ITS A BRAND NEW YEAR! 2014 HERE WE GO!

2013 was the year when I had best semester of my life travelling around in Europe and leading the life of a european student (EASY EXAMS!!!) and also one of the worst semester of my life doing my FYP.

So.... its NEW YEAR RESOLUTION time!!!!!!

it always doesn't last but who says we should stop trying?

Resolutions should have a goal and an action plan:
1) Be fitter than last year (my most unfit year since secondary school)
         by
    Exercising (Run Bike Weights in Gym, Swim in infinity pool, Skate, etc.) 1-2 hours on weekdays

2) Be Better in HR in the clubs, activities I'm in so that I can participate, run them better
         e.g. tea club: get more people to organize, skating club: find succession and teach people how to teach, tstudios: engage with the juniors especially to have ownership over the club, resident assistant: interact with people from other floors by having more informal gatherings

3) Career Planning
          thinking about the engineering roles that I could play by going for internships, mentorship program, career fairs, research online or by asking people. I realize that I really is not a design engineer or research people. Operations like manufacturing is more interesting to me so probably gonna look into that.
          also explore more about alternative jobs (mentioned in previous post)
          wealth management (investment, savings, insurance)

4) Personal Development
          Question yourself all the time, make better informed decisions, double loop learning, self-confidence, self-discipine, self motivation, increase productivity.
           by ?????

We spend our lives looking for answers, but we always get sidetrack along the way. The key thing is that we eventually get back on the main road and continue to plow through until we reach our destination. 

and if we don't like our destination, or get tired of the place, 
it signals another journey, hopefully
a brave and victorious journey.

Cambodia and X'MAS!

Its been a funny holiday. Just got my results and its not really ideal but within my expectations.
Oh wells one more semester till graduation and I'm really glad to finish my university education after 4 years.
But the question that I have been really thinking about is what happens next. What would my career be like?
I have always plan my life until the end of university but not after so I am really clueless at the moment but this academic year I have started to question a lot of my values and motivation in life and hope to find my answer soon.

Some of the alternate jobs that I considered was being:
1) Tour guide - flexible lifestyle, get to meet a lot of people, have fun showing people my country which I love very much
2) Skating instructor - skate a lot, get to impart my skills and also encourage people to be more serious in the sport, I like skater friends
3) Cafe? haha I had this idea because my sister could make nice cakes and macarons and I have a really sweet tooth.

These alternatives would have to come with lower expectations when it come to pay, career progression and job stability especially since it is not something I was trained for my entire life! Something to thing about for the rest of my life...

But anyway after my exams when I went to Cambodia! and its my first time there and it was a really nice chill place to be in where everything is cheap. Yay!

Haha but seriously, I was there for an OCIP feasibility study to see what can we do to kickstart a new OCIP project for tembusu students. 3 focus that we decided the project should head in are:

Heritage - Angkor Wat 

Helping out with the school that Winson is setting up to teach English to poor students

Making and distributing meals to the poor people in Siem Reap

All in all it was quite a awesome feel-good experience as we got to see the touristy things, volunteer and also chill every night in this really cheap place! (haha I'm such a cheapo) The only bad thing I would say was that the travelling from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap was arduous.

Can't wait to see this OCIP get up and running!

MERRY XMAS!

 

Finally Finals...and some important insights from over the semester

Can't believe its finals already!
This is the time when I tend to watch the most movies and dramas while studying.
I dunno why but I seem to actually spend less time studying than watching shows...Game of Thrones that i didnt finish watching the last time exams came around last semester, Man of Steel, Lone Ranger, etc.

Anyway the heat transfer module is just learning how to tackle the exam questions which is practicing my problem solving skills which is like the most of the rest of the modules that I took in these 4 years.

Human Resource module is more useful in that you get to learn how to conceptualize things about myself and about aligning yourself for the future. You learn about multiple role identities that you form about yourself and how it can conflict with each other. Some is definitely prioritized over others and some fade away with time and thus it is always changing. We seek to legitimize our role identity by our role performance to gain role support from people around us and more importantly from ourselves. This I find is very interesting and insightful as in conflicting times like now when I am on a crossroads of different paths I can take in my life I kind of gives hints of what each directions will lead to.

Another important thing that I learn is about career. It is not about achieving a work-life balance where I get to enjoy a lot of free time outside work (which I probably won't like) to do things I really enjoy. Instead I should be aiming more at work life integration where I really enjoy what I am doing. I guess I always know this but it kind of slipped my mind along the way. To forge my own career with a heart, I need to utilize the 5W1H, mainly the how, whom and why (technical know HOW, knowing WHOM is to socialize with the correct people, and WHY do I want this job requires a clear examinations of my motivations, values and beliefs.) And if my dream career does not fit my current ASK(ability, skill, knowledge) I need to have an action plan to fill in the gaps. In fact I should have an action plan for everything I do.

One more thing that I realize about university is that while I had a really fun time in Tembusu, it is a terrible place to socialize if you are looking to graduation as people in Tembusu are mainly year 1s and 2s who just entered university and are having the time of their lives (even if they dun realize it yet) and a handful of year 3 who are going on exchange programs. In these years of my university life, I am more attached to tembusu rather than my faculty which I really spend very little time in and studying as I study on my own a lot (I didn't even go for a single tutorial). The only things that require discussions are either non-engineering modules like HR or design project that does not really deal with very intense engineering problems. As such, I have absolutely no confidence in my problem solving abilities as I seem to just do my quiz and final exams without any feedback, so I never know whether I am right in my concepts. This was something that was form progressively over the years and now I realize it in my final year and I think I have given up on knowing the engineering concepts thoroughly and just going with the system. This makes me doubt myself of getting into an engineering career and seriously considering a non-engineering one.

So what went wrong in my education is that I really should have seek feedback in what I am learning (double loop learning) not just from the teachers and friends but also do some self-monitoring and feedback. And I think with my brain when I plan out my route in year 1 but not with the heart (which is equally important especially with decisions that would be influential in my life)

Well, that's life and it's great that I learnt about myself and how I see my education in NUS for the past 4 years and I will continue learning.

(Sorry for this long wordy post but this is a memory that I want to remember for the rest of my life)

Working with highly motivated people

As we come to the end of my design project, I realized that one common trait between the FMC scholars is that they are all highly motivated and productive individuals that wants to do a lot of work and can churn out results very quickly. In contrast, the rest of us are more chilled and laid-back and less proactive in doing work. As such work are mostly done by them and we didn't get to learn a lot on the design process. While it is good to have such teammates, I feel that I didn't learn as much as I should have in terms of learning the design process. If I was in a slack group, I am more generally more proactive in learning and leading.

Maybe a thing I could do at this moment is to really read and understand the report well and each person's part so during the presentation, I would be able to have as good an understanding as everyone else.

Busy week that ended with sad news

Just before I wrote this I found out that my favourite model Miranda Kerr just split from Orlando Bloom, probably the only man I think is worthy of her. WHYYY!!!!

NO MORE??

It always saddens me when couples that you think are fine and would last the distance suddenly break up. It makes me kinda hesitate every time I like someone. Why would feelings change after time, why wouldn't someone sacrifice themselves for the one they love? unless there is no such thing as true love...

Anyway this week was quite a hectic week, lucky I am quitting my addiction, got lots more time now. I had a photoshoot and interview with all 5 Amandas in Tembusu and chiong through the night to get the 3 posters ready. It was quite a adrenaline rush when you have this creative spark that can keep you going and when you get your end product which you are satisfied with and people 'like' it, you just feel so accomplished! Wee!!!

Its not out yet so here is the sneak preview! I really love the rainbow background hehe!

My Design Project also seem to be running well so another YAY! Learning Circle also went well with Prof Catelijne as I felt I could contribute better than the first time that I did it. The Masters Tea with Jim Rogers was kind of interesting in the beginning with his 5yo daughter singing in mandarin and reciting 2 Tang poems. He lives in SG and that shows his belief in SG and the region. I didn't like it so much when everyone was just concern about how should you invest and stuff when there is no concrete answer and the answer is always to work hard but don't conform with the rest of the society. Insights about north korea was interesting no doubt but I was hoping for questions that were more interesting.

My mom's birthday was yesterday and we had dinner at Jamie's Italian where we ordered the meat and fish planks and 2 pasta that I had the other time. It was her 50th birthday and I wish her lots of success in playing candy crush and all the other games she plays on her iPad hehe.

This week seems to say that love never last and I should focus on other stuff...for now!

Another type of journey

It took me 4 years to realise that I have never really liked Mechanical Engineering at all.

In year 1, I identified the sector or specialization with the best opportunity and how it had the best chance of getting me a job, good salary, exchange program. With this plan in mind, I just went along with it blindly and thought that I would like it. Along the way, I just took my modules without much understanding and just using a pass the exam method to get through it. With the way NUS modules are being taught and maybe it is because my peers are not very good either, I was able to get a above average grade. Maybe if I did badly I would have realize this sooner as they say that when you are doing badly and you are passionate about it you will still push through. I definitely won't. Maybe when I was in Aberdeen, I would have been more interested as I did not have as much distractions as in Tembusu which totally turned me away from engineering. In the end, I became someone who is not very good at engineering but is unable to turn away from engineering to do things that I like. I spend long hours procrastinating and doing things that hide from this issues and that just sucks....Where shall I go from here....

Day 1 of quitting my addiction....the withdrawal symptoms are appearing. How did it ever become such a big part of my life?!?

Tembusu Art Festival

Last week was quite a hectic week with 2 meetings with Prof Kim and Prof Rajeev and ukulele practice for the Tembusu Art Festival!

I was really looking forward to that performance as we had not perform for a long time since the previous one during the inaugural dinner many weeks ago. We performed some really fun songs like Pokemon, a pricetag/secrets medley, and Powerpuff girl song! We got to use the new ukuleles but made the mistake of not testing out the amps and setup, so only one uke was amped up. I played really badly too as I just can't get back into the rhythm of the song :( It was probably also the last performance of the semester too...

It kinda feels like the core team is getting more separated and that is kinda sad. I really like the initial group dynamics of the team but well all good things come to an end I guess. It is hard to find motivation I realized and the more talented people will also climb towards greater heights and thus leave you behind :(

But I still love performing on the ukulele and will push on regardless!

Another thing I tried was to be a photographer! I thought since I was in Tstudios and there was an opportunity then why not! Haha its not easy being a photographer! I never realize that the camera was so heavy and it needs so much work to get a picture right... Then there is also post-processing. Haha I became more appreciative of a professional photographer :)

Feels like the upcoming weeks I will be busy as well. With Halliburton's talk coming up, my mom's b'day, more FYP, globetrekker's sharing, HR2002 presentation, sports day, Amanda's photoshoot!, etc...

I need to increase my productivity! and I think I just might have the method to do so....

Why I love anime and manga

Wooo!!!

I finished an entire series of anime in a weekend!

One of the best animes I have seen in a while!!!

Its called Attack on Titan!

It has fantastic fight sequences and quite an intriguing plot!!! I just wished I could have not peek at the plot before watching haha :P

I pretty much spent my entire teenagehood reading manga and sometimes anime. I am a dreamer and the world that the characters in the manga live in are all so full of exciting adventures that I wish I was in. Everytime I finish reading a series, it would take a while for me to pull myself out of the manga world and get back into reality. Yupz thats how much of a dreamer I am.

With the ending of my favourite mangas(bleach and naruto) looming, it seems that I am slowly leaving this world behind. But everytime I discover a new excellent manga, all the excitement come rushing back to me!

Nowadays, most people just read online but I remember the days when me and my best friend in Secondary school would go to the bookstore weekly to check for the newly published mangas and I would be so happy when the newest book come out! Those were the days.....

woes...

The similarity with my fyp and my internship at keppel is that I am doing things which I don't know and lack the fundamental concepts to learn about, and I can't seem to engage my superiors in a useful discussion to learn more as I seem to be better at taking orders from them. Discussions with peers like during projects are so much easier as everyone seems to be more or less on the same level. hmmmm........

Progress or not...

Trying to keep a steady progress in all your projects is quite tiresome for me especially since I am such an unfocused person. Maybe I will keep a progress log here to keep track of what I have been doing weekly :)
I stumbled on this idea when I read this article http://www.sodaware.net/blog/2005/11/keeping-a-progress-log-part-ii/

Basically this guy separates his goals into 7 categories - Financial, Work (or Study for me), Fun, Health, Relationships, Contributions, Personal. He also uses this b-Alert system to focus his life and gives himself scores daily. b-Alert stands for blueprint (basically a to-do list), Action, Learning, Exercise, Relaxing, Thinking. I kind of get that he wants to have a life that wants to do a lot of things (which is what I am doing) and to do them well (which is what I am not doing).

First I shall list out the important goals currently.
1) FYP - I just had a major  complete change of topic, so its kind of restarting every single thing.
2) Other engineering modules - I am not really enthusiastic about them but I am up to date thanks to group mates
3) NUS Skating Club - I go every wed. But in terms of skills and goals that is to teach, slalom and urban, I am definitely not reaching them.
4) Tembusu Bladers - I have a session every thursday but lesser people are going each week and I do not really think of new ways to promote it and tell a lot of people about it.
5) Tea drinking club - I held a welcome tea which had like 40 people attending but nobody wants to co-organize. I had a subsequent session where I had a few friends to come.
- the lack of people makes it feel if it is worth continuing
6) Tstudios - I design one poster and went to meetings. I should be designing more...
7) Tembusu Ukulele Beats - We had 2 performance but I feel like the general enthusiasm is lessening as we have been skipping sessions for 2 weeks.
8) TYE 1: Tkampung and Globetrekkers: I got photos from tkampung and read some storytelling skills and discussed with Allison.
9) TYE 2: Reviewing Tkampung: met up with the crew and found out more about their experience.
10) TYE 3: Consulting with social enterprise: in the process of looking for a social enterprise.
11) Babirusa: They had a lot of hanging out but I was always busy or sleepy.
12) BAF: Didn't hangout much recently as everyone is busy with our own lives.
13) Resident Assistant: wanted to hangout a lot with the people and foster a homely experience in ORA but I have also been neglecting it a lot.
14) Gymming and Swimming - NIL

So it seems like I am really trying to do too much without really doing anything at all. I'm more like hobo-ing around. With my tendency to just muck around, I need more time to do a single stuff or I can be more focused! Maybe I should drop some of the things that I have less of a connection to or are less needed... I shall just spend the weekend sitting on these thoughts...

1 month on in my final year

Reality really sucks.

These days I am always stuck in my room trying to figure out the academic papers, equations, codes, programs for my FYP which is horrible....I feel like a headless chicken running around trying to find my head.

There are things in my 4 years in NUS that I feel I have done right and things that I have not.

Things that I am happy that I have done are joining publication in year 1 and skating club Exco in year 2, applying for Tembusu in year 2, going on exchange. The experiences and friends I made are the best I had in my life.

Things that I have regretted doing is interning at Keppel and my FYP and not participating in more clubs and societies in my first 2 years. But it is through doing these shit work that I found out about the things I hate and can't do.

When you are always succeeding, you are alright with doing the thing, but when you first fail at it, it is at the moment when you will realize it is your passion as it decides whether you will carry on plowing on and trying again or just feel like quitting. I chose to do engineering because I was just good at math and science, not because I have a genuine love for it. Now it seems as if I am hitting the difficult part of engineering course and I am coming to hate it a lot, especially the research part.

No research job for me I guess. (plz just let me survive this final year)

A NEW BEGINNING

I truly believe that in life we face new journeys, new adventures.

In the past 6 months, I was a traveller moving through places that I thought that I would only see in my dreams and is feeling like a dream right now. I was observing alot of things in the foreign land that I was in but not exactly doing anything purposeful on exchange.

Today I am living in Tembusu again. Its not the same though, I am now a third year Tembusu student, a fourth year Mechanical Engineering student and ORA house resident assistant.

In my first year in Tembusu, I was also NUS Skating Club vice president, so I couldn't really commit to planning and doing too much stuff in Tembusu. In my second year here for a semester, I was sort of floating around alot as I missed the orientation and didnt know too much of the juniors. I realised that sometimes responsibility and commitment really brings out the best in me. Hence that is why I decided to become a resident assistant.

Through this appointment, I hope to be able to commit more of my time in my final year to tembusu and to my studies (only 0.05 more to a second upper ) so that I will graduate with a BANG! Make more friends and help them achieve their dreams. Have lotsa fun and laughter, and maybe I can find some love too <3

This academic year I want to be focus and finish my work as efficiently as possible so that I can do well academically as well as develop holistically. Skating is something I always would want to work on to continuously improve and fitness too of course (Stanchart half marathon here I come!)

Last of all, in the little time that I spend with my family, I wish for the happiest moments to be present.

AY13/14 Let's go!!!!

The End? or the Start of a New Beginning?

This is the final post of this blog. I have come a long way since I started this blog in December. Finally I have finished my exchange journey and boy it was definitely the greatest experience of my life!

Living in a different country, with different weather conditions, with people of very different culture and more importantly so far away from home and my family and friends.(Kudos to the technology that make it possible for us to stay connected even though we are 15000 kilometres away)

You get to see how people in another part of the world live their lives in a different way, for example without the use of smartphones but learning to speak to each other in a conventional manner. You get to experience cooking on a daily basis and buying groceries and living cheaply by looking for deals, house brand goods while at the same time trying to live to the best you can with the money and time you have. You feel joy, loneliness, excitement, fear, love and sadness in a foreign land which you learn to call home for these 5 months.

When we traveled around Europe, you meet many people travelling around the world too and share stories of fascinating adventures. You also meet locals who you probably have to use sign language to talk to but you can feel that they are very warm and welcoming of your presence in their country and want to let you experience the things that they are proud of in their country. (sometimes hostile unfortunately but rarely). You see so much history and the remains of people of the past and try to imagine how human civilization have progressed through the millenniums into the present. You compare the difference between your country and the ones you are visiting and realize that even though your country has a lot of things to improve, it is actually pretty good compared to most countries.

The greatest thing that I take away from this journey is not the pictures that I take or the amazing scenery that I got to see with my eyes but an introspective into the person that I am or that I thought I was. Sometimes you feel that being in a different environment will change you, for example I thought I would take more to drinking or enjoying the nightclubs more than in Singapore where it is so expensive, but I realize overseas where it is so much cheaper that I still don't. These kind of insights might be trivial but together they form the person that you are and gives you a clearer identity of yourself so that you will become more self-confident in the future.

As I look out of my window into the shimmering horizon of the setting sun on my flight back to Singapore, I feel a sense of satisfaction of having embarked and completed this journey. Well it's time to go home. A new journey awaits in the next chapter of my life!

Homebound!

Poland Beauties

For this last leg of my journey in Europe, we ended up in Poland because it was cheap to fly from its airport back to London. We travelled 3 cities from Wroclaw to Krakow to Warsaw.

First in Wroclaw (pronounced vratvirst), it was not a major city but was described as a hidden gem of Poland. It had many churches and cathedral that shows the strong catholic influences in Poland. Another attraction that was really nice was the panorama of raclawice battle which is a picture depicting this battle that went 360 degrees around the viewing gallery.

Lecture hall of Wroclaw University

Wroclaw University

St John Baptist Cathedral

A small section of the panorama

The building that house the panorama

Lighted cathedral at night!

Next came Krakow which was a place with lots to do! The city itself is very beautiful as it was the royal capital of Poland before it was shifted to Warsaw. Most of the buildings were original as they were not damaged much during WWII. The most famous sightseeing attractions are Auschwitz concentration camp and the Wieliczka Salt Mines. Lesser known attractions like the idealized Communist Town Nowa Huta and the Jewish Quarters are also equally interesting to visit for a view of how people lived in the past.

A very rainy day in Krakow!

The Wawel Castle with all the Chapels built from different eras.

My favourite Polish restaurant with good cheap food and ambience

Into the Wieliczka Salt Mines

Dragon sighted at Wawel Castle!

In Nowa Huta is this modern church built by Pope John Paul II before his papacy.

Car from communist era

Communist town neighbourhood

A tank that has been through alot!

Last but not least we have Warsaw which is the current capital of Poland. Legend has it that King Sigismund was playing around with alchemy and burnt his palace in Krakow down. Thus he needed to look for a new residence and Warsaw he chosed! There are many faces of Warsaw; a metropolitan city with high rise buildings, a rebuilt historical old town, etc.

The city skyline!

King Sigismund sitting on top of the monument. 

One very special eating place is the Bar mlecky or milk bar and everything is in Polish and the people there don't speak english much.

Sorry for this extremely long post....stay tune for the final post (reflections)!!!!

Pretty Prague

I'm into my final leg of my travels in Poland after Czech Republic and I am actually hyped up about finally getting back to Singapore. It has been one hell of a journey!

Prague was a really pretty city and me and Edwin spent a very relaxed 4 nights over there. Well it kept raining (48 hours of non-stop rain which brought the temperature down about 20 degrees!), so we pretty much just went out for a few hours each days to see the sights and then back to the hostel.

Luckily we had the best sunny weather on the first day to take the best photos of Prague! All the castle like and medieval style buildings made the place look like a fairyland. With lots of chinese tourist in it :P

Prague!

Town square

Must See #1: Charles Bridge

Must See #2: Astronomical Clock

Must See #3: Prague Castle

Must See #4: Jewish Quarter

On one of the days we made a day trip (rainy day trip actually) to the town of Kutna Horna which is famous for its Bone Chapel and its Cathedrals and the medieval town. The Bone Chapel was quite small but still quite impressive.

Bones everywhere!

St Barbara Cathedral

Inside St Barbara Cathedral from behind the pipe organs

 The reason why we stayed so long in Prague was because my friend Sandy was doing her Summer Programme at Charles University and she would be arriving only on the 26th, hence I extended so that I can meet up with her that day. Its always nice to see your friends in another part of the world :) So on our last day we tag along with the whole bunch of NUS students who just arrived and checked into their hostel and brought Sandy and a few of her friends around town for a bit before we took the night bus to Wroclaw, our next destination in Poland!

1 out of like 15 girls is a guy...LOL arts faculty indeed!