The Bright Sunshine

Work hadn’t been too smooth for the past week, but I’m working hard to prove that my standard is actually higher than the one I’m being compared to. Was feeling quite demoralised those days, this shall be a challenge that I’ll set for myself. My expectations are high, standard is high. I just have to prove it.

Work aside, it had been quite a mundane week. Somehow I lost my motivation again. I should try not to bring issues at work out of the office. It affects me somehow.

There was quite a big hoo-haa recently within my guild. While I don’t understand their rationale when it’s just a game, my mood was affected. What’s the motivation in playing game when you lost a group of game-mates? New maps! Yeah man. Took me a good 2 hours plus before I managed to login successfully into the game last night. Then my laptop had to give way. I kept having graphics error. LOL. Great.

Sian. Mundane life now. Probably I should face the fact that I’m still not fully adapted to work life. bleah.

Convocation ceremony for NTU Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering)  was held on 27th July 10am.

Graduands were to report by 9am for robing and to register latest by 9.40am. Guests were to seated by 9.30am.

Attire for graduands: long sleeve with pants/knee-length skirts(female graduands only)

Attire for my khakis: white-based long sleeve with stripes (of any colour) =D

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I thought I was early when I reached Boon Lay Bus Interchange at 8.30am. Never expect the auditorium to be packed when I reached at 9am. LoL.

Robing session began when I found my khakis near the stairs. We had to be robed to get registered.

Serial number 64. Seat number E4. =)

Seated.

10am. Academic procession began. The academic staff started to proceed towards the stage. Normal orange & blue robes, until.. BLACK! Dracula?!?! But nice ! XD

After speech by Guest Of Honour, the graduands finally started to go up the stage.

As most of my khakis are seated together, we cheered for the rest of the gang who were seated far away from us ;p Thanks to Klenn for bringing up the atmosphere lol

It was quite a long wait, seeing that there were quite a few hundreds of CE graduands, not including the 10 Computer Science graduands.

12noon, academic procession out of the auditorium.

Photo taking session!! Frantically looked around for familiar faces, ran around finding people, took quite a number of photos.

Suddenly the truth struck upon me.  This is going to be the last time the whole cohort are in school together at the same time. Though it won’t be the last time we are all meeting up, I suddenly realise that this chapter has been closed, and I’m stepping into the next chapter of my life. Not that there’s nothing memorable about my years in NTU, there are a few nice memories. Friends that I’ve made especially. Memories on the times spent rushing assignments, struggling with revision for exams with my khakis.. I’m glad I have this group of khakis who are all so willing to stand by one another. The strong friendship among us (we’re a big group with 13-15 members) was my motivation to carry on when I felt so devastated with school work. Thanks pals!

The next episode of our lives has just started. Work life will kill many of us since we’re all in the IT industry. Let’s all work hard and keep the friendship going! Whether you’re in government sector or the private sector, in Singapore or in Japan, salaried-worker or self-employed, no matter who you are, buddies, close friends, good friends or just friends, keep in contact! Especially Ans! Don’t forget to nudge me on msn when you’re bored over at Japan! I’ll gladly keep you entertained! =D

Due to LW’s work nature, she was invited to the screening of this documentary film. And me being her good friend and buddy, gets to enjoy this screening as well =D

Invisible City, or  「备忘录」 in Mandarin, is a documentary film. As the title depicts, it’s about the city that existed and still exists, but yet invisible to many of us. You got it, it’s about the history of Singapore, from a different context.

Filmed by a local director, Tan Pin Pin, the main aim of this documentary film, is to let viewers understand the fast pace of change of Singapore from the 1950s till the Singapore that you see today. My point of view, however, I think the film is more on allowing us to appreciate how our peers (e.g. the archaeologists) are trying their best to protect our existing knowledge of Singapore’s history, as well as to dig out more truth about what we’ve learnt from our history textbooks.

It’s an interesting film in general, but you’ll get bored easily if you totally detest history.

I’m actually touched by the works of the characters featured in the film. Especially the foreign expatriates, one who was a housewife here and took photos and developed her own photos in her house just out of pure interest (but hey! She was actually creating memories of Singapore at that time!), and another who took coloured videos in the 60s(or 50s?) (which was the first of its kind at that point of time)  and he being an old man now, still tries his best to keep his films alive by rerecording them again.

In this fast pace of life in Singapore, how much memories do you possess? 10 years down the road, would you remember what you have done today, or would there be any significant event that might happen? Try taking your camera, and take snapshots or short videos as often as you can. Film your family, your grandparents, your friends, all short-lived happiness (like those gatherings you always have with khakis). 10 years or 20 years down the road, you’ll be glad that you have these photos and videos for memories.

30, 50 years down the road, the “Invisible City” that existed today, will be invisible to people of that generation. They will not be able to fully understand what we are going through now in year 2007. The only way to let this city be visible always, is to share your own history, regardless of which media you use.

Let us all create our own history and share with the next generation.