Kimi Raikkonen won the 2007 Formula One Driver’s Championship a week ago, which was just totally unbelieveable! Just a few weeks before that, Lewis Hamilton had a chance to wrap up the Driver’s title for himself, but he threw it all away by beaching his car on the gravel trap just outside the pit lane. A heart-wrenching sight for all the British Hamilton fans, but to me, he’s just getting really arrogant. I mean, Alonso was the reigning 2-time World Champion – give him some respect for goodness’ sake. But on the flipside, Alonso was behaving like a spoilt brat himself, unhappy with the team just because he’s being trounced by a rookie.
In the end, Hamilton and Alonso brought each other down, and allowed Raikkonen to capture the Championship, and what a race it was! If either Hamilton or Alonso had finished one spot higher than they did, they would have seized the crown, but luckily for Kimi, they didn’t.
That’s the difference between Ferrari and McLaren. McLaren’s culture emphasizes equality between the 2 drivers, regardless of the situation, whereas Ferrari’s culture places more emphasis on teamwork. If one driver has a better chance of capturing a championship or race, Ferrari goes all out to help that driver, even if it means slightly compromising the other driver’s strategy. There’s no “right” or “wrong” in this case; it’s just that the teams’ different cultures are better suited to different situations, like in this season, where Ferrari’s attitude of teamwork, allowed Massa to support Raikkonen in his title bid.
I think I’m becoming a Raikkonen fan, but I feel good ol’ Kimster thoroughly deserves that Driver’s trophy. And it’s about time too. He’s been labelled “potential world champion” during the days when Juan Pablo Montoya was still racing for Williams, and now, Kimi can finally remove the word “potential” from his name card.
Anyway, things on the work front, for me, have pretty much remained the same, except that the assignments have mysteriously piled up quite a bit over the last week. I had to start the weekend with 7 tutorials/assignments to complete, which do not include my sociology readings. So this weekend became like any other – 2 whole days bound to my desk by this mysterious device, known to most people as a “pen”, although I have become a bit inefficient in turning assignments around – I’d only completed 3 assignments this weekend, as opposed to the usual 4. I think I’m losing steam, but I can’t really do much about, except for drinking more Red Bull…
This being week 10, all the mid-term results have been announced as well, and they were pretty normal I guess. I mean, I wasn’t expecting anything spectecular, and I could have done a lot worse. There was none of the crap that I had in that statics test over a month ago. I gave my very best, and I’m quite pleased with the overall results. I did fail programming though, but then again, so did half the cohort. The mean score of the test was a 12, which was my score as well, and the full score was a 25 or a 26, which – astonishingly - nobody was able to achieve. I think that fact bears testament to the high level of difficulty of the programming test. I still remember the first programming lecture we had after the results came out. The lecturer told us he was actually quite pleased with our cohort, because he had expected something worse from us. The whole LT just went into a state of shock…
And so ends another 2 weeks. We’re past the “week 10″ mark, which means the final term tests are just around the corner.
Fabulous…
Here are some trailers for the latest Simpsons video game, and they’re so funny!
It’s like some corny Japanese remake of the Simpsons in a video game! Comic Book Guy turns into a sumo wrestler, and there’s even a faux-Pokemon battle between Homer and Jimbo. Some of you may recognize Mr Sparkle from one of the episodes of the Simpsons, where Homer found this Japanese brand of soap powder called “Mr Sparkle”, with an uncharacteristically cute likeness of Homer (with big pearly eyes) for a logo.
I’m SO gonna buy this when it comes out on November the 6th for the PSP…
I am so glad the week is over because it also means that my mid-term tests are OVER – for 3 weeks only… Since we’ve got that lousy Statics and Mechanics test in early November. But for now, there’s still not much time to relax, though I’ve been slacking a lot more than usual, because preparing for Sociology meant lagging behind in all my assignments which, ironically, include my Sociology readings. So we’re back to the mundane infinite loop of completing many assignments and watching even more arrive via IVLE.
It’s supposed to be spelt as “EVIL” I tell you!
Anyway, the Sociology mid term test was a bit of a mixed bag, but totally not what I had expected. I expected to be stumped by most of the questions, which did not happen, which is a good thing. So I did this one about whether or not the Functionalist explanation for social inequality was adequate, which required a lot of regurgitation. And the best part was that I actually remembered a good bit of what I had learnt! Which is actually quite amazing considering my significantly reduced attention span and memory, not that I had a very good memory in the first place…
So I went on to write this long rambling essay about the inadequacies of the Functionalist theory applied to social inequality and how the Conflict theories developed by Karl Marx and Max Weber would provide a better explanation, all while glancing at the giant clock, placed at the front of the lecture theatre, every 3 minutes, which really kept me on my toes, because I had less time to plan for my essay than I would have liked, and as the end of the prescribed 1 hour drew near, I realized that I might not have been able to finish the essay on time.
And with that on my mind, I proceeded to blow up the whole essay by penning down some incoherent nonsense about Blau and Duncan’s Status Attainment Model. “Blau and Duncan’s Status Attainment Model”. Now that’s one phrase I’m gonna remember for the rest of my life because I forgot the name of the theory and theorists! And I also forgot some parts of the theory as well. So if the essay was about regurgitation, I guess you could say that Marx’s and Weber’s versions of Conflict theory came out through my mouth, and Blau and Duncan’s came out through my ass or something, cos it was just plain crap.
Nope, not mint chocolate chip or vanilla flavoured crap.
Just plain ol’ crap.
Mmm…
But despite that somewhat bizarre and totally inappropriate analogy, I think it could have been worse, so I’m pretty satisfied I guess. I could continue second-guessing myself, but I’m just way too tired, and I don’t wanna jinx myself.
And Happy Birthday Gerg!
I just entered my NUS account username and password while trying to log on to WordPress, and wondered for a few seconds why I couldn’t get in…
Anyway, it’s Saturday, which doesn’t usually mean a lot to me because I still do work on weekends, but this Saturday is sort of a landmark for me. It means the end of my test week, except for one more MTT on Thursday, which is for Sociology. A subject which can be quite enjoyable if not for the hideously large amount of work involved. I think I’ve spent more time preparing for the Sociology MTT than any other MTT and I’m only halfway done.
My MTTs so far have been pretty OK, since they could have been worse. I got 7/10 for math, though I could’ve gotten 8 if not for a careless mistake. Hell knows what I was thinking when I was doing that question, but it could’ve been worse. The physics paper went pretty smoothly, though I have a feeling I’d been duped by some trick questions, and it’s the same for this morning’s programming paper, which was consisted of nothing but trick questions, plus a bonus question which asked about the American Federal Reserve System, so that one question became a bit of a lottery. I was almost expecting some question about Steve Jobs, since they asked about Bill Gates last year, but I guess the programming department isn’t to excited about Apple. But otherwise, I think I’ll be OK for all these tests.
Except for Sociology, for which I’m gonna spend a lot more time preparing. And I’ve been wondering how I’m gonna fit the revision plus all the tutorials for the coming week into just a few days.
I need a break.
And you wonder what recess week was for…
