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)