I’m back again to continue with my update on what I have been up to as of late. In part 1, I talked about the first two weeks of the new school semester. I still have another three weeks to talk about. So, here I go again.
Week 3
A group selfie before entering the concert theatre.
There wasn’t much that took place this week to be honest. The highlight of the week was the SDZ Waves 19 concert which I had been looking forward to since I got my ticket (Thanks Shantel!). I was excited because I enjoyed the concert last year and there were more friends attending the concert this year too. However, I had no idea the theme was Frozen. I do not like Frozen. But I still enjoyed it. It actually made me even consider watching the movie but I still haven’t and I can safely say that I won’t be watching it anytime soon.
I had to take some selfies while waiting for the concert to begin. So, here are Nica, Vera and Jamie.
And here’s a selfie with Husz.
After the concert, we all waited around for Shantel. I just wanted to give her a hug because I knew that she has put in a lot of time, energy and commitment into SDZ and this concert. And the end of the concert also meant that she would have more time to spend with us. Granted, when she saw all of us, she did get emotional. We all took turns giving her hugs and taking pictures as a group and with her individually.
Great job Shantel! Really proud of you and I’ll be there again next year.
Oh and here’s a picture with Jun Wei; one of the few other SDZ people that I know.
Week 4
This was the home-based learning (HBL) week which meant being able to stay home and completing our assignments online. Although many people weren’t too happy about this whole ‘schooling from home’ thing, I honestly felt like this ‘break’ from having to go school each day couldn’t have come at a better time. There were two graded assignments due at the end of the week/start of week 5. So, my strategy or plan was to finish all the HBL assignments as soon as possible and then work on the graded ones. That sort of worked, I guess.
This was also the week where the Dungeons & Dragons people (Sam, Chels, Vera, Shantel, KX and I) met up at Shantel’s place one night. We played a horror RPG. Everything was fine but about halfway through I was fighting my urge to fall asleep. I was trying so hard to keep my eyes open. I managed to stay awake but once my character died, I just had to lie down somewhere and rest my back. I have no clue why I was so tired. The game ended and KX revealed that Sam was behind all the murders. He also explained everything but I was too tired to understand.
We headed out to get supper and then…
… A wild Vera appeared!
If I’m not wrong, we ended our game around six in the morning. I was so ready to leave, go home and sleep till late in the afternoon but I had to be in school at ten in the morning for a CASS Club meeting. Just so you know, I always wake up two hours before the time I need to be in school. So in this case, that means having to be up at 8am. I reached home from Shantel’s place at around 7.50am. I had to come back home to change into something more smart casual because after the CASS Club meeting in the morning, there was some Parents Conference in the evening that I was supposed to help out with.
Without any sleep, I dragged myself into the shower hoping that it would freshen me up and it did… Only for like about ten minutes. I even desperately googled for how to stay awake after staying up all night and none of the results were really that helpful. When I got to school, I wanted to get a sweet drink hoping a sugar rush would wake me up. I walked over to McCafé but the queue was so long. I walked over to the vending machine but the machine wouldn’t accept my coins. So, that left me with nothing to drink before the meeting. I just could not wait for the day to be over.
A picture taken for the OOTD contest but then I didn’t post it because I remembered that I don’t do #OOTD posts.
Note: The picture above was taken after the CASS Club meeting. I might not look tired because being pretty is a job and I do that well. #ImJustKidding #DontHateMe
The rest of that day was filled with a mixture of me feeling fine and feeling sleepy. In between the wait for the conference, I sat with Husz and Shaf at Hilltop Haven. They were both doing their own stuff. I tried watching an episode of Euros of Hollywood. The environment was just not conducive for me to watch anything on my laptop. (I can always see a reflection of the trees in the background on my laptop screen no matter how bright I make it. There are people constantly walking around and laughing out loud too. It’s pretty distracting) So, I decided to edit the interview transcription I had almost completed. After a while, the three of us started talking… About what I don’t exactly remember but I do know that there was a little bit of cyber stalking involved.
Dalene joined us for a few minutes and since all four of were together I thought it was the perfect time to take a selfie.
The Parents Conference was better than I expected. I felt like I messed up when it was my turn to speak to the parents. I didn’t have much to say and kept looking at Rachel to help me out and she certainly did (Thanks Rachel!). After the conference, we spent time talking to some parents and some of the other seniors who came back to share their experiences with the parents. So, it was nice and simple and not as intimidating as I thought. Although technically no matter how many times you’ve done it, standing in front of a group of people for a presentation or speech will always be nerve-wrecking and intimidating.
Thanks Jamie for capturing a moment where I don’t look like a complete mess.
Oh and I burnt one of the earlier days this week travelling all the way to Tampines to interview my profile for an assignment. Travelling to Tampines was fine but making my way to his block (which was the location of the interview) was the difficult part. Although I did my research on which bus to take the day before, I still ended up taking a total of three wrong buses which made me 40 minutes late. Apparently the ‘T’ some of these buses had on the front meant a different route from the ones without the ‘T’. Of course I had no idea that the ‘T’ meant anything else other than ‘Trainee’. Anyway, my interviewee seemed fine with me being unprofessional and showing up late so it turned out alright.
Week 5
Something rare that happened this week was Chels wanting to take a selfie with me twice. The second selfie is below.
If I were to summarise this week in two words, I would say: DTVM Hacker.
The entire week was filled with the paranoia because we were all involved in this alternate-reality game (ARG) created by one of our lecturers. Participating basically gives us participation marks in her graded assignment. The story is that there are two ‘hackers’ amongst us with all our confidential information and we basically have to find out who these two people are. Our lecturer as the game master was the one controlling the hacker’s blog and twitter account but she was working with two students. So, our goal was to get in teams of four, work together and find out who these two people were by solving clues and puzzles given to us by the ‘hackers’ over the week. At first, I didn’t really care too much but then I found out people were thinking it was me.
It was this tweet by Chels that made all three of us prime suspects. If you can’t read it, she tweeted, “We were on a top secret mission.”
So, I got a little upset until my competitive side kicked in and I realised why not just mislead everyone so that my team would be ahead. One of the craziest things my team did was to fake a clue and pass it on to one of the other teams. And the leader of that team actually believed it. HAHA (Sorry Minyi). I loved the thrill of it all and that adrenaline rush I got when we managed to solve something or were awaiting our next clue. I guess it was an added bonus that my team was ahead most of the time according to the hackers’ tweets.
In between strategy talk we did some photo booth-ing.
At the end of the week, we had to let our lecturer know who we each thought the ‘hackers’ were. Then there was this big reveal that it was Sam and Wesley (Do note that this is the second time in one post that I’m saying that Sam was behind it all). Later in class, our lecturer explained how she planned everything and managed pulled it off. It was impressive and in my opinion, we all have to thank her for giving us this unique experience which required a lot of work. Which other lecturer in which other course would plan an ARG for their students?
One of our tasks was to take a group picture with this sign outside one of the toilets. #TotesAwkward
Anyway, this week was not just all about the hacker. There was the InterCASS event organised by the CASS Club. It was a captain’s ball competition and my class had signed up. The competitive side of me made me want to sign up as part of the team but from experience, I knew that I would not have exactly been of much help in the game since I would try to avoid the ball. So instead, I took on my CASS Club duties of keeping score and by doing so, I got to watch my class play too. So, it was all good. Our juniors had signed up as a team too. Since most of the students in our course (Diploma in Creative Writing for TV and New Media) were known for not being sporty, I was really proud that we had two teams representing our course out of the eight in total. Some of my other classmates who were not playing (Dalene & Nica), the junior’s classmates and our lecturers came down to support the two teams too.
The most intense match was the seniors vs. the juniors bout in my opinion. My class put up a good fight but we ended up losing to the juniors. After that instead of being two opposing factions, we all got together to cheer on the junior team and they ended up wining.
The Writers’ Team along with their biggest fans after the event.
So as you can tell, with some ‘hackers’ on the loose and a sports event, week 5 has been pretty eventful. Now, I would go on to talk about Week 6 but then it’s no longer the ‘beginning’ of the semester and so it wouldn’t really fit the title of this post. Plus, this post is already pretty long. So… I’ll just leave it like this. Until next time,
PEACE OUT.
minuteswitharavind 