Teh Hui Wen

 Yesterday, I was bored and restless, having finished the BBC TV series Sherlock, which left me feeling empty because I didn't have anything more to look forward to. I opened the book cupboard, hoping to find some fantasy to entertain myself. I dug out my old copy of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief , which was the first book in the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians . I sat down on the floor and immersed myself in the world of Greek gods, monsters and demigod heroes.  The Percy Jackson series was the HIGHLIGHT of my life back when I was 11 years old. I first saw it as an advertisement for the movie (of the first book) in a brochure, and after I read the excerpt, I was immediately drawn to the story. I was excited when I found out that it was adapted from a book. (Yes, I was a total bookworm.) I begged mom to buy me the book, and to my surprise, it was sold as a set of three! That was when I became a total fan of the Percy Jackson series.  If you haven't read it,...

  Photo from PEOPLEIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES   Last week, I was down with a fever, flu and a bad sore throat. Being ill made my head really fuzzy and my body weak, and I spent most of my time in slumber, only waking to eat or drink. Naturally, I stopped any form of exercise, which included my daily evening runs.  When you stop a habit you have been keeping for some time, restarting it is actually quite hard. For the past three days, I have been well enough to continue my running routine, but I kept making excuses, like the weather being too hot and sunny. Today however, after a short workout at home, I felt a little of that running itch. I think it's because when you have been maintaining a habit for a long enough time, even if you have broken the streak, your body will still remind you of it when the time comes. I decided to put on my running shoes and a cap, and head out into the sun.  Just one round, I thought to myself. I started off at a slow pace, waking my legs...

Screen grab from Youtube  ChilledCow The other night, I was getting ready to do my job: wash the pile of dirty dinner dishes and I pulled out my Spotify in search of some upbeat music to help me get started on the boring task. A Spotify recommended playlist popped up, it read, " Happy Favourites: Put a smile on your face with these happy tunes from the 90's, 00's and 10's ". I tapped into the list and browsed through the familiar song titles. A few seconds later, I decided that I was happy with it and after connecting it to my mini bluetooth speaker, I played the first song on the list.  It was "It's a Beautiful Day" by Michael Buble. I hadn't heard that song before but I loved it at once. The 00's and 10's songs had a type of style, there was always a clear beat, that few chords and the happy upbeat melody with lyrics that kinda tells a story. I happily got started with the dishes with the cheerful music in the background.  Just as the f...

Reading a few science-y books got me thinking about the question of Origin: where did everything come from? What was there before the Big Bang?  I went digging around the Internet, hoping to find some interesting theories. But to my disappointment, it seems as if physicists were quite conservative in coming up with theories to answer this question. (Perhaps I should turn to Sci-fi or mythologies to satisfy my thirst for mind-blowing conspiracies.)  I have summarised some of the main theories below: Cyclic Model (the Big Bounce) The ancient Hindu cosmology  says that the universe is eternal, consisting of infinite series of cycles. In modern cosmology, physicists have come up with similar models as well. One of the famous bounce cosmologist, Paul Steinhardt of Princeton University, wrote a paper in 2002 on " A Cyclic Model of the Universe " with Neil Turok of Perimeter Institue in Waterloo. We propose a cosmological model in which the universe undergoes an endless seq...

Recently, I have been thinking: what makes a person interesting? And my answer is: knowledge. Let me share with you my story.  Back in 2019, I started my very first term in Oxford in Teddy Hall (a nickname for St Edmund Hall, which everyone uses). I met a visiting student from China, who was doing his third year in Mathematics. We sometimes had dinner together in the dining hall, with a couple of my other friends. There were a few times where I arrived late for dinner, and met him in the queue too. Those were times where interesting conversations happen.  Whenever we dined together, I always took the chance to dig his brains for information, after I found out that he was someone who loved sharing his insights on different topics in life and teaching complex mathematical concepts. Whatever topic I brought up, for example climate change, religion vs science, economics, politics.....he would have concrete stuff to say about it, and often made references to articles, books or prom...

I suddenly remembered I had a Blogger blog which I had set up ages ago. I typed in my account details (which I still miraculously remember) and woah , my last post was from 8 years ago, when I was still a 13-year old fetus, just starting my first year in Chong Hwa Independent High School.  I am looking to redesign my blog and get some useful posts up, because: 1) I need a website 2) but I can't afford to pay for a domain name (it costs like a few POUNDS each month, and mind you I am not earning money yet) S, Blogger is my next best option. And as a student, I'm a sucker for free stuff.  The pre-made themes actually look great, I shall hook up my website looking all good and new in no time! 😋 Ps. there are emojis too, this is fun! The best time to start something was ten years ago, the second best time is Now.