Is it just me or is it harder to find time to blog when you’re working?

Work’s been good..I’m kept busy everyday, which I maintain is much better than having nothing to do. It’s been almost a month already. Which means I’m a third into my internship, and that I should probably go talk to my boss and ask him what I’ve been doing. According to this book I’ve been reading, you should always continually ask for feedback, and treat all feedback as a mechanism to let you know how far off your target you are, adjust your behaviour accordingly, and hopefully it brings you to your intended objectives at the end of it all.

And just for kicks, here are the things I’d like to get out of this internship by August 29 2008:

1) To know whether I like doing PR

2) To seek out opportunities to be more creative in my responsibilities

3) For my work to be respected by my superiors and peers

4) To improve on my work ethic and be more accountable for my work

5) To build lasting relationships with the people around me

6) To be unforgettable.

She took two steps forward, not without fear. It was the loneliest time of the day, that period between hustle and before bustle, when the air was thick and people with their glazed eyes looked without really seeing. She held a balloon in her palm. It was red like the gelatin candies of her youth, a red that was one shade brighter than blood. It gave her a tiny bit of happiness to hold this happy, bouncing thing in her hand. She let the happy, bouncing thing go and watched as it danced further away, and went to partake in a secret happiness she could only guess at. She watched till it disappeared, and then she did too.

Eek. I knew that I hadn’t written anything here for a pretty long time, but I didn’t realise exactly how long till I checked, and well…I am not proud. In my (very very very weak) defence, I’ve been caught up in a lot of stuff lately, having (sort of) graduated from SMU about a month ago.

What I’ve been up to:

1. Gotten a new hairstyle (haha)

Ok, so this is rather superficial, but hey, if you’ve been obsessed with having straight hair for as long as I have, this is a big thing. By the way, at the risk of sounding utterly bimbotic, having curly hair is awesome - my hair looks different everyday, but in a good way, and suddenly poofy isn’t such a bad word. Ok, that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

2. Participated in the Real Singapore Freeze

The Great Singapore Freeze was modeled after the Grand Central Freeze first done by ImprovEverywhere and adopted in many other countries. The Singapore version was held last Saturday, May 17th, in front of Ngee Ann City and was really quite a cool event. Ironically, the sun was blazing down mercilessly on us and by the end of the 5 minutes I was melting like a popsicle in summer.

You can see me (unfortunately, no close-up shots) in 2.54-2.58 and 3.30-3.34, in the bottom left corner in the black dress.

3. Getting an internship

After months of looking for a job, I finally got my big break at Ogilvy PR and will hard at work from tomorrow onwards. Excited!

4. Preparing for Vienna

In other exciting news, I’ll be going on exchange to Vienna in September, and am currently reading up as much as I can on the city. I’ll also be visiting the other European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Italy are on the agenda for now) but I’d love your suggestions on places I can visit. Also, I’m trying to learn a bit of German now, so if there’s anybody who’s willing to teach me, perhaps we can work out a deal (I really have no use for this extra kidney…)

5. Turned 23

I turned 23 on May the 18th. And if anyone is wondering about the pink blouse I’m wearing, it was my mother’s! The theme was “Wear Your Parents’ Clothes” and unsurprisingly, I was one of the few who stuck to the theme (Boo to those who didn’t!) Btw, as a testament to the sense of humour my friends have, the cake said “Happy Vesak Day Tomorrow Nabs” instead of happy birthday. Very funny guys, very funny.

6. Preparing for a half-marathon

Me and Erfen just signed up for the Army Half Marathon which is on 24th August. This is my first marathon so I’m a bit nervous. So far the furthest I’ve run is about 12km, so I need to step up on my training a little so that I don’t faint during the actual race (haha)

Phew! For one month I guess there’s been a lot of changes in my life, but I’m really not complaining. Things are certainly looking up. Well, but that’s it from me for now. Here’s to more regular blog posts! Hopefully those who read this blog haven’t given up on me.

Pardon me, I’m in the mood for Queen today.

Me and Sherms went for the Crowbar Seminar yesterday, and it was really quite inspiring to be listening to leaders in the creative industry talk about what they were passionate about, and encourage the younger generation (ie. us) to explore the advertising world. Although I’m more interested in doing copy than design, I was really inspired by Chris Lee from Asylum and Roy Poh from Beautiful (formerly from Kinetic). Although both of them are Creative Directors, Chris was really funny and Roy seemed to resemble a quiet, shy teenager. In all the presenters - from those in the design field, to maestros of photography and film, and gurus of advertising - the passion and understanding of humanity was obvious, and immensely appealing.

For those interested in the Crowbar Awards 2008, find out how you can beat Billy Lee (above), the precocious 6-year old advertising genius who I personally want to beat up.

The Crowbar Awards, organised by the 4As, gives students throughout the Asian region the opportunity to showcase their work - whether it be film, photography, design, advertising or interactive - and is judged by leaders in the creative field. Closing date for entries is 9th May 2008.

For those of you wondering about the photos and haikus I’ve been putting up, well, it was my lazy attempt to show you how me and Jacqueline’s exhibition looked like. The exhibition has come and gone, but I really look back on it with a smile, it was truly one of the few things where I could show people what I was about. And if you’re interested, you can see the full exhibition here.

These few days I’ve been absent from the online world, well mainly I’ve been catching up on my sleep and enjoying my newfound freedom. But as often is the case with freedom that is newfound, you find yourself with a lot of time and nothing to do.

And so I’m trying to find an internship at the moment (PR, corp comm or advertising), something that will last me till end August, before I head of to Vienna for my exchange. Which is one of the highlights of my year, if not my entire life.

Now excuse me while I write more cover letters…

(Inspired by Mark and Daryl’s posts)

Once upon a time, when the giants NTU and NUS ruled the Singaporean university scene, a little known kid called SMU appeared from nowhere, and said,

“Ahem.”

NTU and NUS turned their noses up and ignored the newcomer, and it was easy for them to do so, because everyone else wasn’t paying any attention to little SMU either, so young and inexperienced as he was.

But SMU was undeterred. He felt that the old system needed to be changed: lecture halls filled with hundreds of students fervently copying notes as fast as the professor could utter them, lack of interaction between students and professors, a lacklustre environment where most students felt nameless, faceless, soul-less…

So he called for an era of change.

“No more crowded lecture halls, but small class sizes where students get to interact with professors!”

“We interview each and every applicant to see if he can fit into the culture, because grades aren’t everything!”

“We don’t want to reward mere memorisation of facts, let’s include group projects and class participation!”

“SMU. Because we’re different!”

It was indeed, at the time, revolutionary. It was a wonderful message indeed.

Unfortunately, not everyone was ready for such a message. Society wasn’t ready for such a message.

Thus, most people viewed those who went to SMU as rejects of NUS and NTU, or worse, mavericks who were taking a silly risk.

But the mavericks, they didn’t care what society thought. They knew that they had something special, and in fact they held a particular pride in bucking the trend, a veritable “screw you” to the naysayers.

Skip ahead a couple of years, and the world suddenly changed. Suddenly graduates from SMU looked real impressive. They were smart, they were confident, they were great communicators and most important of all, they were hired. They were indeed different.

Now, public opinion is truly a funny thing. Suddenly, the little nobody SMU became the young upstart everyone was talking about, and NUS and NTU started feeling hot under their collars a little bit. Soon, they too were talking about being “multi-disciplinary”, “broad-based” and “interactive”.

And when applications for universities opened once again, SMU found itself inundated with applications, and by the best and the brightest, no less.

Soon enough, as these things do, things started to change.

The grade criteria for entry into the different schools suddenly became way higher than ever, and took more precedence.

Class participation became a dirty word, and everybody knew (and hated) that guy who “talked for the sake of talking”.

Competition between students became the norm. Everybody tried to top each other in everything, and the dreaded “bell curve” made things even worse.

The library became a second home to most students, “break week” was a misnomer, and going to school on  a Sunday became the norm.

And the school suddenly became way.too.crowded.

Suddenly, “being different” started looking like exactly the same.

——————————————————————————–

To answer the question I posted in the title of this post, yes, I do believe SMU has become a victim of its own success. There was a time I was truly proud of being from SMU. These days…not so much. Sure it’s a business school, but the level at which the rat race has crept into university life is truly something a lot of us find hard to believe. Some say it’s because of the city campus, some say it’s the marketing, some just say… hard luck, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Call me idealistic, but I think SMU had something special in the beginning, and somewhere along the way, it lost the plot somewhat. I think I’ve been luckier than some in that I got to do something I truly believe in, something beyond getting the perfect grades, and I truly hope that everybody gets to experience this in some form or another. Life is not all about that perfect presentation, that A+ that you spent all your time in the library for, or that ungraded presentation that for some reason became yet another game of one-upmanship.

Don’t get me wrong, I know some of the most talented and intelligent individuals in this school, but most of us agree that things just aren’t the same anymore.

SMU, revisit your ideals once more. Then ask yourself, am I shortchanging those that believed in me from the start? If the answer is yes, then let’s change the situation. It isn’t too late.

waiting, in stasis

as others take historic flight

pursuing their dreams

photos by Jacqueline.

inner consciousness

lights up and dims as body moves

from this square, to that

photos by Jacqueline

morning interrupted

I wonder if we are moving

forwards, or backwards

photos taken by Jacqueline.

Bloggers Audio Interview

A couple of weeks ago some of the Social Media class bloggers (Calin, Amelia, Jacqueline and myself) dragged ourselves to school on a Sunday for an interview for SMU Campus Radio, for a show called The Talk Show hosted by Daryl. We had a rather fun time during recording, and here’s an audio clip of the interview if you are interested (though I must warn you of my bad radio voice and incessant “umms” and “mmms”).

Social Media Breakfast Singapore

Then last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending (and making food for) Social Media Breakfast Singapore, where about 40 of us bloggers and social media users dragged ourselves out of bed on a nice Saturday morning to talk about ourselves (or as Derrick says, “to pimp ourselves”) and how we use social media in our lives.

It was nice meeting people ( Derrick, Andrew, Michael, Brian, Sheylara, Coleman) and then there was the personal tagging, which basically involved tagging people with stickers with adjectives on them (mine read “I am Lao Ban”, “great poem writer”, “thief” and “helpful”), and to the contrary of the organisers’ expectations, was a great hit with everybody!

Though it was tiring making all the food and running around, it was indeed exciting to be part of SMB, given that it was the first (until someone proves otherwise, Daryl says), and I’m pretty sure not the last. My only regret was not managing to talk to everyone, but there’s always SMB #2! You can read more about the breakfast at Daryl’s blog and even Mitch Joel has picked up on it. (Good job guys!)

Photo+Haiku exhibition

As for this week, me and Jac are having a collaborative haiku+photo exhibition in Frujch based on the theme of Time, apt since it’s our last term in SMU. Do come by tomorrow to check out Part 1 (Moving), and Part II (Still) if you’re in the area.

I just love how blogging has provided me with these opportunities to meet new friends and make new memories. I really have to thank Professor Michael Netzley for introducing me to this world of social media, it has indeed been a fascinating journey that is just beginning.

Social Media class has really created a big impact in my life and I’ve made new friends from class like Andre, Jasmine, Valene and Xiao Hui (in addition to Calin, Amelia, Jacqueline and Daryl) and I was really sad when we had our last class last Saturday (see above picture, that’s me holding back my tears :p)

Well, then again there’s always Twitter (add me!)