This apparently appeared in the Straits Times on the 21st of May this year. Part of a series of advertisements to market SMU, I believe. This left me feeling rather weird about my candidature here in SMU – I understand the basic idea behind playing up the entrepreneurial paths that some of our graduates have taken, but really, fish soup? In an admissions advertisement? Here’s what the text in the little blue box at the bottom of the ad reads:

“SMU students don’t follow the crowd, they lead the way. Our revolutionary, broad-based and participative pedagogy transforms them into confident individuals prepared to go against convention. It helps them develop an entrepreneurial spirit and a sense of social and ethical responsibility. Claire Au, for example, runs a thriving fish soup business and considers giving meal coupons to the poor an integral aspect of her business philosophy. Above all, SMU teaches students to follow their passions, through good times and bad. Many found challenging careers in a variety of industries, others became budding entrepreneurs. Either way, each one has what it takes to choose their own path in life. THE WORLD IS YOUR CAMPUS.”

Once again, I think I can appreciate the spirit of the advertisement – entrepreneurship generally tends not to be the usual path of advancement for many young workforce entrants in Singapore, and now that the government is encouraging it, SMU is trying to be out in front and encourage it to. And a large part of that is attracting the kind of students that have the inspiration and drive to one day set up their own businesses and not just start climbing the ladder at a big-name MNC. So yep, to this Claire Au person and all the other entrepreneurs who have graduated from SMU, well done, and all the best. Honestly.

But I think the really questionable thing the marketing department of SMU has done here is putting the name of our school next to a picture of a lady offering the cameraman a bowl of what is allegedly fish soup (albeit a very well-dressed and attractive lady). We know that the economy is bad, and everyone who’s applying to university is weighing how marketable each university can make him or her. All this while SMU has been running the line that SMU graduates are on average more marketable than most Singaporean graduates, i.e. 100% find a job within 6 months of graduation, SMU Economics students are on average the highest paid among whoever, etc. My question to the school marketing department is – why suddenly change tack and emphasize entrepreneurship? And even if entrepreneurship is to be emphasized, why fish soup? Different, for sure, but what kind of impression is it going to give someone who has just left JC/Poly and is looking for somewhere to invest his/her next four years and $30,000+ in?

So in a spirit of candor, I present my take on this ad.



(I'm sorry if I've offended anyone, don't take it personally, I just have it in me to criticize marketing materials)

Most people who talk about my time management with me usually don’t expect that I spend a lot of time studying – they think that I make most of it up on the spot, and put it down to intelligence. But the fact of the matter is that I do spend lots of time studying, just that I study at times that others don’t, so that when the rubber meets the road in the weeks just before an exam or test I appear relatively relaxed and carefree. For example, it’s been a long-time strategy of mine to acquire textbooks for the courses I'm taking in the upcoming term long before the term proper actually starts, and then try to read as much of the assigned chapters as possible. That way, when the term starts, I’ve already got most of the material covered, and if I haven’t, I’m at least in good stead to ensure that I keep up with my readings for the entire term, i.e. go into lessons having actually read the relevant textbook chapters. So that aids class participation, and contributes to my general enjoyment of the class. Nothing mystical, really. And I haven’t been doing this just in SMU – I do remember reading an Economics textbook after my ‘O’ Levels, in preparation for the inevitable plunge into Hwa Chong Humanities, and I ended up really loving Economics.

The upshot of this behavior is that my whole life, I’ve been studying during what most people regard as school holidays, and even more intensively during term, so consequently I’ve missed out on a lot of games/shows that I told myself I must play/watch. Thankfully, because I’ve got a lot of relatives and friends with these games/shows (and the Internet, if these relatives and friends prove insufficient) who are willing to loan them to me / copy them for me, I end up always having a little stockpile of games/shows to watch. So this holiday, given that I’m not interning but doing summer term instead, which is more than manageable, given that the workload is much less than during regular term, I’ve been catching up all of the above that I told myself I would. So in this holiday alone I’ve finally finished watching the last of the 15 seasons of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis (which I started watching in Term 2 of last year), as well as Heroes Season 3. I’ve also finished playing Homeworld 2, the Black Knight Expansion of Mechwarrior 4 and C&C Renegade, the last of which I just finished last night. I never knew such old games could still be so much fun after so many years! While the world is going off and on about new games like Halo 3 and Fallout whatever here I am playing games I should have gotten over with in my primary school years. Yet here I am, living up the good old days and in awe of seeing C&C in 3D. And finding it quite tough. Here’s a screenshot of the final cutscene from C&C Renegade to prove that I did indeed finish it. Haha. I can imagine myself coming back here in a few years and laughing at myself.



Dance, dance, dance. Hm. Oh right, we just had dance camp not long ago. I took some pictures which I haven’t gone through till now. Well, up on Facebook and this blog they go. Hope you enjoy looking through them! Dance camp was crazy. Didn’t stay over of course, would probably have fallen sick the next day. The very thought of staying in school overnight just sickens me. Ugh. Anyway, it was wicked fun. Really tired out by it; ended up going back to school for the 2nd day of camp only at 11am. But that was mainly because those workshops which I attended were really fun. Thanks to juniors too for organizing the fun-fun stuff.

                                                           

Angie and I have a short dance performance for HPB coming up this Saturday. I really hope we get time to practice and the stage is good and we look pro on that day. And that it ends quickly so I can rush back to town and watch movie with Sharon. At her recommendation, we’re gonna watch a – gasp – Chinese-language film called 18 Grams of Love. At least it’s local. Watched the trailer, should be good.



On with my life. I guess I should be reading something for my Game Theory now. Interesting but gosh I do wish it was more challenging. Knew it would be easy but didn’t know it would be this easy.

Woke up this morning only to realize that actually I was supposed to be in church this morning to manage my boys to provide refreshments for Kaleo too. Prayed that God would help to sort it out and then went back to sleep. All I wanted was a big steaming bowl of some soup noodle, so I headed out to Bedok Central to get a bowl of my favourite Qiu Lian Ban Mee. Keeps you very warm, queue is very long. Well not really nowadays – it’s become so mainstream that there is usually no queue; at least at the Bedok outlets.

Spent the whole day working on my AE project writeup and watching stockpiled videos. Nice to be able to spend the whole day doing my own thing. But I just realized how much is to be covered for my AE quiz tomorrow, and I freaked out a little bit because I remember being quite lost last lesson. I guess I better stop blogging and go and study now.

Sometimes I really wonder why I push myself so hard to do the things that I do. It’s not easy staying ahead of the curve and bring myself to the brink each and every time I come to Week 12/13 of a term, or lead up to a Caderas event. Been so busy that I haven’t had time to update my blog since the last triumphant entry back in early February, after Bailamos was over.

If you’re a friend of mine, I suppose you’d like to know how things are between Sharon and I. I think it’s a great blessing that she works near my school – her workplace is literally less than 5 mins walk away from SOB! It’s awesome to be able to pop out of school in the middle of the day after my lessons and be with her for a quick lunch before heading back for whatever I head back for. This convenience probably won’t last forever, but as long as it does, I will appreciate it. It’s a real comfort to have her near me and communicating with her so often, very refreshing…

Because I know she reads this from time to time, I must say this – that Sharon is a very loving and understanding girlfriend (to me) and despite my crazy life she is willing to make sacrifices with regard to her schedule in order to be with me. Also when I can't be with her because of my busyness she understands. Another great thing is that she works while I study, so she’s more open to paying for herself when we go out – I know that the guy is supposed to pay more often than not, but nevertheless I appreciate the fact that she does make an effort to bear the financial cost of dates with me. Something to be said about dating someone older than you…

Well now she’s in Melbourne for holiday with her friends, giving me one precious week to catch up on my work. And I’ve promptly fallen sick with the flu – I write this amid severe cough and loss of voice and the irritating hiccups that seem to accompany my flu every time I catch it. Sickness is a good reminder that I’ve been pushing myself too hard to satisfy everyone else and not taking enough time for myself.

Argh there’s so many things I want to do. Apart from spending more time with Sharon, the unquenchable thirst for knowledge inside me yearns to spend more time with my books too, to get the most out of them before locking them in my bookcase to collect dust after Week 15 of each term. I’m taking so many interesting subjects, but this year I couldn’t find the time to plot through the out-of-syllabus topics to squeeze everything out of the brand-new textbooks that I buy every term. It’s anyone’s guess whether I will have time this summer break to do so – in between taking two summer terms and church activities, I doubt that I will have time to read through my old material and prepare for my third year too. Time moves so fast when one has meaningful things to do.

And to spend more time writing on my blog. The reflective property of my blog has been woefully underused in recent months. Did I really manage 21 blog entries in February 2007? I need to spend more time writing here, about specific issues in specific entries, so as to better focus my thoughts and plan for the future.

And while we’re at it, the foremost topic on my mind right now is academics. Doing a double degree and triple major is not easy (Economics, Operations Management and Business Statistics), but I’ve rushed quite well this first two years and when my third year starts, I would have finished 23 modules and would only have 14 more to go. A tantalizing prospect, by any measure. But once space opens up in my schedule I have the overwhelming desire to fill it up with stuff I think is meaningful. Out of the 20 more modules I can take comfortably, I want to do two Communications modules, an Environmental Economics module and a Poverty and Underdevelopment module – bringing the total up to 18. And then I’m tempted to spend a year on a senior thesis (which allegedly allows me to graduate “with honours”, which would bring the workload right up to the maximum of 20. The only consolation I have is that Caderas will never take up this much time again as it has this year – but that’ll probably be offset by the extra time that I will be devoting to Sharon and church stuff. Meanwhile my family life continues to be underwhelming and neglected.

Another thing I want to do this summer is PLAY GTA IV!!! It’s been sitting on my shelf for months now – I bought it on the day it came out and haven’t had a chance to install it and play it any yet. Utterly depressing. The fourth installment of my favourite game in the entire world and I don’t have the time to even touch it. So pressed.

Start on Econometrics report now, sleep soon. No church for me tomorrow, a rare occurrence indeed. Rest.

At long last, the scourge of my life for the last 20 weeks, Bailamos Para Siempre, is concluded! I couldn’t be happier, that at least this one source of misery in my life is quelled at last. In the event, quite a few of my church friends came round to watch me dance, and I’m thankful for them doing so! Your support means a lot to me, especially in that very dark and stressful time for me.

Before I go on with griping about that, let me get some good news out of the way first – I have a girlfriend! At last! Sharon is a nice girl from my church who I’ve known for about 4 years, so I didn’t go in cold. Because we got the opportunity to interact extensively during our preparation for Krazy Love, I found that she was many of the things that I was looking for in a life partner – conscientious, compassionate, and most importantly, willing and able to put up with the vast amounts of crap that my highly creative mind puts out every day. Bad as that may sound, I think that that’s really very important – I don’t need someone who can move mountains and change the world, I just need someone who will comfort me when I need her, and who responds to me affections and efforts, as she does. It’s been almost 2 months since we got together, and it’s been an awesome time so far.



Naturally, she came to watch me dance at Bailamos, which was a day that never seemed to end for me – I woke up at 7:30am and slept at 1:30pm the following day! As I mentioned before, this whole process has been one filled with frustration – and event day was no different. For some reason, the task of constructing the stage backdrop fell to me – and I had to go the distance to procure the antique props from Mediacorp production resource (a pretty awesome place with lots of cool stuff), as well as go back to Hwa Chong to beg Mr Perry, my teacher in the Humanities programme, to loan me the huge wooden flats so that I could put them up as a temporary wall in Zouk. And then I had to transport furniture from my own home down to Zouk. And of course return everything after that. If not for the teamwork between myself, Edwin and Jeremy, as well as help from solid guys like Clement, Wellington and Pei Hua, I wouldn’t have been able to do it; would have collapsed a long time ago. In the event you read this, thanks guys,

At some point in the afternoon, in the midst of the final runs/rehearsals which I had to be part of as well, someone decided to saddle me with creating the video for laying on the LCD screens around Zouk. Of course, it was a tremendous task to create the video there and then in Zouk – I had to run off my rapidly fading battery and render it to spec before I ran out of juice. In the course of doing so, I renewed my burning hatred of Macs and cantankerously threw a chair to the ground. So frustrating, you would not believe. I wish everyone who thinks Macs are cool would just go hang themselves. You wanna buy a Mac and be different, fine. Just stay far, far away from me and don’t even think about doing any work with me whatsoever. I mean, for all their purported elegance, MOV files are larger than MPG files. What’s the point? And they’re not compatible with just about everything else. I am so pissed with Mac users who bother me. One day when I am rich I will buy a Mac and just smash it for kicks.

It’s Week 5 of school, and today is Patron’s Day, which is kind of like the anniversary of SMU. And apparently it’s also the day that awards get given out to individuals who contribute to student life, and Caderas is getting one because of our outstanding contributions. What contributions, I ask. I don’t see the point behind it all, and it just pisses me off – the main significance of this award to me is that I’ve been saddled to perform this afternoon – that’s another 4 hours of my life gone. I can't take much more of this – at some point I will just snap and quit all of Caderas, if this keeps up. I swear. So pissed right now with the unrelenting way it’s eating up my life. My academics, family life and spiritual life are all suffering, because the fact is that there are people slacking and doing half-past six work and the rest of us who believe in Caderas have to cover for them. So what if everyone looks good – I want the errant people to be embarrassed. Along with the Macs.

I realize I didn’t talk much about Sharon. She’s the one bright spark in my life over the last few months, the one area of my life where things have gotten dramatically better. (I suppose my academics are another bright spot – my GPA went up by 0.01 last semester!) She’s been understanding and supportive all this time, and above all she appreciates the time and effort I spend on her – unlike the ungrateful entity that is Caderas. It’s a great club, no doubt, but it’s just sucking more and more out of me without any concern of my limitations. It’s shown me the ugly side of working with people, and from now on I will be ultra-careful when deciding to work with people, whether for projects or in the actual working environment. Shoot I digressed again.

For the last 18 weeks of my life I’ve been working on coming up with marketing plans and materials for Caderas Latinas’ main annual event – Bailamos Para Siempre, Spanish for “We Dance Forever”, an event that’s taken a lot of out me in terms of personal time, energy, ideas and resources. But on balance I think I’ve learnt a lot about dance and event management and marketing work and a host of other things, so it hasn’t been a total waste of time.







Briefly, this event is, like last year’s, a gathering of Latin dancers from the 4 universities and RP for a night of performances and social dancing at Zouk. Questionable that I’m touting such an event, given where I’m coming from, but I know the event enough to know what it is (a celebration of dance, a quasi-dance production, a Latin social dancing night) and what it isn’t (a night of drunken revelry, flesh fest).

So the details are as follows:

Thu 22nd Jan 09
7:30pm till late
Zouk
Tickets $18 available at bailamos.sg

Angeline has been wonderful in doing up the beautiful event website. One of the things I’ve learnt about this event is the wonderful talents that people bring to the fore and contribute to the event when they have the right motivation and attitude. Shu Hua has also been a solid rock all through this time – a quiet Year 1 girl who has been 100% reliable and conscientious with regards to every task I give her. Thank God for these people.

Everything in this experience, from theme determination to logo design, from poster artwork to photoshoot, has been a multi-faceted challenge both creatively and practically. I struggle to even remember the start of this process and I know I’ll have oodles of trouble when I attempt to write all of my collected experiences down on in a coherent format for my Marketing successor.

I’ve also experienced a fair bit of frustration and regret as I find myself meeting obstacles, especially with the huge number of people and organizations that I have to work with. Without going into too much detail or naming anyone in particular, I’ve witnessed first-hand how lazy and unreasonable and tardy people can be, and how selfish people can be when defending what they regard as their personal interests and seeking to maximize their own happiness. If anything, it’s given me an idea of what to look for when figuring out a place to settle down to work – the people one works with are of utmost importance.

Well in about another 10 days all of this will be over – and however the event goes down, I will walk away knowing that I put 100% of myself into this event. I’ve made more than my fair share of sacrifices and bled my inspiration dry for this event, and many times it still wasn’t enough for some people. There were plenty of junctures that I could have given up and walked away and feel justified, but God was merciful – he sustained me and prevented me from doing anything rash in my moments of anger.

In any case, this will be a great event – not the best out there, but certainly enough for you to sit up and take notice (and of course come for the event). So if you’re reading this and you’re above 18 and consider yourself still young and cool enough to come to a club and watch Joel and lots of other sexy people dance, do let me know!

2nd blog post this term – it’s been so long since I’ve had the time and the presence of mind to sit down and collect my thoughts and write in long-winded prose. This entire term has been a blast from start to finish – ever since I’ve tied my life to Caderas – now I just feel like there's nothing I wanna do more but tear myself away from it. I guess it’s probably a little bit like how marriages work out – all rosy and peachy and start but then the full scale of reality creeps in day after miserable day and eventually you just find yourself wanting a break from each other but then being wholly unable to.

One of the things that was stopping me from ever getting down to writing this blog entry for the last 12 weeks was that so much has been happening for me, every time I sat down to write I found that I didn’t know where to start, and certainly didn’t have the energy to start from the beginning. You know me, just long-winded and comprehensive and never really want to leave any little detail out of anything I write. But I guess there’s no elegant way to do this, so I’ll just break it up into a few posts – eventually I’ll catch up with the present, much like the way my Economist reading is coming along these days (I’m stuck in the week of November 11th! Obama hasn’t won yet!)

After Vivace, it was a mad rush to organize Caderas101, the running of which left much to be desired, I'm sure. First of all, thanks to Stageit’s occupation of the ACC for their production, we were forced to hold our annual intro and info session in the CCA room, which is about half the size of the ACC. Very annoying, and we were forced to limit the number of signups. This led to a smaller than usual number of people actually coming because we did not anticipate such a large percentage of no-shows. Other than the fact that it was really cramped at times we all had quite a lot of fun – but the guys shortage really began to show itself here.



From then on it was a big snowball all the way down through Auditions and the planning for Bailamos Para Siempre – I’ve done so many wonderful things for Caderas over the past term, mainly in terms of artwork for mailers, and I think I’ve really learnt a lot about Photoshop and design work, though apparently not enough. Here’s a dump of the artwork that I've done for Caderas from Vivace till now.

                           

Academics have been fairly light, given the fact that I elected to do only 4.5 mods this term. Nevertheless there were a couple of times I came close to destruction, such as during my CAT exam (haven’t felt that way since I’ve taken a Chinese exam) and the submission of my Marketing paper just last week. At times I wondered why I was burning myself out for Caderas when my studies, church responsibilities, family life and most importantly LOVE LIFE were suffering. Looking back, knowing what I know now, I would probably have decided not to run for Caderas Exco – it’s been rewarding, but I’ve honestly had to give up more than I thought I would in order to do the job. And even then the job isn’t even close to being over.

But at least the end of term is within sight – I’ve just finished the last of my presentations and project submissions, which partly explains why I have the time to sit down and pour out my feelings on this blog. And upload images – that can really be so therapeutic at times. It’s nice to see one’s content all published neatly on the web after you’ve worked hard on it.

What is Bailamos Para Siempre? I’ll dedicate a blog post about it soon – it’s a whole new ball game this year, so many moving parts I feel like shooting myself and everyone else at the same time.

That’ s in January next year – till then I have to drive the Krazy Love event, which is happening in church in less than a month’s time, and I’ve barely done anything to prepare for. I’m just pushing people and events in a haphazard way and hoping and praying that it all coalesces neatly at some point in the future, in time for the event to take place. It’s rather worrying right now, but I do get a very strong feeling that everything will be alright in the end. This is the life that I asked for myself when I signed up for so many things this term – all these things must have seemed part of a natural progression given where I was coming from and where I intend to go, but now that I'm in the thick of it I feel as if I had made a really bad decision back then.

That’s it for this post.

Been a long time (again) since I blogged. I’ve just been through what I think will be the most busy and stressful week this entire term. And of course, the two weeks before that have been pretty hectic too. I see that the last time I blogged was about 3 weeks ago – that’s about right, I think… the work got really serious not long after my last post. Anyhow, I’m here on the other side of the fence, feeling rather strange. I’ll get to that later – time for a slew of all the artwork that I’ve produced for the recently concluded Vivace, otherwise known as the CCA Day of SMU!

These first three are simply posters that tell people that Caderas Latinas is very zhai3 and we will be performing at “The Dance Floor”, which is explained by the fourth poster… 

 

And this poster announces “The Dance Floor”, the activity area that SA allocated us, which I played a big role in. I was chiefly responsible for liaising between the different groups and getting a programme organized so that events on the dance floor would run smoothly. I took the shot myself and put all the elements together. I’m pretty proud of this one.



In the event, everything went more or less… ROYALLY!!! People were dancing more often than not, at least perceptibly, and our classes got filled up to a decent extent (with the exception of Beginners’ Rumba class, but that class would be awkward if it were too big anyway). I feel that I did my job pretty well. Posters and displays were all ok, and my TV played the performance videos, like it was meant to, and didn’t break. We talked to many freshies and danced so much! Towards the end it was complete mayhem as Samba Masala came into the picture, completely impromptu-ly, and we danced the fastest Samba dance I’ve ever danced in my life. Ended up as a Shines workshop led by Douglas. Samba Masala kept at it for the E-mixers to come on and strut their stuff, and it couldn’t have made for a better finale.



I met up with her again for dinner and conversation. And I’ve been depressed the whole day after, and I can’t explain why. In the same way that I can’t explain why I like her so much. So depressed and tired that I just walked straight out of training today after 1.5h and sat/slept on a bench elsewhere in school until training was over. The thing is that after all this time (and so few dates), I still don't sense any hint of a spark between us, any one little thing that tells me that I’m getting somewhere. It really gets me down, and I don't know why. People are mystified as to why I feel this way – it’s not like she’s rejected me outright or anything dramatic like that. But I’m so scared of erring either way that I've been frozen into inaction, and that really kills me. And at the same time I have so much feeling and there’s so much chemistry between me and someone else, and I'm seriously considering why I made that stupid vow a year ago that I'm thoroughly regretting now, justifiably or no. They’re both great girls, and I'm wondering why I feel so miserable – and that just gets me down even more. The cycle of depression is a very deadly thing.

So now I’m waiting on the Lord, asking what I should do next. I feel really lonely and longing inside for someone to belong to and for someone to belong to me, and meanwhile the only girl whom I think is really worth my time now is completely (as far as my own eyes can see) failing to respond to me. Drive me nuts it does.

Another day to be spent at home… mostly. It’s worth remarking these days because I spend so little time at home nowadays. In addition to regular Latin and Salsa trainings four times a week, our fantastic VPs have added on extra trainings to that number, bringing the total up to about six a week. Plus numerous and interminably inefficient rehearsals for our 1 minute of choreography during Convocation – which admittedly is coming up in 2 weeks time so it’s a little pressing, I guess. Oh and don't forget about the various Exco meetings we’re having – not just our own regular Caderas Exco meetings, but also Bailamos Orgcomm meetings and tomorrow’s meeting with the 4th Exco (we’re the 5th Exco; the 4th Exco is comprised of our seniors, and we have to meet them during an audit type meeting to present to them our plans for the year).

At least I’m getting something back. Last Saturday we took part in the Merlion International Dancesport Competition, and although only 5 couples from SMU Caderas Latinas went down and we didn’t win much (compared to last time at Stardust), Angeline and I still managed to get 2nd for Cha Cha. At least we came away with something – we honestly didn’t put in as much time and effort into this competition as we did for the last competition, so I guess there’s really nothing to feel sorry about. And the atmosphere was somehow lacking – we were a lot less hyped up, so I guess the circumstances were not conducive to us putting up our best performance.



< On Sunday I had a moment during Kaleo to do a little stock-take of my life as it is now, and I think I’m sorely lacking in many areas. Dance is sapping up so much of my time and resources, when there’s a million other worthwhile things that I know I should be paying attention to as well. Pushed myself so hard last week that I fell sick with a throat infection shortly after my wisdom tooth extraction, and I totally lost my voice, thus necessitating the cancellation of B-group with my boys on Friday. Kind of feel bad about that – it was sort of within my control and I let things get out of hand.

Neglected commitments in church don't stop there – I haven’t played for worship since before church camp in June, and the calluses on my fingers are almost completely gone. The acoustic bass guitar which I bought from LA, with which I was supposed to form my own little band and take SMU by storm, is sitting in one corner of my room collecting dust. Admittedly I will be playing for worship this coming Sunday, but I’m definitely not in the groove.

On that too – my goodness. Because this Saturday is National Day, people want to spend time with their families in the evening – so the rehearsal has to be either in the morning or afternoon. I have Salsa training at 11am and Spanish class in the afternoon, so that means that the worship rehearsal has been pushed to 9AM, on my account. Very awkward, but it really benefits me a lot, so I guess I can’t complain, and there's more trouble to be incurred if I ask to change the timing again. No harm coming clean about it though….

And of course, I’ve stopped going for Missions Committee meetings, after realizing that I was next to useless in that environment, and had no time to put in the effort to do some useful things. Didn’t even manage to find the time to attend the GoForth conference, which most of the MDeez attended. A little embarrassing to talk so much and then be able to do so little. But I honestly feel it was a little premature to just plunge into missions like that – there’s lots of other things, ministry-wise, that I have to do and learn before I can be useful in missions, I think. Oliver is nice about it – a missions trip for my personal exposure is still on the cards, should I choose to accept it.

Kaleo stuff is stepping up too – Pastor Andrew has just asked me to lead the youth rally that will take place in church at the end of the year, around 30 Nov, just after my Term 1 exams conclude. I have no idea what I’m getting myself into – the only thing that made me say yes is the fact that Woodlands youth will be running most of the music during the event, so I want to be in a good position to help tie things together. I pray that I’ll find the time and resources to run this together with my studies and dance stuff.

One thing going good for me is my grades – my GPA went up again after my EDA class this summer. Which means that I can get B- for every single course I take this year and still keep my scholarship and double degree. Which is comforting. Praise God. So I think I can afford to neglect my studies a bit – though in the event, I doubt I will.

But – and it gets me down every time I think about it – I’ve gone out with her three times already and now she doesn’t seem to have the time to see me anymore. I'm not even sure what I'm trying to achieve with her – don't even know what draws me to her in the first place. I don't know whether I'm thinking too much, trying to reach too far to find the perfect one when really there’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to matters of the heart. All relationships are based on mutual attraction anyway, and if that’s not happening why bother? (Haha interesting… just discovered that someone made an anonymous comment on one of my previous entries asking me to go for someone else… and calling me a fool. Maybe I should?) And besides, after all I’ve detailed above, do I really have the time for GF101 this sem? Sorrowful exhalation.

Lunch with my Economist magazine. It’s hard to stay ahead.

It’s a really exciting time for me – I’ve just finished my EDA module in Term 3B, and I have a really good feeling about it. Now that that’s done I can start preparing for my next term, and of course turn my attention to dancing and doing Exco stuff for Caderas…

Well let’s catch up on things first. Here’s my latest mailer that’s gone out – announcing the team’s winnings at the recent Stardust Dance Sport competition. A real blast, it was. The mailer was fun to do also.



A couple of weeks later I sang as part of this good, clean, all-Christian band called Staircase 4, during a charity event organized by NUS Scholar’s Programme. Quite fun – we performed songs like Smooth by Santana, Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day and Always Be My Baby – the David Cook version. Broke my high note during that last song, but it was OK because people still thought we were really good. None of my friends came, but my family and grandma came to check me out. So relieved that it’s over – I’ve spent the last few days pigging out on fried stuff and desserts. Had to discipline myself for two weeks beforehand to stay away from foods that would give me sore throat – but it’s all good now.





Let’s see – for now I’m preparing for a few things – we’ve got to work on competition choreos for the Merlion Dance Sport competition next Saturday, so this week will be mainly time spent with Angeline, hopefully. Latin team is also working towards a 60-second performance as part of the main show for Convocation, which is the day that we showcase all the CCAs to the incoming freshmen at a large-scale event at Suntec City Ballroom. About 2000 people expected – all things considered, this should be the largest audience I’ve ever performed in front of. A little desensitized to it all by now though. Salsa team is training for Vivace, which is our school’s CCA day, held on school premises. We’ll have one slot during the main programme on the main stage at the T-junction, and the choreo is actually quite fun!

But even more exciting is that I’ve managed to kick off the idea of working with the other 3 dance clubs in SMU to undertake a combined marketing effort for CCA day. The organizing committee for CCA day (i.e. Students’ Association) has very kindly given us a dance floor to share, and it’s right in front of the BE booth (just how I like it really) and if we can get our act together in the next couple of weeks I think that we’d have a great programme to run during the event. We get to think of a brand new para-club marketing theme and campaign and events to boot. Radical!

 
The original

 
My creation...