With just one final exam to go, it has been a week of finally tying up loose ends in Tembusu.
The People of Tembusu project has ended. We featured 22 people in tembusu and the project involved 17 photographers, designers and writers. It spanned 7 weeks from week 2 to week 14 with breaks in between. Even though it was half of what was planned (an ambitious 45 posters at a rate of 3 per week), I think I did not too bad a job to contribute something to tStudios by having a more or less constant progress in this project. I may have overestimated the amount of work that my designers could do and it didn't go according to plan to finish every poster within the first 4 weeks as it is natural that people would only do work when closer to the deadline. Part of the reason why we couldn't hit the target was because I did not push the designers too hard as I did not want them to see the work that we do as something of a chore but a way to express their creativity instead. Even myself I find that ideas dwindle the more I do it, so I would expect the same of others. I tried my best to show example to the others by doing first and doing more and I realize this gives me the authority to ask others to do work which is a good thing as I enjoy this authority. One of the flaws of this project was that the quality was not as good at times and I find it difficult to correct as I didn't know how to counter the 'if you think you can do better do it yourself claim' and also sometimes people have different ideas which is not wrong but just not something you prefer. I wasn't an expert when it comes to design and I didn't want to clamp down on people's idea so most of the time I let it slide and just coordinate the efforts but on hindsight, I should have been more insistent on quality by maybe enlisting the help of people with better judgement and experience.
Ukulele beats was also very successful this year I feel. With almost a performance at every major events, I can feel a great sense of accomplishment especially since the skill level of our performance increase throughout the events, from just strumming and requiring other instruments to backup our performance to having fingerplucking styles and ensemble performance. Our performers also come and go and we practise only when performance are nearing which I think is fine given the transient nature of the club but I feel it is great that everytime a performance opportunity comes by, we are game enough to have enough people to practise and perform for it. This one year in ukulele beats gave me a chance to perform in a music group on stage and its an experience that I think is really invaluable. And I had a great time with my pink hair for the final performance at formal dinner! Haha.
Tembusu Bladers and drinking (tea) club was quite dead this year due to my other commitments, but sometimes it can't be helped if there is no critical number of people who are really passionate about the interest, and it is not easy to tank the group without help from others and it is not a year where I am able to do this with my FYP around. I wish I could do more but the motivation and drive to see this two groups are not in myself so hopefully in the future someone else will be interesed in reviving these IGs.
tCambodia and tStudios were two groups where I was quite heavily involved in as well in fundraising efforts for the Cambodia trips and photoshoot assignments. It allowed interaction time with friends and fun people to do things that I was quite interested in. Of particular mentioned is resume photoshoot which allowed me to learn about lightroom and setting up of a studio shoot(lightings and camera). It was really interesting and fun I think to help people look the best capture the best shots. Helping during Open Day for photographing the mascot with others was quite fun as well! Of course making the video to promote the ICG was quite fun too as we tried making the entire video on GOPRO.
TYE with tMentors was quite dead from the start and I kind of gave up doing it when the other members start to become MIA from the project. I should have quit from the start as I could actually tell that the people in it lack the desire and motivation to actually do anything at all. I just did not want to be that bad guy to quit it but it made a bad impression on our group to not do what we promise to do.
It has been quite a lot of holistic development this year. With design, photography, video to improve my creativity, ukulele to pursue some artistry, my studies to improve myself academically, PoT to improve managing people and a project. Not everything was good and at a lot of times it was an uphill slope, but with all the pain I experienced, I enjoyed the fun times more and I am happy about all the friends that I made and the memorable times we had together.
New ideas are still popping into my head at times and I feel like doing them but I think I will just suggest them and hope that I can from the sidelines see my juniors pick them up and enjoy as much as I did, trying new things and learning from each other.
