Freshmen Welcome Ceremony/SPMS Orientation Day

Spent one whole day in NTU today... In the morning was the Freshmen Welcome Ceremony, and there was this part where we had to "LIGHT UP" using the torchlights given in our goodie bag... First row will turn on their torches first and wave, then after 3 secs followed by 2nd row so on and so forth... In the dark it was reli cool la :D Then oso got this part where we had to put on the NTU gown, raise our right hands and say some pledge... Reminds me of army enlistment day, lolx... Anyway after tat there was some light refreshments followed by SPMS' Orientation in the afternoon... N I got my Matriculation Card plus yet another goodie bag!! :) The afternoon session was more relevant in the sense that some of NTU's academic systems and structures were explained a little bit more, but I realise tat I still hav to go the website and explore for myself if I wanna reli understand stuff... Anyway, here are the highlights of some of the items from the 2 goodie bags combined :)

My very own NTU jacket! :)

A closer look at the zip and logo...

edveNTUre Water Bottle!

Cute bottle of highlighters :D

*Random Note: Trust me, I'm patriotic! :D

Exciting Updates [Part 2]

Ok here are the Korea pics as promised... Basically we spent 4 days on top of the prayer mountain listening to lots of speakers, going into the 祷告洞 and climbing the 坟山... Of cos we prayed alot too! :) After tat we had the opportunity to join one of the Korean cell groups, plus go for 2 very annointed sessions, one of which is a prayer meeting and the other a praise and worship... The last day we attended the 9am service Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest church in the world with nearing 800k members, and it was reli cool! :D Altogether took 230 pics with my phone but will only publish some of them... Enjoy!

Tml going sch for Freshmen Welcome Ceremony + SPMS Orientation Day...

I'm so going to enjoy it la :D

Exciting Updates [Part 1]

The past 2 weeks flew past juz like tat, with my orientation camp and the Korea trip... I believe I experienced time going at the speed of light! =) Shall first start by putting up some of the pics from NTU's SPMS FOC'08 (my faculty orientation camp)...

These are the main events of the camp:

SPMS FOC'08 (14th - 18th July)
1^st Day - Ice-breakers + PhotoHunt
2^nd Day - Field/Dirty Games + Fright Night
3^rd Day - Pool Games + SP Night
4^th Day - Amazing Race + Human Snake & Ladders till late night (we didnt reli slp the last night)
5^th Day - Break Camp at 7am

The following photos are onli up till the first half of the 3rd day, and are all in chronological order... If you hav the patience to look thru all of them, pls feel free to do so =) Oh ya, most of the captions are by courtesy of Zhiting, I sortof juz copied wad she wrote on Facebook =) And I shall try to get more photos on hand soon...

Tat's all for orientation camp for now, next up is my Uni timetable for Semester 1... Went to matriculate online today and got my timetable... Looks quite slack but I shall not comment so soon, lolx... And I actually went to do up the
timetable, putting in the colours and all... Think its v cool! :D Thank God tat Tues and Wed onli study first half of the day, and tat every week onli got 18 peroids, which means 18 hrs... Tat works out to 3.6 hrs avg every day! =)


Nice rite? I'm so proud of it! :)

Ok shall stop here, check out Part 2 for the Korea pics!

GoForth Tidbits...

Finally back from camp but my OGL havent upload the photos yet so got nothing to show u guys :( Anyway, it was a superbly fun and memorable camp in which I've made many new friends, and I believe most of the credit goes to my 3 OGLs Raymond, Xin Ying and Zhiting!! Thank you guys for being with Ursa and creating all the wonderful memories together with us, love u all loads :D

Managed to go for the last part of GoForth but the highlights are not during the workshops but the breaks, lolx...

We were tempted...

And we gave in...

The guys wanted to feel the rush of adrenaline...

N the gals were oso quite into it =)

Our grp identity!! :D

*Once again camp was funness to the max but I shall update more when I get the pics... Stay tuned!! :D

Encouragement...

Got so many things to blog abt over the past few days but no time to write down all my thoughts... So I shall share something tat I exp. very recently, and tat is the importance of encouragement...

In short, I was encouraged by a few ppl over the past few days, and I see the diff it can reli make! :D Sometimes, the person encouraging you may think tat he/she didnt reli say much, or that its something small and insignificant, but to u it makes a world of a difference! I dunno if u noe wad I'm toking abt but I certainly have quite a few experiences of it happening to me :)

Well, nowadays in our culture we seldom express our compliments out verbally... Maybe we appreciate reli someone or the work that they've done, but we juz know it in our hearts... Why not take the time to say it out to the person? It doesnt take a lot of effort and you dont lose anything, lolx... Best of all, it doesnt have to be something complicated... You dont have to wait until someone achieves some big thing, or is highly successful b4 offering ur encouragement... I always believe tat when you notice the little things and point it out to ppl, they will be so much more thankful :) N there are so many opportunities for us to encourage, we juz have to pay more attention to the ppl ard us instead of focusing onli on ourselves... So do think abt it... Who are some of the ppl u can start to encourage today, tml, or the day after? I firmly believe tat this is a very gd habit to develop, and thru this we definitely can build up more ppl and bring a smile to their faces :D

Ok I juz remembered tat I simply muz share my recent shopping exp. together with Kaiqi... Chanced upon a crazy Puma sales while at Shaw House... Wanna guess the price of the following pair of shoes?




Still guessing?


Its onli $29.90!!! Can you believe it?!?!
This is prob one of the best bargains I ever got in my entire life!

Anyway I reli do hope that I'll enjoy my faculty camp plus Korea after tat... The camp starts tml and lasts all the way till Fri... If I still hav the energy, (which I highly doubt) I'll go down to St. Andrews' on Fri nite to support our worship team :) Following tat Sunday nite will be flying off for Korea liao... Gotta fast (as in seriously go without fd for 72 hrs) on the first 3 days from Mon to Wed, hope I dont faint =/ Tml will mark the beginning of a jam-packed schedule, all the way till I start sch, and I think it'll be worse when I actually go to NTU, lolx... Pray tat I hav the strength and energy to sustain the next 2 wks! And hope tat I hav lots of fun!! :D:D:D

Johan's Enlistment

Today's Johan's big day!! A memorable day where his next phase of life begins, in a place called Pulau Tekong... By a twist of fate, I was able to replace Jason and go in with Johan's parents, Kaiqi and one other fren of his... Although its quite obvious, I muz still say tat it reli feels v diff going in as a visitor rather than knowing tat u're gonna stay there for the next 2 weeks or so... Had a guided tour ard the sch then went to the auditorium to witness the Oath-Taking Ceremony... Everything ended with an early dinner at the cookhouse and we bade Johan goodbye... Hope that he's adjusting well!

Meeting at Pasir Ris

Basic Military Training Centre (BMTC)

Going In...

Johan's company

The infamous SAF 7 core values

The food always looks better on enlistment day, lolx...

One of the last few moments b4 we left...

I didnt reli noe wad to say, but I do hope that he does adapt to the military life soon, and try to make more friends... It is nv an easy thing but we're all behind you Johan!! Friends, if u're reading this, pls do drop him an sms anytime... He'll onli be coming out on the 25th of July, which is a Friday evening... Prayers would be much appreciated too, thank you! :)

Making a "movie"

I decided to explore Windows Movie Maker today after hearing that it can do quite alot of stuff :) Chose some of the pics that Yi Qi uploaded and made it into a slide show, but the quality was heavily compromised when I uploaded it :( Anyway, the following video took up 3 hrs plus of my time, from choosing the pics, to arranging them, putting in all the transitions as well as the 2 songs, and not forgetting the title plus credits, so do take a look! :D

Ubin Trip!

Too tired to go into details, shall use the highlighted pics to help me tell my story :)

Reached TM Mac at 8.30am and was wowed by the number of ppl going (30 in all but not all came at the same time)... After breakfast we waited at the bus interchange for the very last person to come (u noe hu u are, lolx) b4 boarding and the bus was like totally owned by us!


Super long nv take ferry (or rather a small boat) liao... Found tat its still not too shaky and I could stand all the way :)




After we reached we hung around and waited for the rest...





Altogether we had to wait for 3 diff boats to arrive and wait for everyone to alight b4 continuing our journey...



We proceeded but there was a strange object in the middle of nowhere...


On closer inspection, we realised wad it was and was super excited! :D


In spite of our excitement, we managed to contain ourselves and finally reached the official entrance...


After settling our bike rentals, we basically went ard the whole island looking for and at diff stuff... I was on the move so didnt reli take alot of pics... More memories will be available at the Agapian Website after Yi Qi uploads her pics :)




All I can say is tat it was definitely tiring!!


Finished everything at abt 5 plus, returned our bikes, and went back to mainland...




We had dinner at the hawker in Changi Village and the place really sells super gd fd! :) Took Si Hui's recommendation and ate the chicken cutlet hor fan from one of the famous stalls... Maybe I was REALLY hungry, but it was deliciously superb! :DDD

Ok the next section is for nature lovers, and its abt "flowers found on Pulau Ubin" Enjoy! :) [courtesy of Li Juan :)]







Credits:
Chengxin - for organising and coordinating the whole activity
Chengyi - for orientating us to the place and leading us to many fun places
Li Juan - for offering to take turns with me to ride Kailin's bike (I found out later tat the back tyre was punctured, lolx)
Alvin - for his encouragement and entertainment (by riding hands free)
Thomas - for his sacrifice in riding the double bike, but I suppose he had alot of fun too in the end:)
Yi Qi - for her superb photo-taking and video-taking skills which will retain all our precious memories :D
Everyone else who went - thanks for making this such a fun and memorable trip! :)))