Friday, February 29, 2008

Thus Ends Madness Week

Yes it certainly was the craziest week I can recall in my life. I might have had other crazy weeks, but this one stands out because I was actually serious about each and every one of the activities I needed to get done.

Also because it just ended.

Monday
  • Complete SWOT report and slides
Tuesday
  • Get videocam from friend
  • Film PSY333 short video clips
  • Elaborate SWOT report
  • Children's Church ministry training
  • Update SWOT slides
  • Draft Reflection Essay
Wednesday
  • Help with project patching up
  • Finish up Reflection Essay, print
  • Attend FYC AGM (more later)
Thursday
  • Go to all that trouble preparing for project presentation
  • Cock lecturer talks and questions and comments so much on each presentation that only 3 out of 8 groups got to present
  • briefing with thoroughly disillusioned group members
  • Attend the World Effie Festival day 1
  • Worry about midterm PSY exam
Friday
  • Miss morning class, studied PSY
  • PSY midterm exam - waste time studying
  • Dashed down to Effies day 2
  • Chiong into seminar room for MMLKY's interview on "The Branding of Singapore"
  • Usher says program will commence at 215pm sharp doors will be locked
  • Calls to friends still rushing down to tell them forget it
  • 230pm LKY still gelek-gelek somewhere else
  • SMSes to friends to get down here ASAP
  • friends make it, whole hall full
  • LKY interview ends, dash to the toilet to open floodgates
  • meet friends and stuff my face with mini mushroom ragout and chocolate eclairs (I missed lunch)
  • dashed for Premium Master Class - The Digital Age of Advertising
And from there I could take it easy and have fun. For now. Next week will be another flurry of activities, but not so crazy. Still, it's tiring. I was in an extremely bad, not to mention utterly stoned mood for most of the day as midweek approached.

Ok as promised, more about the FYC AGM as well as the Effies. I know the last time I said more about the posts never materialized, but I intend to blog about these two events. How could I not? The Effies? Hello?? I will.

Really!

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Going for the Effies!!

By some crazy way or the other, the programme staff for RMIT at SIM managed to secure a crazy deal for students to attend the inaugural World Effie Festival 2008 at Suntec Convention Centre. Before I go on, the Effies, simply put, are the Oscars of the advertising world - recognizing the best of advertising campaigns and efforts. The RMIT staff managed to clinch a deal with the organizers to let us go for $50. By normal standards, Oscar-level or not, $50 to a two-day event is quite a cool price to pay. But aside from the main awards show and accompanying dinner, there are also classes to attend while seats last, and showcases of nominees (I presume). These are the things that us students will look forward to, and we will not be going to the awards ceremony. Why?

Each ticket to the Effies are priced at an insane $2,250.

With such a mad price, $50 is an absolute steal for the valuable knowledge we can get to learn from the classes there. In itself, $50 can buy you alot of things. But when $50 is what you pay after a 98.8% discount on an event that could change your life and shape your career in advertising, you would be quite a cranially-disadvantaged person not to grab this chance. You don't have to feel offended if advertising or any of its links and branches are not your thing in life. If it is, and you're offended, good. My words have done their job rightly.

Well don't fret if you missed the deadline to pay up, or if you find that my point of view is right on second thought. Assuming photographic (maybe video?) coverage is not prohibited, you will be able to read about both the seminars and events that occured there. Then again, even if we can't take photos, we'll bring at least the content of the seminars out with us anyway.

Stay tuned!

Monday, February 18, 2008

Lou Hei 2.0

Here I go again having to "favorite" my video with a blog post. Do I reeeeeally have to sign up in Vimeo? Can I survive without having to create another sleeping account?

This time, it's the Pingsters again tossing yu-sheng, the traditional Lunar New Year act of tossing a rich variety of ingredients, each representing something (luck, fortune, babies, intellect, etc.). This was on Sunday, 17th Feb, on the same day as the events of my previous post. Need a few ideas on new utensils to use for tossing and new phrases to use? Watch and learn.


Pingster Lou Hei from claudia on Vimeo.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Jurassic Jumble

Just because I have no Vimeo account and don't quite see the need for one (not now anyway), this is my way of favouriting a Vimeo video.

By blogging about it.

I can just stick it here because I'm fairly confident the video won't get taken off.

Because the user is my friend Rinaz.

Anyways this was at ping.sg's Chinese New Year Lou-Yu-Sheng gathering at De Coder's Cafe, down at the basement of Balmoral Plaza. More on that in the next post, when I procure the photos (I use big(ger) words just because I can).

Basically in Jurassic Jumble, there are up to 9 sets of cards of dinosaurs, with color and species codes. Your objective is to try to get a complete set, 9 cards each, of a certain species (ie. 9 T-Rexs or Pterodactyls). The first person to do it grabs one of the cute rubber bones off the table, and others have to follow suit, till one distracted player is left without a bone, and loses. To get a complete set, you trade cards with other players, by species or color code. Once the green light is up, the whole game table becomes a madhouse stock trading centre. People yelling the number of cards for someone to respond and trade with. And you'd be surprised how many people concern themselves with that last card without noticing that all the bones have disappeared from the table. It's a rough game, and without the cafe's fantastic foresight of laminating each and every card there might be in a game, the cards would have been powdered wood pulp by now.

Here it is. Enjoy.



I like Jurassic Jumble from rinaz on Vimeo.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

When you figure out love is all that matters after all

Courtesy of my poppy brother I have been hearing what I've since learnt is Carrie Underwood's So Small at the top of his music charts. The lyrics you see in the title of this post drilled itself into my head, and set me thinking, as if in silent collaboration with this day of love and shy flirting.

Now don't be so quick to say bugger off to those lyrics. That was my initial reaction, but pause to think, and how much more true can lyrics get? When you figure out love, it's all that matters after all. Now tell me if you actually can worry about other things when you are absolutely head over heels and panting over... you know, whatever other half you might have. Sure, people do think about their future, whether they will really really REALLY work out. Not when you're wasting extra SMSes by silent insistence that each SMS must open with 3 lines of mushy name-calling, you're not.

This Valentine's Day I had big plans to buy chocs from Chocolat Factory (Airport T3, Vivo, one more I forgot where). Apparently my mind didn't fully comprehend the utter madness of $18/100gm until then. CF were selling chocs of all three types (white, milk, dark) moulded in the shape of cute little cards from poker's Hearts suit, about 6cm x 3cm x 0.5cm. And just as I had wanted, they had ready-packed a card of each choc type in a lovely little packets of 3 for ease of distribution (I'd thought of having to do it myself...). And each packet cost, according to weight...

$5.05.

I gave chocs to about 15 people today. If I had gone ahead and bought those chocs, I would either have had a shortage, or spent $75.75.

Instead I got foil-wrapped little hearts from Cocoa Tree for $14.45. Bit on the cheapskate side, but definitely much more sensible than Chocolat Factory. Which reminds me then about my first visit there. The salesgirl's neglect to break the dark chocolate samples into smaller pieces allowed me to sample just about $2 worth of chocolate. It's good chocolate though. Definitely deserves due credit. It's just a little out of my league for like 4 more years to come.



On the receiving end, I got these lovely presents from my 3 bestest babes in SIM-UB (I'm not being possessive, it's just that to me they are babes la.) I felt quite horrible that I only gave them two tasty chocolate hearts each (others got only one heart lor) compared to what they gave me. An uber cute Cookie Monster handphone cushy holder from Eubegoh, a beautiful card from Maria, and a lovingly-wrapped package of really really interesting sweets from Cheilla baby. Thanks gals for making me feel so so loved! :D

It was a good thing my well-instilled filial piety (self-puffing will cease here) made me call my father to check if he wanted lunch. Turns out he went out somewhere. I went to the DBS branch between Tampines Mall and Century Square to take the house key from my mom, and when I complained that she gave me inaccurate information that dad would be at home the whole day, she said "I thought you were going to stay out late what, since you stayed out so late last night."

-_-"

I decided to walk through Century Square because I wanted to munchie on something, preferably Taiwan-style XXL fried chicken cutlet, but ended up poking around flowers on an impulse decision to give my mom a small surprise (don't you love these non-holiday Days when you suddenly feel that you have enough to spend on ridiculously-priced items?). I fell in love with the three-flower bouquet immediately when I saw it. Perhaps because it was small yet elegant. Also, the larger bouquets were sure impressive, but the three-flower bouquets because of its size had a certain stately neatness about its arrangements. I blanched when I found out it costs $39.50, not because it was expensive. It was, but I didn't mind. I just didn't have enough money with me a the moment, and the hell if I'm gonna walk home and back just to retrieve a blue note. And no I don't have a card of any sort. Except poker cards and mahjong cards.

So in search of alternative solutions I drilled the salesgirl, a cute enough gal not much older than me who fielded my questions with a cheeriness and helpfulness that could put some hotel staff to shame, and she directed me up to the 4th floor for more budget options. In the end I bought a single champagne rose stalk and a card from another gift shop, intending to use the thin vase that we have at home. And as luck would just have it, my mom used it to put floral offerings to the Buddha. I went into a slight panic mode looking for a suitable container (can you sincerely expect me to use an Ice Mountain bottle?), and luckily my aesthetic side prompted me to keep the exquisite purple teardrop-shaped bottle used to hold the relatively new Purence premium water that I bought some time back. For an improvisation, I think I'm quite pleased with the result.



Huh? What do you think? Nice right. The original files are hi-res by the way, just so you know. So don't be too surprised if you get a uber huge ass image when you click on the images above for a closer look.

In the spirit of giving and receiving, this is the best Valentine's Day of my life so far. And so to one and all, single or attached, Happy Valentine's Day to your attention-craving selves!