A tablespoonful of today

Ok. Time flies. Beam me up scottie~ and I've now been in Singapore for a little over a month now.

Lots of things happened in the past 7 weeks. From the humble beginning of my journey to Singapore with my cousin Michael, who was one of the most helpful person I've ever encountered, to the first time I entered the NUS campus, to the making of new friends, to the journey of the University Freshmen Orientation, to the rites of the Raffles Hall orientation, to the beginning of the semester, the rag and flag day, the inspirations, the disappointments, the challenges, the people, the traditions, the professors, the modules, the bidding system, the everything. lol

So I'll just skip that for now. One thing I learnt though, is the importance of taking a lot of good pictures. For a while there I was even regretful of not doing so. Fortunately a lot of pictures were taken by the Orientation organizing committees, hence allowing me to easily acquire these valuable memory enriched photos for future reminiscience.

The first examination I took in NUS was the Qualifying English Test examinations. I managed to pass. Phew~ Got a band 5. Grateful for the seniors who gave tips. I guess they really helped a lot after all.

Started blogging today at the dance studio, I'm now involved with concert casting. As Archie Brown. Need to memorize scripts and act out stuff. Fun stuff.

Joined NUS choir, first time joining a choir that actually wins international competitions. Impressive to say the least. Signed up for a few activities such as Rock Climbing and possibly the university lifeguard corps. Went for 2 interviews for the NUS entrepreneurial Society. Interviews were quite intense to say the least. Was offered a place in the executive committee for the Harvard Entrepreneurial Exchange Program. Absolutely elated. Just came back just now from the NES induction. Going to have Malaysian Night soon. Everyone's all hyped up and rararaing. lol

I actually managed to visit my distantly related aunty in Singapore a few weeks ago. There I spoke to my uncle a chief electrical engineer working with Shell who offered me many nuggets of advice. Turns out that their home is just a bus stop away from my NUS campus hostel. Really convenient.

They say that in NUS if you stay in a hall, out of 3 things, study, sleep and play, you can only choose 2 things. If that's the case, then I would choose sleep and play. By regarding studies as play, all I need to do is really just 2 things. Sleep and play. whee~ :P

So at the moment, my commitments include the following...

Modules that I am taking this semester:
PC1431 Engineering Physics.
MA1505 Mathematics
MLE1101 Introduction to Material Science and Engineering
EG1108 Electrical Engineering
SC1101E Making sense of society

Engineering Enhancement programs I am taking this semester:
Innovation Program
T I P (technopreneurship)

Varsity CCAs that I'm involved in:
NUS Entrepreneurship Society (society)
Rock Climbing (sports)
NUS Choir (arts)

Hall activities that I'm involved in:
Hall Concert Productions: Cast
etc

Varcity CCAs that I'm interested to join soon:
University Lifeguard Corps
Guitar Ensemble of NUS

So if time were a straight line and you could actually see the dots. I will be nothing but all the above at all times. :P

P.S
HAHA FINALLY MANAGED TO SQUEEZE OUT A BLOG POST!!!

Once in a while

It has been quite a while since my last blog update: roughly over a month. Looking back at my overambitious June/July resolutions, I cannot help but feel amused at how desperate I was to activate myself.

To little avail of course.

The activation was a disaster. Like the seed of a daffodil engulfed by crashing waves, or a coconut destined to the santan factory... (squints) I must try again.

There are several reasons why I decided to blog today. One of them being that several interesting events have happened in the past few weeks and I feel obliged to upload my memory here so that I can reflect upon them in a more unwithered form in the unforeseeable future. Another simply because I find blogging to be a sort of mental enema. It grants me the illusion of forgetting something, with the promise that the things I express are now explicitly scriptured into a film of cyberspace.

First thing, rock climbing. I think I have finally found an extreme sport that I can really enjoy. Went rock climbing twice at the Summit USJ with Li Ling, Dexter Soong, etc. Rock climbing requires good technique and a strong determination to overcome challenges. It is for me, a process that vividly resembles challenges we face in life. I noticed that we may actually overcome both challenges in a rather similar way. For example, a tough wall to scale may have some tough spots to get through. Sometimes when these hurdles become really impossible, one can try observing how people do it successfully and then succeed in one's own way by copying them.

Second thing, fundraising via newspaper collection. Team Bravo (the team I coordinate) organized an old newspaper collection fundraising activity at the Bangsar neighbourhood to great success. I joined them in the afternoon for a Mcdonald's lunch before contributing transportation power to aid them in the translocation of newspapers. Aggresively, the team members were observed to split up and request newspaper from bewildered residents peering from behind the illusion of security that is their home's iron grills. In the end, the funds raised from approximately 8 hours of newspaper collection culminated to roughly 600 Ringgits. This was above the group's target by a comfortable margin of 100 Ringgits. Needless to say, everyone in the group was jubilant. Though of course, no one has raised a finger yet to claim any money for petrol from this cookie jar of funds. And to think that recently I've pumped close to 200 Ringgits worth of petrol in less than 2 weeks. I guess the guy who wins the most is the newspaper collection company.

Shortly before I left for Singapore, I was summoned to a 'formal' bye-bye session by some Raleigh friends. We went to Old Town White Coffee for supper. Both Alvins, Li Ling, Kar Lye, Christal, Shih Chung, and BJ were there. Was feeling quite warm and fuzzy I guess. To dine with close friends before I leave the country. hehehe. I also had another 'formal' dinner session with my family at sushi king, Leisure Mall. And so marks the end of my 6 months holiday. hahaha. It was well spent, every moment of it: travelling at 10,000 feet above the ground, traversing jungles, bickering with English people, diving in the south china sea, getting rowdy with friends, hunting, meeting lots of new people, ETC. I feel a note of congratulations is at hand. From myself to myself. Throughout this 6 months, I have experienced disillusionment after disillusionment. Which I suppose is a good thing since I guess that's part of growing up. We discard what doesn't work, and work with what we have that works. That's part of being an engineer. lol.

I will talk about Singapore next time, though I'm at NUS at the moment, I'm feeling kinda hungry.~ 7pm ~

Prestidigitations

'Why we lie' is such an insightfully good read. I must say I'm quite amazed sometime at my genteel ears at fishing out a good read from a cacophany of whispers at Kinokuniya.

Egalitarians don't create classes. And I'm proud not to be one. I'm going off soon to a society that has a caste system as volatile as muons in space. Yet as long as you're a growing, enthusiastic, tenacious little animal, your direction is only upwards.. in ZH's words, literally - towards success.

And so as it would seem. This xenophobic socialite would continue to surreptitiously deposit corms on the blogosphere.

So where should this corm go today.... hmmmm

Received 'The Letter filled with NUS goodies' today. It had a bland exterior, masterfully masquerading the exigencies of the documents contained within. There wasn't even a stamp or postal signage. It was just bland... with an address... and congratulations.. blablabla.

Discovered or rather... was tendentiously presented by my subconcious mind of the need to grow as a person. It would seem that I have achieved this to some extent. Or perhaps I'm just deceiving myself. ahahhaha. One way or the other. Life has got to be lived to be understood.

Now

The here and now. How fleetingly eternal...

It has been 3 weeks now since I came back from Sabah. Little have I accomplished. Yet much distance have I traversed. I must be blind. Either that or I must be presumptiously tap dancing on sacred ground... and an overbearing bolt of ions be delivered to my mail box soon.

So let's see... objectively speaking a few things were accomplished after all. Yen yen's house has been exorcised by yong yong. I had a mamak outing with Wilson who has updated me with the new found excitement in his life of becoming one step closer to his dream of working in Pixars. I had a little tea drinking ceremony with SC and SJ. Paid a visit to bea utiful g ates to teach some disabled youth English for SPM. Collected stuff from LY with a little divine help from WCW. Finished affairs with school, almost about to submit applications to AI MST and Mo nash when a durian appeared right beneath my nose hair. An offer to study Bioengineering at Nus. Some part in me found this a calling, while some other part in me felt as if I was choosing a very unprestiguous course. And so I'm caught in ambivalence. Am I so insecure to the extent that I need to take a university course to quell my insecurities? Am I so afraid of falling that I need to buy insurance before beginning a climb? Even if I need to work half my life off to purchase the insurance first? Evidently the problem is in my head. WM my good neighbour offered some good advice... we humans of today know little of what will happen tomorrow. So why not live for today... and take the course because you like it? Things that look good... one does not necessarily need to take. Wm gave the analogy of KT. Although girls adored him for his good looks and grades, somehow because of his perceived SOR girls can't feel secure with him. A man must be secure... KS gave caution to taking bioengineering by opening the crystal ball of experience for my sampling... which heightened my insecurities... I must grow or die.

Coming up this month... Templer park thingy... Marshall work... studying for Japanese scholarship exam... going for trip around the world? application for course changes with NuS? The world is an oyster that at the moment......is a bit too raw to my taste...