DBS Marina Regatta 2015

6.6.2015

Ever since work started, I haven't been waking up late and also haven't been having time to write my novel (I started on a bit and kinda promised myself that I should finish book 1 by the end of this internship/part time period, guess that's not really gonna work out). On top of that, we decided to take part in this competition organised by DBS. Talking about this kinda irritates me but then I can't complain too much la since I am not really that experienced as a dancer.

There were too many last minute or little time stuff for this competition. First, the organiser let us know about this competition only about 2-3 weeks before the thing itself. Next, we only know about the 360 degree stage 3 days before the competition, and that was because we asked. And, we were only given a week time (for DD we technically only had 2-3 days to prac because Mel could only come down on Wed night) to practice for the second day because they suddenly decided to increase the duration of the items. So, for 2 whole freaking weeks we had been practicing every single day. It's no joke it's too damn shagged despite all my talk about how I used to train everyday for badminton last time. I really feel like taking time off dancing for at least a week (but that's not gonna happen of course).

Did not so good on the first day but today I guess we did surprisingly better! Even though there are still a lot of things that we need to take note of such as throwing our hands and maintaining energy throughout the piece etc. but I believed that we really did quite a good job! Yay! We emerged as 2nd runner-up! Oooolahlah!!

To see the video, click here!

photo with the SEA Games Mascot Nila!

DD cheer before the start of our item!

Wong Chong pose after prize presentation

Wefie! look at the trophy that I was holding!

Photo with Blood Moon - the champion of this competition!

Thank you my 12S06H clique for coming down to support! :)

This is the first dance competition that DDz took part in. Even though it was just a small competition, it was definitely a big step into the dance scene for DDz.

Anyway, now the competition ended and I finally had to spend more time on work. Kinda missed last two weeks when I knocked off everyday at 4pm but if I continue doing that I won't be able to earn enough money to return my sis and for my Jap trip. Suck thumb lor.

二十二歳の誕生日

19.5.2015

Both digits of my age point to 2, but I am still a single man hahaha. Surprisingly I had a rather peaceful birthday and I loved it! Without too many people wishing me for the sake of wishing me, but receiving well wishes from those who bothered to remember. Even though it was nothing interesting, but it was still a great day!

Woke up slightly early than needed to visit 博多一幸舎@CHIJMES for member's birthday free ramen and side dish. Somehow it didn't taste as nice as the last time I went there with Adi, Jack and Evelyn, but still the peaceful lunch was just awesome! :3

黒豚骨＠博多一幸舎

After that I went to work. Today was a special day so I told my boss that I could only work for a short day. Short being short, to me it still felt like a millennium. Somehow the time passed really really slow while I was working. Everytime I checked the time, only 2 minutes or so passed. It was one hell of a torture at that point in time sigh. It would be really good if good times pass as slowly as well! Then as usual, had a bowl of free ramen before I knocked off at 1730.

Meeting my sis after that for dinner. Had a small bowl of Penang laksa at some Penang restaurant @ Aljunied plus a two bowls of rice WITH a huge plate of cereal prawns! HAHA I wondered how could I have eaten so much! By the time I was finally done, I felt so bloated.

Guess what's next? Dessert time! We went to Paya Lebar Square for froyo @glacier frozen yogurt cafe. It was quite nice but the yogurt melted too fast. It would be better if it didn't melt so fast. Well still enjoyed the good food :d :3 And by the time I was done with the froyo too, I really felt like vomiting already hahaahha too much good food in my stomach my stomach was complaining.

yum :d :3 @glacierfrozenyogurtcafe

That went my peaceful 22nd birthday! :D

一風堂でバイトの初日

11.5.15

People have started their internship and I have finally started my part time @Ippudo (Mandarin Gallery). Depending on the schedule given and how much I can earn from this part time, I might have to look for other jobs as well! T^T

Anyway, first day was to train me in familiarising myself with the culture at Ippudo (especially it is a Japanese restaurant). When we see each other greet each other おはようございます, to me it means "good morning" but to them it seems like a greeting in general. As long as you come for work, you greet everybody. Then passing through certain area, shout out 通ります so that people know that you are passing by, reducing the risk of crashing into each other. Asking people for help, say __________ お願いします (actually a lot of things also say that, so in doubt, say that and reply はいよ). Bringing side dish/drinks from the back, while walking past the ramen counter, shout out "Table xx drinks/side ok!". When you are logging out, greet each other again お疲れ様です, thanking everybody for their hard work. Haha, my tongue got tied up quite often and I am gonna be shouting in a language that I am not so comfortable with zzz. Well will sooner or later get used to it. Actually it was quite fun.

Being a waiter also need a lot of knowledge in handling stuff, like how to stack the bowls together, how to clean the table, how to arrange the utensils, how to make drinks etc etc. And more importantly, SMILEEEEEE! Haha being a waiter isn't really as easy as what I thought.

Hope I will have fun at work! :)

SUTD Official Opening Ceremony

8.5.2015

Today was SUTD East Coast Campus Official Opening Ceremony! (If the school was just officially opened, what were we doing for the past one term?) And for this ceremony, the school's dance clubs were asked to perform for the opening ceremony (opening ceremony of the official opening ceremony hur hur hur). This is the first collaboration between all the dance clubs in SUTD where all dance clubs come together to perform one item. It was great! Have to thank Mel for making the transitions between clubs and also the finale of the item which involved all dance clubs.

DDz danced to this song that is quite popular recently - Uptown Funk, and I really had a hard time cleaning the item. Being new to the role, I really didn't know how should I start cleaning at first, but then slowly I seemed to get used to it. Like Hui Shan said, I seemed to get more and more comfortable to be a dance captain! Mmm, not entirely, but getting there. Because of the responsibility that I have and the worry of not being able to match Edward's pro-ness in cleaning, I kinda had a few sleepless night, thinking of how I should go about cleaning the item given that there wasn't much time we had till the performance. There was especially one part (pre-chorus) that was really hard to clean because the steps were so fast. End up a few days before the performance I had to clean them HALF beat by half beat. "Let's do 1 and 2 ... ok not bad now let's do 1 and 2 and ..." And have to make them repeat a few times of the same steps. Oh well .. But I was glad that the cleaning was effective :)

All dance clubs ready for performance!

To see the video, click here. Sequence of performance: DDz, Indian Dance, Ballroom, Contemp, Livfesync, Finale (all dance clubs).

Guess who visited our school?

JACKIE CHAN!!!!

Haha ok la I'm not very into this kind of thing so didn't really go near. I can't even if I want to anyway.

Tough week over! Holidays start! :D [or part time starts :(]

第五學期——終了

2.5.15

一整個學期，部落格一點都沒更新，就連原本想要每個月寫一篇的散文也繼續不下去。第一是因爲沒有題材，第二是因爲這個學期真的是他媽的太忙了！雖然跟建築學的同學相比之下還差得遠，但也有好幾天從早到晚再到早忙著趕projects！雖然一方面覺得小有成就感，但另一方面絕不想再有這麽忙的學期。因爲後遺症就是在最後一個考試過後特別閑，直到真的不知要做些甚麽的地步。

説真的，這個學期可説是我在新科大裏最糟糕、最落魄、最不順心的一個學期（也可以説是自從農曆新年過後吧）。嚴重程度可説是達到（對我來説）空前的地步，讓我不禁爲自己的將來操心。雖然不至於淪落成憂鬱，但好像也快到門檻了。從農曆新年到現在，發生了好多好多事（糟糕事）：跟一個女同學走在一起不到一個月就自主分手了（對此倍感内疚，看來我對這種事還是不夠心理準備。或許就如別人所説的，我沒去努力嘗試，但我真的沒找到我要的那種感覺）；當上了DD的dance captain，結果第一堂課就被掛了（沒辦法，我完全沒有音樂背景，大學還是我第一次正式學跳舞。。。好心想幫忙，結果好心沒好報，被別人當成態度惡劣zzzzz）；申請internship，一個都沒被錄取（第一輪，自己拒絕了一個，其他兩個拒絕了我——其中一個還真給了我希望，然後把它滅掉zzzzz原本說可能會錄取我和另一位同學的，結果一個星期後衹有他被錄取了，我被抛棄了:'(；接下來的第二輪，衹申請了一個，完全石沉大海沒回復，sianzzzz怕是自己太挑剔了；第三輪，沒興趣）；期間還傷了腰、傷了腿（腰好了，腿好像好不了了，到現在都不能跑了哭），還衰到同一天相隔三小時造訪同一家診所……真想問一下今年屬鷄的是否犯太嵗zzzzz

唯一一件還算是值得高興的，是自己的coding爲自己的組拿到了Systems和30.007 2D - line following robot racing的第一名。code是自己寫的，完全沒用到PID之類的東西（當時還不瞭解PID是啥鬼東西，自己還因爲沒用到學到的東西而擔心了一下下），結果robot出奇地穩定，還在比賽當天陰差陽錯地拿了第一，贏得了F1的入場券！（話説回來，到現在我們組還沒拿到門票嘞zzzzz）自己爲自己運氣高興了一個半天。

説到沒拿到internship，我決定去臨時打工了。因爲九月初要跟同學去日本，同學連機票都幫我付了，現在想説“不”都不行，必須打工賺去旅行的錢。有時候，臨時打工會比internship賺更多錢。希望我不會衰到連打工的機會都沒有zzzzz。

好吧，這個學期衰是衰到了底，但學期還是以一些較溫馨的事作爲結束:)。之前不是説考完了試太閑嗎？那天建築學的同學還在趕他們最後的project，要用一些木料做出實際的結構來。由於實在是需要很多人力來把結構做出來，所以我們這些考完試了的人就自然而然地被叫去幫忙了。爲甚麽我説時間溫馨的事呢？因爲我們雖然來自不同的pillars，但朋友有需要的時候，我們都一起去幫他們，不分你我、不分pillars，結果看起來就像是個junior capstone一樣，讓不同pillars的人——因爲學習的東西不同而有可能以後都不會有交集的人——相聚在一起。有人説已經想要去建築學的人，爲甚麽還要浪費一年的時間去學foundation，反正以後都不會用到啊！我不是建築學的所以我不懂是否一點用處都沒有，但我覺得即使學的東西沒有用，還是得到了一些更珍貴的東西啊！就是因爲foundation year，我們才會認識不同pillars的人，把可能沒有關係的人連接在一起，使新科大成爲“一個學校”，而不是“四個專科”。我認爲這種態度才是新科大特有的、應有的文化。#onlyinsutd

Photo taken from Cheuk Yee's Facebook

Photo taken from Lawrence's Instagram

Dance Dance Dance Away

Thought it would be rather free when school just started. But guess what? NO! Every week was packed with practices, performances, practices, performances, and then dance camp. Really shagged out max! Ok Not saying that I wasn't enjoying it :)

First event after that one month break (the last Friday before school started to be exact), we had our very own Night Fest to celebrate the move of SUTD from Dover to Expo. Over there, we had our first performance of the year! Spent really weeks and weeks of practice and cleaning before the event, and it was quite a tough job because it was holidays and everybody wanted to go overseas. But we managed to put off a good performance! Fu said that while she was taking the video for us she overheard somebody from the audience saying that finally there is one performance that was worth watching! WOOHOO! Great job ppl! During that period of time leading up to the performance, I really got quite a lot of it. Firstly would be getting to know all the freshies! Well, what would DDz family become without knowing all the new blood? Quite a number of weird funny retarded ppl in the freshies (actually the whole DDz family is weird and funny and retarded, otherwise where the fun is?). Then would be slowly taking over the job of Colgate - cleaning the performance pieces. Tell you it's no joke to clean the items! My energy was drained much much faster as compared to when I wasn't cleaning x_x

Right after the Night Fest performance, we had an external gig (thanks to Mel) at Chinatown on the next Saturday, it was for something like an opening to the Chinese New Year period. So other than reusing 3 out of the 4 items from the Night Fest, we also included a Dong Dong Qiang song HAHA! (CNY song la basically) And because of that we had to learn a new choreo in a week! Remember there was this one day where we had prac from 11pm to 1am x_x Anyway, the dance gig was our club's first exposure to the public. Hope there are many more to come!

The dance gig was during the first weekend of school, and next up during the second weekend of school was our very own SUTD DDz dance camp! It was really quite fun even though as part of the organising committee I didn't really take part in most of the games. But was really glad that it was quite successful (achieving all the objectives that the camp was supposed to achieve). Guess the dancers across batches got to know each other a lot better (although most of us already knew each other from the performances, because those who were not in the performance didn't really turn up for the camp except for a few). We also managed to bring in 4 external instructors: Ah Lee (Street Jazz), Ben (Popping), Xiao Mei (Hip Hop) and Chin (Lyrical Hip Hop). We really got to expose ourselves to all these different style of dances. I am quite excited to learn new dance style especially Lyrical Hip Hop (Chin's choreo too zai buay tank!). Street Jazz was interesting too I won't mind learning but the sexy girl's moves might be a bit too much for me? haha but like Ah Lee said we have to find our own style: Some guys in her class could do it very sexily (or in another word a bit gay), but some take the steps and put in their own styles which might not be sexy but are something that she likes. I guess I need more time to explore my own style too! Well, one thing a bit sad was that one of my original intentions to join dance was that I could become more outspoken, more thick skin, more daring to do things etc etc you get what I mean (All the dancers seem to possess this kind of abilities of which they are outspoken, daring, etc etc), but I realised I still not there yet huh :( Still got a long long way to go ..

That's Xiaomei and us!

Almost all instructors said the same thing about in order to be a good dancers, the most important is to have a strong foundation. Isolation, basics etc etc. Yup gonna heed their advice and practice more often on my own! Btw, Xiaomei's foundation is really mega strong, like her body is literally in three pieces: isolation of one area not gonna affect what the other area does OMG!

After all these weeks ending with dance camp, finally could relax a little bit. Buttttt... the current exco are stepping down, and nomination and election for the next exco has started. Gonna be stressed again for some time.

明けましておめでとう！Happy 2015!

31.12.14 - 01.01.15

Never ever attended a countdown before, but this year it was slightly different. It was my honour to be part of the SUTD Aerial Filming team, and during this year's new year we collaborated with URA to do aerial filming for the new year countdown party at Marina Bay.

The event officially started at 8:15pm. And guess why it started at this timing? I accidentally realised it while texting my friend about the event. If you convert the time into 24-hour system, it will read 2015! So, events started at 2015 to welcome the year of 2015! Genius! Can't believe that I was the first one to discover it HAHAHA!

Just in case any of you missed that 3min projection on The Fullerton Hotel, you can go to this link. It's already up on YouTube.

Behind the Merlion waiting for the event to start

When the S800 took flight, the crowd paid more attention to the drone than to the projection on the hotel wall. Hmmm that kinda defeated the purpose but well .. it's not that often to see a legit drone flying around right?

Second location was damn nice! Chill, literally. There was this platform extended into the water area (uhm ok tbh I have no idea what to call it. Singapore River? xxx Quay? uhmmm .. yea). It was reserved just for us! 360 degree view of the CBD area, away from the crowd, windy, wah just like Shaohui said ".. should bring a chair here and chill .." Starting to feel like a VIP!

Last location was the best! Up on the Helix Bridge, with one whole balcony to ourselves! The fireworks was gonna be displayed right in front of us with no blockage between us! I mean .. how often in someone's life do they get such good view to something so awesome?  

The red colour wrote 50, and the fireworks would be shot from there!

Concert ongoing at the floating platform

S800 took off and 10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ... 1! Exactly at one the first firework exploded! Wanted to take photos of the fireworks, especially I had such a nice view from the bridge!  But in the end I decided not to. Something so special should be viewed by my own eyes! Too obsessed with taking photos might make me miss out better things. So yea only took three!

OK the photos quality ain't very good ( I gotta learn more photography skill man ) but still can feel how nice it was la haha. 

It was really the best countdown ever in my life, what with the VIP treatment, crowds-free, first-class view etc! Had a awesome start of the year, hopefully the remaining 364 days will be just as awesome!

Also witnessed the legendary Shane's flying skill, too zai already.

My honour to be part of this team - SUTD Multirotor Society (Aerial Filming)

OK new year new resolution right? Hmmmm can't think of all but the following is what I could come out with now:

1. Enjoy my life in Uni more! (to be honest I wanna learn more useful stuff, feel too useless when around some zai people. Right, that's my way of enjoying life hahahaha)
2. Dance well
3. Sing well
4. Get an internship overseas during the summer break (hopefully I can get one in New Zealand but the problem is I STILL DON'T F***ING KNOW WHAT I WANNA DO *sad*)

It's non-exhaustive! Just that I can't really think of anything now haha.

And about what I would have done if I could restart the year 2014 ... Let's make it shorter. What I would have done if I could restart Term 4 (I am lazy :P):

1. Touch my guitar more! Left it beside my cupboard for almost 10 weeks before I start touching it again.
2. Know my roommates Justin and Bryan (who joined in the later part of the term) more. Both pretty nice guys, would want to get to know them better. A pity that I didn't talk much sigh (*socially awkz)
3. Talk to my OGLings more. Only talked to one of them at the start of the term and subsequently I was too busy to catch up with any of them. :/

It's non-exhaustive too hahahaha.

Alright! Happy New Year Everybody! Happy 2015! Wish all your dreams (and mine) come true!