimed the domain www.repeatedmonotony.com! You may now access this blog through that link. Please update your own links and bookmarks. Attempts to connect to repeatedmonotony.blogspot.com will automatically redirect to the new domain. It took about a day for the CNAME redirection to set in but it seems to be running smoothly now.

Well MSTs are over and I'm really tired, not surprisingly. Every day I tell myself to get a little more rest and catch up on my sleep debt but I still end up sleeping after midnight at least.

Okay anyway, here's just a little slice of my life.

My sister's in taiwan now, she's going to be there for about a month for studying. Which just leaves the four of us at home. We celebrated with a sushi dinner the night before she left. Cheap 99 cent per plate sushi at some stadium. Very worth it.

Hmm. I've made a cool weapon in my spare time at home, because I felt like doing something interesting. I've always liked projectile weaponry and this is no exception. Originally I wanted to make a crossbow with bamboo skewers and nylon fishing line, but it didn't really work well. After two attempts (both broke after overdraw) I decided to take another approach. I found an old Y-stick and strung two rubber bands around the fork. Although the original crossbow didn't work well, the arrows did. For each arrow, I split a bamboo skewer at the end and forced in a tiny wood chip to make the nock, bound it tightly with string and reinforced it with duct tape. I then used masking tape for the fletchings. The resulting arrow was very satisfactory. It flew straight and consistently. Anyway, I realised that if I wanted more accuracy I would need a crossbow-like rest for the arrow. So I bound a skewer and added little rings of duct tape as arrow guides. Arrows would be clipped on to the slingshot rubbers by their nocks. When drawn, the arrow would rest nicely on the bamboo and fire straight when the rubber was released, while the Y-stick acted like a makeshift stock. I did not use a locking or trigger mechanism (somewhat like a bow). The resulting device was sort of an improvised slingshot, crossbow and bow into one (whatever that is).

Anyway, performance was exceptional, much better than what I had originally anticipated. Those little sticks can do some real hurt. Anyway let me give you some statistics. At full draw, this weapon could propel my bamboo skewer arrows straight into two to three layers of thick cardboard with a stack (50 or so sheets) of newspaper in between at point blank range, or pierce right through both sides of a shoebox. At full draw, the arrow could travel up to about 140 feet and penetrate cardboard up to distances of about 30 feet All the way until half draw, it could decently puncture the cardboard at a distance of 16 feet.

Of course, that's with new rubber and arrows. As with most things, usage will cause wear and tear, especially if the arrows miss the target and hit a hard wall, which will cause the head to become flat and frayed, or the arrow to splinter. The rubber bands also snap after some usage, depending on how hard I draw. (so far i've changed them about 5 times already.)



One of my arrows.



This is about 2/3 draw. This can punch through two layers of cardboard at under 10 feet.



The Improvised slingshot-crossbow-whatever. Blue is duct tape.



My arrows, total 8. (Many are already not in optimum condtion, they hit the wall and the ends chip off, I had to reshave the arrowheads.)



The cardboard shoebox that I fire arrows into.



Punched through 50 sheets of newspaper sandwiched between two layers of cardboard, at point blank range.

Anyway here are some random pics. Yesterday was PCT class. The lecturer told us that the earlier class had messed up all the PCs and we would get 9/10 GP if we could fix them. It was foolish on his part to make this offer. Immediately everyone got to work.

Dismantling the PC was the fun part. Putting it back was a headache. But it's not my pc. So it's okay.

My friend and I (we work in pairs) practically ripped apart the box and plucked out all the screws and wires without looking. Hahaha.

Then after we put everything back, the power button didn't work, the reset button became the power switch which turned on the CD rom drive. Lol.



Motherboard and hard drive!



Fun!



No space on table so just dump all on the floor.



Yay chip.

Oh yeah. I went road cycling on monday in preparation for the big expedition on saturday night. Was kinda scary with all the cars around you, especially when I accidentally went to lane 3 instead of lane 1 during one turning and got stuck there. But all in all it was a fun experience. Can't wait for saturday.



Btw this is my rubiks mini and the family's rubiks cube. Woohoo.

Okay, goodnight!

| HCH - 9:51 PM |




De Novo

Hey people, as you may or may not have noticed, my blog has been offline for a few days now. Well, it's finally back online. Anyway, I'm moving from this subdomain to a full custom domain anytime now. I've already bought it, www.repeatedmonotony.com and now I'm waiting for the cname to register on DNS. When that happens, please update your links to this blog!

Look forward to some new updates once this blog moves over to the new domain.

| HCH - 11:06 PM |




Helping Hands

Alright I'm supposed to be resting already, after all I have a test tomorrow but I couldn't resist writing this down. Cos I know that if I keep delaying it eventually I won't write about it anymore.

Saturday was CIP with my SP classmates. Unfortunately for me, I had to choose between going to CIP or going to the Grace 2 event "around the world in 2 hours" (its a game). I decided to try to go for CIP then rush to the event after that. The problem is that CIP ended at around 5:20pm and the event was from 5pm to 7pm. Nevertheless I decided to try to make it. Who knew it would take 2 hours to travel from hougang to bukit gombak. Sigh. Was initally very upset that I missed the event especially since I had been looking forward to it but at least I knew what it was about.

Our CIP was organized by Hong En. We were supposed to go to the IMH (Institute of Mental Health) to assist the other volunteers in helping the patients there. We planned to conduct simple activities such as songs and dance.

Anyway, CIP was a very tiring and exhausting thing. I spent more time travelling than doing CIP, 2 hours to hougang and 2 hours back, with 3 hours of CIP. Had lunch with the class at pepper lunch at hougang mall, then walked all the way to the IMH.

Since photography isn't allowed in the wards, let me give you a detailed and visual description of our experience as helpers inside.

We were taken to a small holding room outside the ward. Earlier, we were briefed that the patients here were mostly mild and recovering cases, and we were not to expect anything we could not handle. However, photography was off limits and using mobile phones alone was frowned upon. We were also told to keep mum about all personal information. Before we were allowed to enter, our instructor told to sanitize our hands with an alcohol solution. It felt soapy and left a cool feeling afterwards. Behind the doors, we could see the patients already starting to notice us, staring at us with glassy eyes.

In minutes, we were ready. The instructor unlocked the doors and we cautiously stepped inside. Walking briskly, we uneasily made our way to the equipment stash in a room nearby to store our belongings. A moment later, we were in the ward, trapped there for the next two hours.

The place was what you would expect for an old folks corner, or lounge or whatever you would call that. The room wasn't that large, probably the size of two to three classrooms. The floor was neatly paved with an anti-slip mat. An old monochrome TV attached to a wall frame was displaying some malaysian channel, though clearly no one was watching. The outer wall was covered with numerous small windows, each slightly larger than a square foot in area. They were made of stained glass, making it impossible to see in our out of the room when they were closed. In front of the windows was a large metal grill attached. The grill was more like a grid fence, steel wires intersecting to form equal sized squares. The room had a few tables in a corner, although a large area of the room was filled with wooden sofa chairs and plastic chairs where the residents sat aimlessly for most of the time. The room had another smaller wall on the other side which had three wash basins there, although it seemed that few actually bothered to use them.

Some of the people there greeted us as soon as we entered, while a few appeared totally apathetic or otherwise unconcerned. They all had one thing in common, a glassy stare that made me feel uncomfortable. Most of the patients appeared to be in their 50s, although we were not informed on any of their particulars, other than that they were patients here.

At first, we tried to talk to them but soon realised a coherent conversation was going to be tricky at best and impossible at worst. Some refused to answer our questions at all while others gave garbled, unintelligible replies. One thing that surprised me was that a select few patients actually knew how to play checkers. On top of that, they were pretty good too.

We tried to carry out some activities with them and were met with a mixed response. Some continued to ignore us, others just stared while a few attempted to join us as we sang songs. We were allowed to use a box of toys to entertain the patients, although many toys were in pretty bad shape. The Xiangqi set, for instance, had lost nearly 70% of it's pieces and the chessboard was nowhere to be found. We attempted to engage them in some sports activities, such as a simplified version of bowling and ping pong. They did try, and I guess we also tried our best to entertain them.

After spending more time there, we began to see that they were not as bad as we once thought. As we persisted in conversing with them, we soon learned that some of them were brought here by a traumatic event, while others had been victims of an accident. Unfortunately I cannot elaborate on the conversations we had with them as I cannot disclose any personally identifiable information from the patients here or post any photographs here; we agreed not to prior to entering the ward.

Time passed and it was soon time to leave. We left the place having gained new insight on what the IMH really was like.

Yeah well thats about it, and let me stress it was really tiring. I was kinda scared at first, but eventually I also did interact with some of the patients.

| HCH - 3:45 PM |