Diversity of life (Very technical)

Amazing how great the capacity of our memories are, the main limitation lies with transfer speed.

-Commencing memory dump-

Kingdom Plantae: Bryophytes, Tracheophytes, Gymnosperms, Angiosperms..

Under Bryophytes, Bryophyta, Hepatophyta, Anthercerophyta

Under Tracheophytes, Pteridophyta and Lycophyta
Under Lycophyta, Lycopodium and Selaginella

Under Gymnospermae, Pinophyta, Cycadophyta, Ginkgophyta, Gnetophyta

Kingdom Animalia: Porifera, Cnidaria, Platyhelminthes, Nematoda, Mollusca, Annelida, Athropoda, Echinodermata, Chordata

Phylum Porifera: Class Calcarea, Demospongiae and Hexactinellida

Phylum Cnidaria: Class Hydrozoa, Scyphozoa, Anthozoa

Phylum Platyhelminthes: Turbulleria, Trematoda, Cestoda

Cestoda: Beef Tapeworm: Taenia Saginata, Pork Tapeworm: Taenia Solium

Phylum Nematoda: Necator Americanus (Guinea worm)

Phylum Mollusca: Monoplacophora, Polyplacophora, Bivalvia, Cephalopoda, Gastropoda

Phylum Annelida: Polychaeta, Oligochaeta, Hirudinea

Phylum Arthropoda: Subphylum Chelicerata, Myriapoda, Hexapoda, Crustacea

Chelicerata: Class Horsehoe crab: Meristomata, Class Arachnida

Myriapoda: Class Chilopoda and Class Diplopoda

Hexapoda: Class Insecta

Subclass Apterygota (wingless insects) and Subclass pterygota(winged insects)

Apterygota: Thysanura (Bristle tails and silverfish) and Collembola (springtails)

Pterygota: Coeloptera (beetles), Hemiptera (Bugs), Hymenaptera (Ants, bees, wasps), Isoptera (termites), Diptera (flies)

Phylum Echinodermata: Asteroidia, Ophiuroidea, Crinoidea, Echinoidea, Concetricycloidea, Holothuroidea

Phylum Chordata: Urochordata, cephalachordata

Superclass Agnatha: Myxini (hagfish) and Petromyzontida (Lampreys)

Superclass Gnathostomata: Class Chondrichytes(cartilaginous fish): subclass Elasmobrachii (sharks and rays), subclass Holocephali(Chimeras)

Osteichytes: Actinopterygii (Ray finned fishes) and Sarcopterygii (lobed finned fishes)

Class Amphibia: Anuran(frogs), Apoda (Caecilians), Caudata (Salamanders)

Class Reptilia: Subclass Anapsida: Testudines. Subclass Diapsida: Order Squamata: suborder Serpentes and suborder Lacertilia (lizards), order sphendonta(tuatara), order crocodilia

Class Aves: Superorder Paleognathae(flightless birds), Neognathae (other birds)

Class Mammalia: Subclass Prototheria (egg-layers), subclass theria: Infraclass Metatheria (Marsupials), Infraclass Eutheria (Placentals)

Eutheria: Order Probocis, Cestacae, Chiroptera, Primates, Rodentia, Largomorpha, Insectivora, Perrisodactyla, Artiodactyla

Of all these, the exam paper only required us to memorize 'Metatheria'. I could get all the names alright, but as for morphology, functions, applications...etc...

I'll pass.

The Week of Choice

Proactivity, contrary to common belief, is not about initiative. It is about the freedom of choice, the opposite of reactivity. Instead of reacting to external factors, letting them govern your mind, being proactive puts you fully in charge of your mind.

This is the key to happiness. The only person in full control of one, is oneself. One can choose to be happy, one can choose to be sad. One can choose to keep his cool, or fly off at the mouth. One can sit in the corner and cry about his pathetic life, or be strong and do something about it.

The last few weeks had probably been the worst weeks of mine this year.

Last last wednesday was the second day of using a new phone which was a fake iphone. While transferring my music files into it DIRECTLY, the computer hanged, so I lost half of my work. I felt really pathetic at that time, and due to my frustrated mood, I dropped the phone and the LCD cracked.

On Thursday, I lost 20 dollars, or rather, the school saved 20 dollars, as my voucher from last year's book prize was expiring the next day. I wanted to spend it during lunch, but got held back by the teacher. By the time I went to the bookshop, it was closed.

By the way, it was Good Friday the next day, so there wasn't any school.

A week passed.

And then I was okay for that week or so, until Sunday.

Ben and I went to the library to study. It was extremely crowded there, so we took a seat in front of the window ledge, and started studying. Having just checked the time, I put my phone right in front of me. Out of a sudden this old man called us and said that we would get chased away if we sat there, and he asked us to sit on an empty sofa next to him. At that time, I obviously wasn't any psychic, so not bothering to think too much into his fallacious logic, we just went to do our work on the sofa.

Our work was spread out all over the sofa. It was a square one, and we had it to ourselves since there was not many others around. That old man didn't do much, but I have a tendency to associate a person's looks, actions and words to his character. After all, the eye is the window to the soul. He tried correcting some of my wrong chinese characters on my chinese homework, which gave me some pissed off feeling, like some kind of negative aura. Perhaps it was because I did not like to be disturbed, but it was also possible that it was a pure feeling of negativity.

I put down my chinese homework, and went to the other side of the sofa to join Ben studying cell biology. Skipping to the main point, when we were leaving, my phone which was under our stack of work disappeared, and considering that we looked high and low, the students on our right were studying without having left their places and already having a laptop and iphone, no one else having came or left, the disappearance of the old man and the way I didn't like him, I decided Murphy always wins, and we left.

In hope of any slim chance that the phone had grew legs and skuttled away from the sofa, we waited for around half an hour to ask the lost and found for any phone. At that time, all I wanted to do is focus my mind on my chemistry concept reviews, trying to do as much work as possible, as if it would make up for the loss...

Upon exiting the toilet, I had another revelation, my only copy of the music project was in there. I would now have to re do it for a second time (the last the computer hanged and I lost half my work). Reminding myself about freedom of choice of emotions, I told myself not to get so upset over materialistic losses.

Then to end it all, was yesterday. I was already feeling kind of moody on tuesday, as I was racking my mind on how to embark on my music project. Somehow during afternoon break, I starting thinking about how hopeless and warped the World is, and felt rather empty. To take my mind of things, redox titration for chemistry did not appear to have been as dull as I thought it would be. Unfortunately near the end of the lesson I was feeling dull enough and was not paying to particularly much attention, and as Eugene prepared two samples of vitamin C for titration, I put in the wrong chemicals for the first one and too much water for the second.

The caucasian guy came up towards me and said: "Well if you're just playing around and wasting chemical, you should just pack up and leave." I apologised and went to get some vitamin C for another preperation. The guy saw me and shouted, "What are you doing? Pack up and leave!"

That really put my off for a while and I was in no mood to argue, so I just went back to my seat and cut myself off from the rest of the world, feeling really angry with the guy.

Having had so many unfortunate events surging towards me, my proactive attitude did not seem to have time to catch up with the rate things are progressing at. This was all too much for me, so I went to the canteen to get a drink.

It doesn't require cliche things like 'thinking things over' and 'some quiet time by myself' to calm myself down. It just took a little time out sitting at the table, watching people come and go, and relax.

And when I felt ready to stand up and go home, I did, and felt a lot better.

I stood on the same spot looking at the rainwater flowing down the flyover while waiting for the bus.

I went for dinner outside and took a nice long bus ride home.

Time heals all wounds.

Today, I made a choice to leave aside spilled milk and be optimistic and happy.

I stormed into music class surging with confidence, ready to start the score notation from scratch and finish it by the end of the two hours. To my awesome relief, the files were still in my computer, untouched. I did not have to redo them after all.

Green's Anatomy

You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I'll buy you a new car. ~Harvey Diamond

In this era, people are so knowledge logic driven. Tell them something based on intuition and they take you for a crackpot. But who says vegetarianism is only for emotionally soft animal right activists? They want hard facts and science? They’ve got it.

Carnivorous saliva is acidic. Herbivorous saliva is alkaline. Human saliva is alkaline.

The intestine of a carnivore is smooth and shaped like a pipe so that food gets passed through quickly. Intestine of a herbivore is like a windy mountain road with bumps, for optimal absorption of plant food. Go flip into any textbook and check out the picture of a human digestive system.

Herbivores require fiber to move food along its digestive tracts, while carnivores, having short intestinal tracts, do not. That’s why people get constipation.

Carnivores have intestinal tract only 3 times their body length. The human intestine is,...very long.

Finally while carnivores have the ability to handle a high cholesterol diet, herbivores do not. Cholesterol is never found in plants. Some of Human’s adaptations to coping with high cholesterol levels include heart retrenchment, arterial diseases and engaging stroke mode.

This is not about a campaign for animal rights. This is nature.

It’s a race between evolution and food poisoning (eventual even if not immediate). So far, evolution is losing.

If beef is your idea of "real food for real people" you'd better live real close to a real good hospital. ~Neal Barnard

Vivace Concert

At last, the pressing thoughts about the concert have been relieved.

It was wonderful.

It was also good to see that this year, a wider variety of performances were put up; dance, opera singing, normal singing, contemporary, orchestral and band music.

The pieces we played this year for orchestra were also a lot more suitable for orchestra, as we usually play band scores.

By gradual improvement, I hope that one day we would reach the standard to play classic orchestral pieces. Well, "blue danube waltz" this year was a start.

After a year of being a section leader, I am finally getting the hang of it.

Some teamwork

Math Journal: Post assignment reflections

We encountered many obstacles through this assignment, the first being the lack of teamwork our group had. We started off as three members, but we took in another one. That person had little sense of responsibility and understanding. Finding the formula for the harmonic number was a great problem we needed to solve, thus we assigned that to him as his first role. I would not have minded if he had tried early, but he cropped up with many excuses, like it was still such a long time before the deadline, and that he was busy (Relatively free compared to some of us though who takes three times more languages and do not have the privilege of little travelling time from school to home), despite constant reminders. When he claimed to have reaped some results, it turned out to be a recurring function, which required input of the previous result to find the next result(not particularly useful). By the time sense struck us that we should have given up on depending on that person long ago, it was too late. Fortunately the deadline was extended. Sometimes, despite how capable other people are, it still takes just one person to bring the rest down. A balance between compassion and selectivity of team elements would always be helpful. Being too kind at times, does not mean being kind to the person in the long term.

From past experience, I realised that nothing beats face to face discussion; otherwise, and the possibility of horrendous results surface. Some people think that with leaps and bounds in technology, digital communication is a huge improvement from the tiresome times where we have to find a place to meet and discuss work. I beg to differ, because only with physical discussion, will we be able to better communicate, with more than just words. Expressions play an important part too, when wanting to know how each other feels about an idea, and to know who is following and who is not. Doing work face to face, is also physically easier, compared to having to use those computer peripheral to transmit thoughts. Besides, not everyone checks their email all of the time.

On my experience, usually online discussion only leads to two things, a rough idea and the division of work. Many people love to divide work, and they claim that that lightens each person’s burden. However, when we divide work over the internet, most of the time everyone is doing their own stuff, and there is a lack of conformity in thoughts. Despite their work being wonderfully done, the different parts of a report might not necessarily fit properly, both in structure and content. Each jigsaw piece can be beautifully and intricately created, with a melodious blend of colours, but it turns out to be not much use should they not fit with each other. This is not teamwork, this is just well-done individual work neatly compiled together.

That is why, from the start I have suggested us coming together to brainstorm and discuss, and finish the math journal in front of each other, such that we all know what each other is doing. However, due to the lack of time we had because of the extreme delays we suffered from waiting for someone, we could not find a time to do so. It turned out that my postulate had proved itself right once again, because, not meaning to bring myself higher, but it turns out that I was doing a lot of the work in the end because some people did not have the initiative to do so.

The second obstacle was the boundaries of mathematical knowledge we had. As it turned out, the Harmonic Series was not easy topic to write much about with our elementary knowledge of series. We, or at least, I, had to do a lot of research and digestion before being able to start writing the report to ensure I understood what I was writing, instead of mere copying from sources. This research includes reading up on topics in calculus, such as infinite series like the Mercator series and a little integration, understanding it; and also trying to formulate my own equation to make sure that my understanding matches the understanding of books and internet.

Despite the research, the formula for the Harmonic numbers was still a huge problem. The moment I found that there was no straight formula found on the internet about a formula regarding the Harmonic number, I had a feeling that we were in trouble. It finally turns out that it requires understanding the digamma function, the logarithmic derivative of the gamma function, which is equivalent to the factorial operation for positive integers. However, the full equation defining it was way beyond our understanding.

When we found Euler’s result, we thought that our problems have vanished; the Harmonic number is equal to the integral of (1-x^n)/(1-x) from 0 to 1. However, by evaluating the integral we realised that we got back the harmonic series. That was no use. Finally, we made do with a close approximation of the Harmonic number.

The result might not had been as ideal as we had hoped for, but I felt that I have learnt a lot through the constant probing for answers, which lead from one question to another. Although, our goal of finding and understanding the formula for the exact value of harmonic numbers was not clearly achieved, I have learnt many other things, like understanding the proves for alternating series after very long times of pondering and having a slightly better understanding of elementary calculus. I cannot help but to agree that over here, the journey means more than the finish.

I must say that by having done a lot of work, hours of background research, hours of report writing and question solving, I am positive that I enjoyed my work more than anyone else in my group. Now that the journal is done, I found myself learning a lot more than I thought I would be learning. I feel really proud of what we have done, and although it would be ideal that everyone co-operates to their best, it still does not matter who ‘slacks’ and who does not, because diligence and responsibility comes with its own reward. I know that sounds rather cliché.

Wow, the world is fair after all.

Questions on Patriotism

On today's chinese lesson, we were debating about whether there is a need for one's eventual return to one's hometown or birthplace.

Soon, the discussion narrowed down to the concept of patriotism.

Later, someone else asked me whether I would ever migrate, without return.

I said that the chances of so are not ruled out. She was shocked, astounded, like that was a scandal!

Is it so?

If I would permanantly reside in a place, I would reside in one which makes me feel the most at ease, somewhere comfortable for my heart and soul. That would be unlikely to be tied down by what they call ' National Education'.

Here, a fine line is needed to distinguish patriotism and loyalty. Patriotism is a love a devotion to one’s country, whereas loyalty has a much deeper meaning only comprehendable by emotional beings.

A country is made up of physical space and people. Physical space, like the scenery, familiar city might bring back memories, sweet or bitter. These are some inanimate things, non-living and emotionless, what would it mean to be loyal to these things? Isn't this more of just liking, than loyalty?

I believe, loyalty can only be expressed to emotional beings. Only then, would loyalty have meaning. Then, isn’t loyalty to the people you love what really matters then, compared to loving your country?

Sometimes, in fact, often, our cultural and political believes simply do not blend in, your social status is not desirable, then what scandal is there in moving to another country with more preferable conditions? You could still bring your loved ones along, couldn’t you? Supposing that they can’t make it, and you choose to stay, it is no longer a matter of loving your country, but a matter of loyalty.

Countless people have emigrated from homelands, in search of a better place to live in; From China to Singapore, from Europe to the free land. In the rise of the power of the Nazis, Albert Einstein emigrated to the United States. I would not say that these people are ‘unpatriotic’ or whatsoever, as they is no such word in my dictionary. The point is, there is no wrong in moving on, (or betraying your country as some patriots just love to call it).

I am not saying that there is any wrong in being patriotic, but rather that that is something quite neutral morally.

I raised this example

Let’s say you gained existence out of a sudden on a deserted island. Feeling the need to enter civilization, you move out. In this extreme case, there is clearly nothing wrong if you do not return to the island.

Certain people like to talk about repaying your country in future, for what it had done for you. However, there are lots of issues here to be weighed.

If your country started a war over some materialistic reason, would it be morally right to “repay” your country by fighting for it, supposed you had choice.

The world is highly interconnected. If we said that working hard for our country is a form of repayment to society, how would we know for sure it is?

We could say that the government had probably subsidized some money for our education when we were young. Of this money however, only a negligible amount of it really belongs to the people making up the government. The rest comes from taxes. So, we could say that the subsidized money in this case was provided by the previous generation.

When we ‘work for society’, economy might improve, but how could you know for sure that that is repaying the person who gave you the money in the first place? They might have migrated, died, or due to the complexity and diversity of the workings of the world, we might even be harming them via the butterfly effect.

Of course, this is only one possible argument, of many others that might contradict and support. So, I cannot say for sure that it would be beneficial or harmful to be working for our country.

But our best chances lie in not being tied down by the concept of ‘patriotism’, to prevent us from doing things based on our principles and how we feel should be done.

Plant Press Stress

Last week was the most stressing week of three days I have had this year.

I am not sure why either, but I am sure that it had nothing to do with the following test week, because I had greater things going through my mind.

The burden befalled me on wednesday, when we returned to school after the Chinese New Year holidays. Due to my very short legs and very big steps lining the stairs down the track, I walked down the steps too hastily, and one of my knees hardly hit the ground. Defination (Hardly): To hit something with a lot of force. Antonymn: Barely. At least in this context.

First the skin went paper white, then pain seeped in, while blood oozed out. Great, another cut on the usual lucky spot of my knee, which always had a tendency to get injured. This time, it was a rather deep injury, it wasn't just surface blood, it was crimson red and staining the surrounding skin.

One of the horrible things about my school, is that it only had one washing hose in the middle of the track, which was bound to attract a lot of attention if I went there in the midst of assembly. So I went to the showering room to shower my wound which got my pants rather wet.

Not being able to walk properly for the following days was a rather big blow to my confidence. I could not run during P.E, but still got forced to run, typical of the lousiest teacher in the school. And I lost that happy energy in my footsteps. Not moving is one thing. Knowing that you can't run around even if you wanted to is much worse.

Horrible start, isn't it?

Cell biology article review was due on Friday, and for the whole holidays, I have not touched a single piece of work. Searching through many interesting articles, I either had nothing to write about them, or was doubtful about its relevance to cell biology. I finally completed it at 12midnight, really late for me considering that I usually slept latest at 10pm. And then one gigantic burden looming over me for the day before was finally lifted. But I was still feeling stressed. What could the source be?

Unknowingly, I had a really bad feeling about plant press project, which I have kind of forgotton about the approaching deadline, yet a subconcious mind was sending me a warning. I had better start.

A few weeks ago, I went to Botanic gardens to get plants specimens with my friends, where the scientific names were readily available on a mind-soothing little rectangular plate at the base of the plant. However, I forgot to add a layer of paper while pressing them and put the leaves under my textbook. Thus they turned black over the days and started describing themselves with tiny white rings on the contrasting black background. Since then, I threw that project out of my mind along with the leaves.

And it has been unconciously haunting me since.

I finally figured out the complex mathematics on friday, and I got so freaked out that I started taking out my notebook and planning each detail of my weekend frantically.

Plan: Biology Plant Press starts on Saturday.

Where in the world would I cook up 10 plants with their scientific names without the assistance of botanists? Ben's book was not being too helpful as the variety of plants within were not too wide. I decided that I needed a more rigorous and determined approach.

I cried for help.

Actually, I went to meet Benjamin at Simei, where he gave me some plant specimens from his home. I am really grateful to that, because not only had that contributed to my plant collection, it had also given me a huge morale boost which was at level 0 when I walked about aimlessly around Pasir Ris Mrt Station fruitlessly trying to identify the plants with Ben's book.

I went to the library and borrowed a book titled "1001 Garden plants in singapore" which added to my confidence. That afternoon, I did a lot of cross referencing from difference sources which included yahoo images, wikipedia, scientific resarch of plants on the net, those books and my common sense. The next day, as I was browsing through the 1001 plant book, I came across two plants which I had, which felt like a real miracle. By the end of the weekend, I have identified (or at least relatively sure) 8 plants.

Woohoo!

Now that my wound is also gradually healing, I am starting to see light through the windows along the sides of a dark tunnel.