Spring babies!

Though it is already spring, the weather is still quite cold here. So it was a surprise today when I saw gooslings on the way to the supermarket. The honour of being the First Family belongs to the Greylag goose.

Spring seems very romantic to us: seeing the flowers bloom, the wildlife pairing up and babies sprouting from the union. But, there is an ugly side to it. All the water fowl here: the mandarin mallard ducks, moor hens, coot, geese etc, chase and fight each other for territory and mates. It is sad to see the weaker birds being attacked by the strong ones. And they have to cope with the unpredictable weather, like snowing on Easter. So don't envy them for their seemingly carefree life. It is tough surviving out there. Let's hope the weather will turn warmer from now on, otherwise a lot of babies may die.

Here is my album of wildlife babies, as I photographed them throughout spring and summer. Do remember to visit it regularly for more updated photos.

Easter Snow!

I know, snow goes with Christmas, not Easter. But this is the British weather, just when I have started tagging my photos on flickr with "spring", along comes a heavy snowfall early Easter Sunday morning. Hey, heaven! You are supposed to snow on Jesus' birthday, not on his re-birthday!

This time round, I was awaken by the glare of the snow into my room. I actually woke up about the same time as the previous snowfall, but this time the sky is already bright. It is past the spring equinox already, mind you, so the sun rises at the "normal" time now.

Anyway, it is a good chance for me to shoot some photos of places that I missed the previous time. And it's an unexpected photo opportunity for the many families from overseas visiting their children this Easter holiday.

Yes, the spring semester has already ended. We are into the second week of the easter vacation already. The campus is quiet, as many of the local students have gone home, and overseas students for their holiday trips. But unlike Christmas, most shops remain opened, closing only on Easter Sunday, when many people here have gatherings with their families.

For me, I don't really have time to go for long trips (but for 3 days to Lake District next week). It has been a very busy spring semester, as you may have guessed from my lack of posts. Our group project is way behind time, and unfortunately, I am the only one in the group with any substantial skills in Java programming. So it is up to me to move the project forward. This vacation is the time for me to catch up with the schedule. Well, I don't really mind doing most of the work. This is perhaps the last time, for a very long time to come, that I will have a chance to do some real coding. A good opportunity to get familiar with UML, junit, eclipse, Linux and CVS too.

Before I go, something on Easter eggs. They are actually egg-shaped chocolates, same as the "Made-in-China" chocolate eggs that we enjoyed as kids during Chinese New Year. I never realized that they are actually used as Easter eggs until I come here! How sua-ku! At one of the chocolate shops in the city centre, they made Easter eggs, the biggest the size of rugby balls, and you can have icings with the names of the person you are giving it as a gift to. Nice!

Earthquake!

Of all places, one would never expect an earthquake to happen here in the UK. Afterall, if you look at this map here, UK is far away from any of the major fault lines, much further away than Singapore is from the Sumatran fault line that triggers the 2006 tsunami.

So it was a surprise when I felt the earthquake happened last night at around 12.55am. But I quickly remembered that there was once when nobody in Singapore ever believe we will be affected by earthquakes either. So never say never!

The earthquake felt like two very short bursts of vibration, separated by about 10 seconds. It is quite unlike the gentle swaying I felt in Singapore from my 17th floor flat from the tremours in Sumatra. In fact, I almost mistook it to be from the gusts of strong wind blowing at that time, if not for the fact that the vibration was coming from my cupboard, and not the window.

The earthquake has a magnitude of 5.2, and the epicentre is about 80km away from York. Because of the relative closeness of the epicentre, the vibration is stronger than what we experienced in Singapore, even though the magnitude is much smaller than the Sumatran earthquakes. I am staying on the 2nd floor (which is the 3rd storey, the British count floors starting from 0), and I can feel the shaking. In Singapore, earthquakes are mostly felt only above the 10th storey.

So if UK is so far away from any fault lines, what caused the earthquake? It seems that there is something call the Midlands Microcraton. This is an enormous block of rock running through Central England. The softer rocks on either side of the microcration are disturbed by the tectonic pressures that originate in the Atlantic Ocean, and this cause earthquakes when the pressures build up to a point where the rocks slipped. So, I supposed the mechanics of the earthquakes here are different from what we have in Singapore. It certainly felt different.

Well, according to the British Geological Survey, this type of earthquake happens only once in 30 years! So how lucky I am to feel it (must go buy 4-D!). But as I said earlier, never say never, who knows what other rare occurrences will I yet encounter?

Saturn!

I think I've mentioned somewhere in my blog before that I am in the Astronomy Society. The society meets every Saturday night. If the sky is clear, we'll proceed to the observatory （picture on the left) for some sky gazing. Well, as you might have guessed, given UK's kind of weather, it is not often that we get a clear sky, chances are even lower when you restrict it to just Saturday nights. Most of the time, we just make do with partly cloudy skies.

So it is a very rare opportunity last Saturday when the sky was completely clear of clouds. I had actually planned to attend a Chinese New Year Gala concert at York's Opera House, but a clear sky on a Saturday night is probably rarer here in York than CNY, so I decided it is not a chance to be missed. And boy, did I made the right choice.

First of all, the society's telescope wasn't working quite well, so the Astro Soc chairperson decided that we will use the main observatory telescope, which is several times more powerful. It seems that the professor in charge of the scope is quite particular about people going up to the observatory, so usually we just make do with the society's scope, placed outside the observatory. But last Saturday was just too clear a sky to observe the rules! But not to worry. The chairperson is a student of the professor, and is trained in using the main scope, so it's not like we are going up there and messing things.

And we were not disappointed. Not only is the main scope more powerful, it is also controlled by a computer, so all you need to do is to click on the object you want to observe and presto! the computer will point the scope in the correct direction.

So the chairperson brought us on a tour of the most interesting sights of the night sky: Crab Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy, Seven Sisters, Betelgeuse, Sirus etc. But the most magnificent of all is of course Saturn. It is really fascinating to see Saturn surrounded by its rings, and its moons. It looks something like the picture below, which was taken a few years back by the society. The angle of the rings was different this time round, and we were also able to see two of Saturn's moon. And of course, seen with your very own eyes, the image is much sharper.

Another pretty sight is what is called an open cluster. It is a group of faint stars which you can't see with the naked eye. So there is a patch of dark sky there, and you are thinking "ok, so why are you pointing the scope there?". Then you look through the scope, and you see so many points of light that look like jewels shining in the dark. Really amazing! The picture on the right, from Wikipedia, shows something like what we saw, but through the scope with your own eyes, it is much more fascinating.

In contrast, the nebulas and the galaxies are rather disappointing. They appear as blur blobs. One reason, I supposed, is because York suffer from light pollution like all urban centres, so the sky is really not dark enough to observe these faint objects. And of course the pictures we usually see in astronomy magazine are usually filtered to produce those sharp, magnificient colours. Through the scope, they all look more or less black and white, with reddish or bluish hues at best.

What a night! What a unforgettable 年初三. Now I know how the early astronomers felt when they see through the scope for the first time!

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year comes at a wrong time here, when we are finishing our first block of subjects for this semester. So, over the CNY period, I have 3 assignments and 1 group project to tackle. In fact, I have to give the CNY dinner organized by the Singapore Society a miss, because we had postponed our project meeting till late afternoon so that the Chinese students on the team can call home.

But not to worry, I didn't really miss home or CNY. Perhaps because there is no atmosphere of CNY here at all, so there is nothing to remind me of it. Or maybe it is because I know I'll just be here for one year, and I'll be tied to TP and Singapore for the next 5 years when I get back. So subconsciously in my mind somewhere, it is telling me that I'll have more CNYs in Singapore than I like when I get back.

However, this experience makes me realise that CNY is not something you can pass by with just having a party with fellow country man. What I consider as CNY is really the whole atmosphere that comes with it: the pasar malam and festival goods that are only on sale during that period, the new year songs in the air, the smell of pineapple tarts baking and bar-kuah BBQing, the traffic jams near flower markets, the air of expectancy as the day draw nears, the busy markets which opened through the night, the quietness on the street during the Reunion Dinner hours, the sight of bright coloured clothes on the MRTs and buses on the first and subsequent days etc.

These are the things about CNY that cannot be re-created here. These are the things that are missing, and without them to remind me, I don't think of CNY at all.

新年快乐，万事如意!

British weather - take 3

(River Ouse, which flows through York, flooding its blanks)

Why were the British so adventurous, exploring the world and building "the empire where the sun never sets"? It is because the weather here is so bad that they just have to get out of here and find somewhere nicer to live. Well, even the ancient Romans (who ruled Britain for a while) complained about the weather here in their records, as has every foreigner since. On Monday, during our RSD lecture, the sun suddenly broke through the cloud during a pause in the rain, and shine right into the lecturer's eye! The lecturer, who is from Germany, and had earlier just complained about the persistent rainfall, was so exasperated that he exclaimed "Now what's wrong with the weather in this country?"

Since the excitement of the first snow, it has been raining non-stop, until middle of this week. It was almost like Singapore's end-of-the-year rainy season. As the rain comes in from the Atlantic Ocean, riding on top of the warm ocean air, the temperature has been warmer than usual. Even after the rain stopped, the temperature has remained well above 10 degrees, whereas the usual temperature at this time of the year is about 5 degrees. Is this just a weather anomaly, or is global warming truly upon us now?

Liverpool

Map of Liverpool
The Overseas Student Association here organizes trips to major cities regularly and last weekend's (i.e. 19 Jan) was to Liverpool. Well, actually all they do is to hire a coach to bring us there and back. These trips are "touch-and-go" affairs, really. The coach leaves the campus at 8.30, and leave for the campus at 5pm. Discount away the 2 hours road time per way, we really only have a few hours for sight seeing. But one cannot be too fussy with the ticket costing only 5GBP per head, which is a few fold cheaper than going on your own by train.

I supposed the most famous things about Liverpool are The Beatles, and Liverpool Football Club. (Apologies to Everton fans, but they really should have called themselves Liverpool United or Liverpool something), so a trip of few hours should not exclude visits to places related to them. But since I am not a fan of either, there is not much things to say, except maybe "It's raining, as usual". So just enjoy the photos I have taken!

Not Previously Seen - Part 2

This is something that Mr Paul Phua would be delighted to have. It is a calendar I bought during the post New Year Sales at the campus bookshop. As you can see (click on picture if you can't), it cost 5GBP after a 50% discount. 15SGD, is not cheap for a calendar, but hey, this is not just a calendar. It comes with 300 paper aeroplanes that flies well!

The magnetic covered box opens up neatly into a calendar stand. There is a new paper plane every weekday, and 1 for the weekend. You fold the plane out of the calendar paper, which has the pattern of the plane on one side, and the instructions for folding the plane (the previous day's -- can you figure out why?) on the other. The instructions also illustrates the proper wing angle and launch speed for the best flight.

The planes fly very well if you follow the instructions closely. The wing angle and the launch speed is very important. Even that simple "Flying Wing" you see in the picture below flies well. The size and type of paper matters too. It is A5 size(half of A4 size) and of the same type of paper as the "horse racing calendar" we have back in SG. I tried using normal printer paper, but it doesn't fly as well, most likely because it is too heavy.

For daily recreation, this beats computer games. The creators of the calendar have a website here and here. Take a look, it's interesting! And get fascinated by what a origami genius can turn a piece of paper into at http://www.folders.jp (Just click on the links under the dates if you don't understand Japanese), keeping in mind that origami artists does not use glue or cut the paper to get to the final shape.

Exams over, but no celebrations

The only thing I don't like about being a student is taking exams. As I was telling someone, an exam is like a FA Cup match. No matter how well prepared you are, you can never guarantee that you will win the match. Exams are also disadvantageous to older students, where our "RAM size and processor speed" are not as high as they used to be.

Should an assessment be solely testing your understanding of a topic? With the tight time constraint in an exam, the answers are more instinctive than well thought, so it isn't really a very fair test of understanding. Or perhaps a fair test should cover a person's capability to memorize all the details in their heads, and the ability to form (hand written) answers from them in the shortest time? Maybe, but with information so easily available nowadays, perhaps this ability is not as crucial as in the days gone past when information is restricted to selected experts and libraries. Besides, tight time constraint isn't really that crucial in the engineering world, where the ability to generate a precisely correct answer, even if it takes more time, is preferred over giving a half correct answer -- being as useless as a totally wrong answer-- in half the time.

And that is why I feel quite frustrated after finishing the exams. I know that the answers that I have submitted is not a good indication of the knowledge that is up here in my head. If there isn't that 2 hours time pressure there, I would certainly be able to come up with a perfect (ok, a much better) answer, yes, even if I am not allowed to refer to my notes.

I much prefer open assessments (or as we call it in TP, "assignments"), not that it is easier. Open assessments are more like a NBA Play-Off series. It is a longer process, but besides giving you a chance to recover from an "off-day", I feel it is a more accurate test of a person's ability to apply his knowledge in the real world. But of course from the examiner's point of view, there are issues not present in closed book exams which needs to be tackled, plagiarism being one of them. Here in York, plagiarism is taken very seriously and the university put in lots of effort to ensure every student thoroughly understands what plagiarism is all about. But that would be a topic just as lengthy for another blog entry.

First Snow!

Nothing excites me, one from the tropics, more than seeing snow fall. Yet, looking at the snow falling, it also calms the mind and put a person at ease. Somehow, looking at snowflakes dancing fast and furious in the wind, and yet not making a single sound in the air, gives one a peaceful and rather surreal feeling. Is it just an illusion, or does the air really becomes quieter when it is snowing? Perhaps the falling snow acts like a sound proof wall? I must google to find out.

I was woken up very early this morning by the cold, since I did not turn on the heater as it was still mild when I went to bed last night. The weather report had forecast snow for parts of UK, but York was not one of them. So to my surprise, and excitement, when I looked out the window, I saw the carpark covered with snow.

I was out with the camera(this one belongs to a friend) at first light. It started to snow very heavily as I walked around the campus. Among the wildlife, the seagulls seemed the happiest, flying and circling around the lake, shrieking. The swans, as usual, are graceful in the water, oblivious of the snow falling around them. The ducks looked subdued, but the most miserable seemed to be the "black coloured bird that walks like a chicken" (update: it is called a moor hen, thanks to seismic. Click on comments link below to see his comments). Though they are usually shy birds, they just sit there in the middle of the road, and got up reluctantly only when humans come near.

The workers are busy around the campus though, spraying de-icing agents on roads, walkways and bridges to prevent people from slipping. Snow means more work for them, so I supposed not everyone is happy to see snow, unlike me. According to the barber at Langwith, it doesn't snow as much as it used to, perhaps it is because of global warming, and don't bring back any snow from Austria, he had said . Snow may not be pleasant for the residents here, but it will be a sad day for them if it doesn't snow here anymore.

Oh yes, I also found that cameras using AA size batteries don't work well in the cold. I think the fault lies in the batteries, which stop discharging electricity when it gets very cold. I have to rely on my trusty old camera to finish up the job. Lithum ion batteries seems to work better in the cold. But unfortunately, not anticipating the snow, I didn't charge the battery beforehand, so that too went flat after a few shots.

Anyway, here are the photos that I took. Even as I type, snow continues to fall. I would like to spend the whole of today out walking in the snow, but unfortunately exams are just a few days away, so one must get down to studying. Will update with more photos if it snows again. It is tempting to say it will, since this is just the first snowfall of winter. But with global warming looming, one cannot be too confident. It only snowed once last year, a third year student told me. Let's keep our fingers crossed!