My MLM Experience Part One

Wow the last entry I made was exactly one month ago. And now I'm back!

I've been wanting to write about this for quite some time, but never bothered to get down to it! I finally decided to pen it down now before I forget the details.

So yes, I was very briefly involved in MLM before! Multi-Level Marketing has been talked about endlessly and there are many reasons why it is bad. Just in this sentence I've included 4 links for you to check out what it is and why it's bad if you don't know.

I shall recount the events chronologically, as I think it's the best way to present things. It is a VERY long read, but should no doubt be eye-opening to some of you.
So, grab some chips, a drink, and enjoy!

A Visit from China

In NUS there are many experiments going on regularly, conducted by honors / PhD students, because NUS is a research-focused university.

Thus, they regularly need subjects to take part in these experiments, and they pay anywhere from $8-$10, and for some it's really random like $20-100+. The most I've got was 20-40$ for one expt (3 hours), can't remember. Szehong got $100 from that same expt.

Anyway, I 'signed up' for what I thought was another experiment, cos my friend msged me and asked if I was free for an interview. and so I said yes.

Then lo and behold, after some SMS exchanges, I found out that 23 China students were actually coming to talk to me. TWENTY THREE.

wtf?!

So at first I thought was an experiment, then became an interview (I thought maybe 1-2 or 3) then suddenly 23 people coming!

So anyway I arranged to meet them in school and so they came... they were a bunch of China JC students (like from a China JC) visiting Singapore, and touring the universities. So somehow by some random selection I was the 'NUS ambassador!' wtf! Don't they have official channels for this.

Anyway the super weird and awkward thing was the moment they all sat down,

They all whipped out their cameras and started snapping photos of ME.

What!?! I felt like a celebrity or something la lol and I was dressed in a super cui T shirt (you'll see later) and berms.

So I eventually sat down and started chatting with them (some still took photos upclose wtf!) and it was really nice and pleasant they were all super cute and friendly and they asked me about NUS life, uni life, whether I have a gf (and when I said yes they all went 'waaaaaa' SUPER CUTE HAHA)
(and I swear I saw some disappointed faces HAHAHAHA. No seriously ok. And they kept snapping pics! So I either look like a weird interesting creature or I'm good looking and I choose to believe the latter lololol )

The girl on my right asked alot of questions, and the girl second from the right asked the most.
I alternated between Mandarin and English, and I actually used English at the start and when I started using Mandarin they were all like shocked like gasssp your Mandarin is so good!!

Oh and they also asked me what my sleeping hours are, and because I'm a pig and need a lot of sleep, I said  I slept by about 12 and woke up at 8-9, and once again they all went 'WAAAAA' and I found out it was because they slept at 1 and woke up at 6 >< rofl

So yea we had a chat for like 30 mins , with mostly just the girls asking questions (and the same 2 girls in general, the others asked the odd question) , the boys just quiet quiet and some looked bored. Asked about Singapore food.. the halls.. CCAs.. essays.. etc

After that they asked for a proper pic which is the one you see above and again here:

How's my paparazzi smile? Not bad right. LOL

btw, this 'photo taking' was like a whole row of people standin in front of us holding cameras and snappin pics (cos alot of cameras ma, all the students wanted photos) so it was really like paparazzi. So I just tried to look at all the different cameras at once and keep my smile on my face lol.

So after phototaking they all thanked me profusely and we said goodbyes, then their teacher or something gave me this bag of stuff that I was supposed to give to the NUS side in charge of inviting them - the thing is that I've NO IDEA who in NUS is responsible for it so I'm stuck with the souvenirs:

Some banner from their school (supposedly a v good sch and the students that came were supposedly the best in the school)

Some epic looking book about their school's epic history or something

Was a really fun experience, I would have loved to stay and talk abit more with them but I had to go so was abit sad ;( I felt bad for leaving! Like they were so eager to just talk more with me and learn about Singapore and stuff.

Ok so now what do I do with the epic souvenirs?

This semester is nuts

I really should blog more often, I think about it (blogging) very often but just can't find the time to sit down to do it. It's like my safe haven.

It doesn't really matter if noone reads it, as long as it's available for my own perusal.

I've a swirl of thoughts so I'll try to segment them accordingly, just scroll to the heading that seems interesting to you I suppose.

1) Szehong became a Christian!

If you haven't heard, my gf has accepted Christ (a month ago or so) and has been attending church service regularly.

If you told me this a year ago I would have been incredulous as it didn't seem very likely, as she had already been exposed to Christianity before due to her friends. This was something that I thought, that it would be harder for a person who has been repeatedly exposed to Christianity to eventually accept it (as compared to one who is finding out for the first time), since that person is probably numb to it or has been habituated in some way.

This was the case for another friend of mine, as I remember his response when I invited him to a christmas event my church had - 'nah, i've gone to many of these before, it's all the same'.

I thought that because a person has heard the same message so many times, why would he suddenly just accept it?

I have underestimated God's favor and goodness in working, and apparently people DO accept it even after hearing it many times.

And for the case of SH it seems that she has made a pretty informed decision, when I talked to her more about it, it was clear that she knew what she was doing and why she wanted to accept Christ (and she also knew much more about 'religion' in general than me and I had much to learn from her :) )

This was a humbling experience, and obviously a very happy one for me. A heavy and tough task has been placed upon me, to be a good mentor for her and guide her along her Christian walk, and I gladly embrace it. I pray that God will give me the wisdom and ability to do so.

2) School is hectic before it even started.

This is a long section by itself, and probably needs further splitting. I don't even know how I'm going to retell the story coherently.

Basically, this has been the most hectic 2 weeks before school reopened (up to today, 1st day of school). Hectic not because of any other things but because of school-specific stuff.

In previous semesters, the 5 modules that I have to take were always pretty clear cut and decided ahead of time. I will bid for my modules accordingly, and get everything settled nicely (e.g. I'll get what I bid for, and have everything by end of Round 2)

This time round, it's different.

The original plan

I originally wanted to take a Lab module (compulsory for Psych majors) along with 2 Psych mods, 1 of which is a compulsory mod and the other is an elective. The remaining two modules would be Philosophy of Religion and Marketing, and these 5 were pretty set in stone.

The first hiccup

The first hiccup came in Round 1A, when we (me and friends) realized that we couldn't even bid for the lab we wanted - it was reserved for Year 3s to bid for. Being a popular lab, this meant that it would be gone at the end of Round 1A.

It was time to find backups, as I frantically went to search for another module. I settled on one eventually, Personality and Individual Differences, sounded interesting.

Complications

Things began to get complicated when a friend of mine, Nella, who has taken basically same modules as me all the while, suddenly wanted to change her module choices, and introduced a module that I never really considered, Mod X.

The gf had some other modules she was eyeing as well but they weren't of my interest so it didn't factor in. I was also doing considerably more research abt the modules (due to my free time) so I was feeding her information that I got.

But basically this injection of a new module made me realize I shouldn't be too set on taking a module, and I should consider alternatives.

Thus in came Mod Y, a module that is taken by a prof I like but he specifically dissuaded us to take the module, because he didn't really have time to prepare for it and was having 'burnout' from lecturing 4 sems straight. Also, the lessons were at 8AM.

After an extended email conversation with this prof, he basically greatly discouraged me from taking the module. I still wanted to take it, because I had no other real options, so I thought of taking X and Y (and the compulsory mod)

The 2nd hiccup

Amidst all these problems, I suddenly realized something that would have been disastrous had I missed. I had originally planned to do 5 modules worth of Psych modules at SEP (exchange prog) next sem. However, after doing some calculations, I realized that if I did that, I would exceed the limit of Psych mods that I could take!

I had to cut it down to 4 modules worth of Psych mods (which involved amending a submitted form for SEP and going down to school a second time during the holidays), AND also remove one Psych mod that I was taking in NUS this sem.

This meant I had to take only 2 Psych mods, and find a breadth/gem to take in its place.

Cutting down one Psych mod meant I had to choose one out of the 3 options (X, Y and Personality) instead of the originally planned 2. I asked my prof for Y for advice, and he actually told me that I shouldn't take Personality because of the prof taking that mod (I'm anonymizing the modules so that the identity of this prof doesn't get out) . Further checks with friends and stuff also confirmed that the Personality mod Prof was ... not desirable.

This reduced it to X and Y. And now I found a breadth, an LSM, that some friends were taking as well, but the thing was that it clashed with X, so if I took that LSM, I wouldn't have been able to take X and would have to take Y.

First attempt at X.

My preference was to take X because the prof for it is highly acclaimed and won teaching awards before for teaching that module! And the module is supposedly a lot more interesting than Y too.

So I just MPEd Y first (noone wanted it, so easily got it for 1 point), and tried bidding for X, but failed to get it after one round (19/11 bidders).

The next round actually released module X (5 spaces)... for FRESHIES which was retarded because X has certain pre-requisites that meant that it was like a 0.1% chance that there was a freshie that could actually take it.

At the same time, as the round progressed, I bid (And won) for LSM and my other mods (marketing + philo)

By the end of Round 2, I had 5 modules. I didn't get Mod X because of the stiff competition, oh well. No biggy. All seemed fine and dandy.

Tyranny of Choice

In Round 3, suddenly 18 slots opened up for Mod X. EIGHTEEN F*CKING SLOTS.

What the hell ? Why do you have to save the spots for the last round and not just release it earlier!? It wouldn't have cost 707 points in Round 1 if just 8-9 more slots were released.

And so suddenly Mod X became a viable option, since it was virtually a guaranteed 1 point module. Over time, only 4 bidders entered the bidding arena for it. Waaay under quota, definite 1 point.

Also, over the course of time, Mod X's attractiveness had gone up as I heard more and more good stuff about it. So now I wanted to take Mod X - but it clashes with LSM! How now brown cow?

The IS problem

I have to find another breadth or GEM to replace LSM then. (This was actually alot more complicated, there were other modules I considered in place of LSM but I eventually settled on LSM)

I found a decent sounding module, ISxxxx, and actually managed to rope in a good friend, Candice, to take it with me. However, there were 2 lecture slots for this module (choose 1), and Candice could only take the 1st one. I could take both, but taking the 2nd slot would mean another long problem for Marketing (which I won't elaborate cos it's too longwinded and this post is already mega longwinded)

This meant I needed to get the 1st slot. BUT. Somehow fate has it that the first slot only had 5 spaces, whereas the 2nd slot had 12 spaces. This meant a significantly lower chance of getting the 1st slot (with candice!) !

When Open Bidding ended (and Closed bidding began), the first slot had 10/5 bidders and 2nd slot only had 12/12 (or 11/12, it fluctuated).

After significant deliberation, I actually decided that I shouldn't risk it and I should try for the 2nd slot because it's kinda risky to try for the first one with so much competition and I didn't have that many G points. Also, I would have to drop the LSM to bid for it, and lose 200+ points in the process. Thus, too much risk to try for the 10/5 slot, I'll have to settle for doing IS on my own :(

Quantum Mechanics

BUT. Lo and behold in the last 30 minutes before closed bidding, I stumbled upon this other mod about Einstein and QM - it actually fit perfectly in my timetable. And after quickly texting a few friends, I found out that it was actually quite an easy and slack mod and supposedly easy to score.

The most important thing was that it was actually under quota! like 20/30 or something like that. In fact, it was one of the ONLY breadth/gem mods that still had so much space (besides the super boring ones like 'Plants and Society') (I know because I checked them all) so I could get it for 1 point!

This led me to realize that I should just risk it - I can bid for the 1st slot for IS, the one with Candice, AND at the same time bid for this Einstein mod which I'll definitely get so it's my backup, and if I don't get the IS mod, I'll just take this mod which isn't all too bad.

Verdict

I didn't get the IS mod. :( Sadface. Was looking forward to doing a module with candice, had never done so before (NM101 isn't counted)

Thus I'm doing this module called Einstein's Universe and Quantum Weirdness.

Thus, only TODAY, at the end of the first day of school, did I manage to settle all 5 of my modules and FINALLY finalize my timetable. (Well not quite, there's still tutorial balloting)

What a whirlwind of events it has been.

And you're one heck of a baller if you actually read from start to finish.