Thursday, April 8, 2010

Of songs and presentations and other stuff



This is the song that kind of kick-started to my radio-listening days after Form 5 during the post-SPM holidays :) The first time I hear of it was in my driving instructor's car after my driving lessons. That was the first time I really liked Wang Lee Hom's songs, and liked Chinese pop songs as a whole. Now I'm basically very much a Chinese Pop Song person. I still listen to a very narrow range of songs, so it's not hard to get impressed with a specific genre like this.

And yes, I know there are plenty of nicer Lee Hom songs (and MVs) but this is the first one I kind of fell in love with, so I like it still. Haha. But I must admit there are other songs that touched me more.

One of the reasons I like listening to Chinese songs is the lyrics. To me, the melody kind of plays a second fiddle if the lyrics of the songs are really good. :D Though it's really crucial to make a song nice too. But still, lyrics come first. A good example would be the song 'The Rose'. It has the nicest lyrics, but why does it have to have such a monotonous tune? Still the lyrics did manage to pull up my impression of the song to a very large degree. If there were no lyrics and just the melody, there's no chance I'd listen to the song The Rose twice. (Unless it was sung by Westlife, and I happened to see their MV. Or better still, the GLCC Campus version for Kailing's birthday.)

My lab presentation (the one I was almost not aware of) came and went. Frankly speaking, I'm quite numb with doing presentations now (group presentations, not those with just myself in front of the whole class). Still, I can't help being a little nervous when I imagine myself doing my FYP presentation one year ahead, all alone in front of a few professors (and an audience). Presenting alone is not that, but the thought of being bombarded with questions at the end and having to handle all that by myself makes me shudder. I'm seriously not a Q&A person.

Today's presentation went quite well. One thing I note about my presentations is that I have a clear voice, can explain things well, and don't need small notes in hand; but I have the most horrible eye-contact and blank expressions (I think people who see me translate in church could more or less attest to that). I saw that first-hand in my MNO presentation video. Some how I don't like to establish eye-contact with people while giving speeches. It makes me feel uneasy. In the end, I end up spoiling my overall presentation outlook. Thankfully, the eye-contact thing is generally not a problem during interviews. I feel more at ease during job interviews compared to presentations. Sigh. Even I can't bare the sight of myself giving a speech.

Somehow within this one year, I must train myself to be more at ease when doing public speaking to make my speeches more appealing in general. Maybe smiling a little bit might help release the tension too. But it won't help either if the smiling looks too fake. The only times I could do 'public speaking' properly is when I do informal sharing in fellowship groups, or lead activities in youth fellowship (few years ago).

As I grow up I realize there are so many tings I need to brush up, not just physical things like this; but also my whole outlook towards learning and perceiving others, as well as attitudes toward things. It is weird that it is things that I felt proud of years ago, that I feel I need to change now, because it's getting in the way of me being a better person. Sometimes these thoughts come when I'm showering, or randomly doing work, or when I'm falling asleep in bed. I guess all these change in mindset is part of a process called growing up. I learned that a person's personality is a very stable thing and its hardest to change, unless there is a dire sense of urgency to do so. That's why no matter how many revelations I have, it is still hard to act upon those discoveries.

It's going to be the last week of the semester (before reading week and exam week), and many final years are feeling quite nostalgic about entering a new phase of life soon. I could see so from reading blogs and facebook updates. They make me feel nostalgic too, although there is a full year ahead before its my turn to graduate. Next semester I'll enter the working world as an intern. And the semester after that I would be doing a frantic job-hunt as well as searching for a place to stay. Singapore isn't exactly very kind to its working professionals, unless you're already somewhere at the top of the ladder. Starting out like this feels like stepping out into a hostile environment, away from the sheltered facilities and open learning experiences in NUS. It will be an entirely different world. I hope by that time, I would have prepared myself enough to be able to cope.

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