Ying’s Convocated!

Big head and tiny arms

Convocations, celebrations and conglomerations

And so, the NTU ADM class of 2009 has finally convocated.

Well, we did so on Thursday. I’m a tad slow on the updates. Hence today’s photo-ridden monstrosity of a post. It’s been a long journey to this point. Admittedly, little did I know 7 years ago, sitting outside the office in St Nicholas that I would amount to anything of value at all. Now here I am today. With a completed honors degree in fine arts. We never know where the path we walk on will take us. All we know is, sotong prices will increase within the next 15 years.

I don’t regret coming to ADM, though my path ahead might take me far from these people I have grown to trust and adore. I’ve forged many friendships, weathered many storms, survived tumultuous deadlines and events to come to this one point when it all ends, and another path begins.

Convocation was over in a blur of brown and aquamarine, which, when worn in large numbers and after several weeks of hanging dismally by my cupboard, suddenly doesn’t look too bad. We had the lovely honor of being part of the first ceremony of the year, and had our convocation graced by President SR Nathan and the 100,000 dollar mace which doesn’t have any foreseeable purpose other than fend off pouncing undergrads.

I beside Jieying, Sufang, and Firdy on the other side during the convocation!

And Denise for a while. Lol. Lots of these photos come from Facebook. Kudos to those who took, uploaded and tagged the photos!

The Fwah group posing with our Suprematism showing.

The graduation gift from the NTU Alumni Office this year was a universal power adapter. =\ Poignant gift, upon some thinking. Thinking about it, most of their gifts this year have to do with traveling. Might be a little nudge for us to venture overseas and away from the rather frosty job market here.

Didn’t take many photos during the convo. But dear came down after the ceremony to give me flowers! My favorite flowers too! Even if it was a lil bit late.

Mommy bought me a graduation bear too! He’s wearing my faculty’s colors. =) Adorable little thing. I’ve been getting lots of soft toys lately…

Grad Bear (working name) and gerbera bouquet! They made me smile long after the convo ended. =) Thanks dear.

Friday night was then the ADM graduation bash. It was held at Velvet Underground. It was my first time at velvet and quite an experience. Pretty cosy for a party really.

Made up for the lack of pictures taken during convo with a plethora of ones taken during the grad party. We’re going back to ADM to take photos with our gowns sometime in late August. =) Must toss hats!

Today, dear and I went to Suntec today for lunch at Sundanese and to play the kiap kiap thing at the arcade again. Lol… Sudanese wasn’t too bad I guess. Tasty. The kang kong was really tasty. Though her preference for purple things was a bit unsettling (eggplants!)

So we headed to the arcade after that, spending a little over 30 dollars on the Candy Land sth sth machine. Basically, you time a scooping thingy to scoop sweets from a rotating track below. The scooping thing will then retract above a small platform where you dump the sweets. The platform retracts and extends repeatedly, pushing sweets over the edge of the platform and into the awaiting hole below where you can grab them with your grubby hands. A small lever just below the platform can be triggered by falling sweets, spinning this jackpot thing, slowly building up to the point where you get the jackpot prize.

Understand?

Lol. Anyway, seems to be dear and my favorite arcade game at the moment. During our last encounter with this machine of money robbery, we won Flappy the elephant. This time, dear won me a HUGE Tigger!

And as usual, Tigger has be to welcomed by the slightly larger welcoming committee.

Who then have to routinely check him for flu like symptoms and trample on him for luck and some strange initiation rite.

Today was a day of gifts too! Bear got a new shirt! Kinda new anyway. It’s dear’s shirt. Now I can hug Bear to sleep and he’ll still smell like you. =)

Bear looking at his shirt.

A little bit of struggle…

Tada!

SO CUTE. And smells yummy. =)

Sigh… DEAR… I MISS YOU. =( Call me or I’ll bite you.

In A Nutshell

The past couple of days have been exhausting.

Xuan’s birthday was tonight (or yesterday) and the rush to get all the games ready as well as the video and buying the present… Woot… Glad it’s finally done and everyone’s happy. I hope. =)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY XUANY!!!!

We had to distract Xuany today before his big party. So we headed to PS to play arcade and have some lunch.

Lunch was teppanyaki at that Sakae place in the basement. I didn’t really have much of an appetite today (coming to think about it). But we still guzzled down lots of food.

Dear came along too! And went nuts playing the funny sweet-scooping game in the arcade. She ended up scooping up a big bag of sweets as well as a couple of toys…

And the jackpot prize! Lol… She won me a big fluffy grey elephant. =) So cute…

Flappy the Elephant on the way to dinner! Squished between the seats of the car.

And mesmerized by the sights and sounds of the world outside of the storeroom he was kept in for ages and ages.

Flappy comes home!

His welcoming party arrives.

And gives him a big welcome hug… As well as a check for flu-like symptoms.

When all’s clear, it’s bed time!

Yeap… Today was really long… Glad everyone had fun. =) Will blog more tomorrow. Tomorrow is another long long long day.

Thank you dear. =) For Flappy, for coming today, for supporting me when things got tiring and for being with me through it all.

Updates of the poor and the jobless

So… Now I’m jobless again. This time by my own volition. Due to a whole bunch of reasons concerning my mounting disatisfaction with myself, I made the rather silly decision of leaving a possibly great job with a definitely great company.

The people at the office were just awesome.

Lol. Awesome.

But really. After one week, I feel like these guys are my friends. I learned alot about roto and matchmove though I was never in those departments. I have a much clearer picture of what it takes to work in this industry. Plus, I’ve made lots of great friends.

Overall, same applies. Nothing learned is ever wasted. No experience is in vain.

I hope to be able to finish my showreel by mid this week and let Oli and Sam take a look. Though, to be frank, I dont think my work can compare to the reels that come through the door every day.

Someone changed my soap again a couple of days ago.

Who is this person who changes my soap? And dictates what I will smell like for an indefinite period of time? Does this person know the power he/she wields?

Need to go pick Hua from the airport later today. And study to give tuition tomorrow. I’ve been missing an entire week! And Prelims are coming up. Need to start re-reading my GAMSAT book too. And getting out some physics questions to ask Hui Qiong.

Lots of studying to do.

Lots of things to do as well.

-Roars-

Half Year Mark

So we’ve made it. The half year mark.

There’s still that crazy flurry of excitement. There’s still the tingly buzz that lingers after every kiss. There’s still that soft ache whenever you leave. I still love you.

Happy half anniversary dear. =)

Been pretty busy these couple of days. I expected our 6th month to be a little more extravagant than just a quick and slightly late dinner. But I was recently hired by Double Negative as an anything and everything assistant.

The people in the office are great. My little room consisting of 5 desks and my single chair has a great view. The food isn’t too bad. The company is amazing. But…

The job, not as emotionally fulfilling as I thought it would be.

Will blog more about it come end of the week.

I’m on a one week trial to see how I like the job and how they like me. It’s only been two days and I’m already exhausted. And miss my girlfriend to bits.

Have been trying to squeeze in some time to look up graduate diploma courses as a backup if I don’t get into med school this year. A grad dip would give me the year’s worth of sciences that I need to apply to anywhere in the world, freeing up my options horrifically. And also, gives me better grounding for the GAMSAT and MCAT.

I think it’s a pretty good next step. But the trick now is finding a course which will take me, someone from a non-science background. The only courses which would let me do something as outrageous as this is in Monash, but it’s closed to international students… Need to check with them if begging helps..

Sigh…