My Picks for Frenchy 2005

Favorite to win 2005 French Open : Guillermo Coria (if the pain of last year doesn't weigh in on him)
Second favorite : Roger Federer (provided the errors don't creep in)
Third Choice : Rafael Nadal (as the form player)
Long Shot : Juan Carlos Ferrero (always a threat on clay)
One to watch for : David Ferrer, Nikolay Davydenko (could be their break through year)

Special Mentions : Carlos Moya, Marat Safin, Tommy Haas and Gaston Gaudio (will loose when expected to win)

The good, the bad ,and the ugly

Phew, I feel so relieved now. My assignment is as good as done. I’m just so glad it turned out alright in the end. It all started a week ago when I attempted my surveying assignment report. Everything was going so well, I was on a roll, my numbers were crunching in just fine, I was just in the zone, at a groove, no problems what so ever. But when the moment of truth arrived, I was shocked to realise my numbers didn’t add up right. Horrified I was…sigh. I spent the whole weekend working on it and it turned against me. Man, I checked everything through again, from my field notes, to my numbers to my calculation. Everything seemed fine, there wasn’t a trace of error. I was crushed, and in my desperation I went to see the lecturer the next day. Well, she didn’t give me any answers (didn’t expect it anyway), just some tips and stuff like that. With renewed spirit, I went back to re do my assignment…but…it came out just as bad…which lead me to fear the worse. Our group must have stuffed up when we were collecting data during the field exercise. I was sort of in a state of denial. We went through the whole thing with so much precision, like a surgeon we made sure everything was accurate and right on the spot…couldn’t believe it. I was dejected for a couple of days…still shellshock by the whole thing. Cum weekend, I sort of accepted the fact that my field notes were wrong and had to take up the optional exercise (perhaps a lot of students got it wrong, thus a separate assignment was given as an alternative)…but I wasn’t about to give up without one last fight, like they say, “it ain’t over till the fat lady sings”, fat lady wasn’t in sight …went through the whole assignment again…and to my astonishment, turns out I input the wrong data to one of the calculation. The number should have been 97.852, but I wrote it down as 87.852…turns out it was a big deal, because the errors just snowballed if some information was misinterpreted. Well, it was a turn of events, or “Eu-catastrophe” as Tolkien puts it. Wallah, my work now was near perfect ,and because no field work can be perfect, plus the fact, no perfect equipment has been build yet…my work was thus…PERFECT…

The Right Attitude

Well, time flies really quickly when you don’t pay attention to it. I remember, when I first got here, I was thinking “how am I going to survive 9 months here?” Well 3 is gone now, and time still moving forward…At this time, it’s good to reflect on some of the things I’ve gathered in my course thus far. As a Civil Engineering student, I’ve learn to appreciate so many aspects of construction, from the mechanics to material selection to cost of project. One of the many things our surveying lecturer always tries to emphasize is the need to be accurate, because the client expects it to be accurate.
That reminded me of the time my dad gave me, my brother, and his friends a job as data collectors (we were hired to count cars at a particular stretch of road)…come to think of it, he was pretty brave to have given a million dollar project to a bunch of kids (maybe he though is wasn’t going to get through anyway). I remember distinctly that all of us started seriously enough…with our pens and paper, marking every car that whizzes by. However, the job eventually took its toll, and by noon, all of us were just lazing about…some proceeded to “manipulate” data so they could go to the shopping mall (I didn’t do that, just so you know). 8 years later, when I think about it, I thank God that the project never went through (although I think it still should have, that stretch is still always jammed). If it did, it might have cost the client serious amounts of money and put my dad’s job in jeopardy.
Being so young at the time, we neither saw the magnitude of our work, nor the seriousness of it. I guess at that time, being a pre-teen/teen…we had that all too familiar attitude of “couldn’t care less”…I think the mistake most young people make nowadays (or always for that matter), is that we think we can live a life without care or responsibility because we have youth on our side…and youth will bail us out whenever we are in trouble…however sooner or later youth runs out and your left with no more excuses for your irresponsibility.
So my advice to all my young readers (though I still consider myself young)…never make the mistake or cultivating the attitudes of “couldn’t care less” or “I don’t care” because one day that might be your biggest downfall…instead start learning to treat each situation with respect and dignity…and your efforts will definitely be rewarded.