Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Hello. Today was a fun day, because about half the course actually wore their school uniform to school. I don't know whose plan it was, but it actually succeeded. We even thanked Mr.Ramesh the secondary school way when lecture was over. "Thaaaank yooou Miissterr Raaamesh"
We had our first council today. We just listened to Ms Teh and one of our seniors talk about some stuff, then we wrote down our names and emails on a piece of paper, paid $5 for the council fund, and volunteered to help with some upcoming speakers event.
One important thing I've learnt today is that we cannot mention anything that can tarnish CMM's reputation. This is applicable especially to the field of blogging, and social websites like Facebook and Twitter.
It may not seem like that big a deal to badmouth an organization on your blog, since it's your private ranting space and all. Think again. There is zero privacy on the Internet. All some one has to do is type the organization's name in a search engine, and you could be finding yourself in a whole lot of trouble.
Due to this, I've decided not to blog in detail about school any longer, neither will I mention my feelings towards any of the lecturers. By staying neutral to CMM in my posts, it'll be guaranteed that I not get myself any unnecessary problems.
I got home just in time to catch the last 15 minutes of Mythbusters. This week, they were trying to prove if a ceiling fan can actually behead someone. This is especially applicable to me, since I am finding my head much closer to the rotating blades than others.
Eventually, the myth was busted, to my relief. It turns out that a standard ceiling fan with wooden blades cannot do any visible damage. An industrial fan with metal blades is able to cut deep into your neck, and it can even dissect your jugular, but not behead you.
Mythbusters, being themselves, had to make their own fan, and of course it was designed to inflict as much pain as possible. They ended up using a lawn mower motor to power their beast, and they added metal blades with sharpened edges.
As you can imagine, this fan made quite a mess out of the dummy head, but it didn't actually managed to sever the head off the neck, so the myth was still busted. Still, you would probably die from that much injuries.
Moral of the story is, don't jump head first into a rotating fan, no matter how tempting it might be. The results will never be good. It's just the varying degrees of bad, depending on the material of the fan blades, the speed of rotation, and the strength of your neck.
It turns out that this is the last episode of Mythbusters on Okto for now. It's some Fight Science show next week. Interesting, but no where near the fun of Mythbusters. **** the fact that I don't have cable to watch the latest series of Mythbusters.
I was playing the Wolverine game for a while just now. It is so awesome. Watching Wolverine in the movies is one thing, but actually playing as him is a whole other thing.
It's just that feeling you get, playing as an unstoppable, raging, one man army. That sure beats just watching Hugh Jackman being an unstoppable, raging, one man army.
Anyways, I finally caught up with Gambit, and I fought him on some giant neon letters, which were part of a sign board on the side of a skyscraper. It was epic. After beating him, I got treated to a sweet CGI cutscene of Team X beating the shit out of an African village:
I was reading some stuff on http://www.joystiq.com/ when I came across this:
It's a bingo sheet of joystiq's predictions for what will be revealed during E3, which kicks off next week. This bingo sheet has been an annual thing on joystiq since E3 2007, and from past experience, at least two of the predictions will be correct.
Before I proceed, for all of you who don't know what E3 is, it stands for Electronic Entertainment Expo, and it has been since the late 1980s. It's basically this huge gaming event that's held in Los Angeles. There are tons of new game reveals, trailers and demos, and there will be booth babes.
Anyways, this predictions bingo sheet works the same as a normal bingo sheet. Once a prediction has been confirmed, you cross out its square, and you be happy. The more squares you cross out, the happier you get.
Alright, so maybe it only makes me happy, but it is quite interesting to see the final outcome of the bingo sheet, since you'll be able to see just how many previsions joystiq managed to nail. If nothing else, it lets you relieve your childhood days; crossing out stuffs :D
Right now I'm trying to get Adobe Creative Suit 4 to work, because I need to practice for our Illustrator skills test on Thursday. The damn thing seems to hate me D:
Anyways, that's about all the newsworthy stuff I did today. I'm going to try and complete the Wolverine game tomorrow, then I'm going to focus on studying for the mid semester tests, which will be on next Tuesday and Friday.
posted @ 11:41 PM
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Monday, May 25, 2009
Hello. Some of you might have noticed this as my msn personal message: "Anyone interested in going to Video Games Live 2009 with me? " For anyone wondering what the heck Video Games Live is, here is all the information you need to know:Video Games Live™ is an immersive concert event featuring music from the most popular video games of all time. Top orchestras & choirs perform along with exclusive video footage and music arrangements, synchronized lighting, solo performers, electronic percussionists, live action and unique interactive segments to create an explosive entertainment experience!
Video Games Live™ features the best music and exclusive synchronized video clips from the most popular games from the beginning of video gaming to the present:
Mario™
Zelda®
Halo®
Final Fantasy®
Warcraft®
StarCraft® II
Sonic™
Metal Gear Solid®
Kingdom Hearts
Chrono Cross™
Myst®
Tron
Castlevania®
Metroid®
Interactive Frogger
Interactive Space
Invaders
Interactive Guitar Hero™
Diablo® III
Medal of Honor™
God of War™
BioShock™
Civilization IV
Tomb Raider®
Beyond Good & Evil™
Advent Rising
EverQuest® II
Mass Effect™
Crysis®
Monkey Island
Earthworm Jim
Pac-Man
Lair
Conan
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Headhunter
Splinter Cell®
Ghost Recon™
Rainbow Six®
Jade Empire
Contra
OutRun
Gears of War
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix™
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Finally, the first ever full trailer of Modern Warfare 2 has just been released. I think the trailer was alright, but I want to see more. Check it out:
posted @ 5:57 AM
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
Hello. Oh wow, it's been ages since I've posted. Well, I'm a busy man, now that school has started and all. So what exactly has been happening in my life since I last posted?I got my laptop. I'm actually using it to type right now. I installed DotA and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas multiplayer on it, and I've been playing a lot of those two games over the past couple of weeks.
I bought myself X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and I got Bionic Commando today. I've played a whole lot of Wolverine, and it is truly the best superhero game I've ever played. It's fast paced, mindless violence, as you literally tear through the relentless onslaught of enemies. This is how Wolverine should be like, not the wimp we all see in the movies.
Speaking of Wolverine, I was supposed to do a review for the movie. I'll get that published ASAP, and I'll do the review of the game as soon as I complete it.
We had quite a few birthday celebrations during the last two weeks. First there was Genevieve's birthday two Mondays ago. During CMM tutorial, which was the first thing we had for the day, we brought in a birthday cake for her. Ms Tan was nice enough to let us cut and eat the cake.
The next Monday, we did the same thing for Amelia. During CMM tutorial again. This time, it was for Amelia. It was super funny, because we tricked her into thinking that we only bought a small chocolate tart for her. Her expression was hilarious. Then we showed her the real cake. Once again, Ms Tan allowed us to eat the cake.
After school on that same Monday, we went to Carl's Jr at Tampines One to have lunch. I saw several funny things there. 1) There is a shop called "Wanko". What the ****. 2) There was a shop called "click!!". Nothing funny about that, but when you apply Gestalt's Law of Closure, the "c" and "l", which are close to each other, becomes a "d". So the shop is called "dick!!"
On Friday, it was Shaun's turn to have his birthday celebration. Some one brought a box of doughnuts to school, so we put a candle onto one of them and sang him birthday song. After CMM lecture, Shaun got tau pok-ed along the corridor outside the lecture theatre. It was epic, with people leaping into the heap, and Melly jumping onto the pile from the top of a table.
I also did and completed quite a few assignments, as the deadline for many of them was last Friday. We had to redesign the logo for our course. After the initial sketches, we had to draw a digital version of our image using Adobe Illustrator, then we had to print the final product on glossy paper for submission. This is how my final design looks like:
We also had to submit our first four entries of our reflective journal for CMM. We were supposed to write each entry to show how well we understood the marketing concepts covered during lecture and tutorials, and we had to use real life examples that applied the concept.
We were only required to do about three pages per entry, but me being me, I did an average of six pages per entry. My longest entry was 10 pages long, with about 2500 words in it if you can believe that. I later added pictures to the journal, further lengthening it. By the time I printed it, it was 36 pages long, and it was too thick for the normal folder, so I had to bind it.
During J1 News tutorial, we got back our first group writing assignment. Two groups within the class got an A grade, and fortunately, we were one of them. We went through the effort to search for the website, to make the phone call, and to make the story interesting, so I think we deserved the score.
We also got our Individual Writing Assignment [IWA] proposals back. My proposal actually got commended on by Mr. Selvan. It's not that mine was good or anything; I suspect it's more like because he's Indian and I'm Indian, so he is being bias. Guys, please report him. Then maybe he'll get replaced by some one more interesting.
And that brings us to what I did today yesterday. Since my proposal has been okay-ed, I have to type out an article that covers my news angle and the 5Ws+1H, and I'll have to submit it this coming Monday.
Of course, what's an article without the interviews. So today yesterday, I conducted my interviews. Since I was already short on time, I decided to do a survey, rather than a one to one interview. The topic I was covering was "The reasons behind the popularity of music games".
It started in the afternoon. I sent out survey questions to my first batch of interviewees. Then I went out to Funan, because I had to interview several game store staff or owners. I printed 5 survey sheets for the interviewees to fill up.
To be honest, I was feeling quite nervous at first, because I didn't expect them to be interested in doing the surveys. But in actual fact, the people whom I gave the surveys to were extremely co-operative. Sure, most of the answers they gave were stupid, but at least they didn't turn me down.
I was done with all five surveys within 20 minutes, and I also decided to buy Bionic Commando. The game is from Capcom, so I was expecting it to cost $90, like all other Capcom games. But to my surprise, it turned out to be $73.
Then I saw it selling for $59 at G3, and I bought it without hesitation. While making the payment, I noticed that inFAMOUS was already out. I'm am super jealous of PS3 owners right now.
If there was one exclusive PS3 game that could be a multi platform, I wouldn't pick God of War, I wouldn't pick Metal Gear Solid, I wouldn't pick Kingdom Hearts, I would pick inFAMOUS. inFAMOUS is the closest representation of how I would like my future game to be like, in terms of environment, graphics and game play. Damn, I want it so badly.
Soon I met up with Andrew, and we went to eat at Pepper Lunch Express. The Beef Pepper Rice was going at a 50% discount, and Andrew could get a further staff discount, so we ended up paying $3.60 for it. But I wasn't too happy, because the amount of beef was a bit too little. I'd rather pay for the full price of the meal, and get the full amount of beef.
After dinner, we went to Esplanade to meet my friends from 1C01. Fiona, Genevieve and Damien was there when we arrived. Syafiqah was supposed to be somewhere around the Esplanade. Fernelli arrived soon after we got there. Later on Syafiqah called to tell us that she was going off.
I slacked there and waited for Fiona to get done with her surveys, then we walked over to Marina Square for dinner [supper?]. We stopped at the underpass, the place where all the bikers and dancers usually are, to get a few more interviews.
Carl's Jr was too crowded on the inside, so we had to sit on the outside. I bought a Super Star, but I couldn't finish it for some reason. I also couldn't finish the fries, so I decided to be charitable, and I gave it away. But I was super proud with my drink mixture. Apparently, Zapple and Coke go well.
After dinner we walked over to Suntec, and Genevieve went off from there. The rest of us walked towards Raffles City. I was supposed to follow Damien and Andrew to SMU to interview a few more people, but it was getting late, so I didn't go.
I took a train back home, and as soon as I got back, I was on my laptop, sending out interview questions to my second batch of interviewees. After that I just played DotA, did some random stuff on my web cam with Andrew, and I chatted with Angie on msn.
Then I realised that the time was 4.30am, and I had to wake up at 6.3oam to go to the temple. Eventually, my dad didn't bother waking me up, and he went to the temple by himself, so I was sleeping until 1pm.
Right now I'm about to my Journalism assignment, and hopefully I can finish it by 4pm, so that I can play basketball.
Before I end off, I was considering whether I should mention this or not, and I've decided to mention it, because I am too awesome.
I have an eyecandy in lecture!! She is damn pretty. But there are two problems, the major one and the minor one. The major one first: She is a quiet person!! Now for the minor problem: She already has a boyfriend.
I nearly had a nose bleed on Friday, because she was sitting too close to me. My head felt super hot and according to Fiona, my face was damn red. I have never felt so shy in the presence of a girl before and I am damn terrified!! To make things worse, she is extra pretty on Fridays, since she puts on some make up. I think it's because she is going to see her bf after school.
But then again, she is just eyecandy, and that doesn't mean anything. Let's all make this clear people, there is a difference between love and lust. Love comes from personality [the inside]. Lust comes from looks [the outside]. Of course, it'll be awesome if I'm able to get the full package, but personality always wins looks for me.
Alright, I think I'm starting to talk senseless again. I'm going to do my assignment now. Thanks to everyone who did the survey for me :D
Thanks for reading. Ending off, see you tomorrow.
posted @ 2:41 PM
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Sunday, May 3, 2009
Hello. Today is the summarized post for week number 2. This week, tutorials started, and the assignments came aplenty. This was when I realized that poly life wasn't going to be a walk in the park after all.Monday
I had the first full poly day in my life today. Tutorials only involve your class and your tutor, much like regular lessons in secondary school. We had CMM and J1 News tutorials today. CMM tutorial was actually pretty fun, thanks to Ms Tan. We formed our groups for our projects.
We had J1 News after that. You know how we all just link common things to one another? Like how one would assume that since J1 News lectures are fun, the tutorials would be the same? Well, it didn't work today. J1 News tutorial is boring, thanks to Mr. T. We also formed our groups.
After school was over, I waited for Say Yin and Andrew to end. That would be a two hour wait. I just ate alone at Mensa [EMO!!], and then I slacked in the library. I made sure that I got a good seat, one which could receive the full blast from the overhead air conditioners, because the weather was hot as ****.
When they eventually got dismissed, I was already waiting for them outside the tutorial rooms. We were going to play basketball. With my basketball. Which I had been carrying along with me throughout the day.
I was kinda excited to play before we actually started playing, but I got increasingly less motivated as time went on. Why? Like I said, the weather was hot as ****. Seriously, never ever play basketball at TP unless 1) there isn't a sun in the sky, or 2) you are in desperate need of a tan.
As Say Yin put it, that was one of the worst basketball games we ever played. The sun is a bastard.
We only played for about an hour or so, then we rushed back to the IT school food court, which was, god bless the designer, air conditioned!! Uber sense of relief!! We sat there and drank several cans of cold, carbonated drinks, then we went opposite TP for dinner.
Tuesday
Freakin long day!! Three lectures, each two hours long, with two one hour breaks in between. Started at 9am. Ended at 5pm. Waited one more hour for Say Yin and Andrew, so that I could have dinner with them.
We had the first Med Soc tutorial today. It seems that everyone who is good at Med Soc is uninteresting. If I had to use a colour to describe Mr. T our lecturer for this subject, it would be grey. Plain, dull, boring grey.
And to describe our tutor, Ms Tan, I would have to mention tens of colours. Not because she is a super colourful person. But because she is a super psychotic, confusing and chaotic swirl of colours that don't match.
She is supposed to be some professional at communicating with other, but to be honest, she freaks me out a little. It's not that she looks terrifying or anything, neither is it the way she talks. It is the stupid little smiles she gives at the end of certain sentences.
These aren't your normal smiles, but those sinister, turn-your-back-on-me-and-I'll-stab-you kind of smiles. And she does them at the worst possible times. "If you don't work hard throughout the term, then you will fail your exams" *smile*
Also, I lost my Ripcurl water bottle today!! The one I bought two years ago at Australia!! ****.
Wednesday
I was kinda pissed to attend school today. It was meant to be a day that I could wake up late, because school was supposed to start at 3pm, but I ended up waking up at my usual 6:10am timing.
Why? Since Friday is Labour Day, there is no school. And that would mean that there would be no CMM lecture this week. Well, that could never happen, so we had to attend the make up lecture today. At 9am.
Rather than making a big fuss out of it, I decided to be cooperative, and go to school. This was a smaller lecture, with only two out of the four classes attending. To brighten things up, our lecturer was Ms Tan. She released us half an hour earlier!!
It was 10:30am when we got released. Next lesson was at 3pm. Still, no time to slack. When had to do some interviews for our J1 News project!! There were three of us within the group. We met up with another group, so there were six of us altogether.
We had some food at the design school cafeteria, then we took a bus from TP to Tampines interchange, and then to some super ulu place. Seriously. You could hardly see any humans, or any forms of life for that matter.
We were supposed to find two distinctly unusual structures there, namely a NEWater plant, and a row of Chinese temples. We were supposed to interview people from either one of these places, and then we would have to present it during the next J1 News tutorial.
At first, we thought it would be easy. Just ask some one a few questions. How hard could it be? Well, as we were soon going to realise, the answer to that would be "pretty damn challenging".
Firstly, the NEWater plant would make a good story, as it is unique to see an above the ground reservoir, but it was difficult to find anyone to actually interview, since the place was virtually a ghost town.
So we went with the temples. We planned to interview one person from everyone of the 11 temples there, if time would permit. The first few reviews were promising, as the interviewees were more than happy to share some of their ample knowledge of the temple with us.
However, as we progressed from one temple to the other, things stopped going so smoothly. Many of the people we interviewed were almost clueless about the temples they worshiped in.
There was even this one lady who replied to almost everyone of our questions with one simple reply: "Ask god." Sure thing, why don't you call god down for me? Then we could finish our interview and get out of your life.
After about an hour of walking from temple to temple, we had a lot of information, but we only had sufficient facts on four temples to write a decent story. However, we were all tired by then, so we left the decision making for another day.
We decided to take a cab back to school, since the next lesson would be starting soon. We got back and got some stuff from Cheers, then we went to look for the classroom in which the next lesson was about to be held.
I'm not sure if it can really be described as a lesson. It is called APEL. Applied Principals for Effective Living. It sounds complicated, but it's basically Civics and Moral Education.
Our lecturer for APEL is Mr. Darryl David. Now, let me say this: I am freakin intimidated by him. He doesn't seem like a nasty person, but he is awfully efficient at nitpicking. The smallest things can cause him to flare up.
Anyways, APEL was kinda slack. Mr. D asked us to tell him our USP, or Unique Selling Point. In layman terms, he wanted us to tell him what we thought was unique about ourselves. He didn't want us to merely mention our hobbies; he wanted something that was really unique.
So everyone started thinking. From the start, I already had the fact that I could speak Chinese in mind, but I wasn't too sure about mentioning it, because I feared getting a "So what if you can speak Chinese? Many others can do that" kind of answer.
Then one of my friends said something, and Mr D said something like, "That's not really a USP. A USP would be like if Shiva told me that he could speak Chinese, then that would be unique."
Of course, people started laughing, and I told him that I did actually speak Chinese. He just smiled, and asked me how that happened. I told him that both my parents are mixed, and then he said, " I just gave you your USP man." I was just slacking for the rest of APEL.
Then we had Med Soc lecture, with the ever so vibrant Mr T. Rather than just dozing off for the entire duration of the lecture, some of us decided to play the penis game. Some of you might be wondering what exactly is that.
Basically, the first person whispers the word "penis", then the next person says it louder, and the volume increases as it goes down the line. This way, the last person would really be shouting out the word.
This was played during lecture, with a lecturer at the front of the lecture theater.
It was super hilarious. I wasn't playing, but most of the people around me were. At some times, the first person would already be shouting the word, so everyone else would have to say it even louder. The first fun Med Soc lecture I had.
Thursday
School only started at 3pm today, but I had to meet up with my J1 News project group at 12pm to complete our presentation, which was due next Monday.
We realised that our interview notes were devoid of any news worthy information, so the dreadful thoughts of having to go back for a second interview session were starting to surface. Luckily, one of the interviewees gave us the name card of the temple and guess what?
They had a website!! New age temple.
From the website, we found out that the temple also offered spiritual healing. So we made a few phone calls, and we got ourselves a whole lot of information. The medium of the temple didn't accept phone calls, so her assistant was interviewed instead.
We found out stuff like how the road was supposedly haunted. And how a lot of other streets are haunted as well. Also, if you are unlucky, you will see spirits. If you are really unlucky, then you get possessed. Then you have to go to that temple to get healed.
After typing all those out, and a bit of editing, we decided that we were happy enough with our work, so we went to eat at Mensa.
Soon, it was time for EssGra tutorial, which was going to be 3 hours long. It was going to be held in the Mac Lab, which was exclusive to CMM students.
I cannot describe how sexily superior the Mac Lab is compared to the normal computer labs. There are only about 30 Macs in the lab, so your individual working space is much more. The Macs all have large, w i d e s c r e e n panels.
Not only are the screens beautiful to look at, they are also large enough for you to hide behind if the tutor is pissed with the class. Which was the case at the start of this tutorial.
Our seniors told us that the compulsory textbook for EssGra was in actual fact not compulsory at all. It turned out that the book was compulsory, and since our whole class didn't have the book, we all got nagged at by Ms Teh.
She even sent us to the bookstore to get the books, but when we got there, there were only three copies remaining, so we went back to class. Since Ms Teh couldn't do much more, she just decided to proceed with the tutorial.
I think I'm going to ace EssGra. Everything Ms Teh thought to us was stuff I already learned years ago. Still, we were using CS4, and I only know CS3 properly, so there were still several things to learn.
After messing around with Illustrator for a few minutes, I more or less got the hang of the program. I can't wait to use Photoshop, because I find it the most user friendly program in the Adobe family.
After tutorial, I met up with Say Yin and Andrew, and we took a bus to Jonathan Mok's house, because Joel's birthday party was being celebrated there.
By the time we got there, it was already about 8pm, and we were the only people there who weren't from CJC. I didn't eat much, because I wasn't too hungry. I just talked with most of the people there, whether I knew them or not.
I also got pushed into the pool twice, and I pulled Andrew in with me once. There was a wide array of drinks, including several alcoholic ones. I drank only a bit of vodka mixed with F&N Orange.
The night was an eventful one. Why? Something epic happened. We got a visit from Sun Wu Kong!! Seriously. Once everyone started leaving, we helped Jonathan carry some stuff up to his house, and we played a bit of Guitar Hero.
Friday
NO SCHOOL TODAY!! Isn't that nice. I also finally got to play Xbox after not playing for more than a week. I just played Guitar Hero Metallica. I am not pleased by standard of playing the Master of Puppets solo, so I'm really working hard on that right now.
Other than that, I didn't go out until at night. I went out of my house happy, I came back home ecstatic.
Saturday
I got woken up at 8am today!! What the ****. I slept at 4am in the morning, thinking that I could wake up at 10am or something. My parents were supposed to go for the "Partners in Education" talk at TP, but my mother couldn't go, so I had to substitute her.
I went with my father, and the talk was in Auditorium 1. It was really boring. Bascially the same thing as the talks we had on the first day of Business Orientation, but way more dull, since there were no performances.
Also, parents ask a lot of questions. Some of which were really dumb. Everyone was given a file, and inside the file, there was a FAQ sheet. If they had read the FAQ, the QnA session would have ended in half the time.
After a torturous 2 hours, we were finally allowed to leave the place. My dad gave me a lift to Tampines Mall, and I met Syafiqah and Fernelli there. We took a bus back to school to meet Damien, then we took a cab to Fiona's house.
Fiona's house is a huge, three story tall terrace. We were meeting up today to discuss and decided on our product for the CMM project. After an hour or so of research, we decided to do F&N. After that, Damien started typing stuff while the rest of us slacked.
At about 4:30pm, we all took a bus back to Tampines Interchange, then we parted ways. I had to take a train all the way back to Tiong Bahru. I actually dozed off in the train. First time I've ever done that.
Sunday
We went to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine today!! I met Say Yin, Marcus and Yeow Boon at Plaza Singapura at 2:30pm, then we bought tickets and went to eat. For the first time ever, we actually managed to get good seats.
We were soon joined by Sebastian and Osel. After lunch, we continued to walk around. We went to look at some laptops. I was super tempted to buy the Wolverine game, because it only costed $75 at some shop there, as compared to the usual $85 selling price in other shops.
At that point of time, I decided against it, and I am freaking regretting now.
Anyways, we finally met up with Andrew, and we went to watch the movie. I came out of the theatre not knowing whether to be pleased or disappointed by it. Check back tomorrow for the full review, because I am too damn tired to do it now.
So yeah, that's the second week in review. Now, normal posting can resume!!
Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. Ending off, see you tomorrow.
posted @ 11:15 PM
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Saturday, May 2, 2009
Hello. So I haven't exactly been sticking to my "one post a day" rule. I know that it's been a really long time since I last posted. I apologize for that. School has started, and I am busy once again. Still, I would like to post whenever I am free.I honestly thought that my blog would be dead, but it seems that I thought wrong. Sure, I wasn't posting, but it didn't stop all you loyal readers from constantly returning to this page and urging me to post.
And to thank you for your undying loyalty [a bit drama here], I am going to summarize all the notable stuff that happened in school during these past two weeks. I'll write about week 1 for today, and week 2 for tomorrow.
After that, I promise that I will make an effort to post everyday. I seriously want to return to my topic based posting, that is so much interesting a read, and so much more of a joy for me to write about. Can't wait.
WEEK 1
Monday
Today was a happy day. First of all, we didn't have school, because tutorials only started on week 2, and evidently, Mondays are purely tutorial days for us. So since we were all free, we decided to hold our first ever 1C01 class outing.
We were supposed to meet at Orchard MRT at 12.30pm if I'm not wrong. I screwed up quite a lot while I was trying to get there. Thanks to my obliviousness, I took the bus all the way to Somerset MRT, instead of Orchard. If I had dropped off at Orchard, I would have actually been there early.
Once I realised that I was in the wrong MRT station, instead of conveniently taking a train to Orchard, which was only one stop away, I decided to be thrifty, so I started walking to Orchard.
Big mistake.
Orchard and Somerset may be really close by to each other, but they are still quite a distance apart when you are walking. By the time I got there, I was the last one to arrive, and I was feeling sweaty and tired.
Everyone decided to eat at Fish and Co, which was at Heeren. Of course, I had only passed by the place just moments ago. And now I was walking back. I guess I got my punishment for my lack of punctuality.
Once we got to the restaurant, there wasn't enough place to fit us all, so we had to wait until people vacated the place before we could get in. We joined four tables together, so that we could all chat while we ate.
I should probably mention right now that I have only went to Fish and Co twice prior to this, so I had no idea what the menu was like. The food turned out to be of the expensive sort. The prices were reasonable to me, so I got a solo portion, while others preferred to share.
I ordered the Fish and Chips. I honestly prefer chicken to fish, but the fish turned out to be alright. I've eaten much better in Australia, but I guess the Fish and Chips from Fish and Co is already one of the best there is available locally.
While we were eating, I got to know the people sitting around me a little better. Mostly learned about their interests, and other stuff that I cannot remember now.
Several people in my class had cameras, which are those large, black cameras used by professional photographers in case you don't know. These cameras are recommended for my course, so I'll probably be getting one later this year.This kinda camera:
After lunch, we were trying to decide where to go. A whole lot of places were suggested, but we eventually went to McDonalds at Shaw Centre, where some people got themselves an ice cream, then we took a train to City Hall.
We went to the Esplanade and we just sat at the rooftop for a while and we played games. I have never been to the rooftop before. New experience!! Then I took a bus home, while the others took a train.
Throughout the day, we took numerous photos. I'm uploading some of them, but these do not belong to me. All credit goes to the ones who took them:
1CO1 waiting for food
Majority of 1C01
Playing games
The girls of 1C01
The guys of 1C01
Tuseday
We officially started school today. We had Journalism 1 News [J1 News] lecture with Mr. Ramesh. He is an awesome guy. Really funny, and he actually makes an attempt to engage with the class. Great way to start poly life.
We had a short break, then we had Essential Graphics [Ess Gra] and Graphic Design Fundamental [GDF] lectures. Our teacher for these subjects is Ms Teh Yee Lin.
It's kinda weird to look at her as a lecturer, because her name sounds almost like Tay Yiling, and she looks like Angie from some angles!! Seriously.
We finished at 2pm, because there are no tutorials this week. Since we finished early, we decided to go to E Hub, which was at Pasir Ris. We were going there because today is Tuesday.
Gelare's half priced ice cream and waffles day!!
We went to eat at Burger King when we got there. It was fun slacking there, because it was mostly empty and quiet, and the air con was very strong. After that, the majority of our group went to play pool, while the rest of us went to have our dessert.
Once again, photos were taken. And once again, these do not belong to me. All credit goes to the ones who took them:
Lunch. Gerald telling story
Mohawks!!
Porter why you look at me like that hmm?
Everyone is posing, while I'm just stoning.
You will only see me this happy when I get cheap but delicious waffles and ice cream.
Wednesday
Nothing much happened today. School started at 3pm, which was awesome. The CCA fair was being held at the Plaza. Really crowded and warm, so I didn't bother looking at the offered activities.
I met up with a group of my classmates in the library. I love the guy who invented the air conditioner. We should all just build a building sized statue of him in the middle of the CBD to acknowledge his Nobel Prize deserving invention.
We had Media and Society [Med Soc] lecture today. I'm sorry, but Med Soc is one boring subject. I cannot understand a single thing the lecturer, Mr. T, is saying, because his lecture is so dry and dull that I just involuntarily start to drift off.
Thursday
No school today, because once again, it was a purely tutorial day. I heard that a group of people from 1C01 went jamming. I could have gone, but I think my guitar skills are too embarrassing. So I just stayed at home and slacked for most of the day.
Friday
We had our first tutorial today. I know, I said that we weren't having tutorials for the first week, but today was an exception, because it was a make up tutorial for next Friday. Since we wouldn't be having school due to Labour Day and all.
Our tutorial for today was for GDF. It is our longest lesson at four hours long. Sounds intimidating, but it is actually super slack. It's basically like art and craft. We all had to bring an A3 Sketch Book, as well as a set of colour pencils and drawing material.
We sat in an air conditioned room, listened to our own music, and we wrote down 15 adjectives that described ourselves. After that, we had to incorporate these 15 words into a poster. We did this for about an hour and a half.
Next, we went our of the classroom to collect design samples from all over TP. Most of us just went to the Design School canteen to eat. After eating, we got our samples, then we headed back to the classroom.
After that each of us did an individual presentation for our poster, and we talked about the design that interested us the most. With all that done, we were dismissed. Amazing how fast four hours can pass by.
Now we had a long three hour break. I followed a group of my classmates to Mensa, which is said to be the cafeteria with the best Western food in TP. I ate chicken chop. I have never tried the Western food in the other cafeterias, so I cannot compare yet.
After that we went to the Student Center, because some of us had to collect their EZ-Link cards. The chairs in there were super comfortable, and the air con felt really good as well, so we just stayed in there for a long time.
I also went to order my laptop, since today is the last day of the mini IT Fair in TP. I'm getting an Acer model, which costs about $1700, and it comes with $500 worth of freebies. I have to pay $500 for this, and my dad is going to pay the rest, because he wants me to have a sense of ownership for it.
For that price, I think I'm getting a really good and powerful laptop. If you are interested in the specifications, here they are. Click to enlarge:
Finally it was time for the last lecture of the week, Communications and Media Marketing [CMM]. The lecturer for this subject is Ms Winnie Tan. At that point of time, it was a little hard to judge her, because she looked like a slacker, but her attitude seemed like that of a loose cannon.
As for the subject itself, it's not exactly an interesting subject, neither is it an easy one, but it is way, way better than Med Soc. CMM is a little like humanities, which I am kinda good at.
The thing is, it's been so long since I last worked my brain, so it's going to take a while for me to get a grasp of those subjects that actually require thinking.
So yeah, there you have it. That's a summarised version of my first week at Temasek Polytechnic. I'll be lying if I said that I'm used to the school already, because we all know that these things take time.
Still, I'm slowly getting used to the school, the people around me, and the massive change the teaching methods. [Note: These are my thoughts at the end of the first week of school. Right now, I'm more or less used to poly life.]
Now I'm done with that. One more post tomorrow, and I'll be up to date.
Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. Ending off, see you tomorrow.
Monday
Today was a happy day. First of all, we didn't have school, because tutorials only started on week 2, and evidently, Mondays are purely tutorial days for us. So since we were all free, we decided to hold our first ever 1C01 class outing.
We were supposed to meet at Orchard MRT at 12.30pm if I'm not wrong. I screwed up quite a lot while I was trying to get there. Thanks to my obliviousness, I took the bus all the way to Somerset MRT, instead of Orchard. If I had dropped off at Orchard, I would have actually been there early.
Once I realised that I was in the wrong MRT station, instead of conveniently taking a train to Orchard, which was only one stop away, I decided to be thrifty, so I started walking to Orchard.
Big mistake.
Orchard and Somerset may be really close by to each other, but they are still quite a distance apart when you are walking. By the time I got there, I was the last one to arrive, and I was feeling sweaty and tired.
Everyone decided to eat at Fish and Co, which was at Heeren. Of course, I had only passed by the place just moments ago. And now I was walking back. I guess I got my punishment for my lack of punctuality.
Once we got to the restaurant, there wasn't enough place to fit us all, so we had to wait until people vacated the place before we could get in. We joined four tables together, so that we could all chat while we ate.
I should probably mention right now that I have only went to Fish and Co twice prior to this, so I had no idea what the menu was like. The food turned out to be of the expensive sort. The prices were reasonable to me, so I got a solo portion, while others preferred to share.
I ordered the Fish and Chips. I honestly prefer chicken to fish, but the fish turned out to be alright. I've eaten much better in Australia, but I guess the Fish and Chips from Fish and Co is already one of the best there is available locally.
While we were eating, I got to know the people sitting around me a little better. Mostly learned about their interests, and other stuff that I cannot remember now.
Several people in my class had cameras, which are those large, black cameras used by professional photographers in case you don't know. These cameras are recommended for my course, so I'll probably be getting one later this year.This kinda camera:
After lunch, we were trying to decide where to go. A whole lot of places were suggested, but we eventually went to McDonalds at Shaw Centre, where some people got themselves an ice cream, then we took a train to City Hall.
We went to the Esplanade and we just sat at the rooftop for a while and we played games. I have never been to the rooftop before. New experience!! Then I took a bus home, while the others took a train.
Throughout the day, we took numerous photos. I'm uploading some of them, but these do not belong to me. All credit goes to the ones who took them:
1CO1 waiting for food
Majority of 1C01
Playing games
The girls of 1C01
The guys of 1C01We officially started school today. We had Journalism 1 News [J1 News] lecture with Mr. Ramesh. He is an awesome guy. Really funny, and he actually makes an attempt to engage with the class. Great way to start poly life.
We had a short break, then we had Essential Graphics [Ess Gra] and Graphic Design Fundamental [GDF] lectures. Our teacher for these subjects is Ms Teh Yee Lin.
It's kinda weird to look at her as a lecturer, because her name sounds almost like Tay Yiling, and she looks like Angie from some angles!! Seriously.
We finished at 2pm, because there are no tutorials this week. Since we finished early, we decided to go to E Hub, which was at Pasir Ris. We were going there because today is Tuesday.
Gelare's half priced ice cream and waffles day!!
We went to eat at Burger King when we got there. It was fun slacking there, because it was mostly empty and quiet, and the air con was very strong. After that, the majority of our group went to play pool, while the rest of us went to have our dessert.
Once again, photos were taken. And once again, these do not belong to me. All credit goes to the ones who took them:
Lunch. Gerald telling story
Mohawks!!
Porter why you look at me like that hmm?
Everyone is posing, while I'm just stoning.
You will only see me this happy when I get cheap but delicious waffles and ice cream.Nothing much happened today. School started at 3pm, which was awesome. The CCA fair was being held at the Plaza. Really crowded and warm, so I didn't bother looking at the offered activities.
I met up with a group of my classmates in the library. I love the guy who invented the air conditioner. We should all just build a building sized statue of him in the middle of the CBD to acknowledge his Nobel Prize deserving invention.
We had Media and Society [Med Soc] lecture today. I'm sorry, but Med Soc is one boring subject. I cannot understand a single thing the lecturer, Mr. T, is saying, because his lecture is so dry and dull that I just involuntarily start to drift off.
Thursday
No school today, because once again, it was a purely tutorial day. I heard that a group of people from 1C01 went jamming. I could have gone, but I think my guitar skills are too embarrassing. So I just stayed at home and slacked for most of the day.
Friday
We had our first tutorial today. I know, I said that we weren't having tutorials for the first week, but today was an exception, because it was a make up tutorial for next Friday. Since we wouldn't be having school due to Labour Day and all.
Our tutorial for today was for GDF. It is our longest lesson at four hours long. Sounds intimidating, but it is actually super slack. It's basically like art and craft. We all had to bring an A3 Sketch Book, as well as a set of colour pencils and drawing material.
We sat in an air conditioned room, listened to our own music, and we wrote down 15 adjectives that described ourselves. After that, we had to incorporate these 15 words into a poster. We did this for about an hour and a half.
Next, we went our of the classroom to collect design samples from all over TP. Most of us just went to the Design School canteen to eat. After eating, we got our samples, then we headed back to the classroom.
After that each of us did an individual presentation for our poster, and we talked about the design that interested us the most. With all that done, we were dismissed. Amazing how fast four hours can pass by.
Now we had a long three hour break. I followed a group of my classmates to Mensa, which is said to be the cafeteria with the best Western food in TP. I ate chicken chop. I have never tried the Western food in the other cafeterias, so I cannot compare yet.
After that we went to the Student Center, because some of us had to collect their EZ-Link cards. The chairs in there were super comfortable, and the air con felt really good as well, so we just stayed in there for a long time.
I also went to order my laptop, since today is the last day of the mini IT Fair in TP. I'm getting an Acer model, which costs about $1700, and it comes with $500 worth of freebies. I have to pay $500 for this, and my dad is going to pay the rest, because he wants me to have a sense of ownership for it.
For that price, I think I'm getting a really good and powerful laptop. If you are interested in the specifications, here they are. Click to enlarge:
Finally it was time for the last lecture of the week, Communications and Media Marketing [CMM]. The lecturer for this subject is Ms Winnie Tan. At that point of time, it was a little hard to judge her, because she looked like a slacker, but her attitude seemed like that of a loose cannon.
As for the subject itself, it's not exactly an interesting subject, neither is it an easy one, but it is way, way better than Med Soc. CMM is a little like humanities, which I am kinda good at.
The thing is, it's been so long since I last worked my brain, so it's going to take a while for me to get a grasp of those subjects that actually require thinking.
So yeah, there you have it. That's a summarised version of my first week at Temasek Polytechnic. I'll be lying if I said that I'm used to the school already, because we all know that these things take time.
Still, I'm slowly getting used to the school, the people around me, and the massive change the teaching methods. [Note: These are my thoughts at the end of the first week of school. Right now, I'm more or less used to poly life.]
Now I'm done with that. One more post tomorrow, and I'll be up to date.
Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. Ending off, see you tomorrow.
posted @ 11:51 PM
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