So, this is actually the Finals' week, but I only had one paper, which was on Monday. I also decided to finish up my last assignment on Monday. What we didn't fully expect was for us to score so badly in GAM that we had to squeeze marks through appeals and all that to help Jeryl to pass the module, and apparently we did that too late + there were some lack of organisation in the way we did it which kind of seemed to piss Michael and Elie off.

Labels: digipen, dtvm, teaching, things that happened, writing

In chronological order:

Started the Unit Induction Programme
Nothing worth elaborating about. Just briefings, lessons, and stuff.

Visited the ArtScience Museum
Met up with the usual people and went for two exhibitions: The Deep and Dreamworks Exhibition. The former is about the underwater life while the latter is pretty self-explanatory. On that day, I had to book in again later that night for guard duty the following day, unfortunately. After the exhibition, we went to Telok Ayer to have Korean dinner. I'm not at all into Korean food but I guess I liked the kimchi chicken enough.

Went for a course in Clementi Camp
It was a relatively relaxing week, but naturally, it got ruined with the bad news which came in the form of our guard duty schedule.

"Trespassed" an abandoned mansion
It technically still belonged to some royal family in Johor, but many Singaporeans just went in to take pictures and marvel at how cool the place is. Istana Woodneuk is located in a patch of forested land beside the Botanic Gardens. It was rusty, vegetated, polluted, broken apart, and vandalised. That is one of the values of this place now. I kind of got attacked by a hornet. It poked my forehead but somehow it didn't sting me. Lucky for me.

Me being me, I took a few pretentious photos and we climbed to the roof and Elijah walked on top of walls, which I tried but went into panic mode and gave up. It was a mini adventure.

Revamped our company in camp
Did some painting, a lot of shifting, arranging, carrying, and stuff. Of course, also did guard duty again.

Went for an overseas university exhibition
On this day, I realised that I absolutely have no proper reason to attend university anymore, since I'm sure of what I want in life, and university plays no part in it.

Stayed over at Wei Jian's house
This would most likely be the last time we hang out before he fly to Brunei for a year. On that day itself, I got dismissed from camp late, so by the time I headed over, it was close to midnight. We watched Dark Water, which is actually a pretty good horror film. Usually, I don't enjoy horror shows for their story, but this was pretty okay, because it was more than a 'this house is haunted but my husband doesn't believe it' plot. I fell asleep as they played Fifa after that, and then woke up again when they started to play Fatal Frame, which is a horror PS2 game. It was simple but good time spent.

Hanged out in general
There's not really a need to elaborate.

Attended an exercise involving several countries
Went to PLC to attend this exercise, since we were done revamping what we could revamp in camp. Of course, also did guard duty again.

Met up with Man Kit
Went to buy something with him at Chinatown. Talking to him reminded me of how ignorant I was about the army and I would rather continue being ignorant and not be in here but let's persevere for another 13 months.

Celebrated Zi Wei's birthday in his party
Birthdays are always a reason to get together, and our dear gay boy has turned 21. It was nice, meeting up with the DTVM people again, witnessing Joey and Hira being ridiculously protective of Nam Nam, talking about holes, and trying (once again) to walk really slowly so that everyone else could catch up but failing anyway. In the party itself, it was a lot of alcohol, though we didn't drink much at all, and Cards Against Humanity. 'Yeast' is officially the funniest answer to me, and everyone now thinks I'm some sick dude who enjoys putting 'children on leashes'. Didn't get to hang much with Zi Wei himself, though, because there was so many people.

That's it for the month (+1 day). I guess this month was pretty good, but I still wish this month (and every other month) could've been a lot more joyful. There's so much to be grateful for this month. I should be.

Labels: dtvm, future, mehmeh, places, things that happened

Two Weeks Ago - Friday
Met up with Guangyi, Zixing, Weijian, and Jessica to watch Godzilla. I guess I don't really appreciate giant monsters fighting because I didn't have a lot of fun watching it. But still, it's fairly decent, I guess. After that, we went to have tze char at some place near red dot museum. It was nice because I've never had this combination/type of dishes before. We ordered things like fish soup, fried rice, hor fun, and stuff and just shared them instead of the usual rice and dishes. Got home late and I had to wake up early the next day.

Two Weeks Ago - Saturday
I know I've already briefly talked about CMPA and stuff, but I guess I'll just write in more details because these are things I'll want to remember. So early in the morning, I headed to Cathay to meet Afiq and Elijah to attend the briefing. Elijah being Elijah, vanished without a trace, so it was just Afiq and me. The briefing got a little draggy and the two girls beside me got really judgmental. It was actually quite funny eavesdropping on how much they judge whoever stood up to ask a question during the Q&A.

The day was long and we headed to Afiq's house area to meet Hazel before proceeding to his house for brainstorming. Skip skip skip. We finally managed to come up with our idea and a script.

Skip skip skip. A lot of logistics issues and stuff, and then the night was spent doing pre-production stuffs like storyboarding and all those things. Actually resorted to awkwardly calling a few of my friends to ask them to act for us at like 3am suddenly. So, most conversation went like:

Me: Hi.
Person: Hi?
Me: This is a little weird, but are you free, like, now?
Person: No, why?
Me: Oh nevermind then.
Person: Why?
Me: Because I wanted to ask if you can help us act in a film at, like, 3am. And the director needs you at his house at 1am.
Person: What? No.
Me: Okay.

So in the end, we used Afiq himself as a talent.

So Elijah came over and Afiq went to fetch Wai Meng and we had 7-eleven supper and I lost my wallet and panicked and realised that I left it at 7-eleven and Elijah and I ran back there and I was so glad that the cashier kept it for me.

After a while, Afiq was driving us (with his infamous driving skills) through empty streets, blasting music and singing and stuff. It was actually quite nice.

Filming itself was not. Lots of disagreements and technical issues, but I think we somehow managed to contain it all and finish the thing.

I would love to post a photo of gay-looking Elijah (as a character) but I don't have any :D

Two Weeks Ago - Sunday
Our filming ended as we rushed against the sunrise. Managed to do it in time. Headed home, dead tired (I only slept for three hours on Friday and zero hour on Saturday), and basically fell asleep throughout 80% of the journey.

Woke up and headed back to Afiq's house. Hazel, Elijah,  and I got stuck outside the house for one hour because Afiq was asleep. &$@#%^&!%$^%

Proceeded to doing voiceovers while I edited (agitatedly), and it was a pretty painful process, but we all managed and then it was night and then we headed to meet Matin to pass him the computer for him to edit. And I'm out.

One Week Ago - Monday
And I'm back to edit more. It was actually even more painful and we didn't manage quite well and we edited till night and we settled for what we had.

One Week Ago - Wednesday
After falling sick on Tuesday and doing pretty much nothing, I texted the recruit express person and asked if I could take an MC on the first day of work, and she discouraged me to :(

So on Wednesday, I went to work at the warehouse and it was relaxing but boring and stuff. It was quite funny actually. There's no canteen in the building and no food place near the building, so we were expected to bring our own lunch. Fortunately, everyone there was very nice and they helped me to order something.

For most of lunchtime, we would be taking a nap, lying on the floor with cardboard and stuff, and really falling asleep.

I told myself this will be my life for 3 months, and that it may be quite fun.

One Week Ago - Thursday
Day 2 of work. A new girl joined us, but she quit during lunchtime because she was complaining about having to stand the whole day.

I told myself that I'll hang in there and I'll get used to it, but I kept questioning why I'm even there in the first place. Every single person tells me that the pay isn't good and the location is far from my house, my parents were kind of unhappy about the whole no-canteen thing, and the staff there tell me to find another job.

And I was asked to OT on day 2, which I tried rejecting and my supervisor pleaded me and... Yeah...

My OT colleague (different from my normal colleagues) once again reminded me of the bad pay and far location and the fact that I should probably not be working here. I was pretty bored of the job as well.

But the good thing about the day was that my mum woke up earlier than me to cook porridge for me to bring to work T_T

By the end of the day, I was still pretty sure I would stay because "this is the working world" and stuff, and I guess being in a warehouse environment really plants my feet on the ground. The people in logistics are very different from, say, production people.

One Week Ago - Friday
My mum cooked for me again, along with my dad.

Before I left house, she convinced me that I should really quit and I actually considered about it.

The day was long and I eventually decided to quit.

That night, I went to vivo city to meet Mj for dinner. Chatted at the rooftop for quite a while, talking about cockroaches and school and stuff.

This Week - Monday
I told my supervisor that I wanted to quit and I would end my work on Friday. He tried to convince me to stay, but I was pretty stubborn about leaving. He finally agreed and told me to inform Recruit Express, which I did. I then told my colleagues and one of them was pretty upset for a few seconds because I didn't told her earlier and I felt really guilty because everyone treated me really well. She decided not to be upset and recommended that I work in Koi. And then the day dragged on until it ended.

This Week - Tuesday
Graduation day. Wasn't feeling very excited at the start because I thought I was late and the crowd was annoying and the graduation robe was bulky and stuff. Kind of frustrating actually. But it felt good in the end, truly graduating and all, with people randomly screaming "graduate loh!" on stage and wearing Hogwarts hat and stuff. Gathered to take selfies and class photos and just soaked in the atmosphere. Told my parents to head home without me, and then went to have dinner with Cx, Hazel, Afiq, Elijah, Stefanie, Mj,and Waimeng.

This Week - Wednesday
Back to work. Fortunately, there wasn't a lot to do because the new stocks haven't come in, I think. Got asked to help up in another department for the day. Was suppose to OT with my other colleague, but because we finished everything really fast on purpose, there was nothing to OT for.

And at the end of the day, my supervisor came to me and told me that we didn't have to go to work on the following day because there's nothing to do.

This Week - Thursday
So, I went to meet Guangyi to return the graduation robe with him. Shared graduation experience and learned that there was this guy who brought a light saber in his session. Went to buy a present for my father's birthday and then went to Maki-san to get sushi for Guangyi's dinner.

It was my father's birthday that night, so we celebrated with a cake and stuff.

This Week - Friday
Another long day. My last day at work felt pretty sad. I was actually quite guilty because my contract was for three months, but I quit after one week, but then I'll be trying to find jobs that are more related to my course. Right now, there's transcripts to do and hopefully I get accepted into some PA job from Joey's company and many of us are taking part in. Also hope to be able to find/get accepted into some writing jobs. Even internship is fine, actually, because what I want is the experience (and entry). My friends say it's worth a try.

Okay, out of point. Anyway, the last day went by really slowly and when it ended, waved goodbye to my colleagues forever and exchanged numbers with the one who guided me, and headed to meet Stefanie, Hazel, Cx, Avelin, and Mj for dinner at Orchard.

Had really nice XL chicken at some Taiwanese food place, caught up before heading to some hotel for our afterparty. Nice place. Just played cards while waiting for the rest to reach. Because too many people entered, there was some hoo-ha about "partying in hotel premises", which we *ahem* totally weren't doing.

We tried to keep ourselves slightly quiet and the hotel didn't make that big a fuss about it, and whenever someone knocked on the door, we literally hid while King opens the door so that it seems like there's not a lot of people in the room.

Started drinking soon and a few of us got drunk. It was quite funny and entertaining, and some people just went outright crazy. First time for me, and I hated that almost-want-to-vomit feeling.

Played more card games and Colin's Ouya. Fell asleep and woke up and played more card games and went to have breakfast with Stefanie, Avelin, Ziwei and Cx. Fell asleep during breakfast and headed home after that.

Labels: dtvm, production, things that happened

The funny things about production is that it's interesting yet it can get super annoying. Super.

Labels: dtvm, internship, production

The Ultimate Selfie from DTVM Awards / grad night
If I try, I can still remember quite vividly how I felt when I first met my classmates. Unlike most of them, I did not attend majority parts of the Freshmen Orientation Programme because I went for a mehmeh chalet instead. So, it felt kind of intimidating meeting them for the first time, especially since right from the beginning, it was pretty obvious that they're not the kind of people I was used to.

The image is still pretty clear in my head: We were sitting in a circle (of course...) and eating SP-provided food in Sentosa. While everyone else went to try out some free attraction, the unenthusiastic bunch of us just sat there quietly. And I was trying to convince myself, "okay, this is my new so-called family".

And to be honest, it didn't start out too beautifully. A lot of dramas, a lot of intensity, a lot of people crying and fighting, and a lot of unwillingness to open up to one another. But time quickly flew by and then we were in year 3, tackling our final year project, making our final short film, thrown into Penang to make a short documentary, brought to Melbourne for a creative writing trip, and so on.

By then, we've gotten so close, went through so much (just for the sake of it, I shall copy and paste what I wrote some time ago)...

As for the whole DTVM, there were a lot of painful times, honest. But there were a lot of great memories. Filming, discussing stuffs, watching one another panic before a major pitch, creating a haunted house together, torturing our main characters together, preparing for skits, celebrating, eating, playing catching on Marina Barrage, Christmas celebration, going for LEAP camp, and so on. I built memories with most of my classmates.

I'm going to miss them so much.

Like my course manager, Ms Gamar, says, we're a bunch of weird people who belong together because we're weird.

DTVM has changed me so much. I remember when I first entered, I was the very anti-social, super anxious, super stubborn, super irritated, super irritating guy who chose the word 'emotional' to represent myself when asked for. Now, I guess I'm less of those things and I start to see things differently.

My lecturers, my classmates, my internship, and maybe my own efforts have changed me. After my internship, I feel different. There's this sort of intimacy and optimism that my colleagues had transmitted to me. And then my classmates taught me to accept myself, although they probably didn't realise it. They also taught me to accept others, to have trust in them, and -it took me too long, but- they also taught me about faith, not the religion kind, but the humanly kind.

And I just want to briefly mention how each lecturer impacted me:

Mr Chee Teng - He made me realise that I may actually have a talent for videography, and that encouraged me and made me like film.
Ms Gamar - One of the things she said to me affects me quite a lot. Yesterday, she told me "I'm proud of you", and that matters to me.
Ms Stella - Although no one likes getting their ideas rejected 80% of the time, she taught me to be creative. And more importantly, she made me realise logic in the midst of creativity.
Ms Mary - She selected my group's transmedia project, Grave Business, to win the category in DTVM Awards, and that earned us Ah Huats! And it's also thanks to her that we get such fluid internships, Penang filming trip, etc.


Ah Huat and a book
Mr Mark - I find it very hard to call him Mr Mark, because he looks so much like a classmate instead. He's generally encouraging, with his comments on our museum script and the fact that he bought the shirt I painted for me!
Mr Esman - He is the embodiment of independent learning. For his modules, he pushed us to take learning to a personal level.
Ms Swee Lin - She somehow managed to make me feel good about my fantasy story, and reminded me why I loved that genre so much when she analysed the four elements for my story.
Ms May Lin - Although she only taught us for one module, she has transferred a tonne of unwordable wisdom to us, or to me. As I've said, they are unwordable.

And there are many other lecturers, like Ms Chong Li Min, Ms Mabeline, Mr Josh Hong, Ms Wai Leng, Mr Roy, and Ms Fei Wan who taught us some theory and stuff. Oh, and just to mention, Ms Wai Leng's constant probbing with her whys and hows still helps.

I would love to talk about all my friends individually, but that's too many people to mention, plus I'm not exactly going to stop being with them.

Anyway, the whole chunk above is a very lengthy introduction to say that the whole of our DTVM experience is wrapped up last night by a grad night/show / awards ceremony which they call DTVM Awards.

So each class has to prepare an item to perform, but my class chose to break the rule and made a video instead, because we were all traumatised by our two years of failure :'D

So MJ, CX, Annzy and I met up last Monday to discuss an idea, and we chose to produce the simplest, easiest one: A video to gossip about one another. What's new, right?

But the writing and filming process was pretty fun. Got to meet most of my classmates on an individual level, which is kind of a nice wrap-up for the whole thing.

So the days before DTVM Awards was spent working on the video. Got our formal clothes...


stood at our booths to "pitch" our work, and ate a nice dinner.

And then the award giving/performances start. So partly thanks to the people who followed us on Twitter and liked our Facebook posts and stuff, we managed to get Ah Huats, hand-made by Ms Stella, as our "medal".

And then there were entertaining performances by each class.

Y1/01 - Skit about our lecturers in the same school
Y1/02 - A video about what we've learned, but all screwed up
Y2/01 - Some sponsorship commercial skit
Y2/02 - A Minute to Win It DTVM edition. Thanks lecturers for giving us the winning prize although they won :'D
Y3/01 - Quiz show about DTVM. Winter is coming.
Y3/02 - Our class, as explained above.

And there's the video collage of our journey in the course, as like every year, and then the lecturers played again a video from CASS Commencement dinner where they made fun of themselves.

After that is a burst of selfie angst in which we (or at least some of us) went around taking selfies with everyone.

Which concludes the night, although a bunch of them went for an after-party which I chose not to go.

Oh, and this being my blog, it's mandatory for me to list down a list of things that happened in my life recently:

• Went bowling with Guang Yi, Zi Xing, and Wei Jian, and watched "everything is awesome~" aka Lego movie again.
• Went to Ikea with Guang Yi and Zi Xing to get A3 photo frames for Zi Xing's gigantic selfies.
• Had a picnic with my Melbourne clique - Colin, King, Cheryl, Hira, Joanne, Jez, Elijah, CX - except that Elijah is not there.
• Watched 500 with Jt.
• Filmed an Earth Hour video for a competition with Matin, King, Mj, Kylie, Rebecca, Bo Mun, Hanissah, and Nat.
• Got Dark Souls 2.
• Finished discussing our Taiwan trip. Going next week~

Labels: dtvm, reflection, reliving those days, things that happened

DTVM 3G Cohort
So, school has come to an end, and CASS had bid farewell to us via a commencement dinner / dress-up party thing. I guess we'll be bidding farewell to DTVM at the end of this month, and then to SP in May. And then it's out of poly for us. This past month had been a PMS month, in the sense that one moment, I'll be super busy, and the next, I'll be super bored. Which kind of reminds me of PMS.

Scrum started airing on TV last Wednesday, and it'll be for every Wednesday to Friday. Went for a private screening for the first episode. Feel this sense of pride as an intern who has been involved in one show (although only one :P). It's been a ride. My inner bias is trying to convince me that it actually is a good show.

And then backtrack a bit, things that happened the past month:

• Retook napfa test and managed to secure a silver.
• Bought Lightning Returns. It's actually good.
• Went to Wei Jian and Ru Wen's house for the last CNY house visits.
• Went for an MES Scholarship talk and decide that two years later, I shall apply for a scholarship.
• Decided at the last minute to apply for university placements first this year, but it was too late.
• Did quite a lot of transcript.
• Went to river safari with Zhao Yi and Yvette. And then watched a Hunter X Hunter movie.
• Went ice skating with Hazel, MJ, and CX.
• Started filming our web series.

Labels: dtvm, internship, things that happened

Sigh. I know this is a horrible tone to set this entry up in, but then, sigh. I feel so sad. This is because our Melbourne trip, which had been a blast, ended. And my internship started - not that it's a bad thing. I just miss everyone so, so much. Not just the Melbourne people (whom I miss dearly), but also all the DTVM people. I kind of miss my laptop too, because I just sent it for repair and I'll probably only get it back next Monday or something.

So, let me just talk about the trip as a whole. I shall recall it day by day.

Day 1 - The Afternoon Nap Day
Arrived in Melbourne pretty early in the morning, so our hotel wasn't ready for us to live in yet. While waiting for our rooms, we just went to look around the area. Searched for Optus to get their Sim card so that we could call one another and use the internet (and instagram all sorts of stuffs). The process was painful, but we finally managed to get our card :D

In the midst of it, we somehow explored Target Centre and found this:


A gumball machine
Which was pretty cool. Also tried out their pie, which was pretty fine. And then we headed to 'The Big W' (some supermarket) to shop for groceries. Got ourselves banana, lots of tea, and apple juice. By this time, the hotel was ready, so we headed back to the hotel to take an afternoon nap. I roomed with Alex. When we woke up, it was already time for our briefing at 8pm.

After the briefing, Alex, Cx, Elijah and I went to eat at the hotel's restaurant. Their desserts were awesome. A pity I didn't get dessert; I got a meal instead. I went over to Elijah and Cx's room to play cards and drink tea and "gamble" over tea bags.

Day 2 - UniMelb (or Mel-U, according to Elijah) Day
Took the tram...


The trams
and then stepped in the University of Melbourne for the first time ever.


Part of the university
I need to explain how cool their school is. Imagine a less creepy version of Hogwarts. That's how it seems like to me. They're like castles. I stupidly did not take any clear photo of their castle-like buildings :(

Attended lectures like 'Short Fiction Writing - Styles' and marketing. The first one was okay (some of my classmates found it awesome because they caught stuffs that I didn't) and the second one... Let's just say even the lecturer was bored.

Had a writing tour, in which we toured around Melbourne on foot and engaged in intense writing exercises as we walked. For example, halfway through walking, the tour guide would point to a bicycle and tell us to write anything about it. The tour was really cool. We got into an empty cinema although we did not watch a movie.


We were supposed to write something out of this
When the writing tour ended, we went to get Asian food even though we're Asians in Australia. Had Golden Gaytime (I shan't elaborate on that). And then, like the previous night, I went over to Elijah and Cx's room to play cards and drink tea and "gamble" over tea bags. (By the way, I just used a gimmicky sort of repetition in my writing style, something I learned in the short fiction writing - styles lecture.)

Day 3 - Everything Got Cancelled Day
I don't remember much about this day, except for the fact that most of our lectures got cancelled, I fell sick because I didn't have a scarf (and Jezebel lent hers to me as a result), and we headed to this awesome shop called 'Minotaur' where I bought a Lost magazine compilation, a The Walking Dead magazine, and a Dr Horrible guidebook. Fanboying. At some point, everybody in the tour group went and loved Minotaur, or at least it seems to me that way.

At this point, Joanne and Cheryl (two of our juniors) joined our clique thingy and we began hanging out quite a bit.

I think that on this day, we also went to see some art exhibit.

That night, Jezebel and I went over to Elijah and Cx's room to play cards and drink tea and "gamble" over tea bags.

Day 4 - I forgot what happened on this day
All I remembered about this day was that we laid on the grass (or maybe it's some other day) and I went to fix some annoying issues that happened to my Sim card. As for the lectures, it was very techy and new media related. I liked one of them, which was about photography and new media technologies, even though Jezebel counted the number of times the lecturer said 'um' or 'yup' and the count exceeded 200(?).

Visited the State Library, which was freaking cool.


Dome-shaped
(this photo doesn't do the coolness of the place justice. At all. It was badly taken)
I think that that night, Zhao-Yi, Yvette, Annzy, Mj, Hazel, Cx, and I went to Lygon Street to have a really nice dinner. I ate some Aglio Olio-like dish. Orgasmic.

After we returned to the hotel, Jezebel, Elijah, Cx, Hira, Joanne, Cheryl and I went over to King and Colin's room to watch Kickass, which was pretty kickass.

Day 5 - Writing Day
A lot of creative writing on this day. Had a workshop and a masterclass. For an activity, paired with Hazel to write about this random red coat girl whom we observed discreetly. Caught a fat bird bullying smaller birds in the process.

Some of my coursemates shared their writings. They write so well - how come I never took notice?

Anyway, we also went to this old book store and which had really old books. Bought a 'psychology of internet' book. What's new?


This is how the store looks like


Another view
That night, Jezebel, Elijah, Cx, Hira, Joanne, Cheryl and I went over to King and Colin's room to watch Kickass 2, which was pretty kickass too. And then, we played Ouya (some competitive tetris game and some alien game) and we also played cards and drank tea and "gambled" over tea bags.

Day 6 - Sad Day
At this point, my Sim card and some other stuffs made me so angry that I became sad. The day was also pretty boring, except for the part in which Yvette, Zhao-Yi, Annzy, and I went to explore the outskirts of the school and saw a nice cemetery which we didn't take photo of. Went into some super nice museum with nice paintings and the following:


1. Pillow room in which...


you can draw on the walls


2. Glass ceiling room in which...


you can get closer to the ceiling if you explore the place


3. This, which is made up of bowls and water and currents. Whenever any bowls hit, they make a nice, chyme-like sound.
Which, I guess, along with my friends, kind of cheered me up.

Went to buy books in some mall after that. I bought 4 more books in this super cheap book store - every book costed <$5, at least those I bought. Jez got this super funny news headlines gone wrong book. Colin, King, Cx, and I decided to share money to buy it for Ms Gamar so that she can show to our juniors. Costed only $4. And somehow, this night was the birth of this thing called #shawtweetz -.- Shan't elaborate.

Night: Played Colin's Ouya - some platformer with super annoying music - and watched Se7en with Joanne, Cheryl, Cx and Elijah, and ate cup noodles and Shreya visited us and Hira and Colin went to buy Mc Donalds. Okay, at this point, it just seems weird because I'm pretty sure these stuffs happen over two nights. My memory's not that good.

Day 7 - Free Day
Basically, this day was a lot of shopping. Went to Victorian Market, which was basically an Australian version of pasa malam. Alex went missing (as like Elijah on day 3 or something) and returned. Bought Kingdom Hearts. Bought even more stuffs at Minotaur. Bought two more books at a book store (quiz: How many books did I buy in total?). Also visited this super cool moving pictures gallery which had sensation-related gadgets, history of games, TV, and internet, and really interesting stuffs.

Shopped alone for a while, and then rejoined them and rushed back for a debriefing session. Did a little musical-of-our-life on the way, in which we sang instead of talked. Caught this super talented violist street performer (there were lots of street performers), and then returned to the hotel for debrief.

In which we did the OLP thing. Sat in a circle and talked about our experience.

Immediately after the debriefing session, Colin, King, Joanne, Jezebel, Cheryl, Elijah, Cx, Hira, and I immediately and literally ran to some vietnamese food place before it close, and we made it in time. And managed to accidentally pangseh Colin in the process.

Decided not to sleep that night, and have a Lord of The Rings marathon instead. Bought chips, more Golden Gaytimes, drinks, and lots of stuffs over to Colin and King's room. We failed. Most of the girls got bored halfway through the first movie and returned to their rooms. The rest of us tolerated the rest of the movie before heading back to sleep.

Day 8 - Last Day
Sigh. Had our chow mein (actually cao mian), which we talked about since day 2, I think. Had frozen yoghurt. Laid on the library area grass.


Outside of State Library (try and spot us)
Took lots of photos.

And then we had to head back to Singapore D:

The plane ride back was pretty beautiful. Australia's night lights, sunset - which came after the night lights because we traveled back in time (Australia is 2 hours ahead of Singapore) - , and then Singapore's night light. Watched Pocahontas again and got reminded why it was one of my favourite movies. Watched Dora The Explorer and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Rewatched some TV as well and mentally survived my way back to Singapore.

And I guess that's it. It had been really great, and I feel sad. Yeah. The end.

--Oh, by the way, I do know that I've got my timings messed up. Like some things that happen in day 3 may end up in day 2 here because I don't have such a good memory, but that's not that important... Right?

More photos here.

Labels: dtvm, overseas, things that happened

Last week, we completed and submitted all our final assignments, and then we had our last DTVM lecture last Friday. The sadness seriously began to sink in during and after yesterday/today's chalet.

Labels: dtvm, reflection, reliving those days, things that happened

These two weeks were so happy and sad and stressful and satisfying and filled up with all sorts of emotions. There were a lot of final stuffs going on because of our last lecture, last presentation, last assignment, last gathering and stuffs. So, let's go at it one by one.

Final Year Project
Lol, the keyword is FINAL. Because it indeed is final. And, just last Monday, we were so relaxed and thought that our FYP was more or less settled. And then, BAM. During our mock-pitch to our lecturers, we learned that our trailer sucked, our concept sucked, our treatment did not work, and our pitch did not work. And because of that, our transmedia content needed adjustments as well.

So, for the remaining time, we had to put our FYP through a major overhaul. Our heart was slowly cracking and the pieces were slowly falling out as we cut and cut our trailer, break down and rework on our concept, and redid our powerpoint slides.

Finally, on that day itself (Saturday), our pitch went fine. The judges were super nice (if they weren't, we would be chopped to pieces already), and our super under-developed so-called "new concept" helped us through. And once it was over, we were throwing our hands into the air, and all our worries flew away as we rejoiced and feel sad at the same time (because, well, it is over).

I've got to say that I really liked two of my coursemates' concepts: 'The Girl Who Grants Wishes' and 'Unit 13-44'. Their trailer were really good too.

Popping into Unit 13-44's celebration
Okay, I know I was freaking extra, but I joined their team's celebration in Adventure Cove. It was really great and really fun. Went through a super long lazy river, and everyone got stuck at one point, just watching stingrays fly by. Queued up for super long for lots of variations of slides, all of which were fun. Drowned Floated in the wave pool. Et cetera. A pity they didn't have 6-people rides.

Ate at Malaysian Food Street, and then tried to catch a bus back to Habour Front. Tried. Funny thing is, there was a crowd going up the bus. Annzy randomly told me not to worry because I would be able to get on the bus, and the exact opposite happens. After Annzy, Pascal, and Stefanie got on, the bus driver shut the door and left me outside. And no matter how much the three of them asked the uncle to open it, he completely ignored them, leaving me abandoned by the bus stop like a lost and homeless dog.

In the end, I caught another emptier bus with seats while they waited for me at Habour Front.

PCAP Potluck
Kind of a final gathering for our PCAP at Marina Barrage. Everybody brought so much food @_@ And we could not finish. I learned that there are two new couples in my class (so sudden and random), and it kind of became the theme of the night, I guess. Played cards, and then decided to play Murderer, since we were a large group. Somehow, the two murderers or the police and a murderer always end up sitting side by side.

It was quite fun and funny that we were actually picnicking on the floor instead of the grass because of the threatening rain. While heading home, had some guy talk with some of them and listened to people emo about relationships and the lack thereof. I don't know about other people, but sometimes I like to pointlessly think about these stuffs to balance out my emotions. If I'm too happy, these things give me a reason to emo a little. Lol.

Meeting up with secondary school friends
Met up with Guang Yi, Wei Jian, and Zi Xing yesterday for Ramen Play, bowling, and PS3. As usual, I'm not a big fan of Japanese food, although sometimes my actions contradict that fact. Bowling was quite funny. We were trying to challenge one another on who can roll the ball the slowest. And mine was pretty epic, in the sense that it rolled at 2 miles per hour (think of the speed a cat strolling), exactly at the centre of the lane, until it eventually knocked onto the pins at such low force.

And then we tried again, and this time it was so slow that the ball fell into the drain and rolled back onto the start of the lane.

Motor Stormed, Dead or Alived, and Last of Us-ed at Guang Yi's house after that. They were all pretty amazing, and now I definitely want to play The Last of Us.

Chiso Zanmai!
Went with Yvette, Zhao Yi, and Wai Meng this time. The food was great and affordable as usual. Learned to eat sashimi, but avoided eating more because my stomach doesn't like raw food. Nice, chill time spent till it was time to go to school.

Last day of school
Started by watching some of our OLP videos, but I guess we couldn't watch them all due to a lack of time, so we went through a super long briefing about our internship stuffs as well as FYP feedback. Mj drew the whole of 02 in chibi form! So cute, haha.

Finally, got to know of our internship posting. I'm probably getting posted to Threesixzero Productions, and my job was to assist in a Chinese drama series (trying to make my role sound nice here, lol). Mary said that it's going to be super tough, but it sounds so exciting! And to get to work in such an established place is such a privilege. So near my house some more, haha. Really, really hope I get in.

After knowing our posting, our parents came and it was time for dinner. Also got back our bag of memories which everyone wrote for one another in Penang. So touching :'D

So yeah, that's about it. Hope all goes well :)

Labels: dtvm, mehmeh, pcap, things that happened

This final final week of school is going to zoom by. I feel like some JRPG character who's finally reached the final boss after going through many fake "final bosses". And of course, before the final battle, I must make an epic speech that shows my resolve and how I've changed from day 1.

I shall write a blog post about it, but not now though. Generally, it's been the best RPG I've played in PS3 so far. But considering that I'm not really a gamer, that's not really something surprising. It's really great, though. One thing I love about the Tales series is how they handle the characterisation. Love those random dialogues that they sometimes spam us with.

But back to topic, I'm serious about this week being the final boss of DTVM. FYP pitch this Saturday, and though Stella told us to sleep the night before... I'm having a sleepover at Wei Jian's house xD Which probably means no sleep :S

And also, there's law exam tomorrow. I shouldn't exactly be blogging or beating the final boss battles and stuffs, but then let's just say that exams and final presentations are meant to be tackled with a relaxed mind. Studying for media law had been pretty relaxing thanks to Xillia (^).

So, to recap what have happened the past few weeks, PCAP final report was over, PCAP test, which was almost as much content as law, cramped into 2 days of studying. Speaking of which, I must talk about that extremely packed period.

PCAP test + report + filming + research paper all due on Monday and Tuesday. That was one crazy period. After that, everything had been relaxing. It's kind of half a holiday for me now. Compared to my friends at DADP, we have it easy. From what I heard, they seem to be doing research papers 24/7 up till a few days ago.

In the meantime, thanks, again, those who helped us like our Lonely Fish page as well as our Forget Me Not page! And I'm pretty proud of our FYP website: sp-dtvm.com/forgetmenottv :D

Our trailer is not exactly done yet, but filming was done since last Sunday. It was fun filming weird and awkward scenes and enjoying some cozy crew + cast dinner and stuffs. Hopefully the video turns out great.

And in the midst of this last sprint thing, some of my friends have already confirmed their internships. In the meantime, I finally settled on what I ultimately want to do, not for the internship, but for my career. Sometimes I lied to myself.

Yeah, so that's it. Look forward to seeing my reflections of all DTVM times and/or review on Xillia! As if you will. But yeah, bye.

Labels: dtvm, games, things that happened

It felt like at least 500 billion years since my last entry to me. Nowadays when I open up Blogger, I just feel lost and wordless. Probably writer's blog? Haha. Regrettably, I'm still going to be talking about my not-very-interesting life, since that's the only thing that doesn't give me a block.

Labels: dtvm, health, mehmeh, pcap, things that happened

My OLP team! (as if you can tell who's in it) - Me, Elijah, Hira, Rebecca, Heidi, Avelin, CX (left to right)
Just came back from Penang yesterday night, but received some really sad news today. 15 minutes after our plane departed from Penang, a freak thunderstorm hit Penang and 2 people died in Georgetown - our filming location. I really don't know who they are but I really hope the super friendly people we met there are alright. And I'm super grateful that the whole DTVM cohort is alright. My father said he did feel that something bad would happen, that's why he prayed really hard for me. I'm so thankful. I'm also thankful for Ms Mary and the Christians for praying for the trip beforehand too. It was pretty close.

On a brighter note, On-location production had been awweessssooommmmmme! I have so much to blog about because so much happened. If you don't really want to know, then maybe just at least read the next paragraph? :(

So I made friends with many people from class 01 and some jetty people, ate quite a lot of good food, had fun filming (I've always loved filming), and bought quite a lot of coffee packets home! :D

Departure + Settling In
So, we met up in the airport and headed to the plane. After a long while, we were ascending and flying in the air. Sat next to Joey Liew and Geradine. Slept in the plane, and then finally reached our destination, Penang, after about an hour. Went to our hostel, Ryokan, by bus. The head of the hostel is called Mr Luffy! He's a nice guy.

So, I'm the room I/C for room 202 and my roommates were Wai Meng, Joey Liew, and Alex. We're the quiet room. Really. Managed to know Joey Liew a little better, but I didn't get to talk much to Alex.

For the first night, Stella + the lecturers brought us out for a walk in the vicinity. It was pretty cool seeing shophouses here and there. There was also this cute parking pole which I have no idea how it works. And telephone booths which do not exist in Singapore. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

And since it was the first night, I headed to CX, Elijah, Pascal, and Zi Wei's room to play Binding of Isaac. It's some pretty screwed up game based on the Bible and it consists of floating stomachs that can shoot blood, a main character that uses tears or pee to fight, random poops everywhere, and so on. It can be quite cute at times.

Anyway, went to sleep after that and got all energised for day 2.

Location Recce
Headed to Georgetown to scout for our story. To me, the worst part of documentary making is pre-production - the stage where we have to search for an interesting person/place/topic. The rest of the parts are pretty fun actually. Learned about the Clan Jetties (a place in Georgetown). It's made up of 6 or 7 jetties (can't remember), each with a different surname. There's Chew Jetty, Tan Jetty, Lim Jetty, and so on. Then there's a 'mixed surname jetty' where all the miscellaneous go. Learned a lot about its history while interviewing people.

Which I shall not elaborate because it's highly likely to bore you.

Didn't manage to get a profile before lunchtime because we were:
1) Slacking off, sitting at narrow bridges and taking photos like the one you see above.
2) Shooting mockumentaries about kingfishers with Elijah's narration: "This is a Kingfisher. It is found in Penang. Thus, it is called, the Penang Kingfisher."
3) Satisfied with the idea of shooting a poetic documentary about the rubbish in the jetties. It was my idea, so Elijah calls me the poetic garbage.

Lunch was alright. Some coffee place called 'My Arte'. The server was pretty and super friendly, and as a result Elijah had a crush on her.

Continued our recce after lunch, but it was raining really heavily. Squeezed in umbrellas and protected the camera like a baby. And tried to interview fishermen and traders who were obviously put off by the rain. Got rejected coldly as a result. Eventually, we decided to just do a documentary about the Chew Jetty.

The warm thing was, we did talk to this guy before lunch, so he invited us into his house when he saw us caught in the rain. And he also let us to an interview with him. He's called Mr Chew because he live in the Chew Jetty. Serious. The jetties are splitted according to surnames.

Production - Day 1
The first day of production was really slack. The interview with Mr Chew lasted for 45 minutes, which is super long. Actually spent the rest of the time slacking even more :P Got ourselves popsicles which Hira demanded for the whole morning. And attempted to make an epic mealtime of it.

We were sitting beside of the water when this friendly woman invited us into her house. Chatted with them and learned that she was the niece of Mr Chew whom we interviewed. Small jetty. Actually, according to her, 60% of Chew Jetty people are family-related. Uncles, aunties, father, mother, cousins, etc. The culture there is really cool.

And this woman (Ms Chew) has a nice balcony thing facing the water. It has a rocking chair and is super relaxing and comfortable. So, we went there and did some vlog, which I guess I shall edit soon.

Ms Chew told us to not be such obedient students and introduced us to super good food. *Sigh* I wish she and Mr Chew and the other people are all safe.

Got ourselves chendol. Hira was a brave, reckless road-crosser. Penang style - cross the road whether a car is coming or not. The chendol stall was full of bees, and everyone there is acting like there's nothing :O

So that's production day 1! Not much of a production day, but we needed to recharge our energy :D
Not really, actually.

And then at night, we had to rush out our script. It was a tiring day, so I went to sleep early.

Production - Day 2
The final day of production already. Elijah got himself a horrible injury on the head by knocking it on his locker. So, for the first hour or so, he was seeing the doctor and our group had to film without him. Fortunately, he joined us after that. Day 2 was a lot of filming, and also a lot of lepaking at Mr Chew's house + the nice narrow bridge where we took the photo above. Dipped our feet into the dirty water which consists of urine and pollution and stuffs. It was super relaxing.

Also got ourselves popsicles and chendol again (Hira, CX, and I are the pigs who keep eating). This time, also bought goreng pisang.

We were pretty manipulative people. Firstly, we knew that some people in other jetties were unfriendly, so we purposely approached them with the camera rolling and asked for an interview. What we wanted was a shot of us getting rejected to show that they are unfriendly, and it went according to plan! :/ Secondly, we placed a camera in a house facing outwards. People who walked pass all looked into the camera in the house. This shot was supposed to be about people looking into the house.

And then there was this funny moment when we stood outside this unfriendly woman's house to record the ambience sound emitting from her house (some traditional chinese music). She shooed us away from standing on her house's "boundaries", so we stood directly outside and pointed the mic at her. The camera was facing away, and her whole face was like "da fuck?"

The night was pretty emotional because it was our last night in Penang, plus Stella was going on about the fact that this would be our last 2-3 months together. So, the lecturers, being the sweet people that they are, made us do a confession video where we just talk about our DTVM experience to the camera.

Some of the things everyone said was funny. Natasya actually told a hilarious story about how Wai Meng and Yvette fell off a cliff while trying to take good shots. And Yvette added on by saying that her groupmate asked "Is the boom-mic okay?" instead of "Are you okay?"

What I wanted to say
I wanted to say a lot of things, but my whole mind just went blank with 40+ pairs of eyes staring at me. So, I just said the first 3 things that came to my mind. Here's what I really wanted to say:

My OLP group is awesome. There is Heidi, the cool producer with the sunglasses and an aura. There is  Rebecca, the cool camerawoman who looks like a professional National Geography photographer. There is Hira, the one who is fun to make fun of. Then there are CX, Avelin, and Elijah - people I feel comfortable with from my class. They do work, and they know how to have fun. It was great.

As for the whole DTVM, there were a lot of painful times, honest. But there were a lot of great memories. Filming, discussing stuffs, watching one another panic before a major pitch, creating a haunted house together, torturing our main characters together, preparing for skits, celebrating, eating, playing catching on Marina Barrage, Christmas celebration, going for LEAP camp, and so on. I built memories with most of my classmates.

Then there were class dramas which were fun to watch (I'm glad I didn't say this).

I've learned a lot about doing work. First thing is that I cannot do everything on my own. In secondary school, Ms Aljunied told me that I need to trust my friends. That was in sec 2. I only learned how to do that in year 3. Last year, I would be that control freak who manipulate and demand stuffs from the director and editor of my group (I was the cameraman). Now, I've learned to chill and mind my own business. To an extent.

Second thing is that working is not just doing work, but it is also having fun in the process. Which probably is the wrong thing to learn, but I don't want to unlearn it. It's all about liking what I do, I hope.

And even though it had not been a super smooth ride in DTVM, I'll miss many people. Kind of. But it's not like graduation means goodbye. Graduation =/= goodbye actually. Unless you want it to be.

And that's that.

The Night
Wanted to stay up the whole night, but due to misunderstandings (as usual), I thought that people would be busy doing other stuffs (which I shall elaborate on soon), thus I went to sleep instead.

So after the emotional talking-to-the-camera moments, we were told to write little notes of memories to one another. The lecturers would tie them in an envelope and hand them to us before our internship. This is the "other stuffs" that I thought the others was doing. I finished relatively quickly and was pretty surprised to see them still writing, because I thought I would be the most luo shuo (talkative) one.

The night was freaking cold and somehow the controller didn't work, so I slept outside the room for awhile, and then decided to grit my teeth and bear with it back in the room.

Last Day
The morning was fine. Had a walking tour around Georgetown area. Went to museums and stuffs. Then, had a food trail. Went to eat super nice guo tiao, laksa (which I didn't eat), chendol, and indian food! Everyone was so excited about teh tarik. And my group was making fun of how neat Avelin was.

Also tried out some coffee samples and spent 50 ringgit on them. Plus a dou sa bing.

Caught our plane and headed home. The descend was really nice. Sunset, sea of clouds, plunging into the clouds, and the whole view of Singapore lights.

And now, I kind of miss Penang and the people, and my groupmates, and stuffs. Once again, I really hope the people I know are safe.

And I feel blessed.

Labels: dtvm, overseas, production, reflection, reliving those days, things that happened

Before I boringly talk about my boring life, I've changed my blogskin again. This time, I'm rather proud of it, although the words make no sense when placed in no context. Let's just say it's not meant to be understood :D

So, just one more day and that will be the end of the term for me. And these last 2 weeks of the term had been pretty boring, I'll say. School, assignment, submission, and home. School, assignment, submission, and home. And again and again.

We finished up our iBook but we were not allowed to publish it in Singapore because of censorship issues, so we're publishing it in overseas ibook store. A pity. I would've forced everyone I know to buy it, since it's free. But, because Esman was pretty impressed with our books, he decided to publish it for us and set a price to them, although SP will be consuming all the revenue.

FYP was the ideation stage. Last week was particularly painful because it was a lot of feedback and adjustments. The pitch went well, though. My ideas were not shot down :) But none of my ideas were selected to be the one we will be working on for my FYP. Frankly, I'm pretty sad, but meh, it's just FYP. And it's not about my concept or his/her concept, but rather, our.

So that's basically how things went.

Then today, there was this Communication 101 event whereby secondary school students come to CASS for workshops by the 3 courses. Wai Meng and I were taking photos of the event. Guangyang Sec students came over, so I was pretty surprised at how coincidental things were.

That's about it for my no-life.

And I've been watching Arrow recently. Just watched the finale a few days ago and it's so epic. Kind of hooked to the show and the casts. Can't wait for the next season. Maybe I will write a review about it, or go read the Green Arrow comic (which the show is based on). Probably.

Oh, this may be super out of place, but I'm dying to say: I don't like simple, happy, and superficial stories. I love complicated, depressing, and layered ones. Melodrama is good too. Just saying.

Labels: dtvm, shows, things that happened

Okay, an update of my life. Things were a little bit crazy and really positive ever since I went to talk to Mr Ng, my dip-plus lecturer. Along with the whole "getting a grip" thing, there were also lots of assignments and some fun moments of celebrations.

The day I quit tuition (last Saturday)
It was some kind of farewell to my tutee whom I had been badmouthing and complaining about for a long time. Honestly, he's an okay kid as like any other kid. Teaching kids is just not my thing. The money I get for tuition is great, but I didn't want to waste their money anymore because I felt like every week was a waste of time for all of us. Plus, I really need Saturday mornings off for rest.

On Saturday, my dip-plus group also met up to discuss our next facilitation. Turned out to be quite funny when we tried to do our own activity.

The day we thanked our mothers (last Sunday)
Celebrated Mother's Day with the mothers and the grandmother in a Tze Char stall. Super nice and relatively cozy. Cereal sotongs are the best. Can tell my grandma really enjoyed the big family gathering. Unfortunately, my uncle was also suffering from heart attack and was hospitalised, so his immediate family could not come. Something to worry about, too.

Random days of a healthy lifestyle (family)
So apparently, my sister suddenly became quite enthusiastic about exercising, so we started exercising together. Jogging at Bishan Park with siblings, gymming in the early morning in the unproductive Bishan gym, and listening to my brother train my sister to build abs. It's actually quite funny.

The days when we submit our assignments (school)
Basically, school was the big flow of assignments. Finished our Media Entrepreneurship presentation/report and extremely tedious Filmmaking research essay. For the Filmmaking, I analysed The Hunger Games. Chee Teng's folder for submission is pretty cool/cute. It said "I hereby declare that by submitting my document, I agree that Mr Chee Teng is the coolest lecturer". Well, we had to submit our assignments, so the coolest lecturer he is.

For the Media Entrepreneurship, I interviewed Wei Jian's girlfriend, Jessica, and researched on her blogshop, RackSpaceProject. (rackspaceproject.blogspot.sg) I kind of screwed up in the Q&A segment for the presentation. You must be thinking that Q&A is something that you can't screw up; Apparently, you can screw it up if you answer "I don't know" more than once.

And then there's the iBook project and FYP, both which I'm really enthusiastic about. I mean, come on, we are publishing our own eBook! :D And creating a TV show.

The day when "you like it?" becomes sexual (Thursday)
Spent the morning lazing around even though I hate wasting time. Afternoon was FYP tutorial, in which we had to give feedback for one another's ideas. This stage never fails to drain all my energy and positive emotions away. Rejections and rejections.

Then, met up with the bros + sis to have Chisozanmai! Unfortunately, Wai Min, Joshua, and Ru Wen could not make it, so it was Jt, Guang Yi, Zi Xing, Wei Jian, and me. Chisozanmai was great. Orgasmic food, nice environment, nice window seat, good variety of food. Best buffet I've had so far. Threw away all my gastric-caused restrictions and just went crazy on the food. I'm not regretting it, and it was awesommme. By the way, it was meant to celebrate Jt's birthday. Got her a 'The Hobbit' book - glad she liked it :)

And also finally bought 'Dishonored'. Why was everything just so right? Maybe I went a little crazy. Due to Zi Xing's story about his classmate poking people's armpits gayly and asking "you like it?", we went a little weird with the whole poking at random holes and asking "you like it?" thing.

And we created a Wong Zi Xing fan club.

The day when I became Asier Sai Han Don (Friday)
Due to drinking mocha + teh tarik at night, plus my sensitivity towards caffeine, I couldn't sleep at night actually, and only finally collapsed at 6am. Woke up early to gym with my sister. Spent the rest of the afternoon doing CNG. Rushed out all the colouring so that I don't have to worry about my part anymore. Now I can gloat over that fact that it's my groupmates' turns to be busy, before I step in and help up wherever.

Met up with Jeanette and Jt in the evening. Caught up, learned that someone can procrastinate in the middle of exam, and I got a new name. I was wearing my "Easier said than done" shirt and a cardigan over it, so certain letters were blocked, which formed the words "Asier sai han don". And that became my name. I kind of like Asier as an English name, honestly.

And because I love sharing stories and Jt and Jeanette listen to my stories, I just had to get their input in my FYP concepts. Which helped so much. Went a little overboard with snacking - pizzas, cream puffs, and cakes. I feel like a prisoner who just released himself. Now I can eat all sorts of food, and I'm feeling really high about it.

After 2 hours, Syahindah and Li Yuan (Indah and Jean's JC friend) finally reached. After going back and forth, and long waits, we finally got into Swensens for our desperately-needed dinner. Also spammed ice cream. Celebrated Jt's birthday again, and chatted. It was generally a great day.

So, that's it for the week. Throughout this week, I had also been reading Percy Jackson (Lightning Thief). It was a fun read, though it was meant for children. Can't wait for Sea of Monsters to come out in the theatres. And I actually like both the book and the movie in different ways.

Yeah, I don't know how to end this post, so let's put an abrupt end to -

Labels: dtvm, family, mehmeh, pcap, teaching, things that happened

Last Saturday, Chee Teng brought some of us to the Singapore Chinese Film Festival. The school sponsored 75% of the movie, and Chee Teng, being generous as he is, sponsored the rest + popcorn. Watched 'Jump! Ah Shun'. It was about this guy (portrayed by Eddie Peng) who was really passionate about gymnastic, but his passion was ruined and he ended up living a life of a gangster. So the story was about how he went back to win a gold medal in gymnastic and bring his life back on track. It was pretty touching.

Then in the evening, Zixing, Weijian, and I went to watch Iron Man 3. I'm not a comic fan, so I'm not disappointed with it. I found it pretty good. Better than Iron Man 1. I didn't watch 2 though, because I heard that there's no point. Tony Stark is really funny.

Back to Monday, it was a really long day of school. Media Law, filmmaking, and then dip-plus. Media Law was fine. Filmmaking was an almost 3-hour long lecture. And dip plus was my group's facilitation. We spent 2 hours of the class time, thus the other group did not have time to facilitate and was shifted to next week :/ It was pretty fun. We planned lots of activities beforehand and the class was pretty enthusiastic about them. About 'Communication in Groups'. Had a brief talk about certain issues with my lecturer and he decided to sort of counsel me next Wednesday, which I feel is much needed.

Naturally, by Tuesday, I was really exhausted and irritable. Plus, my Media Entrepreneurship lecturer scheduled a make-up lesson which I believe was pointless in the morning, which I shouldn't complain about since he cut it short by 2 hours and tried to make it interesting. Anyhow, I felt super horrible and it was a pretty bad day.

For Esman's ibook lesson, he briefed us on our first assignment and my children's story group (from 2 years ago) decided to work together to publish our story - 'The Lonely Fish' :D Pretty exciting to publish an ibook created by us.

Wednesday was a holiday since it's labour day. Being the forever-alone person that I am, I stayed at home.

Thursday was fine. Headed to school in the morning for gym with Pascal, Elijah, and Wai Meng. We started this thing last week, and of course, any gym is better than the previous Bishan Gym. Creative Writing Project after that (aka FYP). Did the tedious design thinking part in which we had to quote our already-tedious transcripts and analyse them and stuff. It was really intense, since Zi Wei and I couldn't really agree with one another, plus design thinking is anything but fun. Worked out really well in the end, though.

Stayed 1 hour more to finish up our task for the week, before staying back a little while more with my filmmaking group to confirm our tentative film ideas.

Friday was another long day. This was a really long week, actually. So, we went to school for On-location Production tutorial. Elijah did this scrapbook thing about Georgetown, Penang, which we are going for our overseas shooting trip. It's pretty cool. Did more research on the place and found out that Georgetown is actually really cool. Quite excited for the trip.

Wasted time for around 5 hours after class before heading to T19 foyer to watch the DTVM party. Ate pizza afterwards and headed home after that. Of course, I awkwardly tried to get to know my juniors, but gave up. Of course.

Labels: dtvm, things that happened

This week was an explosion. Basically, formed a lot of groups and prepared for a lot of assignments this week. I see busy weeks and months ahead, but I thrive in busy schedules! Kind of. I hope.

On-Location Production is exciting. It's announced that we're going to Penang to film, and we're going by plane. Grouped with Avelin, Cx, Elijah, Heidi, Hira, and Rebecca. I like the grouping. Organised people.

Creative Writing Project is, so far, okay. As for filmmaking, we formed our groups. I grouped with Zhao Yi, Annzy, Yvette, and Jezebel.

My dip-plus, which is now called 'Work Group Dynamics and Social Psychology', suddenly became really fierce. Grouped with Aveline, Nasir, Kai, Hong Xiang, and Qi Min. You probably don't know any of them, though. So, in this group, we have to do 2 x 1-hour lesson/activity facilitation, 2 presentations, and a test. The first facilitation is due in, like, 3 days.

This year's going to be fun. It's a lot of work, but work is good.

Anyway, nothing much happened this week, except starting to gym with Matin, Pascal, Wai Meng, and probably Elijah. Also had dinner with Wei Jian, Ru Wen, and her two friends. It was pretty awkward, although I guess it didn't need to be. Anyway, Ru Wen got us personalised souvenirs :)

Labels: dtvm, pcap, things that happened

So the final year has officially started. For the last few days of the holidays, I went ice-skating and shopping for new clothes with Guang Yi and Jasmine. And then for the next few days, it was school.

Monday
The first module we had was Media Law and Ethics. It felt very much like social studies - talking about legislation, parliament, and (insert chim term here). Was late for the first lesson because my mum drove me to school (why does this sentence sound so contradicting?) and I had a stomach ache. But I'd rather be driven to school and be late than squeeze in the MRT in day 1. Had our first lecture in 2 years. It feels so different and fresh.

Haven't seen my classmates in awhile. Ever since the class outing, I think. Every year feels so fresh. It felt even fresher with the freshies. So the whole week had been FC6 because all our breaks are 1-hour breaks.

Also had filmmaking with Chee Teng. It was a lecture kind of lesson about how films developed throughout the years. And those technical details about film types and sizes and such. Pretty boring topic for me, but I'm glad to be in filmmaking! :D

We were released an hour early, so I hung out with Jt (who was waiting for her friends), Stefanie, and Hazel (who were waiting for Avelina and Joey). Slacked the rest of the time away in hilltop before heading to psychology. This semester is about group dynamics and stuff.

Kind of glad to see my classmates again! Had ice-breaking activities. One activity was about drawing a metaphor of ourselves. It was suppose to be interesting, but it felt kind of tedious because we had to go up one by one to explain and discuss the metaphor.

I drew a dustbin. I wanted it to mean that I'm an accepting (just like a dustbin) person. Then there's another meaning, which is that rubbish is my problems, and I like to empty them into a garbage bag. But my explanation ended up being a big contradicting mess :S

Tuesday
Had media law again, followed by Esman's new media lesson. Stella came in to brief us a little on our FYP, and Mary also came in later on to lend us the iPads again for another year. Esman, being nice and relaxed as he is, gave us time for the much-needed lunch. My group discussed roles. It was pretty much expected which roles we fell into (as planned *evil grin* - just joking). I ended up being the director (for once) and co-webmaster. Going to be working quite a lot with Wai Meng since he's the photography director cum webmaster.

So for this new media module, we'll be publishing an iBook. And of course, we have to go through the whole routine of discussing how media developed throughout the years again. We went through this for millions of times already.

Wednesday
Had media entrepreneurship lesson. I guess it was pretty fine. An introduction to how to plan a business. FYP lecture after that.

Thursday
I didn't go to school on Thursday because of the scope appointment. Fortunately/unfortunately, they couldn't see what's wrong with my gastric/stomach, so it's another appointment with the doctor in a months time! Yay! T_T And I guess my FYP group, in the meantime, had reached a consensus of targeting female audiences of 15+ ages. I guess I'm not highly against it anymore.

That's about it for the week. No lesson on Friday (today) because Mary fell sick.

Can't help but feel pretty down this week. Although there's some form of excitement in FYP, it's pretty dull, and things just haven't been looking up. Shall just try to be optimistic :S

Labels: dtvm, pcap, things that happened

Wow, the remaining three weeks of the holidays (since my previous recount-type post) are over. I'm pretty excited for school, looking forward to FYP, and I'm sick of the holidays. No need for me to elaborate why.

A day in the holiday of me
Not so much happened these few weeks. My grandma came over more often and stayed over for 2 weekends in a row. Her presence kind of added live to my life, since I hardly met anyone this holiday. I'm pretty ashamed of myself, so I secretly hope that no one will ask me how my holiday was.

So my parents treated my grandma and us to Ding Tai Fung. I like these luxurious restaurant times. Good food and atmosphere.

Met up with Guang Yi, Jasmine, Wei Jian, and Joshua for badminton. Once.

Buddhist ceremony
Had some praying sessions the past weekend. I don't know what it's called in English, but it's fa hui in Chinese. These usually run for three days under huge tentages. At particular timings, people from my branch of Buddhism (mi jiao) who are interested will sign up, pray together, and receive the deities' blessings. As they are pretty rare, my parents usually sign up for them.

Since it's religious stuff, I shall not elaborate, but I do feel so much better after this whole thing.

Tuition
I guess I haven't been doing a good job for tuition, so the tutee's mum went heavy on implying it and said that if I could not discipline the tutee well, she would have no choice but to change the tutor. Throughout the week, I had indeed felt that I could not discipline the tutee. There were days when I was being so strict to him till he almost cry due to his attitude. There were also days when I couldn't be bothered as much. Gone are those days. I shall unleash my 'shut up and obey me' mode from now on.

Freshmen Orientation Programme
So I agreed to help Afiq to take photos for this year's CASS orientation programme. Honestly, I'll prefer not to elaborate on it because it was really boring for me, and I'm gaining nothing much out of it. This doesn't mean that the programme was boring. I think the organising committee did a good job. I felt bored because I wasn't a participant, and walking around and taking photos of people and their unwelcoming eyes isn't my idea of fun.

But on the good side, I get to meet my relatively warm juniors. Didn't talk much to them (it's hard for me and you'll never understand, okay.), but I guess I built a mild foundation with them. Shall get to know them better.

Just to mention, I was touched when Afiq and I were taking photos of the year 1 DTVM batch and Ms Gamar invited me into the photo as part of the "DTVM family". And some of the juniors reacted warmly. I mean, these are simple things. But these are exactly the kind of simple things that get to me.

So today, we got free entries to Gardens by the Bay's Flower Dome and Cloud Forest. The freshmen were suppose to just go there, enjoy themselves, and then spend some time painting a picture representing themselves and CASS.

The places were spectacular. Although we went there for work (kind of), at least we got to enjoy the scenery and stuff.

Last bits
Got our pretty hectic-looking timetable in which Monday was 9am-9.30pm for me, due to DTVM modules + my dip-plus. But Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays were pretty okay. We were told to form our FYP groups, so we did. I'm really satisfied with my group: Zhao Yi, Zi Wei, Wai Meng, Yvette, and me.

With that, we shall embark on another new semester. It's been quite long since I met my classmates. Let's hope this semester is a good one.

Labels: dtvm, family, things that happened

Well, the holidays haven't been that much of a splash for me. If anything, it was pretty depressing, not that school can kill the depressing-ness of it all. At least I'll feel more productive and existent if there's school, though.

So basically, I didn't really exist during this holiday, besides to my family. Haven't been going out because I have little friends and my closer friends are committed to other stuffs like their final year project or internship. No job, no community involvement stuffs (as if I ever had anything), and basically I've been rotting away.

I still had my tuition, though. It's not really a relief because each week I just get more and more pissed. I finally talked to the child's parents about his attitude, not because I wanted them to punish him, but because I feel like a freaking useless tutor and felt the need to justify my uselessness.

Went out for family dinners at Dian Xiao Er and tze char. Grandma came over last Sunday.

Once per week, or somewhere around there, had dinner with Guang Yi, Jt, Wei Jian and/or Joshua once. Chinese doctor every 3 days. That is how the clinic works.

And then there was the DTVM Awards. My duty was an iPad Manager, which sounds quite cool. Basically Avelin and I just did tedious things like downloading an app for viewing videos, rearrange apps, close notifications, and stuffs that I can no longer remember. The night itself was quite atmospheric. Half of my class managed to churn out a performance at the last minute, which kind of worked out fine.

Also had class outing. Sakura with DTVM/02 + Esman and Chee Teng :) I ignored the fact that I couldn't drink too much coffee and just went for it anyway. Great lunch, and quite a relaxing session of chilling and chatting.

Today, went to roller blade at Bishan Park with Guang Yi and Joshua. Felt like a little bit of freedom. Haven't been so tired for so long, it's fun. Also learned a little about longboarding from Joshua. Shall steal his longboard to try out more often.

For the rest of the rotting time, I had been watching lots of movies and shows, playing some games, and reading some books. Feel that as a writing student, it's a given that I should be exposed to lots of all these things. I've fell in love with 'The Office' (US show) and 'The Lorien Legacy' (book series about aliens).

Been playing Ni No Kuni, which was pretty fine, though I kind of got bored of it and went back to Dark Souls. The intensity just came back all of a sudden.

Maybe I should visit one friend in his school/work per day. Refuse to work. I just want to spend the holiday nicely :/

Labels: dtvm, family, teaching, things that happened