reply from smrt

Regarding this incident that I talked about previously, I received the reply from SMRT yesterday. Here's the content:

Dear (my name),

Thank you for your feedback.

We are pleased to hear that our bus service leader has provided you with quality customer service. Do be assured that we will convey your appreciation to him and give him due recognition for a job well done. He will be delighted to know that his efforts to go the extra mile for his customers are being appreciated and recognized.

Thank you once again for taking the time to show your appreciation to our staff.

We look forward to your continual support of SMRT.


Yours sincerely
John Quah (Mr.)
Senior Executive
Corporate Marketing and Communication
SMRT Corporation

I happy, you happy, win-win situation!

commend on bus driver

Just now it was raining heavily and I was waiting for my bus at Marymount Road. Then came SMRT Bus service 852 (plate number TIB671X). I couldn't really flag it cos I was taking cover under the shelter, but nevertheless there were passengers alighting, so the bus pulled over. When I boarded the bus, the driver smiled at me politely. Along the way the driver was driving cautiously due to the heavy rain and road condition. No speeding. When I reached my destination, the driver actually motioned me to alight from the entrance as the exit was some distance from the bus shelter at the bus stop and it was still raining heavily.

Really feel touched.

Having worked in the service line before, I know that receiving compliment is one of the satisfying moments from work. While we sometimes (if not always) complain about poor unsatisfactory service, shouldn't we also compliment on a job well done? Don't be stingy on your compliments! A feedback is waiting in their inbox now.

By the way, the driver seems to be a Chinese national. This just shows that nationality doesn't matter if you can do your job well.

i did not take part in earth hour

I did not switch off my lights from 8:30pm to 9:30pm today.

Don't be mistaken, I'm not some counter-environmentalist. In fact I'm a member of WWF. Let's put it this way, the Earth Hour thingie sounds more like a pop culture, and I believe I am way less environmentally harmful than some of the people who purposely made it a point to switch off their lights for that 1 hour.

Let's say conservatively, your household has 2x25W lightbulb. By switching off for 1 hour, you save 50Wh of energy. Now, come to my favourite example. You drive your beloved car to work everyday, only you yourself in the car behind that whatever-horsepower engine. Yours truly here take public transport. Other than carbon footprint, we can talk about GHG emission, acidification, ozone layer depletion, toxicity, on and on and on. Who's more harmful to the environment? By the way, both my electricity and water usage are below national average, according to the bill. If the campaign says switch off air-con, would you have done it too?

Creating awareness, but are people becoming more aware?

malay listening test

Yesterday we had our Malay listening test, and guess what's the listening material?



URGH! That chipmunk voice!!

keep calm and carry on

Maybe this World War 2 poster is useful.

Keep calm and carry on indeed.

Let's see how much can I squeeze into my FYP within the next 1 week.

draft handed in, but...

When I finished my draft for my final year project report last night (or was it this morning), I told myself not to celebrate, cos I know things that can screw up, will screw up. I was keeping my finger crossed. But I really thought I can beat the submission deadline (which is tomorrow) and rejoice.

So I just went to submit the draft to my supervisor this afternoon. Bounced. He wants more stuff to be added in. More scopes. I tried to bargain / debate/ argue with him (to a point he stood up from his chair) that it won't be a fair study or logical investigation any more (to be honest, some part of my brain wants to slack. Some) But after giving it some thoughts, I guess he has his point. When it comes to the oral examination, the examiner may find loopholes to attack. By making the study more complete, it may become less vulnerable.

So fellow coursemates doing FYP, don't be too happy that you have completed your first draft. Deadline doesn't mean they can't make you more dead (it's like cutting up a corpse). Now my prof automatically extended my deadline without me asking. Damn.

the beginning of the end

Final year project for Mechanical Engineering Department officially ended last Friday (13th March). Like finally.... NOT!

When they say official end date, it just means you can't go into the lab from then on. You still have to write your long story thesis, in which the first draft is due this Friday. I have this dramatic experience with the due date. At first I thought it was due 13th March, then panic a bit, then thought it's 31st March, so relax a bit, and finally realize it's 20th March. Ok, average of the 2.

Peers have been suggesting me to ask for extension, but I don't see the point. I can extend till one more academic year later but I still won't get the things done, due to the nature of my project. Hello, the spirit of scientific research is never ending! (yeah right). The painful part of the thesis - introduction and background - is done. So I am confident I can hand in on time.

I think so...

Win 3 Xbox 360 and 15 Microsoft Office 2007 Standard Edition worth S$600 each!

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plastic engine

lecturer: what are engines made of?
classmate: plastic?

URGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

It doesn't help to know that she's a 3rd year mechanical engineering student.

Seriously, do they have replica of an engine in Barbie dolls accessories?

folded page in google books

I was quite surprised to find folded pages in Google Book Search while doing my literature search.

A feel of the analog reality in a digital world?

late is the fashion

This morning I had a project meeting in campus. Yes, Saturday morning.

When I reached the venue, our German groupmate was already there. Yours truly here was second. Coming in third was our French groupmate. So we decided to wait for the rest for a few more minutes before starting proper, meanwhile we chatted about the punctuality culture here. I mentioned the saying that 15 minutes is fashionably late (though I can't understand how fashionable it is), and my German friend found it a little frustrating.

He shared that in Germany, they start work at 7am and end early in the afternoon, compared to how some Singaporeans can enter the office at 10am. When he was interning at a German company in Singapore, he saw people coming into the meeting half an hour late and not uttering a word of apology or feeling embarrassed. He said they just settled into the seat as if nothing had happened. *ADDED* Oh and he was at a concert at the Esplanade, then during the first intermission, he saw a large crowd rushing in. (ie, majority of the audience was late and weren't allowed in until the first break)

I wonder, do people's attitude towards punctuality has anything to do with a nation being an engineering giant? By the way, you won't want to know how long later did the last guy arrive for the meeting.

stabbing incident

A professor from NTU School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering was stabbed by his final-year project student yesterday morning. Refer to here for full story.

I guess we shouldn't speculate anything when we don't even know what exactly happened. It may very well be unrelated to FYP, although news reports are suggesting something related. But as a final year engineering student from a different university, I feel that the incident kind of underscores the mental well-being of final year students.

I just want to share my piece here. I see many coursemates getting stressed over FYP (yeah we have about 1 month left to submit our thesis). Results, no results, inconsistent results. Rushing report. Digging published paper. Sudden change of direction. Disappearance of supervisors. And sometimes the supervisors do not make things any better. Read my experience here and here.

I feel that doing FYP should have been a learning process. Not getting results is also part of learning. I'm sure there's something to take home even from a failed experiment. You don't get Eureka all the time, do you? While I would very much like to challenge the need for final-year project, I just want to say to those doing FYP: don't stress yourself. Keep a cool mind, and everything will be fine.

In fact, I am planning to say in my FYP thesis that, this project is not feasible.