hi i went to some glass factory this morn - due to some miscommunication and misconception we reached there like an hr early haha... it's so ulu i felt like it was at the ends of the earth... the Christian song "To the ends of the earth" came to mind. yup. actually the journey there was really nice cos it was raining and when the cars in front were driving fast (cos there's lil traffic there in tuas in the morn) there was like a swirl of misty stuff that trailed them and was ard the tyres as well... nice scene... reminds me of Turner's "Rain, Speed and Steam" i think the title is sonething like that. Hmm ok the factory & showrm visit was generally ok... quite interesting. most of the stuff there's made of glass inclu their 'whiteboards' and office partitions. we sat in their designer Wassily chairs to wait out that hr haha. some of the glasses r quite cool - too lazy to type out the diff kinds hehe. the really hilarious thing was that the factory worker's uniform was this light blue polo & zy was wearing a light blue-greenish polo that was close enough so he looked like he cd blend in haha so he took a pic with one of them & pretended like he was working :)
After that our lecturer talked to the transport driver so he agreed to drive the girls bk to jurong pt with the wkers haha so sexist yeah actually for the simple reason cos there was not enough space. passed ntu and some mil camp safti i think my goodness it's really ulu man poor pple who hav to go there. after really long we reached i regretted taking it shd hav gone on jo's car... i reached orchard like 3/4 hr after they did so silly i shd hav jus gone home... felt bored though. we ate at nydc then went to kino the archi books section haha occupational hazard :) the best thing there was that i found the wonderful $10 book that i bought at the basheer sale was selling there for ard $101!!! hahaha so amazing thank God for the great great buy :) yup haha the basheer pple prob thought it wasnt that great but it has good photos & some famous stuff & some not so famous but nice stuff :)
hehe ok i've been spending the last coupla of hrs gg thru the processes of syngas, haber, contact for h2so4, and hno3 - all the chem - thank God can bring in 1 sht of a4 paper with notes :) ok i'm tired gtg sleep soon.

hi actually today was a schday but cos my tutorial got cancelled :) it was a free day for me... haha it feels good to not go to sch after practically "living" there... finally i din feel any oddness or guilt not gg to sch on a schday :) hehe dunno i feel kinda lazy these days... the momentum to study has slowed somewhat. cos prob archi doesnt really have tests only exam but my non-aki mod this sem has a mid-term test well so i guess i gotta study faster if i wanna finish by tues.

I spent the afternoon in holland hanging out with geraldine and lee... heh everytime we meet up it's the same food same place delifrance at holland... somehow it ends up that way :) actually i was pleasantly surprised when ger asked me abt it i was thinking abt her & the rest of us ... like a long time since we met up - last yr during march i think - so it was like God answered my musings haha. i think we're all jus lazy to arrange to meet up n all so yeah this time we decided to end that & communicate more oft & maybe try to have a class reunion! :)

we talked like frm 2 to like 6 ... so crazy man when we parted we actually still had stuff to say. i think we talked abt a whole variety of stuff - frm sch to fashion to pple to etc... and all that nostalgia for MG and ac as well... dunno recently i felt it pretty acutely. never really missed mg cos acjc was relatively similar in culture etc but now that i'm in nus - which is like totally diff- i really miss those wonderful years :) haha no one insulted my chinese - not that i care tt much anyw heh - called me a brat, pampered, sheltered person etc u know all those ac stereotypes (okok i admit there's some truth in that but not totally)... the culture thingy is jus so different ... many of the pple here in aki r frm hc or rj or vj... ok i guess it does differ frm batch to batch. but i hav to admit that they're generally nice pple though :) thank God.

ok i seriously gotta go study for chem and us. tmr i've got a field trip to a glass fac in some ulu place - really hope i can get there on time. yup gg bk to mugging now :)

hi i went bk to sch again today to do the 1326 proj... thank God we managed to finish by evening :) yup a load temporarily off cos we still hav to do the final model later but the stuff for fri's submission is done thank God :)
yup so i spent the whole day cutting cardboard strips and pasting them tog... haha i rem the time nikki asked me how i managed to cut stuff since my wrists and arms were so small... i reckoned they've grown :) hehe ok those years of piano playing also made them strong despite the size. recently i realised how useful these hands of mine have been - those yrs of tinkling away at the ivories, writing inumerable essays and now making loads of models and draw lotsa stuff :) so yeah thank God for my hands! :) yeah today i realised also that my grp is actually not bad some grps hav members absconding or disappearing so poor thing... hmm at least we're intact and everyone is contributing well :) yup once again thank God :) He's so good.
yest was more interesting... ihad lunch cum dg with sharon, mandy and carine at cafe galilee. topic was on discipleship and commitment to Jesus... was good... haha i realised this is the first real dg i've gone thru. ok the food was a letdown though... i had black pepper chic wrap and the chic was horrible... the 60c peach snapple was a pleasant surprise though. i guess these places are better for drinks and cakes but since it was in the orchard lib and we needed a quiet pl so well... after that i went shopping alone cos they either went home or somewhere else... din buy anything ... went to esplanade after that to see the gallery for my art hist mod... took a long way so silly but reached there finally thank God. my digi cam hicupped though hai so i cdnt get any photos of the place. it was interesting - some chinese fashion exhibition - but nothing spectacular... the aki was nice though.
ok so that's more or less what i've been doing this hols ... i dun have to go bk to sch anymore till monday! yippie :) hehe cos althou fri is not a hol but my teacher cancelled the tut so hehe i'm free :)
ok gtg now good nite

hi today's supposed to be the start of my "holidays" or more aptly the mid-sem break... break from classes but not frm work. Moreover, the holidays end on thurs - what kind of logic is that? seriously i wonder who came up with that odd concept... but still thank God there's actually a break cos they din have it last year.
I spent most of today in sch in studio doing 1326... and i'll be doing that on wed too so sad huh? but i really wanna pass 1326 and never have to retake anything- module or sem or year - thruout uni... so gotta press on and trust God. thankfully today's proj work was quite fruitful and we actually now hav something solid we cd show our nitpicking tutor (ok i agree we did deserve some of his reprimands but the sarcasm was uncalled for). yup yup we're on track now I'm praying hard that we'll pass this project and the whole mod decently well... heard frm the snrs that it aint easy.
Hmm this break i have lotsa stuff to do. Aside frm 1326, i gotta study for the chem & us mod - so alien it's like rewinding bk to o level chem. I see the same classrm scenario - i'm stoning for the chem classes and falling asleep like in m sim's class some 4 yrs ago... argh getting old now. I wish i were still in mg or acjc... it's like uni is the real world and after that it's really real world... not too ready for that sorta thingy yet yeah growing up well well :) ok bk to the issue. just finished my pre-mid-term exam ivle chat for the chem module... i barely asked any questions or said much... tried my best though... thank God it was less stressful than the last ones. all the science pple have so much stuff to say - smart stuff that is :) hehe ok the mod isnt as bad as i thought. interesting field trips - we went to apb last tues yup the comp that makes tiger beer... it was almost like a free flow of beer and muruku at the "tasting session" haha more like a free for all. My conclusion was that baron's strong brew's the best followed by tiger than heineken. din try anchor. tiger tavern had nice decor like a real tavern minus the horid smoke and all. I felt really sleepy on the way home partly frm the beer and cos of the accumulated nites of lil sleep no thks to design. wonder how those who had afternoon classes survived haha ok i gues they din drink too much.
yup ok i also hav to find some Singaporean artist to base my artist retreat design for p2 on ... that's not bad it's like in line with my art hist mod ... it's like God so nicely arranged everything ... yup design & art hist fits in all so well cos my tutor is a art hist person which is just as well... haha i enjoy my art hist class actually get excited so diametrically opp frm my chem class :) hehe yup so i'll be doing stuff for design & art hist simultaneously :) so fun which means i gotta go to the esplanade gallery & maybe the art musuem :) tmr i think or thurs... hmm so fun :) haha
okok i better go now :)

I survived. And lived to tell the tale.
Last week i was living in a separate time dimension from the rest of the world... while pple were celebrating cny and savouring the longgg wkend, me and my fellow aki friends were slogging it out in the studio or at home... drafting the technical drawings for our design and making models.
It was so surreal... stuck in a place without windows... a place u enter when it's bright outside and leave when it's dark outside (or maybe it's bright cos it's the next day since u stayed over the whole nite without sleeping) it's so horribly disorienting... archi lag. To me that's the worse part of it all. Of cos not to forgot the endless hours of first drawing out yr design on graph paper (thank God i discovered it) on the 1st cny, gg bk to studio to get the circle template and cut acrylic rods at the wkshop (and get yr finger cut as well) , then sitting at the lightbox for 12 long hrs to trace it out (once again thank God i din hav to wait for it) then getting yr fingers bruised and superglued together while making yr model. All this in the midst of eating mostly macs (since it was the only thing open in cny at nus and the nearest as well) or at fong seng - both of which r equally unhealthy - sleeping 3 -4 hrs a day or none at all etc etc ... it's a crazy life but well I cant see myself elsewhere so I'm gonna perservere on! by God's help n grace! :)
ok well submission was on valentine's day at 5pm which was like a triple way onslaught by the tutors - cny gone, wkend gone, v-day mostly gone (not that I have a date or anything jus that it kills the feel good factor of the day sigh)
I was rushing all the way till 5pm ... actually I was quite fast at the start of the process but i think the model really slowed me down - ok must never be too overconfident/complacent/conceited cos humility is the key to success - sticking those bamboo sticks together, cutting machinesanding then manual sanding of the acrylic rods was time consuming and health unfriendly as well. ok well i shdnt complain since i chose them in the first place.
well today was the crit session finally ( like an episode of singapore idol) but they were much less sarcastic this time round thank God for that. Mine was ok - they said it was a valiant/commendable attempt :) to link archi with music though the design had its problems so at least there was something unique/special and positive abt it :) hope p2 will be heaps better. i went out with my old studio pple after the whole crit... hmm i suspect we'll never wean out of the strong bonds ... the old studios r still where pple go bk to ... the new grpings somehow lack that dynamism. haha we talked abt the perenniel question in archi - shd i quit? is it worth it?
well it's something you'll think abt somewhere along the line when the gg gets agonisingly painful or when it's like so frustrating or when u wonder why u pay ard 6k a year to get slammed/insulted and basically not taught much rather having to find things out yrself. Thank God my tutor is relatively helpful :) was kinda troubled yest after being slammed in 1326... now realised why pple dun really like architects - not cos we dun know how to do a lot of stuff as the lecturer said but more cos the system is demoralising, insulting and higly sarcastic. So u end up cynical, hard and maybe arrogant eventually after u endured and survived the 5 gruelling yrs. okok must be more positive man :) i dun wanna become like that i wanna lead a life pleasing to God, at peace with Him and man even when i become an architect. I believe it's possible to do that and also to remain a optimistic person :)
ok enough said i gtg now... last day of sch tmr b4 the sem break...yay! :) gotta sleep now awfully tired. good nite & I wont quite archi...ever ... unless God tells me to... I will not be defeated by the system! :) I want to say that "I have fought the good fight, finished the race kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4:7

P.S. I apologise for the copious amt of angst and complaints here :)

" God says yes and I know that I'm blessed
yes got a heart that's at rest
yes and a future's that's sealed.
i'm not afraid of circumstances
cos i've already found the answer
All of God's promises are yes,
yes and amen!"

~ hillsongs i believe

:)

hi now i'm almost into the final week for my design ... I really thank God that my design concept was accepted more or less on thurs! :) yup so happy after that ... now i jus have to come up with a roof, elevate the whole thing (which means i hav to make proper flooring hehe which i din think of b4) and reconfid the arrangemt of the spaces and by mond everything shd be confirmed and the drawings and modelling shd start... CNY not withstanding.
oh another amzing thing to thank God for ... my chem and us module is totally cancelled next wk both lec & tut haha so wonderful :) jus nice to immerse myself in drafting and modelling well well :) haha ok mus work hard now so can go out with esther,ser and min cos es & ser r leaving for aussie... will miss them ...
i hope all will be good esp for the crit on the following thurs... but first imagine my poor valentine's day ... it starts with a test in the morn and design submission at 5 ... after that well ... hmm a miracle might jus happen :) haha *there can be miracles when u believe* hehe
ok i shd go now got church tmr morn then it's off to art friend to buy acrylic tubes (yea yea the aki version of shopping how sad) and the model making process starts again... haha it's funny when i think back how in jc i feel like i'm a machine churning out essays... so now it's like the machine has upgraded to more complicated stuff like churning out models and drawings haha :)
i must say i do enjoy what i'm doing despite the fact that it's a madly gruelling course ... u get to do all sorts of artistic pursuits like photography, watercolour, sketching etc etc all the creative license is yours u cant do this in arts or elsewhere... thank God i din go to arts... ok i think writing is a forte of mine (not that i'm boasting or anything) but also it's something i do enjoy but writing abt lit and hist and all that is a diff story can do but boring to some extent... so yeah architecture is fulfiling in that light :) more hands on ... no offence but i think arts and soc sci is talk but not necessarily do, in aki u have to do :) therein lies the vast difference.
ok i'll really go now. Sweet dreams ... :)

hi my latest theory is that architecture school is a big reality show
in the long run it is a Survivor - u know aki has a high drop out rate so pple get eliminated or they voluntarily (mostly) drop out so at the end of 5 yrs if u're still there then well u've won more than a million dollars! :) en route to becoming a certified architect :)
then in terms of our crit sessions (where we present our designs to the tutors & they critique us) it's like American/Singapore idol where the tutors try their very best to come up with brilliantly sarcastic remarks or some worthy soundbites... the resemblance is amazing indeed
well well I intend to get thru this reality show winning :) by God's grace truly.
so far my crit on monday was generally ok cept that i dun agree with everything he says... kinda confused but i gotta confirm the design my this week. i guess CNY is a forgone entity... then it'll be time to draw panels & make models...
well i guess i gtg now... find info on sejima's stuff for the project discussion tmr then watch Glass Shoes :) good nite