The first week of school was comparatively less hectic than I'd expected, although the new timetable is making everyone bleary-eyed. Having four days of 8am classes and one at 10am can be a killer. Especially when the projects start tumbling in or when I live on the other side of the island. I end in the evening on most days too, so I'll just have to jostle with the peak hour crowd on the trains.

On the bright side, my new modules are generally interesting. I found PPS (Philosophy, Psychology and Society) and SD (Scriptwriting for Drama & Sitcom) particularly interesting. I know I've said I might be better in journalism, but I'm having second thoughts now. My journalism module's pretty dry. Hopefully, it'll only get better from here. Anyway, PPS is fun. I'm not sure how usual philosophy lecturers look like, but I certainly did not expect such a cheery, young twenty-something lecturer like ours. Everyone was surprised.

For our first Philosophy lesson, we had to draw out our life's philosophy with a caption under it. I wasn't sure what I ought to draw in those few minutes given. My finished product was a rough drawing of Winnie the Pooh, accompanied by a large pot of 'hunny'. 

Honey is sweet. It's tasty. It's also Pooh's favourite snack. But it could suffocate flies. When you leave honey out, flies might land on it and get stuck in the agonisingly sweet honey. It's quicksand to them. There's also an episode of Winnie the Pooh, when his head gets stuck in a pot of honey. He got too greedy. Since we had to explain our 'philosophies' in front of the class, I just came up with quite a lame reasoning. Something along the line of "life is deceptively sweet and we get stuck by our own doing sometimes due to greed". I think it was something about 'balance'. To be honest, I doubt my explanation was good enough. 

Anyway, we dealt with the question of reality for the rest of the lesson. Do we really exist? Have we been dreaming all along and there's an alternate reality which we don't know about? There was also the 'brains in vats' theory which I find slightly disturbing. I agree with Plato's Allegory of the Cave though. That we are all prisoners and what we know of the world are just 'shadows' based on our sense. It's a pretty abstract video but the link above supplies an accurate explanation of the allegory. What we perceive as reality are just our senses - what we see, hear, feel, smell and say. Whereas the 'real world' is made up of our different ideas.

Mark gave the example of the cat. He asked us to draw a cat in 30 seconds and all our drawings were different. Some were fat, some had stripes, some were anorexic, some had no whiskers. But they were all cats based on what we seen, heard or know of cats in general. It doesn't make any of our cats fake - they are cats even if they look nothing like each other. Our drawings are like the shadows the prisoners saw, and the 'real cat' is something we cannot see as our sense are bombarded by our experiences with cats.

It's a pretty abstract idea, isn't it? 

I must say I've enjoyed this holiday. I visited the IT fair, bought a new camera, had a picnic at East Coast Beach, attended a choir concert, , visited the zoo, watched plenty of movies, learnt how to cycle (with the best teacher), played at a game cafe and even went kite-flying. Plus I managed to sleep to my heart's content.

I think my greatest achievement was learning how to ride the bicycle. I can't remember the book but I read  that every child learns how to ride a bicycle from his/her dad or brother. Well, my father didn't teach me and Mummy gave up after I nearly crashed into any inanimate object in Pasir Ris Park several times. So I never knew how to cycle till recently, that is.

Do you dare to dream? Or more specifically put, do you have your own aspirations?

A few days ago, I was watching 'Qualifications of Men' (남자의 자격), an entertainment programme on the  KBS World channel. For those who are not familiar with the show, it's about a group of seven men, mostly in their prime, completing missions given each episode (such as learning how to tap dance or host a new year party). The episode I watched had this mission for the men: to give a lecture to students who aspire to be like them. 

(Image from here)

Each of them decided to take on a topic since they are from different backgrounds. One decided to give interview tips for aspiring TV announcers (he is an announcer himself), a comedian gave a speech about the difficulties he faced when he was still a newbie in the industry, so on and so forth. They might be talking about different jobs - one is even an ex-baseball player - but all spoke about having their own goals and the lessons they have learnt from their experience. 

One of the speeches I really liked was Kyungkyu-shi's. I must say here that the rest of the stuff in this post is what I think of Kyungkyu-shi's way of thinking and not what he said exactly. He sounded pretty ludicrous at the start.  Well, I'm not sure if I interpreted his words correctly, but Kyungkyu-shi's main points were pretty unique. One which he mentioned was that most of our dreams would never come true. It's a reality we have to face up to. Sure, I could dream of being a company president. It is achievable. It is probable. But somewhere in my mind, I know that it's not my only dream. I have other more possible dreams. Like being a writer. I'm studying to be one anyway.

But (yes, there's always the but), Kyungkyu-shi never said we should not dream too. I think everyone needs a dream to live, as opposed to just simply existing. Dreams are what makes us happy. Some might call it a false sense of purpose, but at least it pushes us forward in our lives all the same. Instead of just going forward blindly towards your dream, understand that it might not come true all the same. Maybe I should phrase it in another way instead of making it seem like we need to prepare for failure.... I guess we should take a realistic approach in reaching our goals. Work slowly towards it. Understand that our goals would change over time. 

And so what if we don't achieve our dreams? When you see your parents complaining about their horrible day cooped up in their cramped cubicles, they might actually be thinking of their dreams in their head. There is a difference between what you can do and what you enjoy. Everyone wants to do something they can enjoy. It's just that your parents need to bring the dough to the table and their jobs gives them just that. They'd rather do what they can do rather than to have the family starve. They need their jobs. Reality makes it so. I don't know if everyone agrees with me on this, but dreams are sort of like nourishment for the soul. 'I dislike my job at this bistro - it's boring me to tears! If only I can have my own chain of sandwich shops someday.' By thinking the latter, the individual gets fired up. He might not get to own a sandwich shop in the end, but he would work hard in his current job to earn enough capital for that goal. Or he might even decide that he'd rather direct his own film one day, but he would still work hard. 

I feel so much better after typing all that out. Hopefully, all that might make some sense to you all. If it doesn't just take it as an incoherent person rambling her thoughts. 

Well, don't I sound older than my age now?

I can understand why almost everyone squeeze into Suntec each time at IT fair comes on. The deals are pretty good! Cong Han and I went there on the first day to look around. It was just as well since I was looking for a new digital camera. My white Sony camera (I've forgotten the model name) is starting to spoil after its loyal five years with me.

After taking all the brochures I could find for the different brands of cameras, I went to Suntec with Cong Han on the last day of the IT fair again to get one. I initially wanted something pretty like the Olympus Pen series. But mummy and Cong Han both recommended the Olympus Tough-6020, which is supposedly shockproof and waterproof. Given my luck with my electronic devices, I usually drop them after a month or so. The horrifying dents on my Macbook, iPhone case, and even my dead laptop from Crescent are proof of my special jinx. So it isn't that strange for them to recommend the hardy Tough-6020 which makes up for its really basic design with its durability. I got it at less than half the original price.

After getting my camera, we went to look at the televisions. Cong Han wanted to take a look at them and there were hourly specials where prices get slashed coupled with free gifts thrown in too. After about an hour of consideration, he got a television with a free sound system. It was quite a hassle pulling the purchase around. Cong Han managed to carry it down the stairs since the elevators were too slow and the escalators were chocked with people. I have no idea where he got the strength from.

We then ate at Marina Square while waiting for his dad to pick us up to get the new television. Unfortunately we had to get back to Tampines for dinner with mummy and we took a taxi eventually. It was quite amusing. The television was too long to get into the car boot and we had to slot it in the passenger seat instead. I sat behind the television and squeezed my legs at the extreme side while Cong Han sat in front with the driver. I guess it's pretty good that my legs are short after all!

Yesterday didn't start off very well. I came to know about certain unhappiness between a few of my classmates but could not do anything since I gave my word that I wouldn't interfere. I wish I didn't do that since said person wouldn't learn his/her mistakes. Why does everyone keep spoon-feeding him/her? 

But I'm not in the position to say anything since I made a big blunder afterwards. I was supposed to meet my classmates and take the shuttle bus together to the chalet since Matin had already checked in. Unfortunately, a few were late and the bus was too small to contain all of us. Coupled with the fact that some were complaining about how hot it was, we decided not to walk but to take a bus to Downtown East and then walk from there. 

I was so sure that we had to take bus 403 from the interchange. We ended up going all the way to Pasir Ris Park, which was in the opposite direction, and then making a loop which brought us back to the interchange once more. I felt really bad. Pascal later remarked that I shouldn't ever be a tour guide. I agree. 

Last Friday was my second time to Nex, the gigantic shopping mall in Serangoon. I met up with Stefanie, Avelin, CX, Ziwei and Joey for lunch there. I got lost as usual, but I found my way eventually. It took another forty minutes to decide on where we should eat. I was starving by then. Our group eventually chose Swensen's. 

The previous week has been really fun. Cong Han and I went on a picnic at East Coast Park last week. The weather was perfect (although it got a bit too hot afterwards). I woke up at 6am to prepare the food and went back to sleep afterwards. It wasn't a wise move since I overslept and was late meeting Cong Han at the station. We then proceeded to wait for 401 at Bedok bus interchange. It was a good fifteen minutes before I realised that the bus doesn't operate on weekdays. We ended up taking a cab to the place.

I've finally started editing on the photos I took during my trip to South Korea two years ago. Yes, I didn't type anything wrong. It has indeed been two years and I have not bothered to touch them ever since I dumped them all into my computer files - till now. 

I don't edit my photos usually but I had the intention to do so for my South Korea trip since the photos taken were mostly too dark due to the poor lighting (it was winter). Since I edited about ten out of the hundreds I took, I think it'd take another two years for me to finish editing all of them. Well, I might be able to finish all by the end of the holidays since I'm only editing the lighting. I'm a lazy person. I admire those who can go through hundreds of photos and edit their faces and bodies one by one. I've only tried to edit my face and Mummy's wrinkles once. The result was quite strange unfortunately. 

Anyway, since I've edited a few photos, I decided to upload one (or two) onto my tumblr page. It's not as populated with Kpop posts now, so don't worry about getting bombarded by Super Junior posts! This is the first time I'm uploading a photo onto Tumblr actually. I usually just reblog images, GIFs or put up quotes. It's quite ridiculous that I'm only uploading a photo onto the site when I've been having it for about a year now, isn't it? It's also a little strange uploading the photos since they were taken in winter, during the Christmas period. Maybe I should keep them and post them here when Christmas comes! I'll have months to finish editing them then!

Moving on, I'm officially free from school now! My last CA10 of my first academic year was completed yesterday. I'll have more time to blog now. The only thing left to do is to wait for my results and maybe get a job during the holidays. I hope I'll be able to pass French - I didn't do well for the last exam. Oh well. 

By the way, I never knew there was a lighthouse at Fort Canning Park! I was there during my VPPP CA10 filming and saw this! 

Does this mean the sea used to be at Fort Canning area? 

I visited to Singapore Science Center with Cong Han last week. The place has undergone some major changes. I barely recognized it anymore! We managed to cover the whole area, including the Dinosaur Exhibition. We just didn't go to the IMAX theater or Snow City.

I remember going to a dinosaur exhibition in the Science Center with my parents when I was around seven or eight. It was the second exhibition I went to (the first was about the human body). At that point of time, I hid behind my father's thigh. It was a pretty conflicting moment for my seven-year-old self. I was fascinated by the dinosaurs and wanted to get near to them. But I panicked each time mummy pushed me forward and froze behind my father who was my makeshift shield. 

This time was pretty much the same. I was reluctant to get near them initially. I had to remind myself that they were just mere machines in my mind repeatedly. This dinosaur exhibition is entirely different from the one I went to before and I managed to pose (albeit reluctantly) for a few photos after a while though. There were not many people inside - only a few school children on their school excursion. It's embarrassing how they aren't affected by the dinosaurs at all. I think I've underestimated my zoophobia. I know very well that the dinosaurs are not the real deal - but I must admit I had half the mind to run out of the place, screaming my head off. I don't have any photos of the dinosaur exhibits since Cong Han was the one taking photos in there. I was too preoccupied with posing to take any. 

Cong Han and I went out soon afterwards and bought keychains with our photo on them. Mummy said it's a waste of money when I showed it to her when I got home later. But I wanted a photo of the both of us! Oh well. At least I now know how tourists attractions are able to rip people off with photo-taking business gimmicks!

Disclaimer: 
This post was written on New Year's day but it wasn't published. Till now, that is.

2011 has been quite a year for me. I was initially hesitant about going to a polytechnic. I must admit that I had some preconceived notions about polytechnics based on what my teachers and seniors told me. But I don't reget going to SP.

I really ought to be starting on my other projects and scripts now, but I'm so mentally drained after a whole week of editing concepts, presentations, writing and brainstorming for new ideas. I can't bring myself to start on my CA10s yet. Well, at least not tonight. 

There are quite a few unpublished posts in my Blogger account right now. I just never found the time to complete those posts. One of them is my 2011 summary post. I usually sum up a whole year's events and thoughts in one post during New Year but I failed to do that for 2011. Another that I promised but failed to post would be the LEAP camp post. 

Well, I've finally completed and published the post about LEAP camp. I doubt anyone would read the whole post since it's very long. I could not think of any other way to post about it though. Read the post below! 

Next update would include 2011's summary post!

Since it's been ages since I last posted, it's going to be quite a long post. You've been warned!

We had to attend a workshop and briefing for the two days before LEAP camp. Monday (which was the first day) went well. We chugged through all the seven habits that the camp was based on. It was nice to meet four of my classmates after such a long break - Zhao-yi, Shaw, Matin and Wai Meng. And although I sat with my classmates during the workshop, I befriended the people from the neighbouring table. In fact, I got to know Serene, Gui Yu, Clare, Mark, Hui Juan and Benjamin by the end of the first day.

The second day was much shorter. I was expecting it to be as long as the first but we got to go home by noon. We played a few ice-breakers before having the brief about the camp. There was also a revised packing list given to us. Thank goodness I'd only packed my sleeping bag in, so it didn't make much of a difference to me. They then divided us into our camp groups.

Joey, Stefanie, Shaw and I were talking about which animal each of us bear a resemblance to this evening. It was mostly thanks to Abdul Matin who is still continuing with his cow jokes actually. Funnily, the animal they said I was like was a polar bear. I've gotten comments that I look like a hamster, a guinea pig, a bunny and even a cow (no thanks to Matin), but never a polar bear. I mean, polar bears are one of my favourite animals so I don't mind it at all. But it was quite a surprise to me all the same. 

Stefanie went on to remark that I'm like a polar bear because of the wintry feel I give off. Shaw and Joey also agreed that I am quite a cold person at times. I never really thought that I appear to have a cold aura around me. To be honest, many have said that I'm a distant person despite my friendly exterior. I wonder if it means that I'm intimidating. 

Happy Chinese New Year!

I'm pretty sure hardly anyone comes here anymore, since I've not updated the site for such a long time. Well, I've been a little busy recently. Projects have been coming consecutively and our class has been trying to tackle all of them. We've got no choice but to do nearly every CA only at the last minute because we were trying to finish yet another CA before that. My projects are issued back to back as usual. I know Year 2 would be tougher though. 

Anyway, this year's Lunar New Year isn't as festive as the past new years. Mummy and I didn't prepare much this year. There's hardly any decoration around the house and we didn't do much for spring cleaning. Another thing that's different this year is the fact that my cousins have outgrown video games. I used to watch them play games like 'Halo' or 'Super Mario' every year but they seem to have tired of it. Most of them are more interested in gambling now. The few who refuse to gamble (like me) played cards and board games instead. I managed to win twice at 'Monopoly Deal' which is the card version of the traditional 'Monopoly' game. Everyone was shocked, considering how bad I am at strategic games! 

Each year I see my cousins (and nieces) growing steadily. The older cousins are now starting to settle down one by one to have their own families. My aunts and uncles are ageing bit by bit too. Some are even grandparents already. It's a little scary how fast time flies. I have also found out that I have more cousins that I'd thought this year. I don't just have 17 cousins on my mum's side - there are more! I think my family is quite big sometimes. I might have some rich long-lost relative somewhere in Asia. Who knows? 

I had a heart-to-heart talk with Mummy last night and today. I've not been myself recently. It's been a long time since I'd spoken so much to Mummy and it made me realise that keeping quiet isn't the best way to solve any problem. Everything just snowballs into a huge mess usually. 

It's also the first time Mummy told me about the past in such a detailed manner. The two of us have our own different traumas and scars. I never stop marveling at how Mummy has brought me up on her own. My childhood wasn't as cheerful as most of my peers. I hardly laughed. It was rare for me to even smile to anyone. 

I remember there was this pair of brothers who made me smile though. I can't remember their names or how they looked like anymore. I was in kindergarten at that time, and my parents would bring me to the playground near my school. I'm not sure if the playground is still there since I don't go back anymore, but it was near Gongshan Primary school and my babysitter's old place. We'd jump up and down on this 'bridge'. Sometimes the three of us would just lie down on it and stare at the stars. This was the only happy memory I had of my kindergarten days - even if the boys were not from my kindergarten at all. I never went back to the place after I graduated. 

Funny how a simple childhood memory could still be so clear in my head. I might not know how the people looked like exactly, but I could remember how it felt on the 'bridge' and how pretty the stars were. I've always liked to look at the skies and make shapes out of the clouds. But I think I found out how pretty the night sky is like with the stars and moon too after knowing the two boys at the playground. I wonder how they are doing now. 

Crying so hard for so long on the first day of a new year doesn't feel good at all. 

I originally intended to blog about the awesome fireworks and events that happened on New Year's Eve, but I doubt I'm in the state to do so. I have yet to post about 2011 as a whole too. Seems like my first day of 2012 didn't turn out so well after all. 

Sometimes I wish I had a sibling. So that I don't have to uphold so many expectations. So that I wouldn't be compared to the ideal daughter when there'd be another child to compare against instead. So that I'd have someone to confide in without feeling like I'm being a burden to him or her when I cry or speak. 

Well, but on the bright side, at least I had a good cry. I just need to stop crying now. I can't seem to stop. 

Happy New Year, everyone. I'm sorry for the sombre mood.

(via candycanechristmas)

Did you use to write letters to Santa Claus?

Sometimes I find it difficult to express my thoughts and feelings in words. I know it's funny, since I'm studying in a writing course. I should have absolutely no problems coming up with an adequate description or expression of my inner self. But somehow it's difficult for me to do that. I come up with strange analogies instead. I think that's how I got the 'weird' label among my peers too.

Another problem is that I'm not exactly fantastic at showing my emotions. I've lost count of the number of people I've disappointed with my reactions to their surprises. I just freeze up and end up with a bland face, when that's not what I'm feeling at that moment actually. It seems too forced when I try to smile and give a big reaction too. I think I could be having my own fireworks showcase inside of me while the poker face is being shown to the world instead. Could it be that I lack in the emotional quotient department? 

Whenever I get happy, I get scared. Because I know I'll be sad again.
Dragon Squad (2005)