Ok here I am at the library. Omg. So many muggers in SMU. Everywhere is full, including the study rooms.

Oh well I'm here to mug too haha. Need to fully understand FA man. Things are beginning to get very challenging now. I need to speak up more in class too. Not enough at the moment.

Tired shit now man. Only slept 4 hrs last night trying to read up and understand FA and Biz Law. And coupled with the 10 km run I did at the gym yesterday. Strange. I seem to run more after army. Haha.

Tonight's the Freshmen Bash so I'll be meeting ERIK for dinner before we proceed to MOS for the Bash. Dad has my shirt so I'll drop by his office to change up before going meet the Erikians. Haha Erikians? Now I've created a new name for my FTB group lol.

Probably will party the whole night away.

Think I'm going to die tmr during Comms haha. Maybe the fatigue will give me the guts to talk?

Ok so how was my past few days?

Urm not very well in fact. Didn't make it past knock-out round on Sat so nothing to cheer about. Sunday was spent studying together with Jinfu(AGAIN). *Need some girls to study with*

Went for floorball recreational games today. Too many people there so didn't had that many chances to play. Not feeling well too so I'll join the competitive training when I recover from the flu bug.

Had an argument with my father again. He succeeded in turning the whole family against him. So proud of himself ain't it.... Why does he want to behave in such a childish way. Doesn't he know what behaviour is expected of him at his age? Sometimes I wonder if young people like us can behave in a more mature way than some adults.

If today's post sounds sad and angry, it is a reflection of how I'm feeling now.

Sibeh dulan.

Geng is damn tired now.

Past 3 days total sleep is <15 hrs.

Was preparing and doing hw on wed night till 1 am. Woke up at 6 to catch bus to sch coz I had morn lessons. Went to send off SP2 specs at Changi Airport yesterday and ended up talking and eating with Capt Yip till 11 plus. Reached home and realised I hadn't done my prep for comms. Read until ard 2. WOke up at 6 again this morn to catch bus to sch. Damn shagged.

After lessons, met up with Erik for Vivace. It was an event for the CCAs to attract students to join them. SO we went from booth to booth listening to the seniors introduce the CCAs although I wasn't really interested in many of them. Decided to join floorball since I have some interest in it. And credits to my nice neighbour, yiling who succeeded in psycho-ing me to join the SMU Run Team, I finally signed up with them! Also volunteered to be part of the Asoc Day OC so I guess I will be quite busy with sch activities.

After Vivace, we proceeded to some cafe at Selegie to celebrate weixun's birthday. Was shocked when everyone was given free soup! In the end we found out that the cafe is owned by winston's brother.

Then I rushed off to dinner with uni-y camp group at Breko. Was trying to use our voucher won during the camp. Always a great time spent with them coz we would always show off our chinese lingustics skills and talk loads of crap. Haha. And realised that Yi Xuan is a super lame girl today! Haha all the scholars I know are nutcases lol.

Tmr, or rather later(abt 5 hrs from now) I'm participating in SMU Professor's Cup with some of the 4D guys and 2 other tpjc fellows. Hopefully we can do well but ultimately it's the time spent together the most important.

All the best to my team!

A Small World

Well today's the 2nd day into school and I think that the pace of the teaching in SMU is generally ok. Lots of discussion so far and my LTB group has already started on our community service project yesterday.

Had business law seminar today. Pretty boring except for some parts which we had some discussion about.

But there was an incredible event that occurred today.

I was at the bus stop waiting for bus today. Feeling bored, I decided to take out my SMU notebook and record what I needed to do. Suddenly this girl beside me asked if I were an SMU student and our conversation went like this

Me: Ya I'm first year student. You at SMU too?

Girl: Yeah! I'm 3rd year though. That means same age as you la... Where do you stay? Ballota?

Me: No... I stay at Mariam Way

Girl: Hey I live there too. House number ##

(For a moment I though very hard why the number sounded so familiar and I realised....)

Me: HUH? That means I'm your neighbour la!!

So the both of us took the bus ride all the way to school, talking about our families and laughing at the fact that it took us 12 years to acknowledge each other. I dunno whether is it fate or anything else but something did help me to "find" my neighbour whom I had never talked to despite living beside each other for 11 years.

I finally have a friend who stays near me. Haha.

Life is full of surprises.

School Starts

Ok today's Monday and here I am shaking my legs at home when many of my friends are already in school having lessons....

No, I didn't pon school.

No lessons for me today, thanks to my timetable.

Ok convocation was not bad. In fact, it was quite good.

Totally different from what I had expected. I think the rest think the same way too.

There were the usual speeches by the key personnels. Then there was this announcement of the smu scholars and I actually know so many personally. I actually enjoyed the performance by the various CCAs and the post convocation activities. Towards the end, there was this live band performance by Hey B.I.AM and the crowd rocked to the beat. I was really glad to have such fun with friends.

After NS, I always feel that you are not part of an organisation until there is an official ceremony. Convocation has somehow made me feel more of an SMU student now. Not to say that the previous camps had not made me feel like an SMU student, but attending a formal ceremony makes me feel that I had chosen the right university.

School is going to start on Tuesday for me. I'm pretty hyped-up to do well in university and enjoy life as well.

I think life's beginning to get pretty exciting.

Had a great run this morning. Couldn't sleep well last night so the run has freshened me up. At least for now.

Feel a bit sian that I had to miss the floorball clinic. Sprained my shoulder during FTB and it has not recovered fully. I didn't really want to take the risk. I should visit the sinseh again to make sure it's going to be fully functionable soon.

Having some Convocation thing later. I had always thought convocation was for graduating students but SMU makes it a formal ceremony to welcome the freshies as well. Need to be dressed in formal attire but I just feel damn uncomfortable wearing it. But well, need to get used to such things soon so why not now?

Meeting a few of the ERIK(FTB OG) members later for lunch. For now, I need a good shower and a hot breadkfast. Will update on the convocation tonight.

Ciao!

Met up with Conghan today. Glad to have some coffee and a chat with him before he flies to the States for studies.

Conghan was the OCPA in my company during NS but he's no slacker. Always did his work diligently and helped us, the men many times on many occasions. Offs, leaves, schedules.

Respect.

Chatting with Conghan really adds a different dimension to my thoughts and views because he sees certain things in a different way from me. I guess I had learnt quite a lot from him during our idle banters. Haha.

Can't remember exactly when we started chatting but those kopi breaks certainly helped. And the times when my deployment schedule was different from the rest of my platoon, I could always find someone to talk to in the company office. Intelligent chats. Haha.

So take care dude and try to stay away from weed? Lol.

Woohoo had a great time with the Asoc group yesterday.

Yup, we had a bbq session at Clara's house, which is so damn far from my house la. Travelled almost half of S'pore before I got there.

But it was worth the travel to meet them. Haven't seen each other since Asoc so we had some good time chatting and catching up. The timetable issue was definitely on everyone's lips, most of us trying to see if we are classmates with each other. Found out that most of them are in block B, with the exception of me, zhenghan and joel.

So I started the fire because no one else knew how to start. Took 15 mins to start which was not bad, considering that I haven't started one in ages. Some asked if I was in scouts before, but unfortunately no. Haha. I guess fire-starting is a skill that runs in my family. My dad can start one in 10 mins and my late grandad can start one in even shorter time. Cavemen!

Food was good. In fact it was so much we had to play 密码游戏 to finish the rest of the food, especially the "short beehoon". Highest casualty rate was Teck Chew, Joel and Bena. Their eyeballs almost popped out when they kena the 2nd time. Damn funny.

Then the spoiler came. Some anal ah pek security guard came around and told us that we couldn't make anymore noise because it was past 10.30 and some residents complained. I was super pissed because he could have put it in a better way instead of sounding like we were vermin. We packed up and wanted to go somewhere else but ended up in a more secluded part of the condo. Played 7-up there and some "mao-mao" game but this time Teck Chew was more alert. Haha. Again the anal guard came and chased us away.

So we left the place and went to a basketball court in a hdb estate. Played the "mao-mao" game which I really sucked at. And then the truth or dare which was super hilarious. Nicole, Candice, Suming and John left around 12. The rest of us continued playing a guilty or not game. Secrets revealed but it was all fun and laughter.

Left the place around 1. Lucky to have Clara's boyfriend around to send me and Jialiang back.

So group 7, when are we having our next outing again? LOL.

Realised that my last post was on Saturday... Was sick the last few days so had marbles in my head... I'm on the way to recovery after much persuasion by my mum to see a doctor. At least the medicine is working. For now.

Had lunch with Andrew today at Parkway Parade. We haven't met up for some time so it was great to have caught up with him. We talked about many things: studies, cars, airliners, smu, monash, part time jobs etc. It is always nice to have a chat with Andrew because our thoughts are rather similar. Perhaps that's the reason why we are s**k-c**k buddies haha.

Managed to get a long sleeved shirt from G2000 for convocation. There's a severe lack of formal attire in my wardrobe so I was pleased to have it. Well that's at least something off my mind for now.

But

I have yet to get a pair of pants... I thought that I could use the pair of pants that I had bought during my relief teaching stint but unfortunately, I've outgrown them. Sideways.

Damn I need to go get one soon. And a pair of shoes as well.

Some moments from FTB 2006...

And so it began.

trying to stand on the kayak

with our balls =]

plugging holes

the winning car of the vikings!

the super high toe tower. 6"5' in the end. Can you believe it?

Matt taking a ride on the dinoducky car... erm... plane!

The girls... Tanu missing here

Thanks for the wonderful times Erik!

Erik and My Sunny Island

Oh my gawd I'm so damn tired la. Rushing from SMU's Freshmen Teambuilding Camp to the NDP celebrations(live) really sucked all the vitality from me. And apparently, 12 hours of sleep hasn't make me feel any better yet. And I'm still feeling ill. With a sprained shoulder as well.

Well, it was quite an experience for me as a participant at the Freshmen Teambuilding Camp(FTC). Certainly, the camp was a bit different from what I had expected despite the numerous advice dished out by some of the facilitators of other camps.

My group's name was Erik.

There was a lot of planning and thinking involved in most of the activities. Some activities were quite difficult and I must say my group did well for most of the activities. Good planning and excellent execution helped a lot. Really must thank guys like Matthew and Chris who did most of the planning and coordination. And the girls as well. They were really sporting! The first time I've ever seen so enthu girls. Haha.

Lodging was ok but bathing was absolutely CRAP. The toilet was flooded almost everyday. And I mean higher-than-ankle kind of flooding. Not exactly clean after bathing but well, this was a camp afterall.

Campfire was great IMO. Had a great time relaxing there, unlike the other times when we had to rushed from one game station to another. Every section had to put on a skit and I was one of those involved. Really happy to see people laugh when they saw the skit because it was the whole purpose anyway.

Had some great time introducing some lame games to my group as well. Lots of laughter when some realised the solutions to the games. Looking back, I feel that my group could have played more games because it is thru these games that make groups bond together. Maybe I should have taken the initative to start the games. Sigh.

But anyway, I had a great time at the camp all thanks to my group.

to Matthew, WeiXun, Winston, Hing Man(Ah Man!), Hui Wen(Ah Girl!), Jake, Eileen, Chris, Alex, Tanu, Sijie and of course our nice faci, Farhan

You all rocked big time!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I rushed off to NDP after the camp. Actually I left earlier than the rest. Kinda sad I didn't get a proper chance to say goodbye to them. Ya know, the 'something's missing' feeling. But we'll meet at convocation anyway.

I initally didn't want to go to NDP because I thought I would be tired after the camp. But thinking that it was the last time it would ever to held at the National Stadium, I decided to be part of that history.

As usual, the queue into the stadium was long and hot. Took like ages to get into the arena but once in there, you could feel the atmosphere. Everyone was dressed in red and were singing and cheering out loud. It was almost like the scenes of Koreans at the 2002 World Cup. Feeling like a patriot, I joined in the fun too, clapping and cheering with the rest of my fellow Singaporeans.

There were the usual events like the parachutes, the GOH, the march-past, the F-16s fly-past, performances by various organisations. I found most of the events boring, elements of the past but the fireworks more than made up for the rest of the parade. The fly-past by the Apache helicopters was also impressive, us being the first SEA country to have Apaches in our arsenal. When the national anthemn was being played, it was amazing to hear Singaporeans sing aloud with pride and dignity. I, of course, was one of those who sang out loud too.

So it was quite a memorable NDP for me, and a great bonding time for my family as well. And bcause it was the last time the NDP was going to be held at the national stadium, all the more memorable.

Singapore you rock!

Majulah Singapura!

*This entry is more than 24 hrs late because Geng was having a hard time thinking of what to write. There are, still some sand left in his brain after the FTC and it's affecting his cognitive abilities.

The Monster Game

Some game that we played at the Uni-Y Camp. Haha. Those fun times man.

Thanks to the people who made this. It is truly something worth remembering.

I think this korean mtv was made some time back but it is still worth watching.

Because Im A Girl

Hey guys this is the design of the T-shirt I had asked you all to consider buying. It's for a charity cause and it's not my own initiative. I'm just helping a friend.

So please do give some consideration to the t-shirt. It's 10 bucks each. Can contact me if you're interested in it.

Lappie

After 2 weeks of waiting, I've finally gotten my laptop. Cost a damn 2600 bucks.

Brand: Fujitsu
Model: T4210
Special Features: It's a tablet!!! No more paper and pen, just my laptop and myself.
Specifications: 1.83 Ghz, 1.0 GB RAM, Dvd Writer.

Well I think I really need some time to get used to the laptop man. The buttons are all over the place. Damn. And the tablet functions too. Oh well, one step at a time.

Met my Circle Experience FOC group today. Although only 6 pple turned out and 1 is leaving for NUS to study law. Found out that my group only has 4 girls and I know 2 already. That spells "SIAN" in caps man.

Oh well hope for the best. Haha

Astria Oh!

Uni-Y Camp 2006 was great!

The people, the facis, community service work we did. Simply unforgettable.

It was also my first time to a nursing home. It was a very humbling experience for me as I have never interacted with older people, save for my grandparents who even so, passed away when I was relatively young.

Initially, I thought that looking after older people would have been a very boring thing. No doubt, the elderly were quite stone-faced when we talked to them. But after they have warmed up to us, we had a great time singing and interacting. Of course, I got myself a "grandmother" too.

And on top of that, Astria, my group, was simply awesome.

The team spirit, the camaraderie formed was simply amazing. Now looking back, I still can't understand how we managed to be so united. Especially the game where we had to sit on each other's legs. And to think that we had the biggest group with 17 people =] I am so damn lucky to be in that group.

So when are we going to visit the old folks again?