Making an entrance

A cultural difference?

Its supposed to be exam period 1 (Exam period 2 comes after the 1month break), but why do I still see people outside partying, having fun or BBQing everyday? By the way, I live in a student dormitory zone (Studentenstadt).

On a side note, I am moving out on 31 July and I still do not have anything in my suitcase.... yet.

CAP it out!

I always ask myself if CAP really matters to an undergraduate.

I admit that it is a useful form of measure of a person's academic level but I also believe that the CAP system itself has its flaws. For one thing, it has taken away the joy of learning. Students no longer purely take electives that are of interest to them, which should have been the case, because they rather take something easier to prevent a fall in their CAP (a rise is always preferred). Sure the S/Us are there for this purpose but if you have a choice of raising your CAP further with a module you dislike but is easy to score, why not?

The CAP system is the main method in classifying undergraduates (when they graduate) of their Honours class. Those with higher CAP naturally have a easier time looking for jobs and securing a higher starting salary. But is that really an accurate way to determine the worth of a graduate?

I am sure most people have seen those totally unworthy of their position in society. Be it a straight A's student from an elite school only to f*** it up in NS or that manager of yours totally having no idea what is going on. An excellent student do not always equate to being an excellent worker or even an excellent leader. That said, CAP should only be a guide to a person's ability to learn and apply his knowledge but sadly many people treat it as a prediction to their future success.

Maybe the laidback lifestyle here has influenced me too much.

The reality of life...

Immer kochen

This was what my Latvian neighbour (ethnically Russian), Alesja told me when she entered the kitchen last week. It means 'always cooking' in german. Whenever I am not studying or doing whatever I need to do in my room, the best place to look for me would be the kitchen. Well, its not like there are really a lot of other places I can go, though the Englischer Garten is just 50m away but weather these days are too unpredictable. Anyway I still need to eat and Munich is not like Singapore where you can just go out and da-bao something. There is a restaurant in Studentenstadt but its fairly expensive. So here are some of the more special dishes I have made in Munich. I apologise for the lacklustre photos as my room is rather dim and I did not bother about the aesthetics part, plus I am normally have baerenhunger (hunger of a bear, worst german phrase becos no one uses them here) after spending so much time cooking these stuff.

Lamb curry

My dad told me to bring some curry powder so I could make some curry whenever I want. I am glad I did because my first attempt was great, partly because I used pre-mixed curry powder. The Nepalese in the house made their own curry from scratch, tumeric powder, chilli powder, coriander powder, etc. Hats off to them.

Sweet Pork

What is sweet pork you say? Everyone knows sweet and sour pork so when you take the sour element away, you get Sweet Pork! I did this according to a recipe from wokkingmum and since I had all the ingredients needed for this sweet pork, I decided to give this a try. It turned out really good. I did a sweet and sour pork subsequently using my neighbour's ketchup and it was gone in a jiffy.

CX's chiong Kung-Pow chicken

It was not my original intention to make Kung-Pow chicken. After cooking the chicken with onions, carrots, chilli, ginger with oyster sauce and dark soy sauce, the taste turns out to be rather similar to Kung-Pow chicken. (On 1 July 2009, CX discovered the secrets(part of) of Kung Pow chicken)Kartofeln Salat (Potato salad)

This is a dish I copied from my mum after she made it for me once. Simple, easy, able to eat on the go and delicious. I added bacons to give it an extra oomph. Yi han the 90% vegetarian is tried to find a non-meat substitute to beat my potato salad.

Chilli con carne

I decided to do a chilli con carne after seeing Yi han did it on one of the dinners. Really simple but totally rocks. I just did another one today.



Other dishes I have made here and probably worth a mention:

1. Bak Kut Teh - I brought the spice pack here but sadly something is still missing, maybe its the you-tiao, haha.
2. Crepes - Learnt it from Xiuqing and her french friend. (Note: never eat more than 3 crepes at once, you will wanna puke after that)
3. Sambal fish - Chiong version of BBQ sambal Stingray. There are no stingrays here, so I used wild salmon instead.
4. Chicken rice - Without pandan leaves, its just not fragrant enough.
5. Baked beans stew - Scrambled eggs + grilled sausages, put it all into the baked beans and pour them over your rice = a yummy meal.

Speaking deutsch

After staying in Deutschland(Germany) for 4 months, I do not think my deutsch has improved very much. Though I am now more able to keep with their pace and different accent but my vocabulary remains largely inadequate. Certain more commonly used phrases do come out of my mouth more naturally but due to the lack of conversing in the language my level of deutsch remains fairly constant.

Most of the time I understand others through inference. The german language is vastly different in structure compared to English where the main points of the sentence exists at the start and the end while the details (if any) are found in the middle. Thus most of the time I only pay attention to the main points and infer what they are talking about rather than fully understand the entire context of the sentence. Unless of course the words in their entire sentence can be found in my vocabulary library.

Sounds so much like Knowledge-Based Engineering Systems that I am reading right now.

No eating pls!

It seems that rules-flouting habits of Singaporeans have finally broke the tolerance threshold of SMRT when it announced that it will be enforcing fines on riders caught eating and/or drinking on the train.

Singapore is a 'FINE' country, everyone knows that. We fine people for jaywalking, littering and many more to keep the people in place. Singapore is known to be a clean country but are we really considerate citizens? Nope, at least that is what I think. I would say Singapore is clean because of the large numbers of cleaners we employ to keep it clean. Take a look at East Coast Park or any beach and you will find tons of litter everywhere (if not where does beach cleaning CIP come about?). Even with restrictions of eating on public transport, we find empty packs of McDonald's or bubble tea cups everywhere. Sure, there are people who are considerate enough to place their litter in bins but there are still many inconsiderate ones out there.

In Germany, eating and drinking are allowed in most public transport, save buses I think. However the hygiene conditions of these public transport are on par if not higher than our MRT and buses. On the S- and U-bahns, its common to see people having their breakfast or a nice bottle of beer or even an ice cream cone as they commute to their destinations. But there are hardly any litter. Muencheners (people living in Munich) are considerate enough to place their litter in those small bins found beside seats or just throw them after they alight. Public areas are also generally kept clean and this city does not even have the reputation of being clean unlike Singapore.

Echo auf dem Konigssee

Blast the volume up and listen to the echo.... It was truly an amazing experience.

*PS: This is not what we took but is same anyway.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

I believe many have watched it, so have I despite being in Munich and paying double the price than I would have in Singapore. Without a doubt the action-packed movie would appeal to many Transformers fans who have watched it on TV when it was still a cartoon back in the early 1990s. New fans would probably be satisfied with a decent enough sequel to the first flick. However as I was riding my bicycle to school(the 40km route B was boring enough) the day after I watched it, it dawned on me that there are more loopholes in the story than I realised.

1. The All Spark mystery
Since the Sun harvester was built on Earth in 17,000BC, way before the All Spark arrived on Earth as shown in Transformers 1, why would the All Spark know of the location of the Matrix of Leadership?

2. More All Spark mystery
The All Spark splinter was supposed to reveal where the Matrix of Leadership was but instead all their information were provided by Wheelie (the decepticon that hump on Meagan Fox), Simmons (the sector 7 agent) and Jet Fire. You could say that Jetfire translated the symbols Sam carved but see mystery 1. The All Spark did nothing else after that.

3. Megatron
If my memory does not fail me, I remembered that Megatron was thrown into the deep ocean after being destroyed in Transformers 1 due to its high pressure and ultra-low temperature which are able to prevent any other Cybertronian robots from reaching them. Then how did they revive Megatron if they are supposed to be deactivated upon reaching the depths? Global warming?

4. The Primes
The Fallen mentioned that only a Prime could destroy him. If all it took was Optimus Prime alone to defeat The Fallen in less than 10mins, it would not make sense that the 3 Primes who hid the Matrix of Leadership would be inadequate the defeat him.


That said its still one hell of a show.