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.