31 August 2014
This week was a big week. This week was a busy week. This week was the week that decides what my workload for the semester and for the next year.
The week started with a tutorial at Monday 1030am, which is the best day since I got 0830 class for the rest of the week. After the class, we had a lab which was quickly done since nothing was required to be done in the lab, except the attendance. We went to SAC, played snooker, and I left to my room, resting for a while. Just right before dinner time, I got an email informing me that I passed the interview and will be going for a rally on NTUBS AGM on Friday. I was excited, and worried at the same time since I’m sucks at public speaking.
On Tuesday, I spent my day mostly on classes: lectures and tutorials, with some breaks, where I started to write my rally speech. At night, I also had some time for doing my URECA research. I also started to practiced my speech.
On Wednesday, luckily my lab haven’t started, hence I can wake up not that early. This day, I only had one 2-hour tutorial of Technical Communication where the first hour was conducted by librarian on teaching us how to use the library resources. The next hour was more towards group discussion of the project idea: which one to use and what are the resources available, but unfortunately, the WiFi that day was so slow that we decided to make this our homework. Going back to my room, I revised and practiced my speech before going to a rally practice, organized by the previous main committees, giving us suggestions on our speech and QnA.
On Thursday, it is Union Day 2014, where classes from 1030-1430 are cancelled, except my class, the lecture of 1230-1400 of BU8301 Fundamentals of Business Law is not cancelled due to the lecturer did not want to bother us with make-up lecture. After the class, I went back, had some rest and practiced my speech again for a short time before going to dinner and then working part-time. This time, more and more people are using the learning pod until midnight, might be caused by more projects are started already.
On Friday, it was very tiring as I had full day class: from 0830-1230 and then 1330-1630. And then I went to NYH, helping out moving stuffs to LT8, where the AGM will be held. I was there, helping setting up the AGM, until the dinner time, where I changed to my formal wear: long-sleeve shirt, tie, and jeans that I think dark enough to be disguised as a formal pants, but alas, a lot of people noticed it, and I still go on with this attire. The AGM started with some admin stuffs, continued with a break before the “scariest” part, the election of 32nd Management Committee. The part of contested seat was exciting as the votes are somehow quite tied :) But the “scariest” part was me giving out speech to around 80 people for 2 minutes, which I done quite quick, as opposed when I’m practicing, I had barely enough time; and then being asked questions for 2 minutes, which for some questions I answered with any idea that came up to my mind that moment since I had never expected these kinds of questions. For some questions, more ideas came up when I spoke, but for some, I even get more and more “blank” when I started speaking.
The thought is the thinker itself
The moment of truth happened, I was escorted outside by Shi Wei for the votes counting. I was quite scared since my QnA was quite a fail one. I felt quite relieved when I heard claps sound from the LT, which might indicate my election was a success one. Yeah, Shi Wei went out to informed me and congratulates me on my success in becoming the 32nd Resource Director of NTUBS. Phew, I was so relieved. The AGM went on, and after it finished, the new MC had a meeting with the previous MC at SAC Meeting Room, chit-chatting about the job, which I and Ivan did quite quickly since I knew most of the jobs already since I was his Resource subcom and the CNS 2014 Logistic Manager. After that, we put stuffs to his and Rizky’s room before going back, resting.
On Saturday, I woke up quite early, attending the first “training session” for ACM ICPC by SCE professors. He was Asst Prof Fan Rui, who had his degree, masters, and PhD at Caltech and MIT. When he spoke, I’m amazed on his accent: it’s not Singlish nor Chinese-English, this should be American English. Basically the training session was to train us for sending us to ACM ICPC Regional which in turn the target was to represent NTU at World Finals. The weekly training format will be warmup, discussion, and then ended with contest. For this first time, they did not hold a contest since they said that the system for contest was not ready yet. Overall, I was quite nostalgic in joining competitive programming again, and might increase my business for this semester. After lunch, I went back and had a nap before joining my first online contest at Codeforces after almost a year, and it was a disaster here: I got no AC for almost the first hour, and only got AC for problem B after 4 attempts, while problem A was an epic fail, no AC after 6 attempts: it is only after the contest that I realized that I over-think about the requirement and after very slight modifications, I directly got AC. Towards the end of contest, there was a heavy rain and I heard & seen a thunder strikes nearby which makes the power plug and internet (but not the lights and fan) down until I called Fault & Reporting Centre to fix it later that night. After the power & internet went down, I started to brainstorm ideas (and some drawings of the ideas) for my CZ2004 assignment 1. Then I went for NTUBS “Website pass-down” meeting with RIzky, Ivan, Peter, Stephanie, Freddy, Teheri, and Thao at KFC. The meeting was to introduce the functionalities of the NTUBS website to the new committee, and sharing what to do with the new website. I pointed out that around 30% of the visitors are actually from mobile, which means we should work on a mobile version. Going back, I went to Ivan’s room for him to do the pass-down, explaining and advising on what should I do for the year.
On Sunday, I was quite free but the day was dedicated to NTUBS 31st Resource Outing to Exit Plan, at Chinatown. We went there together from around 11am, where we stopped by Tanjong Pagar, and walked to Lau Pat Sat for our lunch and then directly walked to Chinatown for our game at Exit Plan, which called “Friends of Eriden”, where we are locked up in a room and by solving puzzles, we found the key for winning the game. This game used up lots of time and brain juice in solving the puzzles which makes us tired after the game. We then went to Comex 2014 at Suntec Singapore, to accompany Rizky in his search for a speaker. Besides, we were excited when we heard that we can try out Google Glass there. Yeah it is there, but when we arrived, the glass is currently unavailable for public testing, only for display. After Rizky had bought a speaker, we left and went back to NTU Canteen 1 to have our dinner before I went back to my room, doing many stuffs, like room cleaning, laundry, and writing this blog.
This week has been a crucial part in deciding what my workload will be in the next year. Besides that, the academic workload is increasing gradually as assignments are started to be given out. Next week, I’ll have to be in the NTUBS Investiture and work as Resource Director. I planned to meet up with my subcoms as well. Hope the week went well and I hope I can survive until the next year. :)