regret letters

Thank you for your recent application and your interest to pursue a career with us.

We are impressed with your credentials and academic qualifications and have carefully considered your application against our current vacancies. Unfortunately on this occasion, the particular role you have applied for has been filled.

We appreciate your taking time off to attend the interview. However, we regret to inform you that we are at present unable to make you an offer.

After careful consideration of your CV/resume, we regret to inform you that we will not be progressing with your application for this role at this time.

Please be assured that this was a difficult decision to make as the standard of applicants was particularly high.

We regret that you are not successful in your application.

We have carefully reviewed your application and CV/resume and I am sorry to inform you that at present we do not have positions to match your requirements. Regretfully we will not be taking your application further.

If you do not hear from us, you can assume that your skills and background does not match with our current requirements.

Thanks for contacting us. We are not hiring now.

It must be a mentally stressful and guilt-filled experience working in HR.
They always regret.

one remote fits all

Now that electronic appliances and home entertainment systems have overrun most homes, it is getting more common to find remote controls swarming the coffee table in the living room. While most remote controls look different from one another, you still get occurrences of having to search for the correct remote control for the correct appliances, beneath your piles of newspaper or under your cushion. It seriously is troublesome when you are talking on the phone and have to search for the TV remote to lower the volume at the same time.

So Yamaha has a new product called the neoHD. What it does is it connects to all your home entertainment systems and with one remote control, you can operate all your appliances with ease. Your cable set-top box, disc players, tv… It has a graphical user interface (GUI) and from the screen user can select the desired media source and function. Saves the trouble of having to learn all the buttons.

They are having a Yamaha neoHD Sweepstakes and you can stand a chance to win a set of Yamaha neoHD for yourself by simply tweeting or following the instructions in the webpage. I won’t mind getting a set of it myself.

2 beans 1 tea

After walking around Senoko in the hot afternoon sun, I decided to pamper myself a little.

Yes, impulsive buying.

My all time favourite healthy drink soya bean milk, childhood favourite red bean + latest craving matcha, put together and you've got "Japanese Azuki Red Beans and Matcha Soy Milk" (what a long name =_=) You may think, with so many things jumbled up together you won't know what you are actually sucking up the straw, but surprisingly my tongue could taste the different ingredients. Guess I'm good at solving simultaneous differential equations.

The walk from the stall to the bus stop wasn't enough for me to KO the ice-blended, so there I was sitting at the bus shelter, sucking on the green matter and watching half a dozen buses go off. You know, SMRT buses. I'm a good boy. I don't bring cup with straw onto anything SMRT.

If you drive, don't drink.
If you drink, don't take buses or trains.

tofu stamp

Wow so SingPost is launching the To-fu Oyako MyStamp set.

They actually had a design competition and just like the real Kubrick To-fu Oyako, contestants can use their creativity and design their To-fu Oyako. Entry is closed, but voting is open but about to end soon.

One of my mechanical coursemates Loh Wan Ping is in the top 10! If you like her design, give her some support by voting for her entry. (and stand a chance to win some prize)

apple orange job hunting

In Cantonese there's this term called "籮底橙", which literally means oranges at the bottom of the basket. Kind of denote unwanted stuffs.

My job hunt seems like grabbing oranges at the supermarket. The competent aunties have grabbed all the nice pretty oranges from the rack, tossing and digging deep into the pile as efficient as any oil rig produced in Singapore. And wait till there are only a few rotten ones left, it isn't that difficult to choose (or to not choose), isn't it?

But the point is, I didn't join in the frenzy late. I have been there in front of the oranges for months. Ok, the oranges don't want me (which sound pretty illogical). Watched "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes"?

By the way, some supermarkets do collect those "expired" fruits and pack them into bags and sell them at a cheaper price. Some are still sweet and very much edible.

tofu man

I think one feature of market economy is that you can have many people selling the same thing, and you can choose to buy from any of them. The wet market is one example.

There is this tofu stall at the wet market near my place. Ok altogether there are 3 tofu stalls in the market, but only this stall has a queue. It always amuses me, what is there to queue up for than a few cubes of tofu or some bean sprouts? But yes, people queue up for these. The queue is already there every morning before the stall owner has readied his stall. And the fact that there is always a queue doesn't help ease his arrogance a bit. If you stand too close to his stall while queuing, he scolds. So the queue is something like ATM queue, there's a very obvious gap between the queue and the stall.

What about the other 2 stalls? Hardly any queue at any time. But to be honest the quality of the food stuff they sell is inferior to the tofu man, although the price is cheaper.

Conclusion: people in my neighbourhood like to eat tofu.

more ions underground

It's the first weekend since its opening and I already couldn't wait to check out ION Orchard.

I seriously was impressed. From the exterior to the interior, from above ground to underground, from the irregular yet nicely fitted floor tiles, to the well hidden hand dryer above every washing basin in the washroom. Is it the "Sun Hung Kai" factor?

If you think the few storeys above ground are awesome, you haven't seen nothing yet. The basement levels were like underground civilization. As your head pops below ground level you suddenly see a crowd. (above ground you see "people". Below, you see "crowd") The 4 storeys underground can beat any other 4 storeys high shopping centres

Haven't really checked out most of the shops. I will be back soon...

(I mall-hopped to Orchard Central and got caught by mechanical coursemates fabbie and ivan on a "hot date". They were on a hot date, not me :P)

fine for flag

I just have a new idea for fining people: fine those who hang their national flag the wrong way.

Seriously, as a full pledged Singapore citizen, how is it that people still don't know how the state flag looks like? Ah, maybe they do know how the flag looks like, just that they are hanging it to be seen from inside their house, easy for them to salute it every morning. But do you ever go outside your house and look proudly at the flag that you have just hung?

Maybe they seriously don't know how the flag looks like. They should go to Indonesia, saves the trouble of orientating the flag horizontally (then some joker will hang it upside down. Go to Poland then).

Then some smart ones will say, but Singapore Airlines is doing it too! (referring to the starboard side of the aircrafts)


Does your house come with jet engines too?

*According to the Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act (Chapter 296), you can be fined up to S$1000 for displaying the flag the wrong way*

crap's module recommendation

It seems like Round 0 of CORS (Centralised Online Registration System) has begun. The sadist in me is glad that I don't have to worry about bidding modules anymore, yet I saw many modules related incoming links. Now that I have my cert with me, I guess I am in a better position to comment on my favourite modules than say, a few months ago.

GEK1513 Wireless Communications - Past, Present and Future
Talks about mobile phone, wireless network, etc. Not extremely technical, and gives u insight into why your network reception is so lousy. Free frag for engin and science ppl.

MT4003 Engineering Product Development
One of my most enjoyed modules, thanks to the lecturer. You don't need to have in-depth engineering knowledge, but at least you should know something about Carnot cycle. At least you should know car engine is not made of plastic. MT stands for technology management, so it has business elements inside. Mech engin peeps have advantage.

GEK2503 Remote Sensing for Earth Observation
I had the most professional teaching team for this module, cos even the TAs are scientists working at CRISP. If you like google earth/map or you like map reading, this module is for you. Lots of hands-on with pretty satellite images. And guess what, I can apply what I learned onto Photoshop.

ME3261 Computer-aided Design and Manufacturing
VERY dry. Anyway are there people out there who hire grads to handle CNC machines? But the CAD portion was quite useful, especially learning how curve surfaces are generated. B-spline is like everywhere.

GEM2501 Electric Energy - Powering the New Millenium
Learn about power generation and transmission, and how our electricity bill is calculated. Really enjoyed doing the term paper, cos I really felt like doing research at the National Library. Engin and physics guys, free frag.

The rest are like core modules or mods that I don't like. Don't bother choosing our core modules if you are not from mechanical engineering, it takes a special type of human beings :P

When choosing modules, it may help to go into IVLE to look at the module information, workload, requirements (some of us just hate projects while others hate exam. I hate both), glance at the reading list and if you have time, go to the library and take a peep. You may also try going to the NUS Library website to see past year paper. If you can roughly answer the questions, well... you might have hit the right button.

Please note that I am not you and you are not me. What I like or what I scored well in may not be the same case for you. And what happened during my time may not happen again. As such, I will not bear any responsiblity for you failing your module or any thing like that. You have been warned!

tool engineering for food packaging

Have you ever tried opening those can with pull ring, and end up the ring snaps before you can even open the can?

So yesterday I was opening a can of baked beans. The ring snapped when the lid was 1/4 opened. Lazy me didn't bother to use a tool, so I used my bare hand to open the remaining lid. I licked off the tomato sauce on my thumb, and it tasted like blood. It was my blood.

It sure seems like the connection between the ring and the lid breaks off before the boundary between the lid and the can comes loose. Urgh, spare me from the stress-strain curve, Young's modulus, Hooke's law.

What was intended to retire the can-opener for convenience ended up creating (some) frustration. When there's a problem, there's a solution. So I did a little search and found some creative designs that make pulling the ring as easy as pulling the grenade's pin.

One design looks like a J, and works like a crowbar. Simple design, easily manufactured since it is one piece and can be directly molded. The lever system should save some strength for the average kitchen lady.


Another design looks like an enlarged pull ring. While it also works like a lever system, but I think it is smarter than the J design cos it even takes care of the "popping up" part of opening the can. (you know, the same action when u open a can of coke)

At the end of the day, you are still using a tool.

competence and commitment

I went for this job interview at this big company (which I'm not sure if they are selling fruit or selling computer). I actually have previous experience doing the same task, maybe even more demanding. So when the interviewer asked if I liked the previous job, my answer was

well, let's just say it was a job.

Seriously, can't expect me to wake up every morning feeling like oh-i-can't-wait-to-go-to-work. Maybe some people do, what is called passionate about the job, but how long can the passion burn? But that doesn't mean I did sloppy work. Professionalism is too big a word to use, but I did get praises from people. I got my job done. You can have a super passionate employee who is also passionate about screwing things up.
-----------------

On a related note, I read the article "The learning factory" by John Pullin published in the 24 June 2009 issue of Professional Engineering magazine. The article mentioned Jack Welsh's A B C people (Welsh is former chairman and CEO of General Electric). As are competent and committed, Bs committed but not yet competent, and the Cs will never be committed. The article went on to say the company "move on those who aren't committed and they recruit for attitude, train for competence. Training is an investment, not a cost, and quality is a byproduct of training and people development."

No offence to scholars, I do know of scholarship recipients who can't wait to quit the organization when the bond period expires. So is scholarship a good way to retain talents in the organization? And I do know people who are so eager to work in these same organizations, yet they can't cos they don't have that nice a certificate.

The assumption here is, of course, scholars are competent.
And to be fair, there are scholars who are committed and they rise up the rank in the organization.

So it makes one ponder, is meritocracy working? And the assumption is, meritocracy is based on paper qualification. Isn't it?

big small nutella

Was buying bread at the supermarket. Saw that the house-brand bread is having a promotion, free Nutella with every loaf purchased. So I happily grabbed one loaf and tossed into my trolley.

After the checkout I went to the service counter to redeem my Nutella. The staff handed me a big 375g jar of Nutella, and I could feel my eyes widen. As though the staff could sense something wrong, she hurriedly said she had given me the wrong one, and replaced the 375g jar with the small snack-size pack.

Ok. I'm more amused than disappointed. I really don't mind the big jar.

same cooker, different cover

I don't know if you have similar experience of finding the exact same product but being sold under different brandname with different packaging altogether?

I remember during my trip to China I went to this department store. I was really overwhelmed when I saw at least 5 rows of shelves of different induction cookers (and proportional number of promoters). All of them are Chinese brands that I rarely see outside of China.

Just recently I was at a local supermarket in Singapore and saw one model of induction cooker exactly the same as the one I saw in China, but under a Japanese brandname (at least it sounds like one) and with the Safety Mark sticker on its box. Why am I so sure? Cos I recognize that silly looking picture on the bottom right corner of the cooker. Just today, I saw an advertisement from another local supermarket, and they are selling the same model of induction cooker as well.

I did a little currency conversion from S$ to RMB and found that the price is about the same. Usually consumer goods are a little more expensive in Singapore. But in this case... the difference seems to be only the brandname and the Safety Mark sticker.

Maybe it's like siblings. They come from the same womb, but they have different name and perhaps, different quality? (ok, different brand is like they have different father :P)

I’m attacking my resume

As a job-seeker, I thought forgetting to attach my CV to the email is bad enough a mistake (at least that's the mistake that I realize. There may be more. That's why I'm still unemployed) I just read that there are more mistakes out there in people's resumes.

"Dear Sir or Madman"

"I'm attacking my resume for you to review"

"Following is a grief overview of my skills"

"Have a keen eye for derail"

Scary.

From yahoo via malayjournal1

no da vinci code

Went to the Singapore Science Centre to catch the Da Vinci - The Genius exhibition with Nicole, XinYun and Xizor. Thanks XinYun for organizing~!

The ticket is at S$15. I'll say it's not cheap, but it's a travelling exhibition around the world, so I wasn't surprised. What surprised me was the crowd at The Annexe of the Science Centre, and the queue for purchasing the ticket at the Annexe Foyer. It is heartening to see people interested in such stuff.

Da Vinci was an artist, a scientist, an engineer, an inventor, a military strategist... basically he's like everything. But it is the engineering identity that caught my interest. Why bother about Mona Lisa and the Last Supper when you can't date the girl nor eat the food? On display at the exhibition are scaled replicas of Da Vinci's inventions. I really had fun studying those machines and analyzing how they work, how they transform circular motion into linear motion, how the gears move one another, how to erect a pillar, etc. I think some other visitors (young girls somemore) were disturbed by my curiosity towards the machines.

But other than the physical models, I find the other exhibits a little... disappointing? There are things that you can read from books or the internet, and things that you can only feel the difference when you see it at the museum.

I also bumped into fellow mechanical coursemates ahdee, carrotcak & co. at the Science Centre. See? That's the meaningful stuffs youths nowadays do during weekend. Come to think of it, today's the first time I seriously step into the Singapore Science Centre since primary school.

*By the way, photography is not allowed, thus the lack of photo in this post

commencing webcast

If you were a graduand at NUS Commencement 2009 and dying to find out how you looked like on the projector screen, or if you missed someone's graduation, or if you are just plain narcissist, the recorded webcast of the ceremonies are available.

Don't even need to log into IVLE, for Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) the link is here. The other ceremonies' clips are available at this website.

02:04:40. The moment I got drown by balloons.

Caught anyone sleeping yet?

fine city is getting more fine

Our fine city is getting more fine. Or should it be, "finer"?

Just as I saw law enforcement officers catching jaywalkers at traffic crossings, now they are getting serious at people who eat and drink in the MRT train. Commuters can be slapped a fine of at least S$30 for taking a sip from your mineral water bottle or sucking on your lollipop.

I thought you only can't eat hamburger or drink from a straw in the train, going by the picture.

Frankly speaking I have no problem with other commuters taking sips of water or popping a candy into their mouth. But reading the reports from printed media, it seems like those categories aren't spared. Seriously, if you go by how much inconvenience it brings to other commuters, those who lean on the pole should be fined at least 60 bucks, those who don't move in to the centre of the car should be fined $100, and those who blast music from their handphone should be fined something like $500 minimum.

Now, how about giving cash rewards to those who offer their seats, or fare rebate to those who choose to remain standing throughout their journey?

eating with evolution

I seldom have meals at McD, but when I visited it the other day, I saw some new Panasonic POS (point-of-sale) systems at the counter. It has a big LCD screen facing the queue, and when no one is ordering food it displays advertisements and promotions. What I like about it is when customer is ordering, it actually displays the item/s ordered and tallies up the amount due (manufacturer calls it "order verifier").

I remember years ago McD had those boring looking cash register that has one row of red LED digits showing the amount due. Nothing much user-friendliness to speak of. Not only that, if you look beyond the counter, you would have noticed many changes as well. Crews used to have to shout into the kitchen for orders (when the ramp runs out of, say, cheeseburger). Now they have flat screens showing what needs to be cooked. And if you are those McD camper that laze from breakfast hours to lunch, you might have noticed them changing the menu by opening the display cover and changing the piece of film. Not anymore, now they do it like jackpot machine, just roll it. (sorry, my descriptive writing skill sucks, you have to see the real thing yourself)

You can say it's harnessing technology and innovation to increase efficiency.

Another story. I went to this well-known bak ku teh (pork rib soup) place at Rangoon Road. Now the waiters use PDA to take orders instead of on pieces of paper, and now you have to pay when the food is delivered. Every waiter has a walkie-talkie clipped on their pants. Seriously I prefer the retro feel of Balestier Road bak ku teh where they record down your orders on the wall tiles.

I have double standard when it comes to technology.

i'm commenced

This may sound a bit weird, but
I'm commenced!
(sounds so WTF, like I'm done or I'm screwed)
They don't call it graduation, they call it commencement. It's like telling you now is the time your life starts and the craps start rolling.

Actually I didn't feel much emotional at first. The preparation, wearing the academic dress in the robing room, going up onto the stage and receiving the thin-walled structure (aka degree scroll), oh and someone owned up for screaming "chillycraps". I just felt amused that I haven't seen so many faces in my cohort of 288, not even during examinations (since I wasn't the invigilator, how could I see every face?) It was only when the balloons started to fall from the ceiling and almost drowned me then I had some emotions oozing out from the oil well.

Like finally, I'm officially unemployed :P Finally, I can't use student concession. Finally, I can't buy student meal.


Looking back, I have one of the most boring lives you can get from an undergraduate. I didn't go for orientation camps, I didn't stay in campus in hostels, I didn't go for oversea exchange, I didn't take up positions in any clubs and societies, I didn't skip that many lectures, I didn't buy a laptop, I almost didn't borrow a book from the library until upper years, I didn't stay overnight to mug in campus near the exam, I didn't play computer games in the lab, I didn't copy any lab reports (loser!), I didn't use any S/U option.

I do know this B.Eng (Hons) costs me many cups of thick aromatic coffee from the engineering canteen.

To the class of 2009, congratulations for your commencement!

airport can't express

Yesterday I took the MRT to the airport (don't worry, not flying off this time round). When going to the airport by rails, one has to transfer to another train at Tanah Merah Interchange. So as my East-bound train pulled into the station, I saw the airport-bound train already at the middle platform. When the train I was on fully came to a stop, the airport-bound train had already closed its doors. I walked across the platform, half hoping that the other train would open its doors again to take in the transfer passengers, but instead it sped off.

There is nothing wrong with train driver following schedule strictly, I'm just wondering could there be some flexibility? It was not just one or two small crabs like me, but quite a crowd transferring to the airport line. And I understand that there are CCTV screens for the driver to see if there are trains at the other platforms so as to facilitate transfer. Shrug.

Then it makes me wonder, do they actually encourage tourists to use public transport when going to and fro the airport? As far as I know there are no dedicated mode of transport serving the airport (maybe except taxi). Imagine taking the MRT and transferring at Tanah Merah, it would be lucky day to find a seat with no one staring at your luggages (and deciding if they should call the police cos you look like a big bad terrorist), or taking the bus and stopping at every bus stop picking up students and workers.

In many other airports they have something called the airport express. With luggage racks and comfortable seats, these trains take passenger right into the heart of the city from the airport, with no stops in between. Some of these were built parallel alongside existing rail lines, so they won't jam up the capacity like bandwidth hogging. I will be happy enough if there is a non-stop train that takes me direct from the airport to the CBD (say, City Hall Interchange), and leave me to my nonsense after that. Not likely to happen though.

beijing subway eat fresh

It is always a new experience taking a ride on another country's rail system. The Beijing Subway was no exception.

Built in the 60s and originally planned to be used during wartime, the Beijing Subway is now the second largest underground railway network in China, second only to Shanghai. With lines to the airport and serving the Olympic venues, the Beijing Subway helps to ease the traffic on the ring roads on the surface. Even at this moment new extensions and lines are being built.

Regardless of distance, each trip costs 2 yuan. No wonder the staff gave me a weird look when I told him I wanted to buy a ticket to a particular station. Me noob :P

The only thing I find inconvenient on the Beijing Subway is that there are mandatory security checks at all station entrances. All bags have to go through the x-ray machine. Taking the subway feels like catching a flight.

4 x one night in beijing

My recent trip makes Beijing the Northern-most latitude that I have been to so far. And 2009 is a good year to visit Beijing as the People's Republic of China celebrates 60th National Day. Also, after Beijing Olympic 2008, most of the infrastructures are in place.

Having been the capital of dynasties and modern China, Beijing holds significant political, historical and cultural status. As a Chinese it has been enriching to visit places like the Great Wall, Forbidden City (no forbidden fruit), Tiananmen Square among other sites, to walk on the streets, to take their bus and subway, to eat their food, to experience and peep into life of the locals. Beijing gave me a totally different feel from Southern China which I am more familiar with. The streets are clean, the buildings are tidy (even if they are old), and people are polite. The Wangfujing Dajie can match Singapore's Orchard Road or Hong Kong's Causeway Bay. It makes a difference to be in the capital.

I also took a high speed train and sneaked out to Tianjin, an early industrial city of China in which they recently rolled out the first Airbus to be assembled in China.

I was so ill-prepared for this trip, I forgot about my Nalgene bottle, had to brave the sub 20 degrees chill in my berms, but I had my trusty Osprey backpack and Keen sandals to keep me exploring. Have I told you I forgot about bringing extra underwear too?

But at least I'm back (like donkey weeks ago).

penny press machine

XinYun and I bumped into a penny press machine at Suntec City. Being very curious, we decided to each contribute S$1 to see what a pressed penny is.

(warning: heavy use of Singlish and high pitch voice of excited boy in the video)
Please pardon me. Spur gears make me high. How come her phone rang just when she had just inserted the coins?

It is said that the first pressed penny appeared in 1892. What the machine does is, it has the reversed image of the design, sort of like a mold. So when the user cranks the handle, the coin (not the coin you inserted) is fed in and is pressed under great pressure until it becomes oval in shape, and with new imprints on it.

This is the end product. Didn't photoshop to skew it ok!Users get to choose from the 4 available designs on the same machine. Do check it out if you are curious!

at the crossroad

Not long after reading my coursemate Dusty write about the traffic police at Tampines, I myself had similar experience at Ang Mo Kio.

I was waiting to cross the road junction outside Ang Mo Kio MRT Station when suddenly an auntie approached me and in a hushed voice, told me that there were policemen catching jaywalkers. I looked across, and true enough there were 5 police officers in their dark blue uniform. It wasn't an ambush, it was a defensive position. During the short duration of waiting for the red man to turn green, I already saw 2 caught.

I don't have the habit of jaywalking at the busiest junction in Ang Mo Kio, but I still find it amusing that the auntie told me about it. It's like people vs police. In fact I was worried that blogging about it would compromise police operation, but hey I'm just discouraging people from jaywalking at that junction in Ang Mo Kio. *wink wink* I'm a good citizen. So people, don't jaywalk there ok? (there's a saying that waiting for the light to turn green at an empty road is stupid. What about getting caught cos you are smart? So now on top of "look right, look left, look right again", you have to add in the "look across for any law enforcement officer". Same thing I learned from people in Hong Kong)

On a side note, something that has been bothering me for an uber long time. How come police officers in Singapore don't have to wear head dress when on official business, except the police MRT unit, the Gukhas, and when my MP (member of parliament) is around? When I was in Hong Kong and mainland China, their policemen wear their peaked caps proudly when on duty. Talking about some of the best police forces in the region.

pay for your plastic

The story about BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) seems like never-ending. While supermarkets in Singapore are still providing shoppers with free plastic bags, those in China have long stopped giving out free plastic bags. And Hong Kong is going to join in.

From July 7 onwards, shoppers in Hong Kong have to pay 50cents for plastic bag whenever they shop at registered retail shops. Shops that provide free plastic bags will be fined. I remember some time back there was some hoo-haa when ParkNShop, a local supermarket, decided to charge for plastic bags and got quite bad response from the public. Seems like you need legislation for things to happen. But then, being quick to respond, some convenient stores are giving handle-less plastic bag (those you use for freshies) in place of the normal plastic shopping bag, and the authority can't fault them for that.

I experienced what is meant by no-means-no in China. I went to a supermarket to shop for ingredients for cooking, but didn't have a shopping bag with me. I wasn't willing to pay for the 10cents plastic bag, so in the end I was carrying (literally) bloody fish and some veggie, walking out of the supermarket.

While I am not suggesting Singapore to follow suit and have legislations for giving out plastic bag, but I think cashiers can start asking if shoppers need a plastic bag instead of handing them out like SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). As a shopper, when asked, at least I would spend the extra nanosecond to think whether I really need the plastic bags. Or if I decide to walk out of the supermarket with bloody fish.

dress academically

I wonder if it's too early to congratulate the class of 2009, since Commencement / Convocation hasn't started. But by now, those who are attending the ceremony should have gotten their academic dress.

At first I was wondering if I can use my elder brother's academic dress. He was from engineering, but from the other university. Nah, better don't take the chance, in case one has a big lion printed on it and the other has the other lion. So I got my own set.

Turn out, the colours and patterns are the same. So it doesn't mean your university's ranking is way higher, the academic dress is different. But like what the Thais say, same same but different.

I remember the time during my brother's Convocation, he was struggling with fastening dozens of safety pins onto his gown to keep everything in place. Not anymore. Introducing the NUS academic dress. It comes with zipper for the gown and velcro to attach the hood to the gown. The tassel is sewed to the correct side of the mortarboard and the mortarboard even has an arrow telling you which side to face enemy front (sorry, mixed up with Claymore mine). No safety pins needed. (sold separately somemore)

The brother says idiot-proof designs are for idiots. I can understand why he would say that, cos that's the difference between them n'us.