It's my life story

Friday, November 21, 2008

The more I know, the more I need to learn

Amazingly, as I learn more about the field of wireless communications system, I come to realise that my knowledge so far is just a tip of the North pole. In the last month, while studying for my modules in NTU as well as the graduate module in Cellular Communications Systems, I came to learn many things. I have always felt that what I have learnt from each individual lecturer in Engineering has been bits and pieces that are 'strewn all over' and as an individual, I have to rearrange these stuff and attempt to link them together.

Take for instance, when we talk about comms system, there are so many aspects of it. From the very basic level of Signal Processing to the systems level (which I am into), there are already so many topics to cover in each of the topics. Signal processing covers not only the digital signal processing (DSP as we so infamously remember the different fourier transforms), but also video, image processing which also covers video and Multimedia data transmission (DCT, Z-transform,etc).

Why? Simply put, it's because of the technology today.
Nowadays, not only do users want to use their mobile phones for talk and sms, they also want to surf the web(GPRS), MMS, watch movies, etc.

Each of the topics that comes under Communications is so broad itself that usually, people will be very proficient in a very topic and only have a general 'feel' for the others. And today, after almost 10 short video presentations on youtube on this IIT lecturer who presented almost 40 lectures(each being an hour long) on communications system. His integration of HF techniques, cellular cell planning, path loss models, modulation techniques, coding methods, standards and spread spectrum into the lectures made me in awe of him.

The best thing is that he taught it at a pace that was reasonable (or so I think cos' I'm not taking the exams :)) and more importantly, it was understandable in layman's terms.

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On another note, this Wed was my very last time that I'm going to be in NTU. The paper ended there with a bang at the Sports Hall. Wanted to swim thereafter but was raining heavily then. Think I'm going to miss that place since I have taken modules that were less stress inducing cos' they are on S/U basis.

I'm only left with 1 more Regression Analysis paper this coming Wed and I hope things turn out good. And after that, I'm back to my office. [grrr....]

But of course, before that, heard SITEX begins on Thursday next week which is cool cos' it starts right after my last paper. And I think I should go down to take a look at the cool IT gadgets and perhaps help to boost the economy a little. So, maybe back to my desk on... Friday? :p

Look at it this way: we don't spend money on all the useless stuff that girls do and when we spend $, it is for cool things [meant for cool people, think iPhone, tablet PC, ZG himself, etc.].

Sent out some new year and christmas cards this week. heh. And did I mention that my sis bought a Christmas tree and I helped out to decorate it.
Hang a silver decoration also considered help out okayy...

Was at the newly opened Sengkang swim complex yesterday. It looked super nice, like some country club. It also has an indoor pool, slides for children, teaching pool, a jacuzzi and a competition pool. Wow.

Had Ikea breakfast 2 weeks back with my family and I think it cost us like $2.50 per person. Not bad larrr considering that it became our brunch instead.

While reading the "Mind Your Body" in the ST last Thursday which is like 13 or 14 Nov, I read this article that says that white rice become glucose and it might increase diabetics as compared to a teaspoon of sugar. You can imagine the horrified look when I have been consuming like bowls of white rice at each meal. So, since then, I started to twist around with the type of food that I have been consuming. For instance, I started to purchase wheat bran bread instead of the usual white. Despite costing almost 3 times as much as the normal loaf, I think it's healthier. And also, my family has started to mix the brown rice with the usual white rice. These are of course, some of the many things that have been implemented.

And no, I have no intentions of ending my intake on Nasi Lemak nor coconut tutu kueh. In fact, I'm trying to find which buffet in Singapore has a tutu kueh buffet. My undying love for tutu kuehs will not end just because I choose to eat healthily at home. :X