Went for my second archery competition last weekend and here's how it go.
On the first day was supposed to shoot two rounds for the qualifiers but after we finish shooting one round, there was a thunderstorm hence the second round was cancelled and the first round score was taken. I shot a score of 202 which was close but slightly lower than average. At night, received a call from Vincent, my team captain that I actually qualified for the top 8, as the 8th seed!!! What a pleasant surprise.The next day, went back early in the morning and was told that I was tied on score with the 7th place the previous day, so we had a shoot-out to decide who is the 7th seed. Tied again after the first arrow and won him on the second arrow, and I was the 7th seed. So instead of meeting the 1st seed, I will be meeting the 2nd seed for the individual knock-out round instead.
Team SMU
First day score sheetQuarter-finals: A very tight match as the lead changes hand after each round, eventually I won by 1 pt to knock out the 2nd seed and progress to the semis.
Fighting for 7th SeedSemi-finals: Fought back from 4 pt deficit to tie at the third round. At the crucial 4th round, I lost by 1 pt. Just 1 pt and if I have gotten 2pt more, I would have gotten at least a second.
Quarter-final against the 2nd seed
The sad Semis3rd/4th placing: I lost my cool after losing my semis and actually twisted my sight in the process. Missed lots of arrow and got thrashed in the shoot out. Therefore, got a 4th placing and medal-less. Haiz.
3rd/4th Placing
My team qualified for the team event as well. We got knocked out after the first round after losing by 4pts. Mostly my fault I have to admit, as after losing at the Semis I was shooting atrociously. Perhaps I am not mentally strong enough to lose by one point and still thinking of the last shot which I did not do that well.
Team Event
2pt shy of a silver medalI shall practise even harder this time round as in a month's time, I will be participating in the SAFRA open. This time round, I really wish to win something as it might well be my best chance to win something this year.
Empty handed but happy team
Still related to archery, after Legolas, I've found another Idol Archer: 李智雅 as 秀芝妮in 《太王四神记》
After a month of planning and many days of decision making, finally followed my heart to sign up for the Certificate in Basic Visual Communication course in NAFA. That makes me now a full time student in SMU and a part time student in NAFA.
A little info on the course: The course is designed to provide students with the opportunity to acquire the skills and knowledge in the areas of graphic design. The training includes concept development, graphic design skills, typography, digital media, art media and presentation techniques. On top of that I will be learning how to use softwares such as Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign (never hear before).
Business and art are not that distinct from each other after all, but most of the time we are talking about the commercialisation of art. How about the other way? In a world of business plans, charts and numbers, a little art will bring more life to the industry. So I suppose this course not only cater to my interest, but is also related to my field of study and work as well. I can always improve on my content of my assignments and reports in school but I feel that a well-designed report will add a third dimension to my work and beautiful powerpoint slides always impress me and now it's my turn to impress others. Even when I go to work, I can create nice analysis charts, corporate reports. That will be really cool.
Having taken the first step, I have to continue this enthusiasm for the next one year. I can foresee quite a few challenges in my way as the end of the course is close to my examination period so I might have to study and do my projects at the same time. For the next sem, I should be taking 5 modules, so putting aside 6hours a week aside for the lesson and several hours for the project is really no joke. But well, no point worrying for it now and I have spent so much money on it that there's really no turning back now.
It's almost one month since holidays started but till now I'm still unemployed. Initially was busy with holidays and fun and when I finally decided to find a job, found that good and high paying jobs are hard to get. Perhaps I was just being choosy, as I only applied for jobs with pay $7 and above, as I felt that I'm giving myself up for exploitation if I accept jobs with lower pay. At this current rate, it is highly likely that I will stay unemployed till school starts.
So what is this unemployed person gonna do for the next three months? For now, the MAS-ESS competition is my main source of 'entertainment'. This 3000-4000 essay is much harder than I originally expected and the research that I have done is overwhelming. And with around 2weeks left or so, I'm only halfway through my essay, so for next week got to work even harder and hopefully I can complete the entire essay by next week. Other than typing the essay, for the rest of the time, I will try go out when possible. If I have to stay at home, then it's dota, sleep and a lot of emo-ing.
So during the prolonged period of emo-ing, a lot of ideas and emotions came into my mind. Since I do not have a diary, perhaps it's a good idea to share some of my thoughts here.
On emo-ing:
I realise that I have been emo-ing too much for my own good. I start to wonder why is it that I will only feel sian when I was alone in the past, but now with more people to talk to, I actually feel emptiness and urge to talk to somebody when I'm alone. Is it just that because I have more to lose compared to the past that's why I felt insecure and start to imagine stuff?
On dependency:
I do not know whether I should be sad or happy to admit that I have lost most of my emotional strength in the past year or so, because it will mean I have become more human, but it also means that I will get sad and affected rather easily. For the first twenty years of my life I was rather self-sufficient emotionally but things start to change when I began to grew dependent on others and others may be slightly dependent on you. Yet dependency is another double-edged sword. Realising that others have grown less dependent on you and unable to depend on someone you are highly dependent on is probably the worst feelings you can have.
On friendship:
Enjoyed all the times spent with friends and after becoming more human I began to know my friends better too. I feel disgusted and sad linking 'turnover rate' and 'friends' but have to admit that a relationship exist between the two. Perhaps a friend is like a can which comes with an expiry date, finite or infinite. Sometimes you just left a can on a shelf for a long time and the next time you feel like eating the food in the can, it has passed the expiry date. I.e. you might miss that friend but just do not know how to go about contacting him or her again.
On love:
Somehow I feel that I'm always either meeting the wrong person at the right time, or the right person at the wrong time, so there is no happy ending. But pondering on it, is there this thing known as 'the right person' or 'the right time'? Or does happy ending just happens between any people at any time?
Shall not continue with more depressing stuff. So far it's already so many questions I have asked myself but no answer to it. The only solution is probably to keep me occupied so that I will not think of all these stuff.
Went for ice-skating for the very first time in my life, at the undeveloped Jurong. Started off at the railing area where I was quite surprised that I can actually stand on the two thin blades. Slowly moved on to walk before gliding a bit. That's when the terror begins. As I lose my balance, I tend to grab someone near me and pull that person down. So, everyone started to stay away from me. As a result, I started doing quite a lot of 地板动作at the skating ring. Luckily it wasn't too painful falling on the ice just that the melted ice will wet my jeans. Anyway, witness an accident where a girl who was skating quite fast fell and hit her head and gone into a seizure. Her eyes rolled back and her expression was really scary and was later sent to the hospital. Hope she's alright by now. Yupyup, let the pictures do the talking then.
All the skaters
I'm taller =)
It's snowing
Survived yet another biking trip to Malaysia and it's Kukup this time round. Kukup is approximately 100km away and it's my longest cycling trip so far. Twice the distance I cycled for my last trip to Desaru but fortunately the terrain is 'relatively' flat. Prior to the trip I was told that it was flat, only to realise that there's still many slopes on the way there and my bicycle is totally not suitable to go on slopes with an useless front gear.
Rented the bike from ECP and head back to sch. Slept for only an hour before setting off at around 3am. Met with a thunderstorm so had to take shelter at Mac and had our breakfast meanwhile. Fortunately the rain stopped in less than an hour and it's 一路向北.
Going through the causeway was quite interesting as this is the first time I cycled across the causeway. So among the long queue of motorcycles you can see a big group of cyclists. Later we was told that we can take the car lane so we carried the bike across the barricade and it was a fast clearance. Off we go to Kukup.
Crossing the causeway
No.1 to no.11
The flat land
The slopes =(
Another group photoOn the way to Kukup, other than the Mac breakfast in Singapore, had another KFC lunch and prata high tea before we finally reach Kukup. And once we reach, it's seafood lunch time. It's quite an decent seafood lunch with prawns, crabs, clams, etc.
Spent the night at the resort where we had yet another sumptuous BBQ dinner before the return journey the next day.
Usually the return journey will be faster but not for this. A journey full of accidents with bicycles crashing to each other as we were drafting close to each other and a couple lost control and fell quite badly. Fortunately no bones were broken and no other vehicles were involved and we finally reach Singapore at night after a long 10hours cycle. Oh well, late is better than never.
A shagged group during the return journey
Watch Harold and Kumar 2 today and it did not disappoint as it was as funny as the first. A good movie to watch to relax although it contain an excessive amount of nudity.
There was one poem in the movie which I must share here. Looks funny prima facie but on closer look, it's really romantic and sweet.
The Square Root of 3 by Dave Feinberg
I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three
The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine
For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic
I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality
When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three
As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer
We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands
Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
My own life has more ups and downs recently with a mix of good news and bad news. This more or less has dampened my happiness for the recent achievement which I had. With all the results out today, I had finally completed one of my new year's resolution - to get into dean's list. With the unexpected A from Biz Law and Analytical skills, I had more than covered the B+ from BGS to achieve a GPA of 3.86 for this sem and a cumulative GPA of 3.82. Good achievement and I deserve some pampering from myself I suppose. Oh well, one down, 5 more resolutions to go.
I'm back from another exciting and fun trip to Bangkok which we planned our itinerary only upon reaching Bangkok. Nevertheless, with good map-reading skills and prior experience, we still managed to go wherever we planned to go.
Day one: Arrival in BangkokDay two: Went to Central World but was quite disappointed because despite the size of the mall, there isn't much to shop though and the goods sold there were too high-end. Proceeded to MBK then for some recee as we did not have enough time to cover the entire mall. In the evening went to Patpong night bazaar and there's lots of shopping and night activities. Somehow the Thais seems to like Indians as Anand was constantly pestered by the clubs to enter to see thai-girl show.
At the Budget Terminal
On the MRT
Tom-Yum
Day three: Adventurous and free tuktuk ride as we receive a free ride in return for going to a tailor shop and a jewellery shop so that the tuktuk drivers will get gasoline coupons from the shops. The entire ride took around two hours before we reach the pier. Took a boat ride down the river (took a wrong ride across the river at first) to view the sceneries. Went to Suan Lum night market in the night for more shopping :)
On the Boat
Day four: MBK day and last minute shopping before home sweet home. So there's the total damage.
At DFS: The new Absolute Mango and Archipelago, for use during the next party.
