Randomness of Randomness

Last Saturday, I got a phone call from the school office. The lady told me that NTU is holding a convocation dinner to end off the year and invited me to join. The main reason was that the Tan Chin Tuan Foundation, who gave me a scholarship for my final year of university, would be gracing the event and the school felt it would be a good chance for them to meet us (myself and the other scholars) and for us to show our appreciation to the foundation...

so anyway, I figured it would be quite a cool networking opportunity and besides I didn't have anything lined up that evening... so I agreed... the lady told me before hanging up that it wasn't too formal and that dress code is similar to the Convocation ceremony itself (meaning collared, long sleeve blouse with slacks or skirt)

Fast forward to Monday evening 6.30pm... I arrive in the auditorium foyer where the dinner was to be held, only to see real extravagent decor in the foyer, a stage set up, plus about 20 tables for formal and served dining.. and guess what.. the stage front said "Guest of Honour: President SR Nathan and Mrs. Nathan"

and in case you are wondering, that happens to the President of Singapore and his wife!!!

as the evening went on and more guests started arriving, it was quite amazing to realise that this is an annual NTU stakeholders dinner, bringing together the deans and vice dean of faculties, management of the various NTU offices, management of various foundations and organisations that have supported, sponsored for funded NTU in any way, the NTU board of trustees and so on... very high level indeed...

and aside from myself and another guy who were Tan Chin Tuan scholars, the only other students were the Lee Kuan Yew scholars, the top students in each faculty of study... they got the privilege of speaking with the President himself..

It's kind of hard to describe how I felt.. but I was glad to gave exchanged a few namecards with some key people that day, to enjoy a 4 course dinner served by hotel catering, to enjoy some really cool performances (aerial display, electric violin and rhythmic gymnastics performance, choir performance, to share a lot about AIESEC, to learn how a Foundation works, to learn how university corporate development works..

amazing how a random opportunity can turn up so much... :)

Next stop: Turkey!

Leaving for Istanbul in 2 weeks!

Another book review

Yesterday was Saturday... after settling some AIESEC stuff in meeting, I got really restless in the room in SMU... so cold and so bright... just made me wanna get out of there into some light or temperature that was more natural...

anyway, so I headed to the nearest book store, hunted around for something good to read and bought this book

"the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by Mark Haddon

the book has been around for quite a long time now so I won't be surprised if most of you have already read it...

But for those who haven't, definitely a book I would recommend, simply because of how uniquely and differently the story is told... it's written in 1st person perspective, by a 15 year old boy who is autistic.. he struggles with emotions and deeper meanings, and he thrives with rules, processes, logic, math and literal meaning...

I think the story's very real and Mark Haddon did a great job of getting the reader to sink into the world of an autistic child... it's a point of view that that most of us never consider so reading this book definitely challenges one's views...

by the way, Mark Haddon has another book titled "A Spot of Bother"... I'm thinking to get hold of that one as well...

And like I was telling Pui, I do think I need to read slower... cos now I am out of books to read again...

Graduated!

I know I still owe an update from Taiwan... and I promise I will post more photos... but in the meantime...

with the AIESECers from NTU

Diana, me and Nicholas

Someone commented that the graduation robes make us look like wizards and witches from Harry Potter... I still have my robe... so perhaps will take one with a chopstick/make-do wand :)

Feels kind of cheated to spend 4 years of life working so hard to get this piece of paper... at least the transcript says "Completed the degree of Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering) (First Class) with a Minor in Business" oh well...

Congratulations to class of 2007... at last we are out of university!

Fun in Taidong (East of Taiwan)

the very tasty 黑松羊肉炉 we had for lunch...

米台目- type of noodles... served with superb chilli sauce!

Road Trip with our own rented car

Admiring the wonders of nature at 小野柳

Breathtaking scenary at 三仙台

the view from about 100m above sea level.. while we attempted to climb the mountainside (via man-made steps) to see 八仙洞

Updates long overdue

Been a while since my last posting... major stuff that happened since then? definitely my trip to Taiwan. was chairing their SNCF followed by a short holiday in Taidong and Taipei...

I owe photos and a description of the entire experience.. but somehow I am finding it hard to organise everything into a blog posting...

you know... it's the kind of feeling where you know you've been through some really amazing experiences across 12 days... lots of memories and flashbacks of great moments, great conversations, great people.... learnt so much about myself and another country... admired so much scenary... enjoyed such great company of friends...

to type it all out... at this point... that somehow seems to be spoiling the moment... I think I wanna enjoy the moments, in their original random and chaotic order in my head for a while more before organising them into a post..

but till then, I am doing very well... back in Singapore and hyped up about what's more to come... :)

Nice picture...

I found this cute little picture on Heidi's blog... Don't you think it's so physics? hehehe....


Seems kind of apt though... thinking back about the many many weekends spent on AIESEC transition and planning... each weekend flying by so so fast...

now that the hustle and bustle is kind of slowing down slightly, it feels weird to be sitting back home, communicating not by voice but by words through MSN and gtalk and stuff like that...

guess it's times like this that one really appreciates the company of those around...

missing all of you guys... you know who you are :)

New Books!

Went to Borders bookstore today and finally used my book voucher...

and bought two books!


For One More Day by Mitch Albom

Mitch Albom was the author who brought us Tuesdays with Morries and The Five People You Meet in Heaven...

Both are very much about life's little lessons and appreciating life, so this one is not that different... but it's told from a very different perspective as compared to previous two...

But all in all, still a very heartwarming story with a message about relationships between a mother and a son...

(if you are wondering, yes I have finished the book. Couldn't help myself!)

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

I haven't started on this book yet but I think it might be in similar style as The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell... The authors take different real life scenarios and explores the implications and cause and effects within these scenarios...

Read a few pages once some months back... and definitely looks interesting...

will update once I have finished the book!

The Tipping Point

Amidst all the busy-ness with AIESEC and all, I managed to take some time out to finish reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.. this is the same guy who brought is Blink! and in similar fashion, he presents very thought-provoking way of looking at our environment and at changes...


The excerpt below is taken from http://www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/

1. What is The Tipping Point about?

It's a book about change. In particular, it's a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990's? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? I think the answer to all those questions is the same. It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.

I would definitely recommend this book! So much implication on how to do marketing, or to communicate with people, or to generate hype... not that it's meant to be taken as a guide book... but well.. if you're looking for something to challenge conventional thinking, THIS is the book to read...

Tagged by Shub

Shub tagged me some time back... haven't had the time to finish the whole list at one shot but after multiple attempts, it is now complete!

Three things that scare me:

• Cockroaches: the most disgusting and terrifying living things on Earth.. even worse when they fly
• Complacency: letting achievements get to my head can lead to complacency if one is not careful or aware… and complacency can easily lead to pride or too much ego which affects performance at the end
• Being very expressive: sounds kind of weird.. but being expressive is something that is not very part of me.. perhaps it is because my own true feelings scare me.. or I am scared of being rejected on my feelings
  

Three people who make me laugh:

• My brother: we talk all sorts of crap, and have the same quirky sense of humour…
• My AP Sisters: Can I group them all as “1 entity” in this case? They really do cheer me up.. love talking to them about everything and anything
• My dad: he’s funny, he’s quirky, he tries to be “lame” at times…

Three things I love:

• Music: soft rock, some instrumentals, I think I enjoy most music as long as they’re not too rap or too vulgar or too pop
• Company of good friends: nothing like the company of good friends… doesn’t matter where we go or wat we do.. the company is enough really..
• Traveling: AIESEC has gotten me hooked onto this! Can’t get enough of seeing all the amazing things and meeting all the amazing people in the amazing countries and sights of the world!

Three things I hate:

• Being ineffective: I think I kind of built my life and schedule around being as effective as possible.. yeah I get my lazy days and stuff but somehow it irks me off.. especially if I’m spending my time cooped up in a waiting line.. or in a class with a lousy tutor
• The rigidity of the Singapore education system: I suppose it happens with most education systems… but just can’t stand the one in Singapore… where things are all based on grades, on fulfilling processes and procedures and requirements… whatever happened to real learning?
• Cockroaches: I’m terrified of them.. so I hate them to bits…

Three things I don't understand:

• Myself: why am I who I am? Why do I find difficulty in being expressive? Why do I value these things more than others?
• Love: What is love? How do you know when it is love? Where does love stem from?
• Life: I don’t think I ever will.. and that’s where the wonder of life comes in… some things in life, you don’t need to understand.. just need to appreciate

Three things on my desk:

• My laptop: how else do you think I am typing this?
• My passport: was registering for AIESEC International Congress 2007 earlier today
  
• Lots of papers and notes from sAIESEC: have to confess.. haven’t started packing my things

Three things I am doing now:

• Listening to Class 95 on radio
• Replying AIESEC emails
• Chatting on MSN

Three things I want to do before I die:

• Fall in love
• Visit at least 1 country in each of the continents (Except Antarctica probably)
• Go hang gliding

Three things I can do:

• Chinese martial arts and Taichi
• Burp at will
• Think random thoughts

Three things you should listen to:

• Song: Nickleback’s “Far Away”
• Silence: in a far away village in northern Thailand, or in the forest of Arnhem, The Netherlands on a wintry Sunday morning
• You heart: don’t stop talking to your heart, don’t stop listening either… I think I listen… I just need to act more on what it says…

Three things you should never listen to:

• Too much praise: that gets you big-headed and inflates your ego.. and as I firmly believe, Pride comes just before a fall
• Words that are meant to put you down: you don’t want to get too ego.. but at the same time, there is worth in every single human being… who are you to put others down? Or put yourselves down? Who are they to put you down? Do they know you enough to determine and judge your self worth?
• Peer or societal pressure: they act as good feedback and good guidelines.. but sometimes, we can be strong enough to go beyond them and to break into our own realm, our own niche and pursue what we really believe in

Three things I'd like to learn:

• more Taichi
• Thai
• More about myself

Three Favourite Foods:

• Fried sambal ladies fingers cooked by my Grandma
• Seafood
• Tom Yam flavoured instant noodles from Thailand!

Three beverages I drink regularly:

• Coffee: my MC teams will know this very well
• Plain water: not as much as my mom would like me to drink but well.. common beverage nonetheless
• Milo: lower caffeine intake than coffee… sometimes gets me high too!

Three TV shows I watched as a kid:

• Cartoons like Captain Planet, Ninja Turtles.. err.. transformers, He Man and all those stuff from that era…
• Earthvision Documentaries! I love them
• “funky” local chinese drama serials.. like The Invincibles (the gambling one) and one other series about Vampires whose english name I can’t remember

Three books I read as a kid:

• The Three Investigators
• Tin Tin and Asterisk comic series
• Osbourne Book series: stuff like Amazing Animals of the World, or Inventions of the World and geeky stuff like that.. hahah

Three people I would love to tag:

• Pui: because you have more time now to put something interesting on your blog
• Amy: I miss you AP sister!! Update update 
• Eeling: gosh we haven’t met up for lunch these days yet!!

Bye Bye University

Most people know anyway, that with the final year project and all that, I am in my final year of study of university...

so anyhow, the results for the last exams of my last semester of my last year in university finally came out last Friday...

All I can say is that I am very happy with the results and relieved as well that it's over for real... now... just waiting for the graduation ceremony in late July...

byebye university... hello to great big world out there, which has shrunk considerably actually thanks to AIESEC :)

My Current Laptop backdrop

Took this shot from our faci room while in Penang, Malaysia for the AP MC Transition Camp... Love the scenary... makes for a great backdrop too...

Another quick update

Lots to do these days... so here's another quick update

Got back from the 1st ever AP MC Transition Camp in Penang from 24th to 27th May. such an amazing experience, and so inspiring to see the future leaders of AIESEC in the AP being so committed to driving performance in their countries and leveraging on the APGN initiatives!
it was also great to see so many familiar faces.. Sandy, Beatrice, Cyrus, Geralynn, Ren Chang, Rina, Nadya and not to forget, my beloved AP sisters Anisha, Mindy and Pui! Got to meet so many new people as well.. 0708 is definitely a term to look forward to!

that aside, went for an interview yesterday afternoon for this Professional Engineers Board Gold Medal Award... enjoyed myself in the interview... they were asking questions about my involvement in AIESEC (as usual) and what impact did attending so many international conferences leave me with... one of the panelists even asked how AIESEC international conferences are rotated among countries and whether Singapore has hosted any before! when I told them that was in late 1970s, she then asked if we are intending to bring one to Singapore any time in the near future! haha.. definitely interesting... even if I didn't get it, at least it was an enjoyable experience... besides, my interview took about 15 mins while the guy before me was in and out in only about 5 mins! heheh

but yeah.. that's what been happening... that aside, it's the usual of transitioning, preparing for new term, and holding the fort for some current stuff like Incoming Exchange...

Just want to make a public note that I am very very proud of AIESEC in NTU, NUS and SMU for such drive and effort in raising exchanges with companies! Current numbers stand at an average of 5 realisations per LCs, with more in the pipeline... total LC driven ICX realisations stand at 14 at the moment, compared to 6 in the whole of 2005/2006! that's almost 150% growth, with another 1 month to go before July comes along!

Well done to the LCs!! You have proven that AIESEC in Singapore can and will leverage more on the external environment here in Singapore!!!!!!!!

Quick update

Been really busy these days... so not much time to update the blog...

but very quickly...

• having MC Transition this whole weekend
• preparing for sessions to be delivered at the AP MC Transition Camp next week
• Finish up the FINAL FINAL thesis report
• leaving for Penang on 23rd May for AP MC Transition Camp, reaching back in Singapore on 28th May
  
• getting ready for MC Consolidation and Planning, and of course National Planning
• getting transition from Suchith for AP Chair
• getting ready for my trip to Taiwan to chair their Nat Con and of course for some relaxation... reach Taipei on 3rd July, pre meeting in Kaoshiong from 5th to 6th July, Conference from 7th to 10th July, own travels from 11th till 15th July...

and beyond that... well we will see :)

Random Reflections...

Now that the school stuff is over... can take some time out to think about stuff...

so I thought hey why not reflect abit about the 0607 term so far... so what have I done/experienced since being elected in Jan 2006?

• Travelled to my first European country, the Netherlands, on my own for IPM


• Saw snow and hail for the first time there


• Felt lost, confused, in awe, excited and happy in the same time


• Learnt what it meant to be myself, to walk out of shadows


• Connected with amazing people across 2 weeks, people who have left an impression for the rest of my life


• "Bridged" ties with a neighbouring country


• Did AIESEC every weekend for 1.5 months in transition and planning with currents and elects team


• Bonded with a great team, one that I love and perhaps should have told them so more


• Ran sessions on AIESEC 2010, Balanced Scorecard and our new planning process


• Started my final year in university


• Did a speech at the NTU Welcome Tea, and had applicants quote me in their application forms


• Went through a crazy period in preparing the team for IC 2006


• Visited Amsterdam on stopover and met up with an old friend


• Visited Poland and had a great time experiencing the differences


• Travelled in Warsaw and Krakow with AIESECers from Malaysia, further bridging the ties


• Met up with more old friends at IC itself, noticed things about some people that I never noticed before


• Lost 2 kg after the whole IC experience


• Became part of a sisterhood (two actually if you count the AP one)


• Planned and conducted National Induction Conference in post-IC mode and timezone


• Juggled school work and AIESEC


• Missed my AIESEC friends like mad, made the most effort to keep in touch


• Felt my heart break for what a friend was going through


• Worked with an interesting facis team for NLDS 2006


• Had the past come back to haunt me at NLDS... felt attacked but having to be objective and move on


• Experienced the best NLDS I ever had... most number of local and international delegates, most number of international facis... most amazing sessions and feedback... most amazing closing plenary


• Started my final semester in university


• Made a decision that would change my life, simply because it wasn't a common decision


• Ran for MCP second term, full time


• Had "painful" sit down sessions with some of the MC members... resulting in tough decisions by the team to say "sorry" and "goodbye"


• Went through a whole lot of stress


• Felt happiness and excitement for a friend, only to feel sad and lost at the end


• Looked forward to Egypt, old friends and new friends


• Visited the Pyramids of Giza and strolled along the River Nile


• Loved my AP Family to bits, affirmed my love for Thai instand noodles, among the many other things and people I came to realise how much I love and miss


• Felt lost at IPM 07 closing plenary... goodbye to some and see you again for others


• Worked on pushing for exchange results, worked on ER Corporate Breakfast which was a great success


• Felt attacked, misunderstood, totally wrecked by what someone would say.. yet having to stay devoid, emotionless and objective...


• Poured my heart out to friends who would listen...


• Forged a much closer friendship with someone from Thailand


• Worried over completing the MC team


• Had a great time catching up with Ryan, listening to his plans for the future, eating cheap and delicious Nasi Lemak after company meetings


• Got through final exams of university... felt shitty after some and good after others...


• Finished my thesis report, and in the process killed so many trees


• Finished my thesis presentation, and wondered how I would fare


• Went down to the LCs during their transition sessions, and realised how much I miss being in the LCs and how amazing and fun these new EBs are


• Felt happy for my friends who were moving on to a next stage of their @ XP... yet felt sad knowing that they won't be that close by physically for some time


• Felt scared and uncertain at some points about what was to come and how I was to cope


• Felt RESPECT for a friend who had the guts to speak her mind, something that I haven't been able to bring myself to do... and that I am still pondering

and here I am today.. thinking back about all these things...

what an experience it has been...

Almost entirely over!

Just finished my thesis presentation today... summarised in less than 30 mins what I spend almost the past one year doing...

and exams were over since last Friday... so it's just making final changes to the thesis report before submission by end of this month...

and then.. officially over with school! wow... feels kind of weird..

but otherwise, busy with AIESEC stuff as usual... but looking forward to end of May to be spent in Penang and perhaps Taiwan in July??

and then there's Turkey in August.. and who knows what else might come up? :)

Some English is more English than others...

Presented by Ruby Pan at Talking Cock in Parliament

Talking Cock in Parliament

Part of the IndigNation "campaign"...

This series of talks by various names in Singapore addressing pertinent issues in Singapore in a tongue-in-cheek and often hilarious way.. featuring people like Ruby Pan (joking about accents!), Hossan Leong (great entertainer on all fronts! stand up comedy, acting, cross dressing in plays.. lol), Dr. Kirpal Singh (who lectures at SMU by the way), Mr Brown and Mr. Miyagi (famous bloggers in Singapore), and Alex Au (otherwise know as Yawning Bread, another famous blogger and local gay activist)

and the best thing is that they secured the Parliament House for this!

So I present.. Talking Cock in Parliament!!

Check them out here!!

and if you wanna find out more, check out http://www.talkingcock.com/ for more local insights and local perspectives! Be forewarned that the site contains a fair amount of Singlish.. but worry not.. they have a Coxford dictionary for you to use!!

p.s. it is set up by Colin Goh, who wrote a very meaningful article once.. will be posting that in future

The world today...

I remember posting up the article itself some weeks back... nicely made into a video with good pictures.. notice that Singapore is actually one of them...

p.s. If I had the time, I would edit out the front and back to make this look less like an advertisement for AIESEC. But I don't have the time.. besides... you can find out more about AIESEC anyway now =)

Another time

I FEEL SO HAPPY AGAIN!!!

HAHAHAHAHAH =)