The title looks appropriate for my finals this semester. After all, I'm starting my examination in 5 days time and ending it in 7 days, covering 5 exams in the process. Here's my timetable, probably one of the most compressed uni examination timetable which you can find.
Even with this timetable, I'm rather confident that I can finish my revision on time. Of course, this is after eliminating all non-study related activities, such as not going for archery training today, and going back to school to revise.
Surprisingly, those around me seemed more concerned about my timetable myself, thinking I'm crazy to plan this type of timetable. There are some who predicted that I will not do well this semester, which I have to agree partially. I started off with a GPA forecast of 3.5 at the beginning of the semester, but has raised it after the mid-terms. There's also some 'noises' telling me I need not study, which I have to constantly filter off as I know how dangerous they can be. Even the pre-exams require so much thoughts, the sad reality of SMU.
For now, I just want to focus on my revision, and hopefully finish before Wednesday so that I can relax for at least half a day. This is going to be a tough campaign, must make sure I don't burn out before Saturday.
It's good to see someone who shares my view regarding work. Here's a speech by Adrain Tan at NTU Convocation 2008 which Marcus forwarded to me. Pretty long but interesting, so I've summed up the main points.
The first part is about life expectancy, in order words, don't expect yourself to live to a ripe old age...Forget about your life expectancy. After all, it's calculated based on an average. And you never, ever want to expect being average. That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste. If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. You will be living your life according to boundaries set by average people. I have nothing against average people. But no one should aspire to be them. And you don't need years of education by the best minds in Singapore to prepare you to be average.
The next part tells you not to work
The third part is about not telling the truth, which I do not really understand
...Work is anything that you are compelled to do. By its very nature, it is undesirable.
Work kills. There's a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are "making a living". No, they're not. They're dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful. Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway.
Resist the temptation to get a job. Instead, play. Find something you enjoy doing. Do it. Over and over again. You will become good at it for two reasons: you like it, and you do it often. Soon, that will have value in itself. Find that pursuit that will energise you, consume you, become an obsession. Each day, you must rise with a restless enthusiasm. If you don't, you are working......The truth has a great capacity to offend and injure, and you will find that the closer you are to someone, the more care you must take to disguise or even conceal the truth. Often, there is great virtue in being evasive, or equivocating. There is also great skill. Any child can blurt out the truth, without thought to the consequences. It takes great maturity to appreciate the value of silence...
The following part is about be hated...One does not have to be evil to be hated. In fact, it's often the case that one is hated precisely because one is trying to do right by one's own convictions. It is far too easy to be liked, one merely has to be accommodating and hold no strong convictions. Then one will gravitate towards the centre and settle into the average. That cannot be your role. There are a great many bad people in the world, and if you are not offending them, you must be bad yourself. Popularity is a sure sign that you are doing something wrong...
Finally, love someone...I didn't say "be loved". That requires too much compromise. If one changes one's looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.
Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We've taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work - the only kind of work that I find palatable.
Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.
You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.
You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you...
Don't work. Avoid telling the truth. Be hated. Love someone. Out of the four I probably only achieve don't work, since I appear quite slack most of the time and I'm always asking people not to work that hard. Unfortunately, it's not due to the fact I realised that I should live for the moment, but rather I don't see the point of working so hard when I cannot find my obsession. Not telling the truth is probably something I can't do, but I don't wish to do it either. I have been more direct and truthful for the past 2 years, and I'm quite comfortable with it. Being hated is something I need to work on, as it seems I'm far too compromising at times and I believe being hated is part of the trade-off for being loved. And loving someone, that's something I really long for.
Today marks the end of formal classes for term 1 of my 2nd year in SMU. Had a MA presentation in the morning, my very last presentation of the semester. Our group sort of overdressed for the fun of it with all the guys wearing vest and tie. We look more like waiter and waitress or those working in a casino. Just an average presentation and in fact I underperformed, but I sort of make it up with my Q&A.
So here's some pics of my smart looking group :)
Finance class in the afternoon was my last class of the semester. As usual nothing special happened, just that Hong Dong ended class 1 hr earlier. So I have more time to have my dinner at Aston's before going for my last class in NAFA.
Basically today was just submission and thankfully I manage to complete my final project after staying up till 3am last night. Some of the people in my class produced very impressive work for the final projects, making me quite nervous about presenting my work. Fortunately it did not turn out too bad, as the lecturer was quite impressed with one of my Zoscards, and that saved me from getting a C. More or less neutral comments were given on my other works, with pointers on how to improve it, and my main weakness was probably selection of fonts.
Got back all my work for the past semester. Although the grades were not that fantastic (with average around B-), what matters is that I can see my improvement for the past four months. Never for a moment in that last few months did I regretted signing up for the course. Not even with the many nights when I have to stay up late to do the assignments or crack my brain super hard to think of what to do. The things I learn and the friends I've made will probably make this course a very memorable one.
Looking back at the past 4months, it was a wonder how I manage to survive till now. (Anyway, the original class size reduced from around 18 to today's 10 ) From the very first lesson, I got the shock of my life when I was asked to draw stuff manually, which was what I did not expect when I signed up for the course. Eventually, drawing dots, lines, and later stars and eventually layouts have just become so normal. Even for computer work it has been a natural process to draw on the layout pad first. From spending hours on the arrangement of dots for the first assignment to developing quick sketches now, I can't believe I have come that far. The real nightmare came when painting was introduced. So many times I have to repaint the same thing over and over again cause I can't get the colour I want or the brush strokes are too obvious. For someone who failed his art all the way in secondary school, it was quite a remarkable achievement. Perhaps after exam I can scan all my assignments and upload on facebook so that you can see how horrenduous my works are and how little flair I have.
Only after attending the course I realized how little of my brain have I been using for the past 20years. Understanding things in academic context is easier in the sense that after reading the same thing for a few times eventually you will get it. Thinking of something out of nothing is much harder. You got to first think out of the box, experiment, come up with random thoughts. That requires much more brain power than understanding. This probably explains why I'm coping fairly well with my 5 modules in SMU but struggling in NAFA. I stayed up late a few times this sem, never once for SMU assignments. For SMU projects, I probably can see the end product after seeing the projects requirement, but for NAFA projects, I can't even see the start.
Looking forward, getting the cert will certainly have no impact on my career at all compared to some of those who signed up for the course in hope of looking for a career in design. It probably changed the way I think and look at stuff. As of now, I'm still considering if I should sign up for the two specialisation courses to upgrade to a specialization cert. I probably want to make use of what I learn as well. Although I'm quite hesitant to apply what I learn in projects (since in projects I'm very focus on content), I will want to continue to make e-mailers and posters for archery. After some practices, I will go for some marketing posts in school and even targeting the school newsletter, Blue and Gold. That's probably some of my plans for now.
