Life Goes On

The Return of the Me

14 September 2015 • Life Goes On

Midnight of 14 September 2015.

I’ve been disappeared for some times already.

There are lots of stuffs going on in these past two months.

I’ll flash back from July 2015: continued my internship and I started to do something that I quite like, something like a parser in Node.js; after that I escaped to Wikimania 2015 while crazily doing the Internship report, and then when I came back, my other fellow interns are ending their internship; and when they left, I still continued for another week and worked really closely with my supervisor where at this time, I just realized that my supervisor is a real geek, he has quite a reputation in Stack Overflow community! :o :o :o . After ending my internship, my focus turned into CNS programmer stuffs where there are a trial camp right after the end of my internship.

On a side note, right after I went back from Wikimania 2015, I straight went to move out from my room at Hall 4. I put half of my stuffs at Handoko’s place at Hall 11, and then the rest (and myself) at Liniki’s room at Crescent Hall. It was quite sad to lose a room and need to “squat” for a while now. Hopefully Liniki won’t be mind of me troubling me every day.

After the tiring two-day trial camp, I went to Management Retreat 2 where the management committee have meetings to set the future and also to have fun. So basically in this MR, somehow, I really care about potable water, where I almost always taking initiative to boil water and cool it off. Besides the meetings, job scope changing, constitution revision, we have fun, i.e. play poker while eating ice cream and listening to MUSE and Coldplay (wah, I really felt quite “high” while keeping the poker face for poker game) I really like the togetherness of this MC, especially the coordis that has successfully entertained me with their lame jokes throughout the year. I’ll miss this moments. :) :) :)

Back from MR, it was the long weekend commemorating SG50. On the Friday, I spent the morning helping BFY in the SG50 Pindacara, as I was invited by them and yeah I have nothing planned to do on that day. So it was quite an experience to walk without footwear for quite a distance while carrying stuffs that get heavier and heavier. After that, we helped some other stuffs (like storing the donations, and ushering and helping others to take the food) and then have lunch and attended a Dharma talk there and went back.

On Saturday, I don’t think I did anything productive; while Ivan, Si Hui, Andy, and me went out to have dinner at a really nice vegan restaurant near Clementi (cause we didn’t have anything to do; and they have SG50 promotion), after the dinner, we “randomly walks into Queenstown Community Centre to find a cafe”; after failing to find one, we go to another place to have ice cream while playing Bridge; well I just knew how to play Bridge since MR2. On Sunday, it was SG50 and I went to BF to attend the Dharma talk which was really short and not crowded. Next, we (me, Dian, Andy, Anthony, Marshall) went to the city area while having quite a detour to avoid those crowds. We randomly went to National Museum of Singapore to “see see around” and kill time. Then, afraid of getting too tired, we didn’t go around Fort Canning and went to Astons at Cathay to have early dinner and sit & wait around to kill time. After quite some times (we noticed that songs in Astons have repeated for the 3rd times), we go to Gardens by the Bay area to wait for the fireworks (since all other attractions have passed). And when the time comes, there are communication problems as most of the times, my phone couldn’t pick up a signal. After uniting with Ivan and Si Hui, we found a spot just right behind the bushes and a “lake” near Gardens by the Bay that can see one direction of fireworks. And it started, for five minutes. Wait, what. Yes, five minutes. We waited for hours, went through with a lot of crowds, and it was only five minutes!? Okay, lesson learned, don’t go for National Day celebrations; just go home, sit back, watch TV, and relax :) Or even better, you can go out with your friends at Aloha Loyang and play poker together, that’s the plan for SG75.

Then comes Week 1, where everything started to get busier again. It was crazy, NTU Welcome Week, NTUBS Welcome Tea, and then CNS over the weekend. Well, CNS itself is a long 48-hour journey. As a programmer, I had a presentation session, where I think I did quite well as I was not nervous at all but still not that prepared. For wet games, I don’t really like conducting my game, it was quite overwhelming for me and I couldn’t quite control the helpers and I’m not sure if they like the game or not. But yeah, I really don’t like playing the mass wet games where violence is the way of getting fun. How on earth you can have fun while the enjoyment only came when you successfully hit people? But violence aside, I like the night games preparations despite the very limited time available. I also really like the togetherness of the CNS Programmer, the recce at midnight, and the fail “last year programmer”. On the final day, the programmers finally had time to bond with the group members :) For the final game, I really love my game where I observed the groups playing it and they are all having fun. Even more touching is that they even want to replay the game :’)

Okay now CNS has finished and a little crisis happened. I lost the NYH Function Room key. And Wei Yang, the logistic manager, looked really sad and stressed. And when all hopes are lost, it turned out that one of the careless committee has brought it back accidentally. Phew…

And another side note, on Week 1 around Wednesday, I got an e-mail stating that I got a room at Crescent Hall. Oh yeah! (though it was a single AC-fitted room, that is the most expensive undergraduate hostel room in NTU :( ) So, no choice, I went to settle the admin stuffs, paid the fees, and collected the keys on that day; and on that night, I moved out from Liniki’s room to this new room.

Week 2 now and it was recruitment week. Oh man. It consumes lots of time and I was quite happy that 8 people applied for Resource (up 400% from previous years’ one, hahaha) maybe due to Ivan’s and my promotion during the Welcome Tea itself. So after the recruitment drive, we have a whole day discussion on Saturday morning and it lasted until before dinner time. Sunday was CNS final general meeting, some stuffs meeting, Subcom appreciation dinner, and then another meeting. (but yeah, I screwed up since I forgot to take the NYH Function Room key on Friday; but then no one remembered since we’re all so focused on the recruitment stuffs)

Week 3 is spent on preparing for rally and AGM. Pass down at the end of the week.

Week 4: more passing downs, first meetups, and Investiture.

Week 5 is on committee day meetings.

I’ll stop around here and write more details later on Week 2-5.

January 2016

2015 in Review

CE/CZ3004 Multi-disciplinary Design Project

Departing from Competitive Programming

The Return of the Me

Exam Week (2), Semester 4

Quick Update