A summary of my time as an undergraduate in NUS

I haven't been blogging in a long while, since I got busy with my FYP, then job search, then preparing to start my first job, and then settling in. Am currently going to my second month in my first job, and since had commencement, so I decided not to drag this post any further since I always wanted to write one.

I was struggling for my grades in my year 1 and 2, and there wasn't much for me to remember (or much I remember) of my first two years in NUS. Except for the fact that I fell in love with Chinese Dance and made a bunch of awesome friends in MSE.

Photo: Some of us in MSE Class of 2014 with Prof John Wang (extreme left), Prof Wang Qing (centre), and our TA Dr Zhang who graduated with a PhD with us, and who's currently my colleague on the same company but different functions and business unit (extreme right).

MSE journey

As weird as it sounds, my MSE journey didn't really begin until I attended a camp, and it wasn't a camp where I was the freshman, but a camp that I helped organized in my freshman year for the next batch of freshmen. That was like, the end of my year 1.

Photo: MSE Camp 2011, Freshmen, OGLs, Councillors and Organizing Comm

I subsequently went for the other two camps in my time in NUS (in 2012 and 2013), and had to skip the one this year cause I was starting work the very day the camp ends. And apparently, I'm the most "well-known" senior since in 2012 there were only 2 others in my batch that went for their camp (as OGL or councillor), and in 2013 I was the only one in my batch that attended their camp.

Photos: My awesome juniors at my 21st (in 2012) and one of their 21st (this year, 2014). The guys are mostly my age and the girls are 2 years younger. This is the batch of juniors that I'm the closest to.

Photo: First and last poster presentation as undergrad with my immediate juniors

I don't remember too much of the classes and all, but I do, and I guess we all do, remember our prof's quirky-ness. From the "Ladies and gentlemen, the beauty of this elegance is that..." to "aye, believe it or not!" to "umm..., ok. *pause* good.*" to "actual-ne" to "gourld" and all the other random stuff.

NUS Chinese Dance journey

I would say the most memorable journey was that I took with NUS Chinese Dance. I started my NUS Chinese Dance (NUSCD) journey between year 1 and 2. Although I auditioned for it in year 1 and passed the audition and indicated I wanted to join them, I never was really part of them until I became a ASM for one of their production, Cold Night. Then I performed twice in productions for NUSCD among other external engagements and Tao Li Cup competition, before moving to the backstage part. I seem to always be stuck at ASM (since I really had no confidence to actually do SM).

Photo: Dancers and guests from Beijing Dance Academy for Rhythm of Life VI: Efflorescence 《舞韵风情六之北花新放》2011

Photo: Dancers, Laoshis, Choreographers and SM for EMCC 2012: 7 Deadly Sins

That two photos above was the only two productions I danced with NUSCD, and both were in my year 2 in NUS. I did dance with NUSCD on other occasions after, but mostly did backstage, and in my year 3 I became the vice-president of NUSCD too.

Photos: 10th Tao Li Cup, Anhui, China, 2012

Photo: Dancers and Crew for NUS Arts Festival 2013: Mirror.Moon 《镜水月》

I think my EXCO and never fully express in words how proud we are that Mirror.Moon won many awards. We had two guest choreographers from China, who were laoshis' friends, and we had a bit of a headache trying to keep the cost down. But it was all worth it in the end. The production received many good reviews, Two of the 8 dances are still being used today (and they brought it to Macau recently last week for the International Youth Dance Festival 2014, which I sadly couldn't go with them). We won the event of the year at the Tan Ean Kiam Arts Awards 2013, and also the Bronze award under the Projects: Arts and Culture category at the Students Achievement Award 2014.

Photo: Some of the EXCO and crew at Tan Ean Kiam Arts Awards 2013

Photo: EXCO of NUSCD for AY12/13 with our 2 laoshis and our group manager, Iris

After that the last production I did before graduation with NUSCD was Rhythm of Life VII: Timeless Love 《忆生所爱》2014, where I didn't dance, but was the ASM. There's a group photo for the production, but I ran away and didn't manage to get many photos for that production with the dancers.

For those who know, I sustained a hemstring injury that never healed since Tao Li Cup 2012. I have plans to slowly pick up dancing again and hopefully, if my work allows, go back to dance with NUSCD.

Residental College 4, a.k.a. Khaya, a.k.a. Yale-NUS College

I took a huge leap when I decided to move into hostel (thanks to NUSCD acutally). I probably never cleaned my room properly in my entire life, never really did laundry and etc. So when I wanted to move in (I insisted on moving into hostel), I shocked my family. But it turned out to be a good decision for me. The independence made me learn how to do these chores, and it actually made me relax a little (and increased my grades).

Photo: My room for the 2 sems in AY12/13. I didn't take the photo for my room in my only sem I stayed for AY13/14, but it was 16-01C, and I was wondering which person played the cruel joke on me to give me the room just beside my old one, and my muscle memory was such that I almost walked into the wrong room.

Photos: the awesome view from my room window of the sunrise. Top photo was May 2013 if I dun remember wrongly, and bottom photo was around Oct 2013.

Photo: New Town Sec Sch which is opposite Khaya

Photo: The apartment door in preparation for LNY 2013. Decorations bought by one of my apartment-mates, Heather.

Staying in hostel was probably the best move that I made in NUS. I highly highly recommend that each and everyone of you try.

Other random modules

The one that I really really enjoyed was ES2007S and GEM2027. Both has something to do with communication, but I really enjoyed them although they were no exam, but heavily based on assignments/projects.

Photos: ES2007S class with Prof Brad Blackstone in the middle

GEM2027 was particularly memorable for me, not cause of the module itself but also cause I met a friend in that class, and who happens to be in another tutorial class of mine. The chances of that are like, so damn low. Apparently of the 6 of my clique that balloted for the second tut class only 2 of us got it, and he was there too. It's just so... weird and coincidental.

Closing notes

Photo: Me collecting my Bachelor's degree

So right now, I've graduated with an Bachelor's degree in Engineering. There's a whole bunch of people I want to thank for being with me through this journey. But for now, it's to the next phase in life.

Thanks Brian, Jeremy, Teo Hong, Changsoon, Andy and Nuomin for being there for the last 3 semesters of my undergrad life. It was really really fun talking nonsense with you guys, and the guys for being such asses. Not to forget discussing about schoolwork at random timings and also before the exams, trying to help each other. Thanks to the former 3 for those car rides back home during the last semester especially. Thanks so much.

Thanks Hui Quan and Yan Jie for the crazy moments in school and out of school, and just being there for me. Thanks gor esp for all the times you have to listen to me rant and also the times were we had video calls while I was in hostel that made me laugh so so so hard. I do still really think that my apartment-mates thought I was crazy.

Thanks Jovian for the nonsense you poured on my during my Year 4 Sem 1. No matter what you thought, it really really helped me go through that period of 25MCs. And thanks for being there to hear me rant at times. (and reminding me to smile :))

Thanks Xinhang, Stephanie and Steffi for being there in my first half of my NUS life before I moved into hostel and became busy with all the other random stuffs.

Thanks also Rebecca, Chin Liang, Delvin, Aditya, Bo Xiang, Justin, Yong Jian, Jonathan, Gladine for being such great friends especially in my year 2.

Thanks to the people in NUS Chinese Dance (esp Wenqian, Lim Min, Jiemin, Xiu Xuan, Jieyi) for making my time in NUSCD fun and enjoyable and helping me to improve my techniques. Hope I can get over my injury and come back to you guys.

Thanks to my juniors (esp Huangyu) for all the times that you guys jioed me out and all the laughter. Mainly in my Yr3Sem1. Thanks to the three guys who had to bear with my poking during BSP1005 too (Jeremy, Gerard, and Zhi Xiong)

Thanks to my apartment-mates in Khaya for bearing with my laughter. Thanks Heather especially for being a delightful friend as well.

Reflections and Photo Diary: A Journey of Faith, Mt Hermon BP Church fundraising concert

For readers who don't know, I worship with Mt Hermon BP Church (in Singapore). This year, we reach our 25th anniversary. And we had our fundraising concert on Sat, 03 Aug at PLMGS, in which I danced.

Bear with me for this post. I'll be a bit emotional. Just a wee bit I promise.

Just a brief background, I didn't start dancing until I was 17. I was a late starter, and of course I had to catch up in terms of technique and flexibility. Present day, my technique improved but is still far far far away from perfect, and although I can 'technically' do a spilt with right leg extended in front. Gave up on the other two methods, since my I pulled my left hamstring more than a year ago which still hurts when I stretch it.

Anyway throughout my 'dance' journey, I stopped for about a year and a half after junior college before finally going back to dance with NUS Chinese Dance in my year 2 in the university. Then after another year, I became the vice-president of NUS Chinese Dance and I have stepped down since. From then till now, it has been two years, and I'm going into my fourth year into the university and starting my third year in Chinese Dance.

While I was in junior college, I didn't really learn techniques, but was 'trained' to become more flexible. As a result, I injured both my knees because I thought falling is just falling. Only when I came to NUS Chinese Dance did I realise that even for falling, there are ways to fall to prevent injuries. But it was kinda too late, my knees are half-gone. The pain would come back "the next day" if I was careless and put undue pressure on it during any practices thereafter.

When I joined NUS Chinese Dance for my first performance in any one of it's production, it was for "Rhythm of Life VI: Efflorescence" where we invited 7 guest dancers from the Beijing Dance Academy to perform with us. And no, I didn't get to dance with them. But after this performance I didn't want to continue dancing and I felt my knee pains coming back to me (after 1.5 years of rest).

But then I did continue. My second performance in any of NUS Chinese Dance's production is "EMCC 2012: 7 Deadly Sins". I still remember the only reason why I danced for this one was because of (1) the theme which was too interesting for me to resist and (2) because they had a lack of dancers. And somehow I decided to be involved in the EXCO after this concert, which was why I nominated myself to be part of the EXCO and little did I know that they would give me the job of a VP.

And that kinda started my journey to 桃李杯 (Tao Li Cup) in Anhui, China last August where we were awarded the 第三等 (third category award). It was very rewarding since we probably the only non-professional dancers down there. Initially I didn't want to do that, since I wanted to stop dancing after Efflorescence, but since we were really lacking dancers as practices were during the vacation period and I was part of the EXCO, I had to do it. It was a tough journey, but fun and rewarding nevertheless. I actually made it clear to my president that I will not be dancing for our next production (which we intended for it to be a major production) before we even started to plan for it. And I didn't dance for our next production - "NUS Art Festival 2013: Mirror.Moon", but instead was part of the backstage crew.

Mirror.Moon was very grand, and I was happy enough just to be part of the backstage and admin/planning side. Though we had hiccups and sometimes I felt like strangling something, the hard work paid off and it was a success. :)

So anyway. In between Tao Li Cup and Mirror.Moon, my church side was having talks about a concert, and a dance items for concerts. And I got roped in to dance. Initially, I had plans to go overseas to do an internship during the summer vacation, but because of the job scope (which is not very wide and enriching) and the expenses I had to pay (which my parents felt didn't justify the experience I was going to get), I ended up staying in Singapore to do an internship. So I could join the church dance group. What was amazing was more than half of us were also from the vocalist team (me included). By vocalist I meant the 'backup singers' every Sunday singing with the congregation, and not choir (though we were roped in for choir-ing a few times too). For the concert they had an external choir group to perform with us.

So anyway, the journey as part of the church dance was... Amazing yet Agonizing. Amazing because I made new friends and got to know some people whom I already know better. And we got to see each other's talents. :) Agonizing because (1) not only did I suffer knee pains, I felt my left hamstring tensing up every so often and hurting "the next day" and (2) (I decided I should still keep this to myself and a selected few friends).

The dance segment went so smoothly and I had feedback there won't any (obvious) mistakes though usually can see a few mistakes during pracs. Of course the more experienced dancers in the team knew what mistakes we made (timing wise and all), and though I made a mistake during my solo, it was a solo so noone could tell. hehe. All glory be to God for that great performance!

On to photos (somehow I like square photos for the photo diary part):

God bless you all!

Photo Diary: Summer Vacation 2013, MSE Camp 2013, Avengers!

So besides doing internship during this summer vacation, I've been at my course camp (as a photographer) and having dance practices in church for an upcoming concert (amongst some other things). so... here are some (square) pictures from the camp:

Away at course camp:

(I got the top in my third photo from tracyeinny a few months back at their 30% off sale. In case you were wondering why the pink part in my photo looks a lot, it's because I wore it the other way (backside front) as I felt it damn weird if I wear it 'correctly'. It works either way, since there is no tag.)

some of the photos I took using a Canon 60D (mostly), Canon 400D and a Panasonic dmc tz20: