hi wow stage 2 of this pavilion design interstudio competition ended on thurs. Thank God we didnt have to change too many things - most of the stuff they brought out was stuff we already were aware abt.

haha after thur's pin-up crit we all went bk to sleep cos the wed nite b4 the overniting began - the first time this sem. sigh it's starting again. i slept like 3 1/2 hrs on thurs morn frm like 8 to 1130 then it's bk to sch for the crit at 2. argh thank God the worst part of overniting is over. u'll feel awful that day then after that it shd be better =) yup then yest which was fri, it was like some chill out nite. we tried to discuss stuff but somehow ended up slacking and crapping with the other grp in my studio. at 1st they wanted to go steamboating at marina bay n invited us but we deemed it too far since we cd only go after 8. so in the end it was good old holland v again. this time thai express and later gelare for dessert. haha thai food was cos our korean guy wanted to try stuff he cdnt find so commonly in korea. haha i think i've picked up a fair bit of korean already. so fun learning a new lang... free some more hehe. dinner n desser was great. i actually like this new studio of mine. they are quite onz pple. i rem last sem when we first changed studios, wah most pple werent too happy abt the change n i still stuck mostly to my sem 1 yr 1 studio pple. plus my last sem studio the pple din really hang out outside class. most of them did work at home n plus though they were all really nice pple, we were not onz at all as a studio. ok only. i guess there were worse studios. thanks be to God that at least they were really noce n helpful pple. my this sem's studio kinda different. at first i thot it wd be not so nice since i wasnt close to any of the girls b4 n only yj was frm the same studio b4 n i only kinda kew some of the guys. but actually i really thank God that my first impressions werent all that rite. they r realatively nice n onz n fun pple, though like the guys in my grp within the studio r terribly uncle. haha funny sometimes but at times u dunno whether to cry or to laugh.

haha anything is that i seem to be taking this self-created module - AR0999: Chinese language in Architecture. haha since these pple are like very Chinese, i think my Chi has improved as a result of it. all the CHi songs - can u believe it? I like this CHinese song called tong2 hua4 currently. it's really romantic n touching C= hahaha i think serene wd nod her head in approval. petrina finally taking to the songs she tried for years to get me interested in =) anyhow that nite when we were making a model, i had to say a cheng2 yu3 with every strip of wood i cut :) haha i usually rem like a character or 2 n the meaning so in the end they had to help me with it. ok at least i know CHinese, mandy is like totally clueless. okok cant compare since she took malay in sch. er yeah but she's chinese. it's jus that in brunei i guess u gotta take malay.

talk abt wood. hai today was so upsetting all cos of wood! as usual when we need the basswood for our final models, art friend runs out of the impt dimensions. the guys rushed to the orchard one but only managed like 3 pieces of 1 dimension. cos we need 3 diff dimensions and lotsa wood. hai u know what the sad part of rather the painful part is that paul-a frm the other grp in my studio bought the last woods frm the bencoolen or was it peace centre? branch. haiya din even tell us. it's a competitive world in aki sometimes. anyhow looking bk, actually i thank God it aint so bad. cos sr went to daiso n got cheaper =) wood. now the only issue is whether we have enough. hmm oh well must trust God then. oh the other upsetting part was my studio pple. i think cos of the wood, the guys had a tough time in art friend. by the time the came bk, yj seemed pretty pissed. it's scary cos he's usually so upbeat abt stuff. hai then i think other pple r like kinda sian n all so it was somewhat tense. thank God we left then so i think it gave us time to cool down. hopefully tmr will be better. yupsie. so yeah next wk n the following one will be pretty siong. the submissions, the essays n all are like coming in an onslaught but thank GOd it's somewhat spread out. i initially though it was all on consecutive days. so at least not so bad :)

ok i guess i gotta go sleep soon. playing keyboard for church tmr morn. amazingly among all this onslaught :) Praise the Lord. Good nite pple. God bless C=

Wow new sem and new sch year and tons of new changes.
One thing that doesn't change... i still see my fellow akimates from mond to sun... anytime from 9 in the morn to 11 at nite... haha thank God I havent had to stay overnite so far:)
My new studio is not bad... after 1 week and several nites of discussing, drawing, cutting, pasting and frustrating :) together, i got to know them better. haha at 1st i was kinda apprehensive cos yj was the only one from BOTH my studios in yr 1 and i din know any of the gals well. I mean generally i know who everyone is n even did proj frm other aki mods with some of the guys but i din know them very well. So yeah after seeing them more than i see my home JUST IN THE FIRST WEEK OF SCH ALONE already kinda bonded us all better :) oh yeah we have a poly girl n a korean exchange guy in our studio... so exciting yeah haha today we had like this informal speak korean lesson haha not bad i think by the end of this sem can learn enough to go korea haha we have an exchange there too... but well for now i dunno if i wanna go on exchange... se3 de2 ma1? I dunno man hai anyhow i'm pretty fine here in spore.

haha the funny part is the tutor that my studio got. actually i thot this sem can bid for tutor but on the 1st day of sch during the briefing, sihui was jus telling me that the paper says this sem it's allocated then i saw the namelist n found out my tutor is the one who many pple esp gals hahaha want to get hahaha so hilarious... no la i aint crazy abt him unlike some of my friends *ahem ahem* i wont mention names here :) he's like married and 40 but he's the funny endearing guy that u'll take to the moment u see him. plus he's jap and funky n nice. yeah i really appreciate the fact that he can tell u what's rite and what's wrong with yr design WITHOUT being sarcastic :) yeah what a relief from the last yr :)

anyhow this 1st week (now into the second) has been anything but sane. our 1st proj is really interesting. we're actually designing AND building :) a real pavilion in front of macs near aki. so cool huh and plus it's grpwork. initially i thot life will be much better since grpwork means division of labour which means less time n work and MORE SLEEP. but no it aint totally true. the 1st week was pairwork but we had to come up with a design, a model with structure and drawings/sketches, alll in one week! it was really crazy haha actually i think my studio a bit too hardworking but oh well at least the effort will be gd for the portfolio. it was like the 1st week of sch and already sund must go sch after church. wah that usually only happens nearer to submission. but really thank God now that they have chosen 2 designs per studio which means the grp size increases to 6 or 7 pple and the effects are obvious. we managed to make a decent sketch model in around 5hrs. yeah quite fun also cos we talked abt all sorta stuff while in the midst. but the main big prob with grpwork is that it takes almost forever to discuss n settle on the design. the model n drawing part is def faster cos more pple but the designing took like dunno how many hours just to talk n talk n try n watch project superstar in the midst hahaha.

Talk abt changes. so many. now our studio is on the 2nd floor which we share with the yr3s and looks less like a windowless warehouse. my studio space is in the main studio space whereas some studios are in the dds (or rather separate rooms with comps) next sem all of us will have our own private comps in school :) praise the Lord! :) ahh the occasional privileges of being in aki :) at 1st i thot that being in the main studio space is better than dds but after the horridly sticky and hot wkend in school, i realise that dds is better. main reason being they have aircon on weekends! ahh u know my studio space not only is away frm the windows, but also doesn[t have fans and no air-con for wkends. we were wilting away there esp on sunday. dds also has more security and they have their own projector to watch tv n movies on. ahhhh so unfair. only drawbk is, they cant eat and properly draft in there. hai but that's not so bad, cos can come over to our main space to do all that. like what yj says - we're like the clerks and the dds pple the executives. Another horrid change is the studio furniture. on the 1st day of sch, the head tolf us that it was meant to encourage studio culture, to get pple to work in studio but so sadly, the effect will be the total reverse in the long term. reason being - major design flaws in the furniture. the new tables provide no storage at all which is pretty bad cos big stuff like the A1 drawing board and papers n materials can be kept safely. which means pple wont work in studio cos there's no where to safely store big stuff u dun wanna lug ard. they have this new drawer unit thingy but it has a prob too - no door. that means u cant store stuff there safely either. hai no security of any sort so why wd pple wanna work there? the only reason why they r doing so now is cos its grpwork. when indiv, i think very few wd - maybe only the hall n dds pple. hai the table actually can incline to prevent bkaches which was a major prob in yr1 but i still see the yr1s bending over - cos the incline is not good enough n also the t-sq will not be parallel towards the bottom of the incline. so then again ineffective design. sigh i cant believe this is happening in the sch of aki. so sad rite. but now complain also no use... it's all done already. but i must say there's one good furniture - the cutting table! haha thanks for the only useful new furn haha. it really saves us the trouble of the cutting mats. thank God for them.

oh yeah, engine canteen (which is the nearest 4 us) has new food stalls! haha got jap food of our own now :) and indo food but i still want bk the 2 old noodle stalls cos the new one aint as good. the old western which i liked is replaced but i heard the new one is not bad also. hai here in aki we talk abt sustainable aki but yet we keep ta bao and waste plastic haha all cos no time...

oh well, now for design at first when my tutor divided us into the 2 new grps i was quite sad cos i liked the other grp's design but i got into the other grp but now actually i thank God for the grp i'm in. we r like more cooperative n gelled n we have sane working hrs. the other grp seems to like working late at nite. haha actually the division of the grps was pretty unbalanced cos their grp has 3 pple who can cad, 2 A students, and a power poly girl and 7 pple. we, on the other hd, have only 6 pple who cant cad n prob no A students haha but ok la in the end it's not bad. thank God today's crit was quite ok. i sure hope this wkend will be better though :)

well so much has happened this wk plus... haha bidding was a heart stopping affair. i prayed hard to get the usp HB mod n actually i tot i cdnt get it though i plonked all my points cept 1 down. but by God's grace i got it *big grinz* final price 528 points wah so ex it's crazy but well when i read the email that i got it i was sooooooooo happy it was like winning something :)
then on this wed came part 2 - balloting for tutorial slots. the server was like down for the most part of the time n they had to extend the round from ending at 5pm on wed to 9am on thurs. it was so slow i kept trying to log in, wah then kept praying hard that can get in. it was so sad when we did but got kicked out. eventually ard like 9 10 i managed to get thru and it was like 'Hallelujah' :) wah what a wonderful sys of cors it works haha*pun intended*

oh yeah, another said change is that my sem1 yr 1 studio 1 is no longer complete cos wg has quit for arts and nikki went to yr 1. so sad. ha actually when me n jo went to the yr 1 studio to visit nikki, wan=h they were doing the lines we did last year :) so nostalgic huh. cept now i wd think drawing the lines r so much easier while i think the yr 1s will be grappling with the issues of what aki is so crazy. mind u, the lines aint easy but after a year of more siong stuff, lines r but preferable :) i saw some yr 1 guys who i think r my snrs in ac. hmm next yr my yr AC guys will enter uni. wonder who, if any will be in archi? ;)

anyhow, i think i better sleep soon b4 the hard work comes. good nite pple n take joy in the fact htta your life is most probably easier n slacker than mine :) God bless!