My Undergraduate Days #62 (My Commencement.)

My Commencement was yesterday! (This post is written on Monday.) Despite my open invite to all, very few friends came. But, that didn't spoil the fun and exciting mood I had that day. I was in frantic mode on Saturday, pestering my mum to help me iron my gown, running around my room to get ready the things I want to bring, etc. My brother forgot his mortar board during his convocation and I didn't want history to repeat itself, haha. Amazingly, I did not forget anything. Yeah.

Here's Kelly, Ming En and me, pre-robing. We rushed into the Robing Room, planted ourselves in front of a mirror and put on our robes. Meanwhile, annoying announcements kept ringing into our ears, telling us the amount of time we have before the room closes.
Busy undergraduates putting on their gowns. So glad that my mum secured everything (the gown and the stash) together. Putting on the robe was a super easy task.

Here's me and Kelly, looking smart. :)

From left: Ming En, me, Ying Min, Weiping, unknown girl, and Kelly.

The ceremony went well, I clapped especially loud for the Social Work majors. And Hock Chye said Social Work majors have the extra human touch... Aww. (They should have announced the majors of bachelors... *frowns*)

Here's Julia, one of the few enthusiastic friends who wanted and promised to come, with me and Ming En.Me and Hilliyah, my Advanced Placement classmate. Here's me with Kelly and her cute little daughter.
Unsuccessful and embarrassing attempting-to-jump photos.The mortar board seemed to be too heavy a load for this little girl. She was trying very hard to balance in it! Haha, so cute!
Fellow Social Work classmates, Eunice, Shihui and Christine.
Weiping and me. Me and Dr. Ngiam.
With Dr. Sim.
With the Year 3 Social Work Cohort.
As you can see from the photos, it was really really very hot that day.
Found Eileen Shen at UCC too!

Took some more photos with Julia and Sharifah...
Still, no one bought me Mr Lion. But fortunately, I received very practical gifts from both Jane, Julia and Sharon. Jane, I didn't fall down, but I think the heels of my shoes are quite spoilt. Urgh. Where did you buy those petals? And thanks to Julia who rushed to UCC from the market, and also to Sharon who sent the correct message to the wrong person, hahaha.Us and Mr Lion.After removing my robe.

P/S: Stolen some photos from my fellow course mates.

A nice mortar-board-throwing picture!
Yingmin, Yijia and Weiping.
Hock Chye was one of the persons I did not take a photo with! URGH! There's Cindy Lim, Sabrina, Liwen, etc etc!

Finally, some family photos. We didn't take a lot of photos, but most of them turned out nice! :DMust really thank my family for waking up so early together with me so as to attend the Commencement, and my brother for sending me there or else I will be lugging the gown in bus! Gosh.

And, not to forget his encouragement which always come at the right time... his touching birthday note... and his touching words to me when I express much envy about his graduation and bleak hope for my future. No flowers, no Mr Lion, it's all okay... as long as we continue to care for each other... I don't see what else can be more important.I want to thank many other people too. Those who've always been encouraging, accepting and supportive, and those who've been mean and lousy to me too. I think you all play a part in sculpting me, and I have no regrets about the paths I've took and the people I've met so far. Really satisfied with where I am now. Will definitely be stronger and more confident.

Happy Graduation, class of 2007...

Thank you, everyone.

***

Went City Hall with Kelly and Weiping to have a good lunch at Sakae Sushi.

Was not very full even though I ate a lot already. Spacious tummy I have.

Hyper friends I have, huh.

After lunch, off we go to Esplanade. Nice backdrop?

Crazy Weiping.A never-ending race... be it family, friends, learning or simply, life.
I think we look smart in our gowns. :DHeading to our second stop, the Merlion.It was simply crazy to run around in our gowns like that, but who cares! We really enjoyed ourselves, and I think people enjoy looking at us too. Some tourists even requested to take pictures with us. (Just like how I get excited when I see students in foreign land.)
Mr Merlion pui water at me!Then we walked pass Fullerton Hotel... and I took this picture of Weiping.

Artistic right.Our last stop was Singapore River.

I don't know what inspired them to take such a photo, but thank god, I censored it.Our backview. All thanks to Kelly's friend, who bumped into us while we were crazily taking photos.Nice sunset. Chilled out and rest our feet at Macdonalds.
P/S: And as I was typing out this blog entry, the doorbell rang and I went to open the door (yes, I was wearing my home clothes, gosh). Received FLOWERS!!! From dearest Elayne... THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Cindy is a happy girl!

My Undergraduate Days #61 (Of NUS.)

Great thing to do before Commencement: Reminisce... the NUS days...The place that I (probably) go to the most: Central Library. You can print your lecture notes or readings here, watch videos here, read readings here, snack here (legally in refreshment area only), study here, discuss projects here, gossip here, make free phone calls (albeit the phone is smelly due to unknown reasons), go toilet here (yes, there are times when I go to the library just to go to the toilet... for no particular reason, haa!)This is the printing room of Central Library, a place where I can stand for as long as two hours to print my readings. And the right most picture shows the last book I utilised as an undergraduate- Family Therapy. Quite a useful book, but unfortunately I could not finish reading it.The colourful seats that I always utilise as a meeting point for me and my friends. Asking friends to wait outside the library can be very irritating, given the recent climate of Singapore, so I love to ask my friends to meet at the colourful seats. And they look beautiful, don't they? The second picture shows our RBR bookdrop which can be pretty noisy when you return a book, heh.Below our library, there is Co-op bookstore, where we buy our stationery and snacks. It is also a place that I love to go when the weather is hot, or after lunches when we just want to jalan around and slack a while before settling down to study. Mr Lion, part-time model of Co-op.Right in front of Co-op is this area we call Forum, where I usually have project meetings. I kind of like the open-air-ness of this area. When a survey guy asked me if I want this place to turn into an air-conditioned place, I rejected that idea. It'll be totally different if it's air-conditioned.
And the nearest AS to the Central Library and Forum is my beloved AS6, which housed the departments of Social Work and Psychology. Unfortunately we have to move out of this AS soon. Urgh. I love AS6! Going to AS6 is like going back to my second home. :(
I can still recall that there was a mean senior who explained the method of opening the door in an irritated tone when I was in my first year. So impatient lor. AS6 is also near our temporary food place. The milk tea sold is from sachets, and I terribly miss the good old milk tea I always get from canteen. Engine canteen's milk tea is the next best alternative, but it's a little inaccessible. Boo. When is our Deck coming back...?
I am very proud of the ezlink top-up machine. :DAS5 and AS2 are the places which I am least familiar with.Had some of my Social Work lessons here in AS1, such as SW2103, SW3101, SW3202, etc.
Narrow corridor leading to AS4. I love walking here, haha, because by walking here, I don't have to climb an extra flight of stairs if I am going AS4 from AS1. :PAs4, where I had my German 1 and German 5 lessons.Familiar corridors.Familiar scenes.Familiar grounds.AS3 is my second favourite AS, because I had my German 2 and German 3 lessons here. Beautiful memories I had here with my German friends. Still can recall Elayne taking pictures of the two doors of the rooms that we go into for German lessons (refer to third picture in collage), and the times when we stand outside the rooms thinking of what to eat for lunch...As7, Jialing's favourite hang-out. If you can't find her, try going AS7, hahaha. There's a high chance you'll find her there. Anyway, I like printing stuffs in AS7, because Central Library's computers are so high in demand. Furthermore, a restrictive and troublesome log-in-for-only-one-hour thing was started not long ago, and as a result, I can't type my essays in the Library.There's this NUS internal bus, which I have this love-hate relationship with. Sometimes, you meet inconsiderate people who won't move into the bus quickly, or people who'll push you or step on you unknowingly... sometimes the bus will swerve so hard that you think you'll fall down... One interesting thing about boarding the bus to Yusof Ishak House (YIH) is that it'll stop on the slope. And during my first time boarding the bus, I couldn't really tell if the bus has stopped already, because it stopped on the slope. Feels a little scary at the beginning, but it's so iconic of NUS, haha.The scary slope. Notice the angle of the bus stop against the slope?The scary stairs. Reminds me of my fall only, damn it. Reminds me of my panting in NUS too. The good old bridge that I always make use of on rainy days (refer to third picture).Always feel that YIH is not as warm as FASS. I MISS SCHOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.........................

Singapore Arts Museum with Julia, Lijia and Shang May.

Explored Singapore Arts Museum with Julia, Lijia and Shang May in the evening. Thanks for buying the small snack before the visit, Julia.

The Singapore Arts Museum.

We explored the charcography collection of the Louvre Museum, which includes etchings of masterpieces such as Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The real Mona Lisa is still much more captivating, of course. (But according to Lijia, the "real Mona Lisa" I saw may not be the real one afterall. Hmm.)

Print-making (on copper plates) started long long time ago, from the time when the Sun King, Louis XIV ruled France till this day. This reminds me of my art piece... I did my lino-printing like how they did their "copper-printing", albeit my artwork was very much amateurish, and unlike most artists, I didn't have strong feelings with regards to expressing myself through my artwork. Think a strong sense of self-awareness would have helped a lot.

Realised that I've forgotten much of my JC history knowledge. I can only roughly recall Mao Ze Dong, Great Leap Forward, and Cultural Revolution but I can't remember the details already.

To sidetrack a little, I spotted a book days ago. The title was something like The World Famous Bad People (or something along these lines). I was just wondering, who are we to judge if they are "good" or "bad" people. Everyone has different definitions of "good" and "bad". Furthermore, I've heard from somewhere that a seemingly "bad" form of government might be beneficial for a certain bunch of citizens. Following this logic, I figured out that seemingly bad leaders might have been "bad" for some good reasons, like for the good of his people.

Anyway, I've enjoyed looking at the exhibitions. :)

This is the group photo my Baobei captured. Although the red counter could be seen, I thought our position in the photo is pretty interesting. Artistic right, haha.
A bigger version of our group photo that I got from Julia and posted on my Flickr.
PPRRREEETTTTYYY! :)

Journal of a budding social worker #20 (Children, learning, and motivation.)

Anyone has tips on helping children to improve their learning processes or motivation to learn? Your contribution will be much appreciated! :)

Bread and butter #3

Third day at work, and I already forgotten how many days I've worked. When Christine (we usually call her "Chris") asked me how's my third day, I was a little lost and started counting the days while she stared at me. Met up another colleague who was in another department (another room) today. Finally, haha.

The weather is terribly hot and humid these days, that I totally melt when I go under the sun. Feels as if I am doing my 2.4km run. And to think I had two home visits today. Gosh. I swear I am going to be gu niang and bring an umbrella with me whenever I go out and meet the sun.

My feet are now super tired and half-dead. I desperately need comfortable shoes. Sigh.

Thanks for all the concern sms-es, MSN messages, and well-wishes! Feels quite warm to received all those messages. :) And special thanks to Jane for your practical gift! I love the letter (the drawing included) and the gift loads!!! THANKS!!!

Bread and butter #2

Was too ambitious. I think I should only be able to finish the three files (plus some more documents) by end of this week. Oh well.

Been rather reserved these days. Must be due to the previous traumatising experience. Totally traumatised that I still cringe badly when I think of it this day.

Anyway, I was happily compiling photos to put as my screensaver at work. Was smiling when I saw all the familiar faces, beautiful memories, and nice people I've met... Haha, my screensaver is going to be exclusively mine, my social work journey. :)

Julia.

Met Julia last Saturday at Wisma shopping (so typical of her to float to shops she's interested in), after my unsuccessful attempt at finding and ga-jiao-ing Sharon. Managed to recognise her, because I was looking through my old photos, which includes the photos we took on Valentine's day celebration. She was wearing the same tee on Saturday too! Really trivia detail but... still, I can recognise her back! Haha. Anyway, she dedicated a post to me after I complained that she did not mention about meeting me. Alright, insider's joke. :P

Bread and butter #1

I have been suffering from immense stomachache since 3pm. Urgh. And I managed to sit through a meeting?! I deserve no cramps this month. Hopefully.

Everything's been great so far. I've been informed about my portfolio, and I'm given three files to browse through. I aim to finish them within three days, because by then, I might have tonnes of other work to do.

Am happily planning how to decorate my workdesk now. A pillow for my back, my cute post-its, a cup, a donkey paper stand given by Julia during JC, an unwanted wrist rest, a necklace with my name on it. My workdesk is going to be as messy and colourful as my study table at home. Hee.

Kiwi!

Yingyan recommended this video. My first reaction was of course, "so cute!". And upon reading the following text I got from this website, I was feeling quite happy for the kiwi because it managed to fulfil his dream- that is, to experience the feeling of flying. I think it's rather important to chase after every little dream in our lives because our life is so short! You might die today... you might die tomorrow... the thing is, you never know!

"Kiwi!" is an animation about a Kiwi - a type of bird that cannot fly, who spends its whole life working towards achieving his dream. The kiwi strived to create the illusion that it was flying over a forest as it soared down through the sky from the top of a cliff. Thus, the kiwi spent what must have been its whole life nailing trees to the side of a cliff. All this, to fulfil its one dream of flying, even though it was technically unable to. There are several powerful messages behind Kiwi, but mainly, it makes you think: no matter how absurd and seemingly out of reach your dreams are, what's stopping you from achieving them?

Chatted with Yingyan with regards to my view and she's a little surprised, as she felt sad for the kiwi. True, it's rather subjective. So I watched the video again, and I realised there's a loud thud at the end of the video. Sigh.

Random #15

Ate dim sum breakfast with big brother and sister-in-law at Red Star Restaurant, a famous place where (I think) some of our parents held their weddings at. Nothing marvelous, but I like family meals.

Thereafter I tried hunting for more comfortable court shoes. I tried on a pair of Americaya plain but sleek black court shoes. They are quite high for me, which means, they will cause the death of my two poor feet. But they look so pretty, and rather comfortable (I think). I refrained from buying them because I do not want to torture my poor feet further. They've been rioting (aching) these days for unknown reasons.

Thinking about starting work makes me feel excited and queasy at the same time. Will need some time to adjust to working life. I sincerely hope that I will not disappear from my friends' world, and I will try my best to make my presence felt! :P