Week 3 of holidays

There's yet again nothing to do, so I got really bored.

When I get really bored, I do really stupid things. (can be easily shown)

And when I do really stupid things, I do a lot of them.

There's a reason and a logic behind it all. Premise and conclusion.

Premise: It's Friday afternoon and I'm feeling bored, staring out of the window.

Which was something like this:


Conclusion: I am bored and needed some activity.

Then I decided to go out, maybe like, see the world a little bit. Get to know more about Singapore, get to know more about how to go places. It sounded very feasible - and since I was wearing school PE attire, I figured it was more convenient for me to "move about".

However, I intended to do really crazy stuff. On second thoughts I changed out of my PE T-shirt to wear something less.. representative. No one's going to stare at my black shorts that reads "Raffles" anyway. So I started to plan my route and mission objectives.

I came up with a question waiting to be answered:
Which MRT is faster?

And a hypothesis to prove:
Singapore is small.

Then I began my long journey, across vast fields, wide plains, wild animals' territories, unexplored lands, ragged country. It was rather rewarding, though I must say I was almost like a stink bomb at the end of it all.

If you still don't get what I'm talking about, you could just listen to me ramble some more rubbish. I could give you graphic representation so as to make it easier for you to feel how it was like.

When I left my house, I was probably smelling like..





..but the picture above showed how I was most certainly smelling like at the end of my journey. Very unfortunately, there were crowds of people around to get a whiff of me. Well, what did you really expect?

It's a typical Friday evening in Orchard.

I believe I told many people I was going to Orchard - and I meant it. Just that I didn't do shopping or anything - after I arrived, I just went to the toilet to wash up a little, spent a hell lot of time in the backyards of the big shops before hopping on the MRT straight home.

That's what you should do when you're bored.

Frankly, it wasn't that difficult. It took me just slightly more than 37 minutes. I thought it would last two hours or something.

Let me give you a rough guide of the route I took.. and mind you, it's just a rough guide. There might be the odd discrepancy, because I obviously don't run on the top of overhead bridges, not in canals. I can't pinpoint exactly where I ran, because the maps were so lousy. Only helpful to a certain extent.

The starting point - which is my house. Okay you can't see it clearly because a cloud is blocking but you more or less get the idea. The Braddell MRT is just nearby but I bypassed it.


Moving down to Toa Payoh.. and crossing the damn bridge.


This is one killer stretch, because of its traffic lights and the construction all over the place. I had to run on the road on several occasions and the bloody drivers (not the waterpolo kind) are rather impatient. Sources say that Novena produces the most irritable drivers of all. One even pointed me a middle finger but pity the picture doesn't show it:


Another killer stretch in the form of Newton Circus. There were many angmoh jaywalkers so I thought - why not - so while they jaywalked, I jayran across. It certainly brings excitement to your boring holiday life. Oh MRT's nearby, by the way:


Finally, the final killer stretch. On top of the traffic jam, you have human jam as well! Plus there are very few jogger tracks so I was forced onto the road again. This one was more thrilling - because there were no pedestrian paths nor traffic lights. Had to dash across a four-lane road while the lights were red. Very dangerous indeed. I think there is a serious problem with road construction nowadays. The right turn just before RGS (near Stevens Road and Anderson Road) especially could kill. One bastard purposely drove faster so I couldn't jayrun the damn road.

Sources indicate that those drivers in and out of Orchard Road are big time bastards. Especially since it's Friday evening and we don't know why they are all in a hurry just to get home.

The human jam started in Scotts Road. But when the stinkbomb (refer to picture above) came, they parted like the Red Sea just for me! Sometimes I feel damn honoured, but not until a dog started growling at me.

I ran up and into the MRT:


And that was the end of a wondrous journey, though I needed almost an hour to clean up. Even longer than the journey to Orchard.

I guess the lesson to learn here is never to end your run at Orchard. It's very awkward.

However, the end of my journey does not indicate the end of time wastage.

Oh no.. when you're free you think of various ways to use up ALL YOUR TIME!

And I'm sure you all know it is important to apply what you have learnt in school.

Something to the effect of this:


Yes it might not be very clear and it might not look very accurate.. so please don't go download the picture and then start pointing out every single one of my mistakes. I doubt you are as free as me, though - so that might be a good thing.

However, when you have drawn the first graph and let y = your position, don't you get this tingling feeling in your spine? I felt it - and I knew, Mr Chandru was calling out to me. Immediately, I differentiated the damn thing and here is the product, a velocity-time graph:


The little ups and downs at the end were thanks to the human traffic in Orchard. Of course some people still could hold their noses pretty well, which is why they refused to give way to the stinkbomb running along Orchard Road.

I still felt something in my head, though. This nagging feeling said I wasn't done wasting time.

So here I am, completing the third part of the trilogy, the wonders of mathematics - d²y/dx², or the dy/dx of dy/dx. It wasn't so much of the second deriative test or whatever, it was more like I could review my journey there, and see if there's anything I could do about it. I like this one, acceleration-time graph:


Sorry if the graphs are getting harder and harder to see.. it's not my fault that the stupid column is so narrow. Anyway this is the most violent graph of all.. because acceleration is something unpredictable. I have to slow down when it comes to traffic lights, and speed up when it comes to moving from one traffic light to another. It's a very confusing process, just like mathematics, which is why the graph is in such an odd shape.

Well if you're in need of a challenge, go find the equations of the above graphs. Then type it in Graphmatica and submit it to TCS. Winners will get a prize as usual, this time courtesy of myself. In fact, I'd be so happy I'd gladly buy you flowers from Raffles Florist if you want. Or if you are a mathematical geek, I could plot some flowers for you on Graphmatica.

Nevertheless, that is not the point. The point is that Week 3 is drawing to a close, and time is slowly but surely running out. The holidays will be soon over, and it's back to school, only back to a different school. No more sleeping in class, but in lecture halls as most lessons will be lectures. Sigh.

Back to the initial questions I asked above.

Which MRT is faster?

Now some of you might be very puzzled by this question - because you only know of one MRT. I actually meant to ask whether the Mass Rapid Transit was faster or My Right Toe, something which I had to use to get to Orchard.

Apparently it was the Mass RAPID Transit. Duh it's called "rapid" for a reason right!

10 minutes > 37 minutes.
(As t approaches 0, x is the preferred choice of transport.)

So the Mass Rapid Transit is faster. (shown)

Hypothesis: Singapore is small.

The experiment was conducted, and I've proven it.

Hypothesis proven becomes theory. Now the theory is that Singapore is small.

Theory sent to Parliament as a Bill.

Bill being voted on by MSN - and from an online poll (courtesy of MSN), twenty-seven out of thirty-one (87.1% 3sf) people thought that Singapore is small.

Thus, majority vote counts. Singapore is indeed small.

Sent to President, who approves of it.

Okay publish it in Gazette (some parliamentary newspaper). Go report back to Science Lab and consolidate evidence to present to the layman. All the facts to show that Singapore is small for the local nutcase to understand. Then we would have fully established our stand.

Now in both scientific and political terms, I guess we have a new..

Law: Singapore is small. (shown)

Everything's proven and my mission objectives has been achieved.

I guess you could say I'm having a nice holiday.