NUS Arts Camp 2012

Arts Camp just ended less than 24 hours ago, and after hibernating for 13 hours (I think I could probably sleep for 2 more hours but I have things to be done and my throat was really dry), it's time to write this post. This will be a reflections/recap kind of post, and will be naturally long and windy. Let's go.

EDIT: It ended up taking more than a day to write this post, and I was waiting for photos too.

I had several goals for Arts Camp when I signed up.

1) Mingle around more

Last year I went for Arts Camp as a crasher, and I didn't really mix around that much. What that resulted in was in the OG card that I got in the end, many people wrote 'didn't get to talk to you much, but you seem nice' or variations of this. This year I wanted to interact more with everyone and try to talk to everyone and not just talk to an exclusive few.

2) Be a more proactive councillor

Being a crasher last year, I naturally didn't feel any inclination to take any responsibility or do anything. I mean, I am here voluntarily and I'm not an official councillor, so why work so hard? I was slacking around (with fellow crashers) and didn't really contribute much. Less tiring? Yes. Fulfilling? Maybe not as much. Thus this year I signed up as an official councillor, despite being the only one from my batch doing so (as well as being the oldest councillor).

3) Make new good/close friends

I believe in quality over quantity. I would rather have 1 close friend than 10 normal friends. I'm not particularly social (naturally) and am an introvert so I don't thrive in social situations. Thus it's not about meeting new people, it's about meeting the right people.

With that, let me launch into the recap. I will talk about whether I achieved these goals at the end of the entry.

Update on Life

Yes yes, I haven't blogged in a while. But that's because I've been busy as a bee!

1) Boston SEP

I finally received my acceptance letter from Boston! Yay! My exchange program to Boston University is now confirmed, and all that is left to do is finalize the travel arrangements.... which is a PAIN IN THE ASS!

I have plans to travel California before semester begins, and I'm going with some of the fellow NUS people going to Boston for SEP. Trip planning is NOT easy. We've been doing research about housing and transport, and it's SO hard to find an 'ideal' hostel. It's like, there's always something wrong - too noisy, too far away, too dodgy, etc. And when the hostel is perfect .... they only have bookings available for even numbers (2, 4, 6, etc) when there are THREE of us travelling

So yea after like 2 weeks of planning the only thing we've booked so far is our housing in San Francisco. Up next will be the flight ticket, then our housing and transport in the areas we're visiting.

Just in case anyone's interested, our rough itinerary is as such:

San Francisco -> Yellowstone -> Grand Canyon -> Los Angeles -> Boston

I'm not a big fan of the two natural areas (Yellostone/Grand canyon) but the two China girls I'm going with are quite keen so I'm just tagging along. I want to check out the beaches! Clean beaches please!

Talking about U SA, appl ying for a vis a is a bitch! I haven't even got my v isa and I've had to pay $400+ in administration fees how ridiculous is that!! But I love Ame rica and really want to go so in case the vi sa processors are reading this while processing my application please approve it thanks ^^ (and enjoy my $400 eating pizza or whatever you do with the money)
(the random spaces in this paragraph are my lame attempts at preventing this post from getting picked up by Google lolol)

2) Arts Camp 2012!

Yes yes that's just right around the corner... literally. Well ok it's not literally because if it's 'literally' it would mean if I walk around the corner it's there. I mean, it's REALLY close, as in, it's starting tonight! Day 0 for counsellors, that is.

Been having long meetings with the OG or the House for precamp prep, on Mon and Tues. Shack man! I don't like going out for the entire day (and I was out the entire day for both days). I need to recharge my introvert batteries!

Yup yup don't know what I got myself into but I'm a counsellor at this camp... hope I can transform into some social, entertaining person and interact well with the freshies and let them have a good camp!

I'm not looking forward to the lack of sleep and all though... you're always fueled by adrenaline during camps (hence doing loud fun cheers to boost yourselves even more) because without it you'll just crash and collapse. I want my sleeeeeep. But oh well. Praying for strength and endurance to last the whole camp! The next blog post will probably be some sort of recap post of arts camp haha. Let's hope I get into nice photos so I can post them up ^^

Ok that's all folks! Time to sleep and meditate and prepare for Arts Camp hehe. Ciaoz!

 

EDIT: I realized some followers of my blog (I've no idea why they follow me) are fitness blogs of some sort, so just a quick update on my progress-
I'm at 50kg for bench 5x5 (did one set of 60kg with a friend supporting), 60kg for squats, 55 for deadlifts, and more or less given up on barbel rows and doing chinups instead lol.  Yupz.

Light Show at Marina Bay Sands

How often have you been left in awe at something beautiful?

It could be a person, an act, a breathtaking view of nature, an exquisite work of art, or a sophisticated piece of technology.

I was left in awe last Saturday, on a date with my girlfriend to Marina Bay Sands. Let's begin from the top.