Of Bazaars, Balloons, and Hall Spirit

Today I did the last part of my Bazaar aux. And I still love bazaar auxes! The fact that it was going to be the 'my last aux for life!' made it even more exhilarating.

As expected, there were no vendors between 9-10 am. Rafflesians down in central forum were few too, as many had their time slots in Monday and Tuesday instead of Wednesday. I managed to study and slack for the first hour.

Around 10.30 am, we were asked to publicize the RH recruitment drive for RH Pub. Interested RHesidents-to-be were asked to fill in a form, and then, they would be able to get a packet of free goodies. There was a hoop game too to attract attention. If they threw the hoop round anything on the table, they'd be able to get whatever the hoop went over. Yew Hong got a can of Pringles! There were also other gimmicks like flyers and Halloween lucky draw vouchers, top prize being a camera! Sigh! Why don't they save these goodies for existing Rafflesians instead? I never knew RH Pub had such a high budget allowance. :( Or maybe they sourced for both the money and goodies themselves.

There was another RH-Pub booth at the back of the forum too, showcasing photos taken for the New Beginnings photo competition. Sijia soon had this idea of asking all the vendors in Central forum to hang a balloon with the words Raffles Hall Hallwarming (10 Nov, 4 pm) on it, to attract attention to our poor little booth. Hence they blew up loads and loads of green balloons with a helium tank yesterday, and we were supposed to draw on the balloons.
This was when that I found that the guy giving us the balloons was in RH next year and was a junior of mine. I was rather appalled by the fact that I had a non-phantom junior in hall that I never got to know about.

Anyway, as I said on my facebook status, balloons self-destruct in my hands. I only held four. 1 flew away. Two burst when i was writing on them (and I did not exert that much force). Only the last balloon survived. :( Somehow wearing a green shirt, and writing on green balloons to promote hall suddenly made me feel that I'm very much a Rafflesian. This kind of feeling I don't get in hall despite the nice and exciting activities lined up for us this year. I remember when I last felt this... it was during IHG when then again all of us were wearing green and cheering for sports (either volleyball or handball, I forgot). And another time when we were supporting float.

Maybe I just feel that I belong when I'm in green, working with a bunch of people in green too, to showcase our hall to outsiders. And this is a funny time to feel all patriotric about hall, but yes, I like Raffles Hall a lot, after years of staying here. The way of life here is nice :) And yes, I do not really like how things are done in hall most of the time, but still there's something that pulls me back and makes me stay rooted to it.

At 12 pm I went back to hall, ending my very last aux in RH. And I still think bazaar auxes are the best aux to join :D

My body runs on grace

My body runs on grace now. And caffeine as well.

Week 11 is a happening week. The project deadline on Separations is crowding in, and we're meeting despite mid-terms preparations for next week. My own progress has been particularly slow, and my state of mind is getting more and more blurred by the day. I hope I didn't weigh down the group too much. Thank God for their understanding and patience.

RH bazaar, aka my Aux of the Year falls within this week. It's my favorite aux because a bazaar is interesting to be at in the first place. This year however, OSA has banned the selling of food that is cooked on-spot (think fire hazards and all that), so there were people complaining that they had no food to eat when their stomachs were growling for lunch. I split my 8 hours into 3 days. 2 hours on Monday, 3 on Tuesday and 3 on Wednesday.

The three hours yesterday was quite well-spent. I was there as early as 9 am and most of the vendors were not even there yet. Hence, there were many empty tables and chairs, so I pulled out my notes and started mugging. Obviously, I didn't manage to stay focused for long, but at least I covered a bit of my notes, which was better than nothing. The rest of the time was spent moaning to Jiun Tat (my junior) about how troublesome projects are and how they get into the way of studying, and how lucky he is to be able to escape projects after the revision of syllabus for his coming semester. There was this stall selling laptop skins and keyboard protectors with very interesting designs nearby, so I talked to some juniors about that too, and poked around the Biz Comm stall to see what they were selling. I wish I didn't have such a short attention span!

Since I mentioned caffeine earlier, it is interesting how I managed to survive these days. I took a long afternoon nap on Sunday (around 5 hours because I hardly slept the night before), and after that I didn't sleep till Monday night. I think I spent 5 hours sleeping on Monday night, another 5 today, and I feel strangely alert to stay up tonight as well. Thank God for his grace for my alertness despite so little sleep! Usually I must sleep around 8 hours a day in order to function properly. I haven't been overdosing on caffeine too... maybe just 1.5 cups a day? LOL. And somehow my body doesn't seem to need supper any more. I hope this doesn't mean I'll lose weight again.

There's a performance on Thursday night, meaning my night is gone. My group had finally managed to have a satisfactory practice though. It had been fun practicing with Jia Shen, Jerold, Shanqi and Chuanbo. I doubt that I'll have the chance to play with them again after this. Or play in any other cultural performance for the academic year for this matter. My industrial attachment is really going to take away all the time I have available for practices in hall. Fortunately I would still be able to contribute in Phoenix Times. I like writing for Phoenix, but now I realize that there's so many good writers in RH that I feel I have so much more to learn from them!

The seconds tick by, and the night goes on. Back to my notes I go.

Contentment

After the (relatively) depressing post below, I realized that I need a reminder to be contented with the lot I have. I got that reminder this morning.

I may not have enough sleep, but I am still healthy.

My grades may not be good, but I still get to go into university. And despite of everything negative I say about uni life here, deep down I still enjoy it.

My family may have expectations for me, but they never pressure me. In fact they show they care a lot for me.

I am not a fast learner in school, but then at least I have a chance to learn the things I learn, and many more lessons in life besides.

I may not excel among my peers, but I found good friends in them. Thanks Yew Hong, Mei, Kasun, Gant, and the rest! :)

I may not turn out rich, or have a glamorous job, but God will take care of me.

I may not have everything in the world, but I have Christ, who is more than everything in the world. How can I not be contented? :)

The quote goes: Lack of contentment makes a rich man poor; contentment makes a poor man rich. To me, contentment opens my eyes to behold how rich this poor girl actually is, for in Christ, nothing I lack.

我是非常非常幸福的.

Staying Awake

Argh. I hate dosing myself with coffee each day, and then dosing myself with milk to get more calcium in. I wonder how I spend on coffee each month. Must be a small fortune.

I do not like staying awake four hours a day. Which is what I think I'm going to have to do this week in order to make multiple ends meet. Err. Correction. To try and make multiple ends meet.

I do not like doing my CCA's and thinking that they are a burden. I'm supposed to be enjoying playing in band! But then every time I look at the clock and at the moment practice is over, I feel like leaving straight away. I don't like doing activities for the sake of doing them, but look what I'm doing now.

I have so much lesser hall activities to do this year but I think the free time I have is less than some final seniors who have FYP and still do activities! I don't know if I get to stay in hall at all next year. :(

I don't like not being able to talk to people. Not being able to go out of school to walk-walk. Worrying even about having dinner a tad too long that it will eat into my precious time. Argh Argh.

Ahh Ahh Ahh. I feel like an archi student. I feel like an archi student who has no models to complete but have to finish assignments, tests, lab report, viva and have zero time to prepare for final exam. Goodness knows how my peers do it. Maybe I just do things too slow. Or I have so many things to do it takes so long to decide which to start with first.

Things I have to do within 2 weeks:
1. Write lab report and prepare for viva.
2. Prepare for tests (x2).
3. Rush projects (x2).
4. Cultural performance.
5. Prepare for presentations (x2).
6. Finish assignment (x1).

And for the next three weeks (which overlaps with the week I've mentioned before).
1. Catch up with lectures! Chapters and chapters.
2. Readings! Chapters and chapters. Four big books! :(
3. Tutorials! Arrrrgh. Weeks and weeks.

How. Can. I. Ever. Finish. This. Before. The. Finals?

I don't want my results to be as lousy as the previous sems. But looks like it's turning that way. Just hope it doesn't get worse despite me trading sleep for mugging and so much more.

My results aren't getting any better. I wonder where all this mindless mugging will lead me to.

Another Weekly Summary

It is another of those lame blog post titles again.

It has come to a point where I have to force myself to blog, to find something to write. Otherwise, I'll just rush through everyday without spending much time to reflect.

It it just so amazing that everything just comes forth, new thoughts and reflections, as I just take a little time to sit down and type before the keyboard.

I am actually trying to take a break now from writing one of my project reports. It's supposedly a simple one, and my group mates actually got all the ideas out already, but here I am wasting much time over it. I was trying to decide which format was the best to present it, but ended up using the one I started out with. Then it's re-organizing points and re-phrasing words, to make things sound less conversational. Hopefully I can get it done very soon.

I have found some more blogs to read, and have linked them all up into my reading list. :) I love reading blogs. This year I read blogs belonging to some more well-known bloggers as well as those of people I know. My current favorite is Cheeserland.com. Her writing style is generally amusing and she updates quite frequently.

Week 10 is here soon and the atmosphere is so stifling. I'm trying desperately to catch up with school work and many a time end up falling victim to sleep/sleeplessness. Oh what a messy life this is.

Bible Study last week was fun. :) The message was on Ruth, by John Piper. He said Ruth is a very good example how something really good may come out of a circumstance which showed everything is bad. I don't think I have a right to feel that there's such a circumstance in my life though, because there is always something bright here and there despite all the gloominess. And all this 'gloominess' is actually not very much worth mentioning about. If you tell anyone else, that you're a student, and all you worry about is your studies, I guess it's just a very minor thing. But if it's so minor why do we get stressed up over it?

I guess I should be very thankful that this is what I'm stressed over and not some other overwhelmingly distressing issues like health, family, relationships, and maybe even $$$. But even if it's those, I think somehow there will always be reasons to give thanks, and there will always people who will have been through worse.

I'm in Year 3 now, and I'm still seeking a direction. I wonder where it will lead to. But I know it will be good, though not necessarily easy.

A Visit From Home

My grandparents came over to Singapore last weekend because my grandmother needs to have her bi-annual medical checkup. They stayed over at my uncle's house and I got to meet them twice - once on Sunday dinner, and another time during yesterday's lunch.

I haven't been to my uncle's house for quite some time due to busyness and such. Rachel had already lost her two front teeth, and grown them back out again since I last saw her. Jon was invited as well.

Dinner was wonderful. My aunt's culinary skills were excellent, as always. Jon said the soup was 'awesome' haha. Then before and after dinner, we watched 'Godzilla', while I was trying to teach Rachel do her maths. However, with the sound system at its best, it was really hard to get her to try and concentrate. I wasn't really concentrated on teaching myself.

My grandparents brought a whole load of things over. Most of them are food supplements, (they knew I was a frequent late-nighter) and they might have been really heavy to carry over. I was rather shocked at how much they cost in total. They always invest a lot on us :)

Lunch today was nice too. We had dim sum lunch at IMM in Jurong, with my 8th granduncle. Two of my cousins (Sarah and Maryjo) were there too. And Aunt Si Si who was working in IMM happened to choose to go to the same restaurant for lunch. So she got to talk to my grandparents too. It was very nice of her to come over our table to greet and chat with us, while her food was left at another table with her friends. Considering the time they talked it must have grown rather cold.

My grandparents are going home today. Was really glad to be able to meet up and talk, even though it wasn't very long a time. I wish I could do better in my studies so they don't have to worry so much about me in this aspect. But it seems like I'm just letting my health go downhill without achieving much. And my Numerical Methods test results were depressing (so don't ask).

Sometimes I wonder what is more important - to get a job I that is related to what I learn, so that my 4 year course over here would not be wasted; or to get one that I am actually able to be competent in, and excel in it. Some issues are too private and sensitive to be discussed in a public blog, so I won't elaborate much on it here. I just wonder what will become of me after I graduate. After flying high for so many years, it is hard to become mediocre, or to put it crudely - less than mediocre. I know there's more in me yet, and maybe it just needs more pushing to come out.

I'm already assigned to a company for industrial attachment next year, and I am hoping for 6 months of working hard, studying hard, giving my best and enjoying it. I wonder how much potential in myself I can tap into now, for I think it is by God's providence I found a job description that allows me use more of the skills I have unofficially acquired these years, as non-engineering as they seem.

Although they don't say it, I know there are expectations of me from home. My family never tries to push me too far, fearing that I will someday break myself. From all the feedback I've been getting from everyone, only my mum is trying to stretch me as near to my limits as possible. This I see again and again, as I read her past emails to me, and it is the my main motivation to go as far as I can. Daddy has never said or commented too much about my results, but from the one or two questions he asks, I know he is concerned about how I will fare after I graduate and compete in the job market with my fellow graduates. My grandparents always ask me to take things slow and easy, but I know my grandfather wants to see me doing my best too.

Studying and trying to excel is so hard, especially at 3-4 am in the morning when you're sleepy and want to get some rest; especially when you look at your gradebook and know you've not been doing enough. It's like running a race where you'll never catch up, but you'll still have to run, because of the people cheering you on. Expectations are what stress me up, but they are also what that push me on. Expectations both said, and unsaid. (But I really do appreciate those unsaid expectations. The fact that they are unsaid althought they are still there.)

Another thing I fear is as I strive hard to work towards meeting my family's expectations, I forget about meeting the expectations of the Lord. To spend time to love, and live, and labour for treasures that are eternal. To spare some thought for the person next to me, instead of wondering how my peers study so well, and how I can be like them. To stop my own building projects of my so-called future and career, to pause and spend time with Him, to pursue a future He holds for me with peace.

I have changed so much after I came here. I don't know if it's for better or for worse, but there's still a passion for the things of the Lord that I wish to revive.

Post Mid Terms, Pre-Project Submissions

I haven't been blogging for quite some time. Very, very busy. :(

Anyway, an update about things that happened. Raffles Hall's Mid-Autumn Festival Celebrations coincided neatly with my project submissions and mid-terms. It was suddenly pushed forward two whole weeks, and I have two different performances, and three songs to practice for. Had to compensate two weeks of practices for that, and it was certainly no joke. Working with people always takes in a lot of extra time and effort, especially when standards and expectations are high. But if it's a job well done, it has its rewards.

I performed one song for The Rugged Hallways (aka the hall band), and Chamber Music Ensemble. Yanlei is nice to work with, and though her violin skills are not perfect, it's inspiring and heart warming to see the effort she puts into her practices and her performances. We played Cheng Li de Yue Guang and Luo Ye Gui Gen, which is a sure hit if we don't do it too badly, because everybody likes the song, and it's highly popularized. Had a bit of trouble getting all the chords out though - I couldn't find any online. For Band we performed Helpless When She Smiles by Backstreet Boys. It's the first time I'm playing this kind of 'noisy' song for band, and it's a totally new experience.

I played safe in all my performances but still made mistakes in counting and in one or two chords. Sam commented that my playing is too 'standard', which is both a good and bad thing. Trouble is, I have been performing for the third year in hall by now and still get stage fright (even in hall). Hence, I don't dare to be too adventurous in case something goes wrong. Playing songs of different genre (the Chinese songs were the quiet and soothing kind), kind of got me confused also. I shall not try this again next time. That night, I had to do event reporting for Phoenix Press as well, so going down for the celebrations was really killing three birds with one stone. Or maybe it was four birds, as I told Tirza, because the fourth is myself. I'm behind all my lectures by two weeks! And I have to really force myself to go out to attend tutorials. That's why I'm tired and falling sick on and off now. But at this point of time, my health is back to normal.

The Dynamics project took me a very long time to complete - and it was supposed to be not that difficult. Oh well, at least I get have a hand in most things related in the project this time - with help from Jon, Yew Hong, and a very handy tip from Benjamin (most grateful for that). Now is the tedious part of making the report look nice and complete. After that I'll have to do my lab report and maths homework, and catch up with all my webcast, and learn HYSYS properly. Hopefully that could be done before the finals come. It's not too many weeks away. And yes, there's three more projects (not including this one I'm nearly done with), three more tests and two more presentations to prepare for, before the finals. I haven't included my CCA activities in the list yet.

I went for an interview last Monday and was accepted by Eben Consultants. It is located in Bukit Batok which is very near NUS, so that's a plus point. It means I won't have to wake up at 5-6 am everyday to get to work, which is a good thing. I hope I can learn much from this attachment. I know it's not top-notch like Shell or Esso, but then again, I am well aware of where I stand in the academic food-chain, CAP-wise. In fact, I consider myself very fortunate to be accepted by this company, because it does most of the things I feel I would be more interested in - more towards business, safety and quality control. Hopefully I can cope with both my work and studies next semester. I'm taking two modules on top of my work, and one of them is supposed to be an elective related to my core, so it's not going to be easy.

I don't know why I'm suddenly inserting this here: but I think I'm rather disappointed with the quality of my news event article written for Phoenix Press. I made a mistake in writing down the name of one of the songs performed, and the flow of the report is too methodological to be interesting. As a senior, I should have inserted some more interesting comments/analysis of the situation but at that point of time, my mind was blank, or rather, stuffed with details of my project that I just wanted to finish my event report quickly. Hope I do a better job next time.