Out of curiosity, how many of you have watched Les Misérables? Man, the film version last year was awesome, but don’t expect explosions or car chases like you might see in a Michael Bay movie. Some of my friends complained that Les Miz was too “singy”. But I said: “Duuuude, it’s a musical. Whaddya expect?”
Anyway, I asked because I was lucky enough to visit the very place Les Miz was filmed. That’s right – France! Studying European art in my first semester in NTU certainly proved useful there.
This is probably the only time in my student life where I get to work on a year-long project with my friends. I would not trade the experience for anything else, and am really glad we finished the project without any major disputes!
Under the caring guidance of our supervisor Assoc Prof May Oo Lwin, my group mates and I worked on a health communication project in the area of food nutrition labelling.
Basically, we experimented with different types of food packaging and studied their effects on participants who seek nutrition information.
We designed and created our own food packaging, and used them as stimuli in the experiment. We were in charge of everything – from design to data collection to report writing. Although it wasn’t our first time designing an experiment, it was within a research area that was completely new to us. But our determination held strong, and we finished the project amidst crazy schedules, tight deadlines and last-minute “heart attacks”.
We were also fortunate enough to get our research paper accepted for an academic conference in Japan. Two of us got to travel to Kyoto for the presentation, thanks to a travel grant from WKWSCI. It was truly an honour to represent the school!
We journeyed to Osaka, where we visited the beautiful Osaka Castle. Then, we shopped till we dropped at the Shinsaibashi-suji shopping district and gorged on delicious okonomiyaki, a Japanese savoury pancake filled with various ingredients.
Kyoto, where the conference was held, proved to be another captivating city, with cherry blossoms at the Kyoto Garden Palace and the historic Kiyomizudera Temple, one of Kyoto’s many cultural heritage sites. However, the most memorable moment was stepping into a restaurant after a weary day of travelling, and being greeted by polite and endearing Japanese staff who served us fresh authentic Japanese food… oishi!
Beautiful flowers and even more beautiful memories
Last October, I was invited to the NTU Board of Trustees’ work retreat in Bintan. This was the first time student leaders were invited to such a meeting. In the spirit of preparation, I decided to do some research about the Board.
I found out its members are “long-term stewards of the university” and they make up the highest body in the university. Which made me wonder: what do they do? Shouldn’t I then direct all my feedback (and student complaints) to the Board?
Well, it seems the Board sets the broad strategic directions of the university, while the President, Prof Bertil Andersson, and his team deal with the day-to-day running of the university. Their relationship is much like that between a company’s management team and its board of directors made up of eminent individuals from the private and government sector.
The second semester has started, but I’m still trying to kick back into gear. Well, this is because I’m experiencing what I call the “Taiwan withdrawal syndrome”.
Taiwan withdrawal syndrome, noun
1. The removal of a being from an overseas environment resulting in a combination of symptoms of uneasiness and pining that are characteristic of the disease.
Note: The disease is usually contracted shortly after removal from the environment, and symptoms will wear off in about a week, depending on the individual’s memories and circumstances.
Credit: The Germaine Tan Dictionary
Jokes aside, I must say the trip to Taiwan with the other University Scholar Programme (USP) students was extremely enlightening. I also managed to use my Polaroid camera to take a few scenic shots, which was really fun. My shots look quite amateur, though!
To be honest, I’ve never been to any museums prior to this trip. In fact, the number of museums I visited in Taiwan exceeds the number I’ve visited my whole life! But I have more appreciation for them now, and I think I’ll be making a trip down to one of Singapore’s museums during my next school break. 😉
We managed to stay in a Minsu (homestay) in Taiwan. It was the most luxurious and comfortable accommodation I’ve ever had on an overseas trip. The two-storey room came with two queen-sized beds and a jacuzzi! I’m not a “wood expert” but I could tell that the furniture and flooring were of good quality. Needless to say, my roomie from NTU and I had a blast, and we had many late nights talking, watching television and munching on the snacks and drinks provided.
The Want Want snacks were a pleasant surprise! Made for a great midnight snack, especially with hot green tea.
Hello again!
The more I learn about art, the more I find it essential to always practise my craft. Like everything else in life, practise, practise, practise. So I brought my sketchbook along during a little holiday last semester…
I’m the sort of person who warms up to people very slowly. Slower than a slow cooker cooks porridge. So when I signed up for a five-week summer school programme in Tianjin last year, I felt a bit nervous… but as it turns out, I had a blast.
All my peers took the same two modules, so we ended up spending a lot of time together. We got to know each other really quickly – something I wasn’t used to before!
There was no shortage of things to do – we went sightseeing in Beijing and Pingyao, and also found time to explore the streets and corners of Tianjin on our own (my roomie’s sense of direction is as bad as mine… he kept straying from the group). It did not take us very long to find out where the cheap meals, good food and even cute vendors were (they chatted up some girls in our group!).
Goods are much more affordable there, and this meant we went on regular shopping sprees. The guys in our group did not “lose out” to the girls when it came to shopping! Luckily, space constraints in our luggage, together with our “protesting” wallets, kept us in check.
Boys’ night out shopping!
It’s the dreaded mid-term season at university now, where life is rife with project and essay deadlines. Still, there’s no reason why one shouldn’t experience comforting moments now and then. It is during such trying times of a student’s life when one better appreciates the little joys of life – like the friends who stay back to study with you and yummy treats to get you going.
Tip #1:
Share your woes with a loved one.
Takeaway tuna salad from Raffles Place – credits to my loving study buddy.
Hi everyone! I am a first-year student at the School of Art, Design & Media (ADM). Still “super fresh”, I’ll be sharing my ADM experiences here.
I know there are quite a number of you wondering what we “ADMers” do in school. Well, for one of our assignments in Foundation Drawing, we were asked to draw what we eat for a week. So here are some of my sketches… No Instagram! Ha! Because Instagram is too mainstream…
Kueh Pie Tee
So here I am, sitting in front of my laptop stressing out over my Media Law Term Paper… how different life was just a few months back! Then, I was carefree and happily exploring Germany during my student exchange programme at Stuttgart Media University…
I found my soulmate in the form of NTU’s Renaissance Engineering Programme, or REP. It is a holistic programme, one of the few of its kind that brings together the best of both worlds: science and humanities. Fresh out of junior college, I’d fallen hopelessly in love with a course that seemed challenging, exciting and intriguing at the same time. So, I decided to swear fidelity to my one true love and looked forward to an amazing undergraduate learning experience.
So how is married life with REP treating me? I get this a lot, for people in our world are always sceptical of relationships with strangers we don’t know much about. Joining REP was definitely a venture into the unknown, as I am a part of the pioneer batch of students now in our second year. So have I found the elusive marital bliss yet? Or have I succumbed to a premature seven-year itch?
As a true-blue pioneer, I can tell you REP gets frustrating sometimes. Most recently, that happened when I sat down with crayons and markers (for the first time in the past decade) to draw – yes, draw – for a prescribed elective at the School of Art, Design & Media. And it happened when I met my old friend, Electronics and Information Engineering, again, only it had grown more difficult and impossible (why, Fourier, why?). And it happens every second week when I have multiple assignments due, or continuous assessments that clash, or a car (for a build-and-test project) that adamantly refuses to run… and the list goes on.
Then why am I still here?