The Naturally Insane Experience

New environment. New people. New challenges.

Lots of Goodbyes.

After my less than one year stay in the High School, have to say goodbyes. And then, it was just a short 6 months and I had to leave once again... for my training. Really appreciate the help I got from all my colleagues. I really wish I could go back there after my training.

Hall Life

I have came all the way to the far west to start my training. Since it is situated in some university, and I was not able to get a hall life when I was still an undergraduate. Hence, I was determine to get a hall and relive the life as a student. I was really lucky to get a room which was super near my school, toilet, pantry, and laundry room.  

Living in hall really quite exciting. The time that was supposed to spend travelling has been greatly reduce. I was able to visit gym more often than usual, get to know more people, socializing and most importantly... sleep... lesser! Yeah, the time spend doing all those things have actually taken our sleeping time. Well, this is what we call hall life!

It was pretty ok since I don't really have to spend time committing CCAs to earn points in order for you to get rooms again for next year. That is because my training only lasts for a year. Actually if it is longer than a year, I would most probably join one CCA myself. And I would really love if the course of study is really longer than a year. I mean, who likes to work? Studying is much more enjoyable! Yes, I enjoy student life! But I am definitely not the kind who glue himself to the study desk all day. Passing is good enough for me.

I also get to know my roomie who is a Year 2 Advanced Freshie, majoring in Engineering. A more hardworking student than me. He always bring in two of his friends to study with him. If is me, it would be more like a chillax moment... So really admire his determination.

I do bring in my friends in too. I had friends who used my room for filming videos, chillaxing, and creating a mess for my service learning project!

Will definitely miss my hall life. But it was always a booking in camp feeling when returning there...

Training Course

Our training started early than the others, because our course has a lot more to cover. It involved many troublesome administrative stuff at the beginning. I thought it would be better to settle all those things first, and I became the first few people who sent in my personal particulars to the main coordinator cum lecturer. And so, he took notice of me pretty fast, and always call out my name in the lectures and tutorials for the first month. With that, we start to build rapport pretty fast.

As irritating as I am, I always like to do impressions on the teachers who taught me. And that lecturer happened to be the most easiest to imitate. So I started to imitate him in front of my groupmates. The lecturer lesson only lasted for a month, so as the second month starts (which is also the official school term), we have more new teachers teaching us, and we have another round of ice breaking session with the new teachers. We were supposed to give a self-introduction in a special setting (eg. Matchmaking session, a talkshow setting, etc). Thinking I will not be called, I did not specially prepared for it. In the end, I was still called for it. Since our tutorial sessions have been pretty awkward for the last month, I thought I could spice it up a bit. So I went on giving self-intro imitating the lecturer. It did created a big commotion, and the news spread pretty fast and it landed on all the teachers that taught us. Once again, I became sort of like teachers' pet again...

Projects

Those things aside, our course really have tons of homework with tight deadlines. It was really fortunate to have superb teammates to finish up everything promptly. Well, except for one person, and I would say I am the one to blame...

I knew this person when I first met her in Simei when I was on the way home. We were in the same tutorial group. Since we are in the same group, it would be nice to say hello and bye. But it was still ok back then. We got to talk when she suddenly appeared beside me in one of the briefing lectures and realized we both lived in the same hall, in the same block. And we got more meal outings when we both settled in the hall.

The disaster came when she insisted to be in the same group as me when the second month starts. She decided to leave her current group and claimed that we should work with different people. But according to her friend, it is because her previous group was made up of Chinese Mommies, so when comes to English-medium modules, they would not serve much help in report writing. We were all stunned by the commotion she made, but we could not do anything but just accept it...

But things got more uglier the more we work with her. I could only say she is definitely not a team player. As much as I wish the training course could be longer, thankfully I have another 1 month plus to work with her for the next semester.

I also learned a lot working with a group of girls. It was truly a emotion roller coaster I have experienced for the past 5 months. As much as our team dynamic was great, the others seemed to have their troubles too, and it affected all of our teammates as well. But I was glad we could all solve in like an adult. I was more grateful to learn how to handle situation like that from them.  

Service Learning Project / Saturday Night Fever

This was a compulsory community project. We were grouped randomly. At first, I thought our group will not be a great team. But after few sessions, I could slowly start to see the dynamics were slowly picking up.

And of course, staying in hall brought almost half of our team together. We formed a dinner group after every meetings. This group of 7 people slowly reduced to the current 4, which we call ourselves the Saturday Night Fever. There was one night when we had to stay during weekends for a workshop. The 4 of us when to crash one of the halls to chillax, and that was when I dropped my hall key. I took the night to hunt for it alone but no avail. After the second day of the workshop, it was already the next evening, and I had given up hope finding the key. It was the 3 of them, plus one more dinner gang peep, taking the effort to find my key. I was really really grateful.

The four of us decided to go Taiwan coming December! Probably will treat them for a meal when over there. Can't wait!

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And so, this was a rough record of the journey so far for this year.

I have made so many new friends this year and I knew somehow the relationship will fade after we graduate from the course. This kind of thought always sadden me. It was always a pity when such moment is not far. My Tutorialmates, the Feverish people... I know I don't have to think about such things right now, just live the moment first!