I still can’t believe that more than 30 people came to bid me farewell. I felt so shy, honoured and appreciated. They were my care group mates, my video department friends, my NS friends, my previous church buddies, and my NUS friends. Thanks to everyone who came! I also made a short speech and said that it is amazing how we are such a big church yet we have such kingdom friendships in a small setting. It is truly amazing and brings a sad yet happy smile to your face when you step through the immigration.

The 30-hour flight seemed never ending. Tried not to sleep on the first leg but ended up taking naps because some of the movies were too boring. It didn’t help that the screen on the 747s are the older ones and hence smaller and dimmer. But the SIA food was good, really good and huge portions. The second leg after Frankfurt was good as it was quite empty, and we could lie down on the seats and sleep. The few hours layover at JFK was boring, at an airport that has nothing much to do. Although I just discovered that the Delta terminal now has iPads for internet surfing, which is a great improvement. The 1-hour flight to PIT was interesting, felt like in a private small jet.

As expected, Pittsburgh is cold. The last time I experienced such cold winter was when I was touring NY with Josh. But Pittsburgh is colder as it goes below 0 degrees Celsius. The first few days was mild, but it began to snow and get colder, to -10 deg. I didn’t felt long johns were useful in the past, but now I think they are useful (although I still prefer not to wear them as it is too hot when indoors in school). But the weather is kinda irregular as well, there are some days it rained instead of snow, and then the next day it becomes a sunny 10-15 deg like California. Quite amazing. Snow is quite fun, haven’t seen so thick snow, but shoveling snow isn’t fun.

It took us like 3-4 days to find apartments as this is the low-key season. We had to make many calls and only managed to tour 3 different apartments and decided on the best one. Although for all of them, it is at least a 20-min walk to school. But nevertheless, it is still better to stay near school as the public transport here is horrible, unreliable, and infrequent. The one we chose has 3 bedrooms, just nice for 3 of us, and has washing machine in the house, which is very convenient. And the unit number is 3355, triple triple grace grace! Settling in took us 1-2 days, as we had to drive to IKEA and Walmart to buy our furniture and groceries, it’s like buying a whole house of stuff from the departmental store. When we finally could sleep on our own bed in our own room instead of the hotel, it was a sign of relief.

Also, I had a cold and sore eyes in the first week, probably due to my body adjusting to the weather. The sore eyes infection caused mucus to clog up my eyes every morning, and it was very uncomfortable. Thank God it is gone now. My eyes shall not grow dim nor my strength abated!

Pittsburgh is a pretty boring city compared to other cities I have visited. My relatives keep telling me that they want to visit me some day, then I always tell them there’s nothing much to do here. I was right, there is really nothing much to do here, even though this is USA most “livable” city. The downtown is pretty dead at night, although there were many theatres and they try to bring in some broadway plays. There’s supposed to be some nightlife in the Southside, but doesn’t seem to be as happening. There’s a few attractions, but most of them are not that interesting or large. The only time I saw downtown crowded was when there was an open house of art galleries. And there are no subway train systems, only a lousy “T” LRT train which doesn’t bring me to anywhere useful so far. The only cool thing about Pittsburgh is the Duquesne Incline and the wonderful views of the 3 rivers on Mount Washington. There’s also no Chinatown here, although there are still Chinese restaurants scattered around.

And about school! The Entertainment Technology Center, for some reason, is located in the middle of nowhere, although at a very scenic spot by the river. There’s like no amenities or FOOD nearby, although fortunately there’s some free dry food and snacks in our kitchen. Classes are really cool, with the legendary Randy Pausch’s Building Virtual Worlds, Visual Story (which is my favourite as it is about filmmaking), improvisational acting (like playing Who’s Line is it anyway), and fundamentals. The lecturers are very passionate, and the environment is very inspiring with many movie posters, props and all kinds of memorabilia around, from Star Wars to Harry Potter. There’s even Super Mario stickers in the toilet wall, and an irritating talking robot which greets you when you step out of the lift lobby. The only sad thing is the usual gender disproportion, and also there are too many computer science majors versus art-related majors, which sort of defeat the original purpose of putting left- and right-brain people together. However, Randy Pausch says, in the “dream-fulfillment factory”, you are not just learning how to make video games, but how to work with one another.

Thanks to BVW, looks like my weekends will always be burnt as deadlines are every Monday. I would definitely need this as my verse for the semeter:

He has filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom and understanding, in knowledge and all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting jewels for setting, in carving wood, and to work in all manner of artistic workmanship.

Exodus 35:31-33

And so we embarked on our long-talked about trip to Mount Kinabalu, thanks to yt who organized everything for us. The AirAsia flight was quite horrible as I experienced the worst turbulence ever, like a roller coaster ride. When we reached the city, we took cabs to Masada Backpackers hostel in Kota Kinabalu city. After checking in, we walked around for dinner. Jr was pushing for KFC (again!) of all things, and I don’t want to eat KFC when you can eat it in Singapore and also in USA, and I don’t want fast food. Fortunately, there was a Malay coffee shop which looked quite decent and enticing. Each of us ordered different varieties of Nasi Ayam and Nasi Goreng. Pretty decent, and my wish of eating as much Asian food as possible is fulfilled.

We slept earlier as we had to wake up at 5am to take the 6am coach to the foot of Mt Kinabalu. However, for some reason, I was too excited and didn’t sleep much as the bed felt warm. The tour bus had to go a huge detour to a ulu resort faraway to fetch two other tourists. Hence we only reached the Park HQ at like close to 9am. We met our 2 guides, Joe and Ronnie, as we were a group of 7. After collecting our permit passes for climbing, and renting hiking poles (10 RM each which were good professional ones) we set off in a mini bus to Mesilau Gate, which was a bumpy 30 min ride. We chose to take the Mesilau trail which is longer and more adventurous, but slightly different terrain with some down slopes in between instead of upwards all the way.

Sadly, upon reaching the gate, it started raining. We had to put on our ponchos and rain covers, and it was quite demoralizing. Fortunately, it stopped raining soon after. Thank God. We could took out our ponchos at our first shelter as it was very stuffy and inconvenient to move in one. Finally now we can enjoy the fresh air and breeze.

For the first part, the terrain was mostly similar to Singapore rain forests: trees, warm, soil, muddy and many steps. However as we progressed in elevation, the air became cooler and fresher, and there was a lot of different algae and moss growing on the ground, making it look like a “coral reef”. We also spotted some interesting flora, such as the Kinabalu Blossom, and some clusters of pitcher plants.

After conquering many different kinds of steps, from rocky to wooden ones, we reached a shelter with a nice view in the clearing. In the distance we could see the rocky cliffs we will be climbing to the summit. But Low’s peak is not viewable from this angle. We also had lunch at another shelter, which includes a ham cheese sandwich, 2 hard boiled eggs, an apple and 2 bananas. It isn’t a really enticing lunch, although I heard if we chose the Via Ferrata package we would get a chicken wing. Lol. At every shelter there is a toilet with a cistern, and pipes with rain water, which the guides drink but we are advised not to. We also spotted a random squirrel near us. However, my right shoe’s sole started to come off, and I had to use gutters and black tape to secure them. The left sole also had to be secured too. Wonder if it’s because I used the shoe alot last time, or because I stored it in the cupboard for too long.

As we continued, the terrain and flora changes to a dryer ground with many cypress trees. It was very beautiful and peaceful as you could see clouds below as well. KC said it’s like a beautiful garden, and I would say it’s probably close to Eden.

Later on, at the 6km mark, the trail merges with Timphoon, the main trail, and we have another 2km of horizontal distance to go before reaching Laban Rata, our “base camp”.

The initial part of the Timphoon trail was mostly normal rocky stones, from orange ones to grey ones. As we got higher, the last part we could feel the air starting to get thinner and colder, with some chilly winds blowing at about 10 degrees Celsius, and Vic had difficulty as he was getting a slight headache. I had to wear my gloves as my hands were getting numb. We slowed down our pace slightly, and the view was also amazing as we were above the clouds. We could also see the sunset in the horizons, with the open heaven rays effect! The steps seemed never ending, I was singing to myself randomly some worship songs, mediating some verses such as I can do all things through Christ and Psalm 91. Phil had some muscle cramps and they were lagging behind us pretty far away. At last, at about 6.15pm, we reached Laban Rata. Joe joked with us that we can play volleyball to stay warm, and indeed there’s a volleyball court. Lol.

We rushed into the dining area, where we finally we sit down properly and have a nice buffet dinner. Originally our dorms were supposed to be separate hut some steps and distance away, but Joe helped us to rearrange another dorm that could fit all of us!

After our dinner, Phil and yt finally arrived under the moonlight. Temperature was probably around 5-10 deg, reminds me of California and Santa Cruz. It was a full moon with some stars, quite nice. There was no hot water hence some of us couldn’t bathe. I tried to splash the freezing cold water on my body and managed to wash my hair. After that my fingers became cold and numb. At about 8pm, all of us settled into our heated but cold beds and went to rest. This time, I managed to sleep a few hours although the pillow was hard, and shoulders aching from the weight of my backpack (but I like the fact that my Deuter backpack pushes the weight on the hip straps so that it is less straining on the shoulders. Maybe it was because I strapped my camera bag to my front chest belt for easy access).

We woke up just few hours later at 1.30am, ate some fried bee hoon and eggs for breakfast, before setting off for the summit at 2.30am. We used our headlights and climbed the initial part which was mostly steps, again. After about 800m, the ropes portion began. The first part of the rope portion was quite shocking and scary to me as the rocks were about 70 degrees steep and I had to pull myself up with two hands on the rope together with my hiking pole in my hand. After a while, our guide kindly took the poles for us so that we could concentrate our both hands on the ropes. Some parts I have to use certain rocks to pull myself up too. It was quite scary as one lost grip and you could stumble down. I kept mediating Psalm 91 to myself along the way, the angels shall bear me up lest I strike my foot against a stone. Further up, the gradient became gentler. Although the rocks were still about 50 degrees steep, we could still walk normally without using the robe and just our hiking sticks. It became harder and harder to breathe, as the air became thinner. We were advised not to rush in case we cannot catch our breath and get climate sickness. I had to stop to pant every 20 steps or so, as one gets out of breath very easily. It was also cold with the winds blowing at 0 degrees or so. A hoodie or beanie is very useful now. Slow and steady, the last shall be first. Zhan was surprisingly fast at the front and didn’t seem to have any breathing problems. I was like, I can so all things through Christ, and when I am weak, then I am strong. Keeping hydrated is also important even though one doesn’t feel thirsty, as it helps in acclimatization. It seems like we never reach the edge of the ridge, as we pass one ridge, there’s like 2 more above it with lights indicative of people in front.

Halfway through we reached the checkpoint, where we had to show our passes, and also where the last toilet is located. They checked our names and we continued. It was slightly flatter and easier as we were less than 1km from the summit. Finally we could see a peak where a cluster of lights gathered, and we knew we were pretty close! However, for some reason, we also saw many people coming down, for the fear of rain. At the very last rocky climb to the summit, it started to drizzle. No reason to give up now. So we quickly made our way up, and soon after 100m, we reached! Praise the Lord. At this time at about 6.30am, the sun is rising but it was too cloudy to see anything. We took some photos with the summit sign and sat around to admire the view. It was a small piece of rock and a lot of people crowding around. But the view is magnificent with all the clouds below you, the mist around, and the “desolate wasteland” of the different rocky peaks of the mountain.

We could not stay for too long as the drizzle threatened to pour. Yt and Phil managed to catch up with us in the end. We were one of the last few groups to walk down the mountain. By the time we reached the checkpoint, it became a downpour. We had to slide down some of the rocks, or walk backwards like abseiling. It is quite amazing as the terrain looks slightly different in daytime and you wonder how did you manage to climb those rocks which you are going down. The rain made matters worse by causing the rocks to be slippery and the paths to become streams and rivers. The cliffs become more dangerous, and my waterproof ski gloves from wintertime were apparently not waterproof. I could squeeze water out of them!

It was a long way down as each step became painful for us due to exhaustion, and the rain did not help. We reached the base camp at 9.30am, finally have some hot drinks and breakfast, packed up and began our descent. Thank God the rain stopped, and it was a nice leisurely walk. The first part was quite nice, with the water flowing through the stones like a Chinese garden waterfall. However as we continued, each step became more and more painful, as our thigh, calf and ankle muscles get stretched and have to withstand our body weight and our backpack. The hiking pole helped a bit, but soon I struggled through every step, and it seems like forever to reach the next resting hut.

Halfway down we were walking through the mist along the timphoon trail. Visibility was low, like <100m but it was a nice cooling weather. We saw many spider webs spun very nicely, like a colony of spiders. There were also some random birds, earthworm, squirrel, and houseflies? The mist is like we are walking through the clouds. When we reached closer to the bottom, it sounded as if the lower elevation areas were raining or showering, but we are still in the mist. Fortunately, we didn’t meet the rain at all. Each kilometre seems to take forever. It doesn’t help that my shoes and socks are wet, and my soles are not very secure. Some portions have 50cm high steep steps, and soon I joined the slower ones to form a trio with yt and Phil. Haha.

Finally, we reached the last 1.5 km or so, in which we persevered till the end without any rest. We saw a waterfall, and the last 100m was another long flight of steps, this time upwards. It feels weird to climb upwards after going down so many thousand steps! Every step is a chore, but we finally made it to the end of Timphoon Gate! YAY!!!

I received a few revelations during the trip. Because every step was painful, I kept mediating on the Word of God and singing songs to myself. Psalm 91 literally came alive at the rock face, as the angels will lift me up, lest I dash my foot against a stone. I was quite afraid of losing my grip. Also, I was thinking, since we have dominion over all the earth, we will have dominion over the mountain! No climate sickness or pain show reign over me because I will reign in life. I was also reminded of “Walk As If”, and that I shall walk as if I am healed, without any pain or blisters.

I can’t believe it’s the end of the year again. 2011 has really been crowned with goodness, with favour all around! Although Pastor mentioned that this favour will protect us from harm, fortunately, there wasn’t much harm to be protected from! I was thinking of what are the downs which happened in the year…not much, except that I almost could not go for my internship, but in the end I did. I also still remember that I was late for the 1st service of the year last year, and had to go to Gallery West. That was really funny.

Thank you Jesus for…

• The wonderful last 2 semesters of my NUS life. Now it seems so long ago that I did the CS4340 Digital Special Effects module with some snow effects, and the awesome favour with our professor for our CS4343 Game Development project and managed to score good grades for both. I still can’t believe that my group actually achieved our goal of creating a puzzle mystery solving game, although we had many obstacles initially as we could not narrow down our scope. NM3223 Digital Imaging was not easy as they changed the syllabus to be more interactive-based, and my group had a hard time brainstorming for a suitable artistic concept. All was good in the end when we finished our flash-based interactive art. SSA2218 Singapore Film was a little disappointing as I did not get A for my short film, probably due to my group report. Thanks Zhanhui and Siying for helping in my Singapore Film project.
• The unmerited favour multiplied many times in my FYP as described in an earlier post. Together with the first semester group project module NM3221 Situated Interaction Design, I scored an A for my FYP! NM3221 also experienced crowned goodness as our project was selected as the best interface design for an iPhone app mockup in the class, and we were selected to present to the client, NP Library, and we were even given vouchers as an incentive! Then for my FYP, other than scoring well, my lecturer nominated my project for best design in my faculty. Really really awesome and restful increase. I always thought my projects are nothing special, as I thought it isn’t the best I’ve done/seen, but they are viewed special by others =)
• The protection in my journey to my internship in New York City. I almost could not go for the internship due to VISA delays and timing issues, but in the end they gave me favour to shorten my internship to 2.5 months instead of 3 so that I could still go and come back in time for my last semester. I was pretty worried initially that I would come back too late in the semester, but in the end, all went well even though I came back 2 weeks late, I didn’t miss much.
• The awesome surreal experience in New York City, especially the friends I made in my company Armistice Media, Jiyae, Anjum, Andrew, my boss, Julian, and not forgetting the friends I made in HillsongNYC, Stuart, Ben, Mike, James, Gab, etc. and the Wunderman people, Hans, Yiwei, Kwee Gek, Wee Kiat, Benjamin, Adamson, Li Hao, Haikel, etc. and the best of all, being able to serve in HillsongNYC itself as a graphics projectionist! It is truly favour with all the people over there that I am thankful for, and also my housemates at Church Ave. Thank God for the protection and safety as well, as I was harassed once by a street peddler. Additionally, Ying Dan for visiting, the reunion with Naomi, and also the road trip with Victor to Washington D.C.! It was a very fruitful 2.5 months.
• The successful release of my documentary, Rag to Riches in August, despite the fact that I was still in New York, and also being unexpectedly featured in The Straits Times a few weeks later. Thank you Zhan, Victor, Junrong, for your help, and also yt and kc for your support.
• The opportunity to be in 13 Little Pictures Film Lab in September, interacting with other filmmakers and especially having exchanges with overseas ones like Joe.
• My CAP5 care group for always appreciating one another: Cui, for being a very-serious-but-good CGL, Chris, for being the new lively funny CGL, Ome, for remembering all our birthdays, Amelia, for organising our birthdays, Jonah, for being the treasurer and organising all the events with all the bros, Helen, for the various funny things we did and worship sessions, Daniel, for taking the SSA module with me, SingZe, for the rides home along NEL, Chingman, Eunice, and Geraldine, for your sharing of your lives, Penny, for always appearing and disappearing (haha), Nicholas, for the chats on a few topics that we like to talk about, Alicia, for your cheerfulness, liveliness, and your songs, Teck Beng and Belinda, for the wonderful trips and suppers that we go before you both graduated. And I almost forgot, our little trip to Hong Kong when we had so much fun and food!
• The rest of the brothers in the science CGs: Keith, Glenn, Ben, Dave, Seb, JW, etc. for all the fun things we did together
• The Zone Lighting Video team: Esther, Junkit, Josiah and Yvonne for the privilege to serve alongside with you all, entertaining some of my ideas and my initiative in the programming and designing of the lights.
• The Zone Spark Films team: Zixiang for all the opportunities you gave me to film and edit, Coach Hee Jhun and Ireen for the collaboration opportunities, and the rest of the crew for doing such an awesome job! I am also especially thankful to be able to attend DARE camp despite not being able to attend Legacy camp.
• My NUS friends which include, but not limited to the following: The “not so secret group”: Wing, Claud, Gab, Jiayi, Sylvia, Cliff, Adit, Brata, Heem, Hydro, Jack for all the fun things we did together as a group! The “L4D” gang: Edwin, Menghui, Zhenyang, Kim for the games that we play online together and the outings we have to watch movies. The Computing Club regulars, such as Yan Lin, Daniel, Steve, Aiysha, Guozheng, Chongyee etc. and the many other seniors and juniors, my OG mates, for sharing lunches, dinners, suppers, and many fun experiences. And also those people who always study late in school together, Gabriel, Yan Hao, Chris, YC, and those people who come and go. And to all those who are in roller blading and nuSTUDIOS. Thank you all for a unique NUS experience!
• My good old friends Jeremiah Louis and Weiyi, and Chris is to be missed since I have not met him this year =(
• Shang, for being the once-a-year-we-meet friend. It’s quite special that we only meet once a year but I don’t think I will be around next year in Singapore =|
• Elisha, Dixon, Penny, Zhiyao for the unique carried-over-from-overseas faith friendship that we have, and our upcoming Hillsong Conference 2012!
• My brother Jason for the opportunities to help him be cameraman for his new project.
• And my family and my little sister for being so cute always.

It’s amazing how You can speak right to my heart
With our Daddy’s Word, we can light up the dark
Triumphs are made, I could never explain
The width of Your love and the depth of Your grace

The smile on Your face lets me know that You love me
There’s a truth in Your eyes saying You’d never leave me
The touch of Your hand says You’ll catch me if ever I fall
You gave Your best when I did nothing at all

All alone we could never speak for ourselves
That’s why You came & took our sins upon Yourself
You died on the Cross and You rose from the grave
You’ve set us on high, by Your grace at Your side

The smile on Your face lets me know that You love me
There’s a truth in Your eyes saying You’d never leave me
The touch of Your hand says You’ll catch me if ever I fall
You gave Your best when I did nothing at all

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150414048688673

Last week was an awesome week. Before the Dare camp, I was helping to edit Like Fish trailer.

The first day of camp was Amazing Race style around Singapore. I was hopping around different groups. I think the kids are very cute and impressionable, even though I only meet them for a while, they remember my name and will always say hi to me for the rest of the camp!

It rained alot in this camp, on the first day afternoon it rained and we had to cancel the afternoon games. The next day, it rained again while they were playing waterbomb, or rather, before they got wet haha. But the activity still continued and everyone had fun being drenched, while the photographers and I have to run for shelter. And then it stopped raining, and the committee thought we can proceed with the next activity in the sea/beach, but it was cat 1. So we started to walk back. Then it stopped, then we walked back to the beach. Then it started to shower. Then we walk back to campsite =(

The nightwalk was pretty good until there was a cat 1 and half of the groups didn’t walk through the confidence walk, in which they had to walk through a muddy path in the forest in pure darkness. pretty fun!

I think Ps Daniel is very nice and talented (since he can preach+sing+compose+dance+many more), and has a heart for the kids. He would encourage them, level by level, during the waterbomb game, so that they will not be demoralised. At the start of the confidence walk, he would encourage each and every single DG and tell them good things, and say that they can do great exploits (Daniel 11:32), and he’d meet everyone on the the side. He’s so edifying. And he wanted to have praise and worship under the stars on the beach, but because of cat1, it was cancelled and we had to have it in the carpark instead. But it was still good.

I proposed to Coach to edit a highlights video on the last day, since there’s no activities in the morning. And so, I managed to edit a 5-minute music video-style montage in 3-4 hours. It was fun! And everyone enjoyed watching it, as they cheered for their friends who featured in the video and laughed at the humorous moments.

I feel very blessed to be able to serve in this camp. Even though I was a videographer, I was still able to impact the kids in a small way. One of them actually came to me and ranted about the camp before a meal. Some of them hugged and say bye to me at the end of the camp after the praise and worship. And they said hi to me again at the extended praise and worship on Saturday.

Ps Daniel sang a few wonderful songs at the end of the praise and worship: When I did nothing at all, Friends are friends forever, and My Heart overflows. It was so nice that he came up to sing again at both extended praise and worship services. It felt like camp all over again!

Showers of blessings = unmerited favour =)

There has been lots of undeserved grace for FYP. Before my presentation, I was preparing by researching on the presentation style of Steve Jobs, reading some articles, watching YouTube and getting inspired. Beside that, I was a little worried that my work done in my project was not substantial and convincing enough, even though it is only a one semester work.

And so I prepared my presentation in a slightly different way. The report helped to formulate most of the points for the presentation. I wrote out a rough script then created my slides for it, instead of creating the slides first. And this is the first time I practiced so many times (despite having another SS test on Monday), so much that after 5 times or so, you don’t need to refer to the notes anymore.

However on the day itself, I was still nervous. Who wouldn’t be? But if God is for us, [which evaluator] can be against me? I remember singing that just the Sunday before. I asked God for crowned goodness, took holy communion, and anointed myself with oil. My friend who presented before me was attacked quite badly by the evaluators, and me and the others who were presenting next were quite stunned. We were like looking at one another whenever the first person was questioned. And then my turn came.

My evaluators were Dr. Zhao and Dr. Steven Halim. Although they stopped me intermittently throughout the presentation, they were mostly satisfied. Dr. Zhao’s questions were answered in my presentation, and he was happy with my arguments and thought it was a good presentation, although he was not fully convinced by some of my ideas. As for Dr. Halim, he was asking more standard questions, like why didn’t I include this and that in the report, and also about my technical accomplishment, of which I demo-ed the Etherpad. He said that my case would be stronger if I have a working prototype of my interface proposal, but since it is only 1 semester’s work, it is good.

After the presentation, not 1, not 2, but 3 industry people actually mentioned that I presented well! Praise God! When I came out of the classroom, a few industry people sitting at the bench talked to me for a while. Later, the founder emailed me to invite me to present at their company next Monday. I also heard from my professor that they are trying to get IDA funding to develop my product. Wow! The second industry person is from a startup company, and asked me if I am interested to work for them as their UI/UX designer, because they saw that I have a good eye for design and user interface. So unexpected. And the last person, a lady, just passed by and said she thought it was good, my arguments were sound, and asked me if I am looking for a job, which I said I was not.

And one more thing, my professor requested me to convert my report into a conference paper to submit to HCI India too.

Thank God for all his providence and paths that are dripping with abundance. Finally, it is all over.

——

Update: One week day, I went to a small company, which develops a similar e-learning product, to present my project to the developers there, with an intent to collaborate with me/us. This was the feedback from the founder:

With your strength in UI and interface design , I believe that the route that you are currently heading will entrench great potential for your future. Another talent that i have identify in you is your communication skills. It is definitely crucial to continuously hone these skills that you have. I believe you will be a powerful tech player / entrepreneur in no time.

Unmerited favour! But due to my limited time left here in Singapore,they were not able to engage me this time. Maybe next time!

I realised that I haven’t blogged at all this semester, even though this semester is relatively slack since I’m only taking two modules and FYP, and I don’t have exams!

So far, there has been Grace to meet my everyday demand. I have learnt how to not worry about tomorrow and just live each day by grace. I just finished editing my 7-min short film, Mix or not, for my Singapore Film SSA2218 module. My two friends kindly helped to act, and we went to Albert Food Centre and managed to finish everything in half a day, praise God!  It turned out to be pretty interesting, and it’s not easy to shoot people actually eating food because the food may run out, and we had to buy another plate! We also secretly filmed beside Raffles hotel for a short opening scene.

As for my NM3223 photography module which has now been modified to interactive imaging, the first few assignments were individual ones, from photo taking to digital manipulation. I particularly enjoyed the urban fantasy themed one, which can be seen here.

Lastly, my FYP is going slow but good. I’m not sure if it is a blessing by having a modified one-semester FYP, but I still managed to read a lot of readings and came up with a prototype. I was setting up a Linux virtual machine for the first time, and I’ve never typed so many Linux commands in my life! Because the CentOS was installed with zero software, I had to install Apache, java etc. Everything myself. What a chore. Thank the internet for tutorials. I was playing with Etherpad Lite (the precursor to google wave) and tried to include MathJax in it but failed. Then I tried Etherpad, the original version and included mimetex, a Latex to image converter and it worked! Now I can type math symbols in an online collaborative space. Just like Google Docs, which I realised has an Insert Equation option now too. My report is due in one week and so far I wrote 18 pages. God will multiply my time!

In other news, circle line has opened to Kent Ridge and it saves my travelling time by 10-15 mins. Now the missing link is the not trustworthy NUS shuttle bus. Also, I realised that The Star is now already on the Bouna Vista MRT map! And the travelling time is about the same as travelling to Promenade, which is awesome.

Last month, I attended a 13 Little Pictures Film Lab as part of Singapore International Film Festival. While I didn’t manage to watch anything during the festival, which had many hiccups, it was an excellent opportunity to “film jamming” with other like minded people. As everyone is already an expert in their own field, it was more of an exchange session than a workshop. One interesting thing is that there were participants from overseas, 2 Thai, 2 Filipinos, 1 Polish and 1 Chinese, and some of them came all the way here just for the lab! I particularly enjoyed bringing the tourists around to places like Tekka Market to eat good food. One of them, Joe, wanted to eat chilli crab, and I brought him to Melben in Toa Payoh. It was my first time there as well. I really enjoy being a tour guide, and it’s always interesting to see Singapore from a tourist’s eyes. One of them took photos of all the weird signs, such as ‘No Loitering’, and it was pretty funny. At the ene of the week we produced a short 5 min experimental piece about nostalgia. Update: Joe submitted the piece to a Filipino film festival and it is selected for screening.

And one more thing, I am addicted to Cities In Motion!

The last leg of my internship was really busy. There was a deadline we had to work on and I worked for 12 hours for one of the days, doing up graphics in Photoshop and Illustrator. Also, my JavaScript/Jquery skills probably went up by a notch as I had to code many functions for the website to work. I did not expect myself to write so many lines of code! I helped my boss re-edit a short video piece. As it was towards the end of my internship, I began to consolidate my files and started to write some documentation to handover to my boss before I leave. At this point of time, many of the interns are leaving as well, and it was sad to see the office getting quieter. My boss could not bear me to leave, and he even considered sponsoring me to return to work for him in future. How undeserving I felt!

Here’s a quick summary list of the things I learnt in this internship:
- Technical skills: JQuery, HTML5 / CSS3, Pachube
- People skills: Working with other interns, satisfying the views of different people

Around NYC

As I was leaving, I packed my weekends with as many activities as I could. My friend visited me and we went for a trip down to Washington DC and Baltimore, and we did a road trip to Niagara Falls. DC is pretty amazing with so many free museums and monuments. The reason I wanted to check out Baltimore was because Marina Bay was modelled after the Inner Harbor, but it turned out to be quite disappointing. The road trip was the best as we popped by Buffalo for…Buffalo wings! Niagara Falls was cool as we could get down for a shower on the American side. We also went to Letchsworth State Park on the way back, the “grand canyon of the east”. Well there was one part where there was a canyon, but it is neither huge nor grand. The last two weekends I squeezed all the attractions which I haven’t seen, such as the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanic Gardens, Empire State Building, America Museum of Natural History and Guggenheim Museum. I also attended a concert by the Newsboys at Central Park and visited different churches. The final few days were busy meeting different people as final goodbye dinners, having exotic Mexican and French food, and having a final dinner with my boss.

I think I will miss sitting beside the East River below the Manhattan Bridge during lunch, listening to the trains passing by, looking at the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline. On my final morning, I took the free Staten Island ferry for the third time and watched the sunset, breathed the cool 20 degree lower Manhattan morning rush hour breeze, before setting off for the airport.

The past week has been a rough one. Firstly my boss was rushing for a deadline on Friday to apply for a grant, hence we had to work extra hard everyday. On Thursday I worked for more than 12 hours till 11pm, skipping dinner even lol. I had to do many mockups of webpages and some infographics, HTML, CSS and video editing. It was also tough as in hectic times one gets worked up and hence causes minor arguements. But it was all good.

And then my arm old injury started to act up again. Can’t remember how I aggravated it, probably while stretching for exercise I think. and maybe because sitting too long at a computer is also not very good. Thus it kept getting twisted and I have to twist the muscle back. For two mornings it tormented me like a torn in the flesh. I woke up feeling dizzy on Thursday morning, as if I was very weak and my eyes couldn’t open. On Friday morning, my involuntary stretching while waking up twisted it while I was still lying on the bed, and it took me a while to twist is back. I was like speaking in tongues and trying to twist back my incapacitated arm for a long while. Felt like I was helpless and my right arm glued to the bed. All my blood and energy is like flowing to my arm and I was trembling…Finally I managed to twist it back. Praise God. But it acted up again while I was jumping from one pavement to another, and even while opening a heavy door! Argh. Jesus was bruised, cracked his arms on the cross, and by his stripes, I AM HEALED. His grace is sufficient in my weakness.

And on Saturday, my friend and I checked out Flushing for the alternative Chinatown and saw so many Chinese people, supermarkets, bubble tea and street food along the main street. They look out of place in a city like New York, but I felt right in place there. We went to eat a Chinese buffet with seafood at this restaurant called East Buffet. I ate two or three plates and I felt very full unusually. Then I went to the restroom, I thought I wanted to pee, then before I knew it, I had diarrhoea! It was disgusting…I think it was the lobsters or the crabs which were not fresh, cos usually I’m not allergic to anything. The bad thing was it cost $32 and I almost wanted to complain and ask for a refund, but I didn’t.

And another thing that happened was that my watch’s display cracked slightly. Grr. And I lost my laundry net at the Laundromat…usually I leave it there on top of the washing machine and it was fine, but this time someone took it! Argh.

But no weapon formed against me shall prosper! The enemy has been defeated! We are victorious!

At the same time everything else was happening, on Saturday NYC time, which is Sunday in Singapore, our rag and flag documentary was featured in The Sunday Times. It was really unmerited favour as I do not know how the reporters found out about it. Even though they did not quote my email interview and did not put our link, it was still good publicity. More to come! On Sunday, it was another awesome weekend of “Jesus be the center” at HillsongNYC!

Time flies, one more week and I’m back home. Although I still have a long list of things to do, I can’t wait to be back too.

This month got busier as there were many meetings throughout the week. We met up with most of the people in the team, and managed to discuss some statistics and indices which we are interested to monitor for our website, and how to go about creating a suitable analysis or visualisation for all these data. To prepare for this, I played with the Pachube API to be able to create datastreams and push data unto it, and Pachube allows us to store all these data and output as a graph or various other means. It was interesting to be able to use my raw PHP and Javascript skills to push and get data from a server. I learnt how JSON and XML requests works, and how to use AJAX to interact with all these data. It was quite insightful.

After that, as we get closer to the website launch, I began to create HTML/CSS templates for our website. It was a tedious process to convert the design graphic into multi-browser compatible code, it can be quite a pain. We tried to rush a demo so that my boss can show something to grant organisations. Along the way, I learnt the basics of the newer HTML5 and CSS3, which is still pretty fresh to me. I am still having difficulty making it compatible with all browsers.

We also have some new people on our team, and I created a list of to-dos and agenda for a User Experience (UX) discussion. As our website is still pretty in the mockup stage, there were a lot of questions in my mind about where do things go and how to certain things work. Some of the questions could not be answered immediately, and we had 2 meetings to talk about them. The first meeting was a more generic one with the rest of the producers in the team, while the second meeting was a more in-depth meeting to talk about user interface, user friendliness and interactivity. An important component is to how social networking works and where should they be featured in the page. I also learnt how important it is to have “call to action” buttons and links, to motivate users to explore the page.

Google NYC

I visited the GoogleNYC office here in Manhattan for a meetup about their 20% projects. 20% is the time Google engineers set aside to do projects outside of their normal job scope, to test and experiment new stuff that they might be interested in. There were many tech-savvy people at the talk, and of course, Google always feed people with good food. The 3 speakers talked about Google Spreadsheets and Docs, and also about the Google Art Project (http://www.googleartproject.com). It is interesting to see how the Google Maps and Street View technology was used to capture a virtual tour experience of a museum, allowing users to zoom in close to paintings and pictures. Very cool indeed! You do not need to visit the museum anymore!

Around NYC

The last few weekends, I visited a number of forts: Fort Jay in Governor’s Island, and Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island. It was nice to escape from the hustle and bustle of the city, out of the island, into places which are more peaceful and quiet. I also visited the United Nations building and the Museum of Modern Art. There is a television broadcast studio branch of Trinity Broadcasting Network here, and I attended one of the recordings which was a Christian talkshow. It was very interesting to see how such a recording is done, with the cameras and the director’s prompting, and being part of the audience.