Statistics speak

i was in the library when i had nothing to do and some time to kill. i chanced upon 1 of the most interesting types of books to me.statistics.the stats module im doing aint very interesting, but statistics are. not only can u find out things u never thought it would be and make inferences from the stats, it also tells u the magnitute of change and the process.

the population of singapore is increasing substantially over time, but the local population is actually falling. due to low birth rate and high migration. which means the gap between number of locals and total number is pulling in opposite directions. and the remaining population is made up of - foreigners. soon singapore will be dominated by outsiders and those who werent born here.

in every case, every year, every ethnic group, theres almost always more males born than females by about 0.5%. and the male number remains higher until they reach the 20 - 25 age group, when sudenly the male population becomes less then females. which means, men start dying off as early as their early 20s, and thereafter the gap continues to widen. i thouht we shoud be the strongest in our early 20s. the premature death rate of men is much higher than women's. there are twice as many above-80 women than men. but men are always said to be physically stronger. i guess there are many factors to it.

people are marrying later. now the 30 - 35 age group is majority. used to be 20 - 25 in the 1950s. most women give birth between 30 to 35. i was one of them. but theres still a significant number of ppl marrying in 15 - 19. about 1%.main causes of death is cardiovascular and circulatory diseases, followed by cancer. few caused by crimes. but suicide rate is increasing every year. so much for better quality of life.

quality of education is also decreasing. in the sense that the express : NA gap has been flattening over the years. i thought it should be the opposite cos theres more schools being built to accomodate more express students. or maybe the education standard has been increasing so much that it pushes more ppl down to NA.

Enrolment in poly is currently much more than JCs, and the gap is steadily widening. there may come a time in the future where JCs lose their place here. largest discipline is engineerings, where guys make up about 75%, and total number is 3 times of the 2nd largest, which is IT. so it can be seen that there are more guys in poly. about 20% more. the poly girls fill up courses like mine. not sure about jc's ratio. NIE is majority girls. but there seems to be a noticeable disparity in the total gender-based enrollments in higher learning institutes. does this mean ...a lot more girls retain or study overseas?

Anyway... i know i shouldnt take stats too seriously cos theres other unseen influencing factors on the stats. though most of them are minor. ill be sure to spend more time with that book should i see it again, and have the time.

the infectious bone

not long ago i had a double edged fish bone stuck in my windpipe, causing intense pain upon swallowing and had to go hospital to pull it out, thereafter the suffering stopped.

then on sunday i had a sharp chicken wing bone stuck in my throat just for a few seconds, but the suffering it caused was much longer and varied, though less intense.

the chicken bone scraped my throat rather hard, leaving a wound there. the wound itself wasnt pain. then on monday i ate some unusual species of peanut, and there aggravating the sore. i forgot all about the wound cos it hardly hurt. it took a day to react, then on tuesday afternoon i was down with a very sore sore throat.

i skipped dinner cos of the pain and went for my dance session. it seems my elven role isnt that minor after all. its arguably the most talented role, with acting, dancing and singing in equal proportions. but we wont be getting much attention. just background and support. after very active dancing in an aircon room, everyone was sweating, but not me. on my way home, the air felt extra cold.

when i reached home i had a fever. side effect from the throat infection. luckily its close to sleeping time so i need not strain myself. but my sleep that night was characterised by headaches, much tossing n turning and waking up every 2 hours and hard to sleep again.

next morning, the storm had blown over.. i was fine again, but throat still sore as before. went to school and nice timing, by the time i finished school i was feverish again. strength for the day, hope for tomorrow. for the rest of the day i couldnt do much.

thursday morn i was fine again, and this time throat slightly better. but a new problem had emerged - an ulcer on the tongue. i dont recall biting my tongue. and together with the sore throat, it really killed my appetite and slowed my eating rate.

anyways, i lasted the whole 7 hours in school without getting very feverish, and then again it acted up after i headed home. one nice thing about being feverish is that the sun feels so good, and a walk home that usually gets me all sweaty this time left me dry. but i hated the aircon bus ride, though. not just cos of the cold, but cos i was sitting next to a real nutcase. he was talking to an invisible person. actually it seemed just like a handphone conversation, until i realised there was no hp or even earphones. at one point he exclaimed "yess!!" with a swing of an arm and stomp on his foot. everyone turned to look. when he reached his stop, he said "ok lets go." and slapped the ezlink machine with his card.

i figured it was time i saw a doctor. i went there, but was closed, only to open half hour later. i didnt know what to do during that time, i had no spare money and was sick. so i headed home to rest awhile. then i met a pri sch classmate and we started talking... one of the longest talks i ever had. we literally talked till the sky turned dark. but i realised, interestingly, after talking awhile, i started to sweat, and i was cured of feverishness. still had headahe, though. and after we parted i started getting feverish again. just in time to prove to the doctor. so now u noe - talk and u wun feel feverish.

friday was a bridge to recovery. as usual, i felt slightly feverish only after school. but it faded off.
and today, no more signs of fever. ulcer pain is insignificant. throat still a little sore. by tomorrow i should be... back to normal. or at least close to normal.

so beware of chicken bones. they can cause a whole week of suffering. fish bones only 2 days.

A new species!

I think i have it - a pod of cross-bred beans! a cross between my brown beans and red beans. the result is yellowish beans in the shape of brown beans but size of red beans.

it was just a casual experiment, not expecting it to work. i took the stamens from a fallen red bean flower and rubbed the pollen on the opening of a half-open flower on a brown bean plant. then i forgot all about what i did until today.



similar to my gen2 green beans, i harvested at the same time 3 pods with exceptionally many beans inside. and only when i compared these 3 pods and opened them up did i realise 1 of them is so different from normal. the 2 normal pods had 8 and 9 beans, while the crossbred pod contained 14, a record high among my history of bean plants.

later i opened another pod and also found that i had this cross breed. it must have been polinated by flying pollen from that experiment. it was quite nearby to that flower, and harvested at around the same time, so it makes sense.


im quite certain that these yellow beans are not just variations of brown beans though brown beans may vary in skin color between beige and brown and slightly vary in shape. - not only the beans were different, the pod also looked different.
- the packet of brown beans i bought had none which were yellow or of that size.
- all the other brown beans collected from my own plants were also within range of the packet's.
- made possible by that experimental act.

the very obvious difference can be seen here, even when the pic is unclear. the crossbreed, with red beans on left, brown beans on right. this is so interesting. i wonder what it will grow to be like. just like cross-racial people tend to have better physical features, i look forward to a generation even better than their parents. i shall plant them soon.

As an update, my gen1 red bean plants have all shed their leaves, but 1 of them grew back a few new sets. no more upcoming fruits at the moment. some of my brown bean plants have already died, and few leaves are left on the surviving. there are still fruits on the way, though. the champion plant now seems to be the main source of living vine. it has bore about 5 pods so far.

gen 2 plants are growing fine. there are 11 brown bean and 6 red bean plants, just like gen1. 1 of the brown bean is dying, though. for some unknown reason. i hope the successive generations dont get weaker and lousier like what happened to my green beans.

The Dance of Shame

The past 2 weeks have been a realy busy period. first theres elearning week. supposedly good cos no lessons, but not after im piled with tons of online assignments. Apart from that, theres the MST week just after it, with 4 tests during then. Plus, i had 5 projects ongoing, 2 of which are due this week. (just after MST) and there was hardly any time given before that, so much time was spent on projets during elearning. And not to forget i had to study for 4 modules for MST. luckily there was abit of time to study on the week itself.

i have since got back only 1 test result... i was both happy and disappointed. disappointed cos i lost 11 marks to a stupid careless mistake. painful. but happy cos i know i have the potential to have scored 11 marks higher!

theatre compass is coming up with some 2 christmas musicals to be staged several times at different places in the dec period. didnt get a big role, but at least this time im involved unlike the army daze. as usual, musicals would require singing, dancing and acting in equal proportions.

im casted as just some minor elven character and would probably only appear for 1 or 2 mintues. so for singing, my song is a rap. i only sing in the finale where everyone does. and yesterday there was... the dance sessions. it was a really bad time to have dance sessions. my brain had been so worn out by 6 hours of classes and then an hour of intense project discussion.

i never been bothered to learn dance cos its not really relevant to life and it looks hard. in the dance class, first we learnt pair dancing. now i understand the importance of having chemistry with the dance partner. we have to get rather close physically, and have to move in coordination. would be rather awkward without chemistry. luckily i got a fairly pretty dance partner. wouldnt wanna dance with a ugly one. haha.

but as my brain was so fried, i couldnt learn the dance moves properly. the teacher was going at such a fast pace, and my observation and coordination skills were disrupted. my partner couldnt help much cos the guy is supposed to lead. so our dancing was so bad that here could be no chemistry. and of course, we werent selected for pair dance. ah well.. save on chemicals. heh.

those not doing pair dance would do individual jazz dance. but in coordination with the rest la. as usual.. complicated moves, fast pace teaching and marred coordination made me screw up so bad. just hope ill be in better condition to dance next session.

Tale of the fish bone

yesterday night while i was eating a piece of fish, i thought it was all meat, but halfway swallowing i realised there was a bone in it. i though, ok, nvm. i swallowed fish and chicken bones before, plus prawn shells, fingernails and fruit skins and nothing happened. So i just tried to force the bone down just like i did to previous others that went that far.



Bad idea.. it got stuck. and i tried to drink soup and eat sticky food to push it down. then i found its no use cos its no in the path of the food, but rather in the windpipe. i tried to end my finger down to investigate, but couldnt feel anything. so i went to the clinic. he shine the torch in and look all over, still cant find anything. so he said, "sorry, i cant see anyhting. so i cant do anything either. just go hospital lor." and sent me back.



I just had to tolerate it and went to sleep with the fishbone still stuck inside. it wont hurt as long as i dont swallow stuff. but it only hurts occasionally, and when it does, it would be a short but sharp pain.



I just hoped that the bone would somehow dislodge during my sleep. When i woke up, i felt the bone in some weird position. i thought it was coming out. what a false hope. so it was left with the only option of going to the hospital for operation. i held on until after lunch, meanwhile receiving many painful pricks on my poor throat.



It was the 1st time ever i had to be treated at a hospital. At the hospital, i had to register.. then wait... then get my receipt and referral.. then wait.. then go in for check.. the doctor couldnt find the bone again like the previous 1.. then wait.. then do x ray... then wait.. then finally i got a doctor who could find the bone. with the help of the x ray i suppose.



when doing the operation he pulled my tongue so hard it felt like it became an inch longer. and he inserted some bended tongs into my throat and made me feel like vomiting. while trying to pinch the bone he pinched my throat lining as well. but after a few attempts and throat pinches and tongue pulls it finally got out.



about 4 hours was spent at the hospital just to et a bone out. he said it was big, but i find it rather small. about 2cm long.seeing the shape of the bone, it all makes sense now. it was sharp on both ends and slightly curved. one end pierced into the wall of my windpipe, the other end which sometimes faces upwards would poke my pharynx whenever it closes.



the bone is currently kept as a momento. Luckily my mom applied for insurance not long ago, so i got the bill subsidised by about 93%. otherwise it would be an unworth cost for removing a bone. just a simple food can cause so much trouble. ill probably be more wary of fish bones next time, but no doubt ill still like eating fish. eat more fish as revenge for what its relative did to me. haha.