- the end -

Yay! I have finished my exams! Be jealous! Haha... this is the reward that I’ve got from the most siong semester to date. But I like the bitter-before-sweet feeling, so satisfying :D

Picking up from my last update, erm, 2 months ago, I shall dump everything that I want to say in a single post. Starting from the mid-sem break -->

Attended a very rare mass Archi outing at Muthuraman Chetty Road after threatenings from Toon. To save the hassle searching where on Singapore Muthuraman Chetty Road is, here’s the map.


Can’t imagine how the outing was like? It was dark and stuffy and eerie – perfect for fright night in the city - aka open-air-on-the-ground BBQ in an abandoned warehouse! We even celebrated mid-autumn and Halloween early. Haha!! Then we set a canvas on fire in the nearby construction site with sparklers and needa climb over to put it out. It isn’t everyday that you getting to do these crazy things with equally crazy people! all photos on MySpace

Then the storm arrived which was the worst in the Urban core. (Note: Archi year3 course is divided into 3 study focuses – technology, urban and environment.) The program for P2 was a craft / culinary school in Ann Siang Hill / Kampong Glam. I fell into some kind of obsession and insisted on doing a Penarakan craft school in Kampong Glam. I did so many things in preparation, went site visits, museum visits, library visits. But there isn’t happiness for the stubborn soul. Kena slam like siao.

One interesting visit was to Bollywood Veggies in Kranji. Although it’s a ‘modern ruralization’, the concept and atmosphere was splendid! It’s the first time I leant that Singapore land can be so charming from manipulation!
This Poison Ivy bought the land and set up her own mansion and farm! But of course the price paid should be incomparable to setting up a farm in Australia or New Zealand. And here, she has to propose this ‘country-side revival’ project to gain the support of the government. So much to build a paradise in Singapore...


Another distracting visit was to the Asian Civilization Museum. I was so typically me, getting fascinated and ‘distracted’ by all the weird artifacts and interactive media that I did not find anything useful for my own Penarakan research. Most fascinated by the Batik making video and Ebru!

batik


Just learnt that the name of this art is 'Ebru' from this tour! It’s quite complicated to explain the procedure, watch it to find out. Videos are smuggled out from the Museum with my camera. There was narration, but only through the earphones, so the video captured were silent. So amazing! Especially the last part when he drag the paper over the water and tada(!!), the colours are on the paper already! Quick and neat!

ebru - tulip


ebru - rose


ebru - ripples


Can you imagine that this is cut out from ONE complete piece of paper! Super amazed by Islamic art!


And the Hindu elephant Ganesha is so interesting! (Some tourists were around me, so I didn’t turn on the flash.) The introduction reads ‘The elephant headed deity known as Ganesha, or God of Success, was a popular Hindu deity. The four-armed image of Ganesha seated with the soles of his feet pressed together, is usually found in Southeast Asia. He typically holds the following: a broken tooth; a rosary; an axe and a bowl of sweets which he dips his trunk into.'

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Back to studio, we have this combined studio report and model to build of our chosen site: Kampong Glam. ‘Studio’ is a noun meaning (1) the mode of teaching for Archi students (2) the place where we have our studio sessions every Mondays and Thursdays (3) the group of students having the same tutor in the semester. One mad week of traffic-watching at Kampong Glam (Kenn implied we were like Japanese mafia), buying cheap shawl @ $2.50, drinking the authentic teh tareh & Ramadan observation. The pink army (Lina, Rachael, Jiayun, Pinjie, Jiehao, JJ & 锋哥) also visited VivoCity on the opening day for dinner that ended up taking photo and talking about the designs of Toyo Ito – Archi hero No.2. We said VivoCity is like RevitCity - an idealized computer-rendered design - no straight lines but all custom-made parts. Kudos to the contractors for this project, they have either strike it rich or went mad cutting the wooden planks on the terrace one by one.


Next, Archi hero No.1 Frank Gehry came to hold a lecture @ NUS UCC for $50/ticket! We were joking that if we don’t attend now, he would pass away anytime at the age of 78. But this is one workaholic who would never give up until he turned the world over!

I actually admired his courage to be a madcap in this field, dropping out of Harvard and yet still strived to fame and success. Anyway, he was in Singapore for the running for the Sentosa IR with Kerzner International (motto: blow away the customer), armed with their proposal of a high-technology Atlantis with robotic marine creatures. Other contenders included Genting International’s Aqua theme parks and Universal Studio and Eighth Wonder’s Harry’s Land.


Oh man, suddenly there is a flux of masters on our humble land that will eventually transform into a state-of-art landscape when they leave their touches of bizarre and construction! First was Moshe Safdie with his tablets on our Bay, now who will get a piece of our Sentosa? Glass sculptures, Mickey Mouse or volcanes? Iconic-wise, PLEASE LET KERZNER WIN THE BID! I want a Frank Gehry in Singapore!

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29 Oct: I got a new phone! Wahahaha… Sony Ericsson K610im @ only $68! Fyi it’s my first camera phone, so was rather excited about it. And the audio quality was good too (but only 64MB memory). Was blasting music in my no-TV no-PC no-radio room late at night with the phone!

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Prior to my ‘market-spoiling’ plans, went Bras Basah late one night to loiter around and looked at the Biennale displays in National Library. Went through this ‘Movement 20/20’ exhibition that was very industrial and rugged. I like the smell of it. Yes the smell of the delivery cartons and crates that were used to showcase the exhibits. Just like the smell from new electronics and books, or maybe it was from the packaging, I’m not sure. But they induced this fresh and new feeling that always tempt me to bring them home. Haha… Ah! Now I recalled there’s another smell which I like. Weird though, I discovered it at the construction site of the Jurong Point bus interchange. Was it just me or there’s some foodstalls around? I thought the site smelt of chocolate. Rich, black chocolate smell.

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With my brains turning on at full power, I realized that I can learn things real fast! I learnt to plot from AutoCAD in 2 hours; learnt to export Corel files to EPS and then to CAD in one afternoon; and lasered my model from Revit to materials in two days! (Minus the queuing part…) Repeating "说着一口吴侬软语的姑娘缓缓走过外滩"

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Broke my own promise to keep away from M this semester when Zhangyu tempted me. Always see her in studio, and Bobo, Hauyeow, 锋哥, Colin. If Suki, Junliang and Rouwan are around, they would be staying over too. ‘Studio 6 还是改不掉坏习惯.’

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The 3 days in DDS before submission was the most tedious but enjoyable experience. It started off with me dilly-dallying at home on a Monday morning doodling on my section detail. (Disclaimer: ‘section detail’ is a 1:20 detail drawing of a part of the construction eg. railings to floor, floor finishes.) I was rather lucky to be able to consult Kenn at 6pm, before we said the last goodbye. Unintentionally, I found a vacant PC in the DDS and decide to plant my roots there.

I set my own record here for staying awake for 89 hours. And less than 10% was spent at home. I survived on only three packs of Twisties, Pocky, numerous packs of Milo and conditioned air. (Note: I was sun-deprived!) On the third night, I spent half an hour walking from Haw Par Villa to SDE when I overslept on the last bus ‘returning’ to studio. The distance was 2.6km. What an experience! Worst was when I was trapped with Yanling in the DDS for the whole night talking about our photoshop-ing that I simply gave up doing my model, although I’ve lasered all the parts on Wednesday night.

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Thursday 4pm, we set off to Sunshine Plaza to print our panels, deceiving ourselves that we would make it to the deadline at 6pm. Haizz… our panels were fabulous, but Kenn would always remind me that I’ve got a late submission. *Disaster or Blessing?*

Lesson learnt: choose your company wisely.

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PS: equipped with a mere 256MB MP3 player, my songs repeated at least 20 times in these 3 days.

"我想说其实你很好你自己却不知道"
"马路再宽再远只要你牵就很安全"
"你是我的梦 像北方的风"
"我们走到这就好 因为我不想太快走完这幸福"
"我生命再怎么粗糙我都要活的很骄傲"
"我输了我累了 不想再等待"
"没人了解 才选择隔绝这世界"

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‘Disaster or blessing?’ I asked myself. (1) submitting on time but with incomplete models and ugly panels, or (2) submitting late but gaining 3 more days to complete panels / models without anyone realizing. From my smooth crit, I guess that (2) is a blessing. Well, when the grades come out then I’ll get the definite answer.

One module down; second one ended with an open book CA test; and two more in the final exams on the same day. They are over, I’m not going to analyze. But I’m real satisfied with my revising discipline! All my notes done in ONE sheet of paper only! Gonna pin them up in studio next semester!


This exam is also the last time I'll be in MPSH. Because I've cleared all my GEM, Breath and UE already! 7 more core modules to graduation! 39 day to the next storm!

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Phew! Back to the title...