Innumerabilis

After the ICCS, I went for wat2008 reunion bbq at Parc Oasis, Xiangyan’s place. It was Emmanuel’s birthday the day before, and a surprise is planned.

Alice painstakingly making scrapbookpages for Emmanuel’s birthday.  It has everyone’s photos on it, with space for writing a message too.

A closer look at her masterpieces.

With Meilan, Connie and Jamie.

With Meilan and Emmanuel.

Birthday cake made up tiramisu. Delicious!

Birthday gift #1.

Group picture.

Prelude to birthday gift #2 - a dip in the pool!

Aftermath of receiving the present.

I went for the Intercoastal Cleanup at Sungei Buloh today. It is a global, coordinated effort to have a cleanup at various coasts all around the world.

Map of Sungei Buloh

Our team before starting.

The whole place is literally litter-strewen.

We found a Pooh bear amongst the trash.

Lots of horseshoe crabs’ carcasses around too.

After finishing the cleanup!

This year, I have decided to spend more time on CCA since I’m not taking any French modules or science GEMS, and thus would have more time. I’m in Litsoc as Publications Executive, Nussu Welfare as Diary Director, Nus PA as Publications Director (this is not official yet, but I am quite confident of getting it), NVAC as an ordinary volunteer (no time to be on the com) and SAVE as a small fry (I somehow ended up on two project groups. Thinking about giving up one). You’d notice that all my exco posts are publications-related; I suppose I’m trying to do something that is actually related to my major. I’m also in Francophile, Animal Welfare Club and Bingo, but I am quitting these. As it stands right now I am going to overshoot the 40 points maximum in organisational category anyway.

Since I’m in 3 Nussu standing com and 1 constituent club, I suppose I was somewhat compelled to attend the Nussu AGM. I was also quite curious as to how it is run. It was basically a ratifying session to pass all the reports by the standing coms and constituent clubs, with a brief speech by the previous and new presidents. All in all, rather a somnolent process.

Everyone had a copy of the Nussu AGM Report. They needed 200 people to attain the quorum, which means they had at least 200 copies of these reports.

Firstly, October? Isn’t today 19 September 2008?

This shows how thick it is! Ironically, SAVE, which takes pride in saving trees and reducing waste, devoted 50 double-printed pages to the report, which is by far the most of any standing com.

The buffet after the AGM was so-so. The only good thing was the eclair.

I remember how when I was young, I’d celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival by taking a lantern to a playground near the HDB flat where I was staying. My parents were a bit paranoid, and I always had a battery-operated lantern with light bulb and musical sounds while some other kids were playing with the traditional candle-lit lanterns. It was all good, though. Holding the lantern and walking round and round the sandy playground, I had fun.

Fast forward to now. I no longer live there, and anyway playgrounds now are filled with soft foam rather than soft but abrasive sand. I’m too old to be seen holding a lantern (though I had fun making one at MINDS Fernvale on Saturday). Most importantly, some people are no longer here, so there is no point in re-enacting those scenes again; it’d only be a farcical parody of an unattainable past. The only thing I can do now to reminisce is to eat mooncakes.

Thanks to Xu Shen who brought me some mooncakes from Johor.

Nice box.

Nice design.

Nice green tea filling too.

After enjoying one week plus of having one double room to myself, my roommate moved in today. He’s Eddy, a Chinese Indonesian. Thank goodness he’s not a roommate from hell! I put in an application to change place because my room is just next to the road and it gets noisy, but I think it is unsuccessful. Oh well, I’m starting to get used to the place.

It is liberating to wake up 10 min before a lesson and still get there on time, but by no means has it made me more dilligent. I must study more. Bah.

What the room looks like after he moved in. Looks less like a deserted room. Cleaner too, since he cleaned up the place. I no longer wear slippers or shoes in the room since he mopped it. His side = neat and tidy. My side = a mess.

I thought I’d seen the last of the squirrels at Grand Canyon, but they are here too! From a dry desert to the humid tropics, is there a place without squirrels?

I didn’t get accommodation this year on campus, and decided to try the waitlist. I put Sheares as first choice, PGP as second, and “anything” as third. Well, on Wednesday I received an email saying I’ve been allocated a twin share room in RVR. I was pondering over the whole weekend on whether to accept. On one hand, living on campus would save me three hours of travelling everyday, and the 8am classes would cease to be as much a problem. On the other hand, RVR is old, and I’d be sharing the room with someone whom I do not know.

I went to check out the place on Thursday. The place wasn’t too bad, and the neighbours were okay (though it isn’t quite the same atmosphere as a hall). The clincher came when I received an email on Saturday that I’d be the next NUSSU Welfare Diary Project Director. Well, that settles it. I’d be spending quite a fair amount of time on campus handling two publications (Argot too), so I might as well stay here.

My roommate has not arrived yet, and I don’t think he’s coming. It’d probably be allocated to the next person on the wait-list. I hope he’s not a roommate from hell, lol.

Some pics I took of the room.

The recessed doorway didn’t give a very good first impression.

Nice big window and study area. A bit noisy though, with the window facing the road.

They really do give ample storage space, so much that I don’t think I will ever fill them up.

Had an outing today with Pernette, Elodie, Wan Kay, April and her little brother Jonathan. At first we wanted to go to Sentosa, but it kept raining (and rather heavily too!) so we switched venue to Settler’s at Clark Quay.