sitting for the FEE

The last time when I was in an examination hall, I was an invigilator. :P

Today I just sat for 6 hours 20 minutes of Fundamental of Engineering Examination (FEE) administered by the Professional Engineering Board. Basically the FEE tests you on the fundamentals of engineering, much that has been taught at undergraduate level. Passing the FEE is one of the prerequisites for registering as a Professional Engineer. In a nutshell, if you want to work as an engineering consultant in Singapore, the PE cert is a must-have. As for me, right from the start I took it as a self-challenge to see how much can I keep learning and improving myself. At the moment I don't really need the cert for my rice bowl but more of good-to-have, and that kind of removes the pressure.

Nevertheless, I've made many sacrifices for this examination. I began my preparation from the beginning of the year with quite a structured revision plan. Of course, it wasn't always easy to adhere to it along with work and life commitments. I opted to lunch-in instead of eating out with colleagues so that I could either catch some shut-eye or do some bite-size revisions. Closer to the exam date, I enrolled into a preparatory course run by the Institution of Engineers Singapore. It was a night class and I can tell you it was not easy to rush to class after work, then trying to catch up on precious rest time. This experience also made me reconsider my plan for post-graduate studies. Anyway, I guess the course was helpful cos it was taught my NTU lecturers, so I sort of have 2 engineering education: 1 from NUS, 1 from NTU, albeit unofficially.

Ah the exam. It was quite scary, with people pulling trolleys and lugguage bags of textbooks and notes since it was an open-book exam. The exam venue's lobby was more like the airport. The paper itself was separated into 40 MCQ in paper 1 and 5 out of 7 structured questions in paper 2. By the way, the MCQs were like structured questions themselves. Imagine trying to cramp 4 years' worth of engineering knowledge and trying to answer the questions. Pretty much like searching for a needle in the ocean.

While I think my paper was pretty screwed, but it was a good experience nonetheless. It's like in kungfu, you try to learn every move, then you unlearn them (ie, you forgot) :P. Regardless of the result, I think it was a good experience trying to refresh what I've learned in the university days (honestly, you kind of understand the concepts differently), and also trying to challenge thyself. :P

Well, I've set sight for the next challenge, but for now, I need some rest.

we need trained operator

A while ago when I read from the news that SBS Transit was appointed the operator for Downtown Line which is to be completed in 2017, I couldn't help chuckled to myself.


For background information, SBS Transit currently operates the North East Line. My cynicism was based on my observation at the way the existing North East Line is being managed. Have you seen 2 out of the 4 station doors at Punggol Station not in working order? Have you seen half of the glass doors at Dhoby Ghaut Station locked even during normal operating hours? Not forgetting the horrible sight I saw in the toilet at the station!

I'm not saying the other operator (read SMRT) is doing a fantastic job. In fact some people deserve a trout slap for saying "People can board the train – it's whether they choose to". However I guess it is not a fair comparison since SMRT is running on older infrastructure and system and very different network. I can't imagine the East West line going on unmanned trains.

So, should we have a third operator?

mid-autumn is (also) a season for sharing

Mid-autumn Festival is around the corner, so I thought of bringing the parents to the Marina Bay area for a lantern walk.

We were greeted by the gigantic air-blown Walter the bunny (no stranger to me, had met it at 8Q SAM) at the entrance of Marina Bay City Gallery. It wasn't a big event, wasn't reported on the Chinese newspaper, wouldn't have known it if not seeing it on xinyun's post. But seriously, you don't need a big event to enjoy yourself. Paper lanterns were distributed and the Gallery staffs were busy helping visitors lighting up the candles. We were also treated to tasty mooncakes from Fullerton Hotel :D

I was holding a lighted lantern when a family of 3 approached me. The father, apparently from mainland China judging by his accent, asked me where did I buy the lantern. I told him it was distributed at the Gallery, but seemed like the stock went out. My father, who was standing beside me, saw the little girl and offered his lantern to her. The man was pleasantly surprised and thanked us. And you know what next? The daughter came forward, standing straight and saying in a very audible voice, "谢谢叔叔！" (thank you uncle in Chinese) before taking the lantern from her father. Her manners beat many of the local kids.

Many-a-times you can't buy happiness (just like you can't find anywhere selling lantern in the Bay area. What a waste), and you can find happiness by giving and sharing a little. A lot of learning points for me from this episode.

creative ziio 10', the accidental comex buy

I didn't really imagine myself going to Comex 2011. Until I received a call from my parents during office hour on Friday, asking me to go Comex with them that evening.

Well I did think of getting an iPad for them, since it is not uncommon to see old aunties playing with iPhone on the train, and I guess a Windows-based PC could be harder to learn for the oldbies at home. But I didn't do much research prior to heading down Comex. So over there we saw a couple of Chinese brands Android tablets on 7' screen and yada yada, and the ZiiO 10' at the Creative booth. We decided to go for the bigger screen, and the Singaporean brand.

At first glance the ZiiO 10 has a better look than the other low-end tablets. Just to point out, it doesn't have the standard usb port (has a mini USB), neither does it accept USB charging. But that isn't much an issue since the tablet is for my parents, can't expect them to switch on my computer to charge the tablet. Has a resistive touch screen so it doesn't support multi-touch. The volume and power buttons on the right side are also kind of hidden when you use the pouch for the ZiiO. The biggest drawback? It can't access the Android Market!!

I have no idea why it doesn't have Android Market, but in place it has a quite limited Ziio Shop. My heart sank. Well this was the first time I own (ok, my parents shall own it) an Android platform, so it kind of felt like on unfamiliar land. Perhaps there were problems faced across all Android platforms which I thought only my darn set has. I thought ok, that means I have no access to the ocean of Android apps out there. Isn't the spirit of open source mean open access to stuff? So I read up online, and found that a work around is to go to third party sites and download the .apk files direct. That solved quite a bit of the problem.

Hopefully my parents will like the set. For the time being, they are hugging it all day long reading news and listening to oversea radio stations.