Summer Plans 2014

So you might be wondering: With four and a half months of holidays, what am I going to do?
Let's look at what I have done so far in the past three weeks!

What I Have Been Doing (In Order of Occurrence)

1.  Bowled with the SUTD CF-ers

And I managed to get a bowling score of 120! Who says that not having enough arm strength plus not being able to bowl in  a fancy way is any way disadvantageous? :p

2. Served as an usher for a concert for the first time - Prem1ere 2014, the SUTD Performing Arts Concert

It was an interesting experience and I saw much uncouth behaviour from the attendees that don't don't have respect for the performers. There were still people streaming in late, more than 45 minutes after the concert had begun and they bashed through the doors like it was their right to mightily walk into an ongoing concert. Perhaps it's because I've been in different performing arts CCA since I was 13 and am used to what concert etiquette should be.

Anyway, I do wish that I could have been performing myself this time round, but choices and sacrifices had to be made this term to pursue my other interests!

3. Adventure Cove with my boy

So we finally got to play at Adventure Cove! We haven't had a proper full day out for the entire term and it was certainly fun to play without any subconscious worries. We even tried to do do funny OOTDs (to imitate a certain model) but I'll only post the nice one which wasn't taken with that intent :D.

We even got to watch The Amazing Spiderman 2 and it was interesting, though, expectedly sad. I really love full days out with Ian, whatever it may be! And then at Daiso, we found materials and an idea struck for a Mother's Day gift!

4. Made a Mother's Day Gift

I proudly say that I made this with my own two hands! Everything was bought at Daiso (except the photos, of course). But I couldn't have done it without the help and additional resources from Ian! I spent the entire afternoon at his house trying to make this. He made something similar for his mom too. He had awesome ideas, such as using magnetic strips to attach a plastic cover in front, such that it can be opened at will, yet keep the dust out most of the time.

5. Sent Gabriel Off For His 3-month Internship in France

Waiyong, Ian, Josh, Keith and Gabriel
Credits: Ian's Nokia

So this lucky Gabriel gets to spend about 3 months in France, interning at Ingenico. He's gonna learn a lot there, especially through the experience of living on his own! I'm pretty excited for my Europe trip in June too. But once that's over, that means my internship will begin. That's both exciting and a drag. It'll definitely be exciting because the internship is at Frost & Sullivan, and I'll be working on a consultancy project there with the Public Sector Division of the company. The drag part is due to having to actually work for 10 weeks, after 2 whole months of playing!

The card we gave him! Ian drew the Eiffel Tower really well here.

6. Got Trolled 

"That is undoubtedly a slice of watermelon!"

Ha ha ha! Look at Bert's gleeful expression. So he loves to bless us with huge portions of fruits :D. I love Sunday afternoons where my friends are free to have lunch and aren't rushing off to do things! It's been a long time since I've gotten to talk to them properly.

7. Botanic Gardens 

I got up really early and went shooting with my dad at the Botanic gardens, and most of it was in the Orchid Garden. The main purpose was to test the new Canon 10-22 lens where appropriate to use a wide angle lens!

Gleeful New Toy

I will probably write a dedicated post to this under a #photography themed post together with the photos of the plants and the garden, so watch out for that! In any case, I really love going out, look at nature and capturing pictures of creation!

8. Perfect Fifth 2014

Already wrote a post about it below (:

9. Random meet-ups

Fruit Paradise (Tampines Mall branch)

Last sunday (two days ago), I met up with the BMC guys for fruit tarts. Actually, I was supposed to meet Ian, and then Abraham came too, and then they ran into Sam and Bob at the mall, so there we go! I love hanging out with these people and they're really, really, really funny.

10. Classical Piano

Natalie is back in Singapore, having gotten her Masters from Leeds! We had our first lesson (in a really long time) yesterday and I feel really happy that my sight reading is not too bad! We started on an Argentinian folk dance piece, which is coincidentally one of the alternative Grade 7 pieces. But anyway, I won't be taking any ABRSM exams in the near future. It's just not viable in terms of time, and I'll end up spending all my time trying to master just 3 pieces for it. What I really want to do is to learn a repertoire of classical pieces for my enjoyment.

I proudly say I can still play the Hyden piece I learnt from the Grade 6 book, and half of the Elegie from there. I didn't take the exam because SUTD life really robbed me of such time and I spent all my other time mostly on my fifth rows, church and family.

11. Dramas & Novels

I've been watching My Love From The Stars, an awesome Korean drama about an alien who got stranded on earth for 400 years since the Joseon period, initially jaded by human nature, changes upon falling in love with an arrogant top actress. It's essentially a love story, and the cinematography, the way the story is told simply conveys the emotions that very few dramas can encompass. Of course, it helps that the actors are really pretty, including the male lead. Let me quantify that I haven't watched a drama in full for a very long time, and I practically don't watch anything at all during school term time. I'll only spend my time watching dramas that I think are worth watching, during the holidays!

As for novels, you'd probably know that I'm an avid reader of fiction and I love adventure type of books with elements of fantasy. That includes post-apocaplytic settings, the wizarding world, a place where magic and superpowers exist, or anything to do with secret missions. That's pretty much what my dreams (while sleeping) have been including and I wake up wondering what just happened.

So this month, I've been reading the Divergent trilogy and I'm currently at the beginning of the third novel already. It's set in post-apocaplytic Chicago, where society is split into 5 factions based on the disposition of the people: Abnegation, for the selfless; Amity, for the peaceful; Candor, for the honest; Dauntless, for the brave; and Erudite, for the intelligent. At the age of 16, the people are expected to choose a faction they have an aptitude for. Each faction embraces a certain ideology and method of doing things and they serve in different occupations. You can already see things like narrow thinking and predictability coming into play, and how this is used to control the behaviour of the people.
I'd say that the writing is of pretty high quality and the themes of control, freedom, human nature in relation to developed tools, warfare and ideology is pretty well done. I love it how the author writes the five faction system to be so ironical in their ideologies and corruption. Of course, it's an exaggerated way of showing the difference between thinking for oneself logically and blindly following what's been taught to a person from young.

It's worth reading, just like the Hunger Games. It's in no way a rip-off of the Hunger Games as it explores theme of control in a different way. I'm thankful for epubs and iBooks, because I read this whenever I'm sitting on the train or bus!


Final Thoughts:
Though I'm pretty satisfied with the break I've been having so far, there's so much more I can be doing! I don't have that much time till my internship begins, so I'd better fulfil the dreams I have for this summer as soon as possible!

Things I Intend To Do:

To Do Consistently

1. Spend more time with God, especially through reading the Word and becoming more conscious of how I treat others around me. It has been difficult getting back into reading the Word consistently, especially since many things around have been extremely distracting. Especially waking up late in the mornings after sleeping late. 
2. Be more intentional in caring for my family and friends, and spending more quality time with them. 
3. Find ways to cheer on my dear Ian, who is on a 16-week internship! 
4. Build spiritual friendships with the few people that I can do so with.
5. Talk to my SG girls more often.
6. Eat healthily and run at least 3 times a week.

The Summer Wish List 

1. Record covers of songs with the new Audio-Technica USB microphone I bought! Possibly film a music video as well.
2. Do conceptual photography and think of a theme to do a photoshoot of others (or of myself ahahah) in! 
3. Bake (Not limited to):
• Tiramisu
• Cupcakes
4. Learn how to cook really zai dishes from my mum and grandmother. That includes going to the market for shopping!
5. Perfect the classical piano pieces I'm learning now. 
6. Meet up with old friends

It's time to start planning a schedule to do these things! So what's the first thing I'll do today?