Rant 759 / Restrictive And Non-Restrictive Clauses

So I passed the stall that sells coffee beans the other day, the one at my neighbourhood's wet market. There were about 16 kinds available, 4 times as many as the one I bought from. I've only barely used half the bag I bought from the other store, hence I didn't bother to check out what they had for sale.

But I did buy a reusable filter. Not that hard to wash especially when it only had to be big enough to contain the grounds in a single mug. The filter came in the form of a rectangular bag, so I had to cut it into two squarish ones, which is great since one can serve as a spare.







How could they do it?!? How could they write off Gideon after season 2 of Criminal Minds?!? The entire show practically revolves around him!

Oh well, it's not the first time I've seen such a thing. Remember the original CSI? They wrote off Grissom too.

So apparently, Gideon was written off because of artistic differences. He didn't like the violence in the series, which explains why it was so mild in the first season but got a little more gross in the second before he left completely.

On a slightly unrelated note, Elle was not written off because she sucked at acting! Well, I thought she was terrible, especially with her Jay-Chou-like wooden expression throughout her time in the first season. Or maybe that was the actual reason and the official "she got sick of living in that area" was just an excuse.





















So I just got informed that I'm going to have this thing called "Ops Manning" in one of the months this year.

Since I'm not sure whether this is supposed to be classified, I'll keep the details to the minimum.

From online discussions I've found out that this is actually not a big deal. It just means for the period of time it's supposed to last, I'm going to need to be ready for someone or something telling me to report to my camp.

There are two ways I can be informed:

- by phone/SMS
- by TV/theater/radio

If it's the latter, there will be codes displayed on the screen of the TV for example. If it's the former, I'll either get a phone call or SMS telling me to get to the camp.

I've never actually been for anything like this, which means I have no idea what code I'm supposed to look out for. Fortunately, they know, so sometime before it happens I will get a letter summoning me to a briefing. I hope I never get it, because it would mean they aren't planning to do anything.

Yes there's the possibility that nothing will happen during the period of time.

On the other hand, it could get as bad as a field exercise if the officers in charge decide to be more hardworking.

(I can't believe the Firefox dictionary doesn't have "hardworking".)

According to other more experienced Singaporeans, it takes a lot of logistics to organize a field exercise, therefore it's usually avoided. But it's still possible.

In the most probable scenario, I'll only need to report to them in FBO (Full Battle Order, ie uniform, fieldpack and etc) and then I'll be allowed to go back to my life.

However, within the given period of time, they can call me as many times as they want, and usually only during the weekends so as to minimise disruption to our work life.

It sucks, and it sucks even more when I recall that over a quarter of the people on this island aren't citizens.










After watching some gameplay of Black Prophecy, I thought if humans ever have those humongous space ships, we won't have our defensive battles so close to them.

I mean, those things are expensive. Imagine how many man-years it requires to make just one of those space ships. The construction of an entire modern-day metropolis will be child's play compared to that.

Therefore, defensive measures will be, at the very least, similar to those that defend our planet today. Nothing unauthorised will be within several AUs of the ship ever. In fact, when there is one, it will be too late.

If a modern aircraft carrier is like a small city, then one of those space ships would be like a small planet. Hence anything crashing into the ship would have the same effect as the same thing happening on a planet, except there are people everywhere in the ship.

Repairs for that will probably take thousands of mechanics years to repair and will require a drydock (or whatever it's space counterpart is called) that's even larger than the ship itself.

The resources required will mean that humans have already colonized multiple planets and have the manpower to create skyscrapers in mere days, because skyscrapers will be like toothpicks compared to the ships and the drydocks.

Anyway I'm probably going to abandon Mythos and try Black Prophecy.

...

Oh damn I can't play the game from Asia.


















This was the first time I'm mentioning that I'm a wholesaler IRL. Usually I dress like a jobless bum to avoid questions like that but during today's class, they decided to discuss our occupations.

I'm pretty serious when I say I have a terrible fashion sense. The other day after meeting the buyer at one of the stores with my boss, the buyer told her that I appear to be the thrifty sort because of my faded t-shirt. I was just learning from my boss who also doesn't exactly dress up either. =P

Anyway during the class we had like 30mins of extra time at the end and nobody had any questions since we had recently just handed in one assignment and had plenty of time before we worry about the next one. So one thing led to another, and they began to talk about how most people taking this Translation course were teachers.

Among the 8 who attended today's class, 3 were. Apparently, they get like S$1000 raise when they upgrade their diplomas to degrees, hence a lot of them try to study for a degree, and it makes sense to go for one such as Translation, although I'd say that if they were teaching either language, they really should have just focused on their specialities.

Translation is rather different from taking both because in addition to studying the grammar and peculiarities of each language, we also have to look at specific differences between the two that people who specialise in either won't notice.

For example, while English sentences contain clauses that have varying degrees of importance (eg subordinate clauses), Chinese sentences do not. English sentences are more like trees, with the main clause that contains the almighty Subject-Verb being the trunk and everything else being branches. In contrast, Chinese sentences are more a length of rope, with each part that's separated by a comma having roughly the same degree of importance.

In fact, in Chinese, it's completely possible to write an essay that contains only a single full stop and plenty of commas without breaking any grammatical rule, although it would be a really bad one.

Which leads me to another difference, which is how commas are different in both languages. While commas in English are an important tool that can change the meanings of the sentences dramatically depending on the position(s), Chinese commas merely separate each part of a sentence to change the topic of each part.

The truth is that there is no clear law that mandates where a writer has to place a full stop and where he/she should place a comma instead. The general rule is that when the writer feels that that part is done and whatever comes next has a very different meaning, that's where a full stop should go. The problem is that such a rule is very debatable.

My guess is that this is because Chinese punctuations are a relatively new additions and haven't had enough time to develop a stronger purpose. In ancient literatures, the Chinese language did not have punctuations. Therefore it's not advisable for modern readers to study ancient texts without proper training, even if they know the words.

Anyway the lecturer decided to kill time by asking everyone about their jobs. I could've said I'm a part-time online whiner/gamer, but they might ask me about this blog and I do not want to let the lecturer know I'm regurgitating her lessons on my blog. Might have copyright issues then, especially when she wrote like 70% of the textbook we're using.

The thing is, I did not expect so much interest in winter wear among my female classmates. Heck, even the lecturer wanted some. One even asked for a catalogue, while the lecturer suggested I could give out my name card.

I had neither.

No catalogues. That's not how we roll.

Name cards, not yet. I'm not even officially on the payroll. My boss is my mum, so it really doesn't matter to me whether I'm on the payroll or not.

In the end, I suggested I could bring them to the office to show them the products, but before they thought of asking for my number, I had to visit the bathroom. Well, I swear I wasn't pretending, and it was time to leave anyway.

They were gone by the time I got out.

Hmm... this is a problem. I can't afford to be shy anymore. I need to do something about it.

On hindsight, I also forgot to tell them they could check out the quality of our products by visiting the winter wear sections of any of the stores we supply to. It's actually easy to identify which is ours since it's reflected on the price tags in the form of a code.