Last Day of November 2010

I know these blog titles are pretty pointless, but I'm not feeling creative at the moment.

And oh! I simply have to blog about this! I have the awesomemest supervisor! (And by the way, 'awesomemest' is not a word because words cannot describe how nice she is!) She asked her husband who was in Australia to get me a nice Christmas present! I really appreciated this because firstly, I'm just a temporary intern; secondly, the present is super nice and not mini-sized; and thirdly I'm not even around for Christmas so she needn't have bothered in the first place. But she brought it over to office today and said she wanted to give it to me this week because I won't be seeing much of her for the rest of the week. Argh I will never ever get a Boss as sweet as this again ever. Touched to the max.

And today was quite fun because Mei came over to SP for a plant tour, and we had lunch together! Thanks Mei for enduring SP food with me, hehe. Really enjoyed her companionship throughout the semester, taking exactly the same modules, doing exactly the same research, and complaining and discussing the same stuff. And I found out where the SP clinic is today. At least I know where that is before I leave.

And did I mention I'm already missing SP already? I think I did in my last post. :p I hope one day I will get the chance to go back, and then the people, and the culture won't change. But then I don't think that will happen in near future. There's only one mistake I regret making in this place (and that's apart from all the typos I made in my work). Once, at the first few weeks of my internship, I was walking under the sun from one plant facility back to the one my office was in, and there was this kind and sweet lady in a yellow car who purposefully stopped to pick me up without asking who I am! She was driving from that plant facility to mine. After chit-chatting with her all the way, I went back to seat realizing one thing: I forgot to ask her name! Therefore, I shall henceforth severely remind myself, when talking to someone, especially your colleagues, ask and remember their names. I never forgot this, and I never forgot too the lift that was so kindly extended to me.

I remember someone said since people have to part, why meet (In Chinese). But I'd rather have many meetings and partings than no meetings at all, even though partings can be very sad. This SP experience really made me think a lot - and I make up my mind that every time I meet people, I would take something away, and leave something behind. There are so many lessons we can learn from people, even the worst of them. And there are so many ways we can contribute to their lives too, again, even to the worst among them (and again how much better are we ourselves?). It's not easy to always remember to make a difference. But if we do take the effort to do it, you won't know how much it means to another. Just like that lady who gave me a lift - she might not know but it is going to be one of my fondest memories of SP when I leave.

The Last Three Weeks

There are only three weeks left and I'm already missing SP :(( I don't like waking up at 6 plus in the morning, or not getting to go home for hols. But I really like the working environment (at least the small sphere I'm around) and the people there.

One thing that I really appreciated in SP is the willingness of some people to give compliments, and their capacity to share. I used to think it is not a culture of young people to give compliments (but they still can't beat my supervisor in that sense), but I realized that the chemists from both labs I'm working with are very generous with that. Instead of an official 'thank you' they took the trouble to comment on positive aspects of my work, however small it was, as being fast, complete etc. That is so unlike our project work teams in NUS whereby people hardly acknowledge the extra effort others put in so that they know it, except maybe when they fill in peer review forms. It makes Mother Theresa's quote so apt: There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.

Now I have to make this very clear - I do not lack love and appreciation. (I will be severely whacked on the head by many if I say I do.) And I daresay if there's no one to appreciate my efforts in something, I am 'zi lian' enough to appreciate myself if what I've done is really worthwhile. But there are many who do, and few who give what they need. Instead of just looking out for yourself and how your contribution is valued all the time, it would do good to yourself and others to do some degree of appreciation from time to time, even to people you're not familiar with. Sometimes things like this go a long long way.

Three more weeks - time runs so fast, and therefore it's really important to make each day and hour count :)

Exams Are Over

Exams are over and I want to go De-coders! De-coders is a board game cafe. Usually we go for a $8 four-hour session with free flow of drinks. And by now I know how to play quite a number of board games, enough to fill 10 hours of one round each I think! :p I'm seriously a board-game addict. What's more I just saw the alumni gang playing Bang! in the upper lounge two days ago, and I instantly missed Bang! So anyone interested please PM my Facebook account, as long as I'm in Singapore! (Should have min of 4 persons to be fun.) But I'm not going to be free to go out until after next Tuesday evening at least.

I usually don't like talking about my papers after exams, but I quite like the two modules (actually it's three, including IA) I'm taking this semester so here goes! HR is quite heavy for 3 MC, but I don't mind because it's 'my type' of module. Much 'critical thinking' and debating involved. And what I like about it is you can actually disagree (or agree partially, and disagree partially) with the readings and still get high marks if you argue it nicely! I wish I was in some course that would allow me to take this sort of module all the time, but I wonder what career (besides teaching/counselling), would accommodate for this sort of 'thinking skill' all the time? It doesn't seem very useful for a full-time job.

The other module I'm taking is a level 5, on Downstream Processing of Biochemical Products. The module is nice, the workload is OK, the professor teaches well. HOWEVER, we are taking with a bunch of Master's students, and other undergraduates who are star-learners. Mid-terms are awfully tricky and I died in them. The term paper was OK for me, and for everyone else. The final paper was OK too, just that from my postulation, half the class would have the capability to score 100% for it, and unfortunately that doesn't include me! But oh well, it could have gotten much worse, so thank God for the finals! I really like this module from the bottom of my heart - it's just that bell curves are cruel things most of the time in Chem Eng modules.

IA is going to end in another month, and I have a load of preparatory work to do before ending it. For instance, I believe my supervisor deserves a really nice souvenir for all the love she put in coaching me! And I don't know how, but I do plan to do something for each person I know too because they've all been so nice! But how to do something nice for everyone and at the same time make it cost effective? I have this LONG list of names I've compiled, and I have only one month to think of what to do. T__T

And yup, on top of IA at the back of my mind I still have to take care of my research with Prof Lee. Next year is Design Project semester and Final Year Project Presentation. They do have to end our final semester with a big bang like this. Then after that graduation! And a new myriad of possibilities ahead of me.

Yesterday when I was studying, my mind couldn't just stick in one place, and I was fleetingly thinking of a range of interesting part-time jobs I wish I could do if there is an opening, and the pay was decent. There are things I feel that would be really fun to do if they could feed me at least before I get a proper job. Some of them are here:

1. Do translation (preferably from Chinese to English) for a drama series/ movie! I don't know how this pays, but some of the translations I've seen are really horrible, and I believe I could do a way better job than that. And it would be fun too. Book translations are welcome too.

2. Tutor a kid who genuinely wants to learn. Music or school-work (which is not beyond my capabilities). I actually love to teach you see. Especially subjects like History, basic Biology, and maybe essay writing.

3. This is not exactly a job - but I want to join some short-term mission trip or something - local or overseas. I seriously lack experience from serving in this field! No payment required - I'm willing to dig my pocket money out for this (provided that the cost is not explosive).

4. Teach a kid/adult how to improvise in music lessons. Must be willing to learn, easy to teach AND not take my efforts for granted. Unfortunately, you need to pay for this though. :p

5. Play board games and get paid? No such dream job in existence though. T__T

6. Some methodological sai-kang work (maybe for a few days only) - such as packing goodie bags, data entry, documentation work, report writing, grammar checking for thesis only. Must be a well-paid sai-kang job. :p

That's about what I can think off at the moment. Now to get out of dreamland and back to research work. :D

Between Week 13 and Reading Week

As I've mentioned many, many times, this is the first time my exams end in reading week itself! Unfortunately I can't lie back and enjoy after that, because I still have to rush Prof. Lee's research project, and of course work from Mondays to Fridays (without early leave for lessons on Mondays and Wednesdays).

Still, I will miss my IA a lot when it's over. :( My supervisor is really very nice, appreciative, and understanding; and I do like the people and the working environment in SP. Every time I feel like 'oh no, I'm going to mess this up...', people there are just so ready to teach and put you at ease when you're doing things you've never done before. If my future working environment is like this (provided that I have a little more assignments than I already have), it would be perfect!

HR project is officially over, ending with a class presentation and a class photo. Behold myself and my group members. :p Really learned much about communication, and people management through this project. It was really messed up with a lot of subtle conflicts, and everything was extra difficult because everyone was friends with each other. But we did end on amicable terms, and the preparation process for the presentation was quite fun. My greatest regret for this project is probably the fact that I didn't get to talk to Fuchao much and only knew how to write his Chinese name after the presentation.

Just want to specially appreciate YH for his honesty throughout the project, and Mei for sharing all the same burdens and frustrations with me, and for being so supportive. Also, our HR lecture, for being so nice and caring towards her students (she really goes out of the way to do so), for teaching us so many salient applications of communication and people management, and for making everything so fun :) She even gave us a bar of Toblerone each!

Our group members (in no particular order in the photo): Yew Hong, Fuchao, Kasun, Mei, Wendy, Shi Hui and myself.

Yesterday there was this email about our design project group allocation rules, and everyone went into a frenzy with group formations. Trust Chem Engineer wannabes like us to give such instantaneous reaction towards updates like this. The domino effect was, I had to start asking around too as I was always one of those left-behinds who 'filled in the gaps' and was grouped with random people in technical group projects. Decided to take the first offer available for safety's sake, and I was really happy that Anna called me just now. My being glad was not so much that I had a group at last (though yes, I was happy to have something definite like this to hang on to), but it was rather because I was accepted so appreciatively. And I really thank God for a very important reminder that she gave me regarding my perspective of the group work, or even school work as a whole.

Exams are on Thursday and Saturday - so I'd better continue bucking up for both papers! Hopefully I'll make the fullest of my school life before I graduate. :)

LKK

We had our LKK Getai performance two days ago! LKK = Lao Kok Kok by the way, a term coined by Raffles Hall Final Years, for ourselves.

It was fun to work with our Block 6 Gang again (that's how we coined the gang in Year 1). Not everyone who was originally inside is still around. And there were some of us who joined in and somehow we formed this big group and we did a skit to spoof on certain key hall personnel. I loved the fact that we all got to work together to prepare something like this.

At first I thought the performance was going to be horribly lame - mainly because we lack contributions of talented script writers. Piang did the front part, and I did the back part (that was the lame part) on the Q&A. I am not made to write witty dialogues, at least not formally on paper. I still remember in Year One where Boss mentioned that it was a pity that my sabo skills did not make its way into my writings for RH-Ed. The articles I wrote were very descriptive, but however, boringly politically correct.

Anyway, the audience liked our performance! Thanks to everyone who let their hair down. It is something I still can't do, despite it being my fourth year in RH. But I really do admire people who can do so.

I really admired the spirit of those who contributed a whole lot of time and effort to our Getai. It required sacrifice, and it was that sacrifice that brought about its success. I remembered poor Gant and Brian leading the meeting despite the reluctant expressions of our semi-bored seniors. It is really because of people putting effort into hall, that hall can reach new heights every year.

I collected my Phoenix Magazine today. It had three (lengthy) articles of mine inside. My writing style had not evolved much from Year One. That was why I thought it was more apt for me to write for Phoenix rather than RH Ed. But it seemed like now RH Ed has evolved to adopt political correctness also, and is now part of Phoenix. However, I saw one distinct difference from the way I write now, than the way I used to write. Instead of merely shedding stuff in a positive light, my thoughts are more critical now than it used to be. The difference is really very subtle, but I really felt it was there as I read through my writings.

My favorite part of the magazine must have to be the two pages nearing the end where Pei Yiing drew a two page spread of her design memories in hall. Those colors and pictures really brought back a line of memories since Year One, and it should be even more so for her as they reflected her actual experiences. The pages where the Final Year comments really left me thinking: What is hall to me now... and how has it shaped my life?

I have detached myself from Hall too long to answer this question, although I am physically within it. Hall is merely a definition of the memories between me and my close block mates; as well as the friends I made through activities, some who are still in Hall, others who are not. As I approach my last semester in Hall, should I play my role differently to be more involved, or just stick within the little circle I'm comfortable in? I'm still not sure. Uni life is a tug-of-war of commitments and priorities. I need much wisdom to make the right choices.