Moment Musicaux

A lecturer of mine, L, asked me for my opinion on the above-mentioned issue. Here’s my email reply (a bit edited ‘cos I noticed mistakes) to him:

I agree with the notion that Singaporeans should complain less and step up on improving themselves and their abilities if they didn’t want to see their jobs being sucked away by foreigners.

Any case, I feel that her brashness made her message come out wrong. I’ve never read her other posts before, so I can’t tell if the post’s written with her idiosyncrasies. But with her choice of words, it still screamed condemnation, so it obviously went down wrong with everyone else.

Maybe she sincerely thought that her "elite" jokes were shared among the readers of her blog, i.e. her own schoolmates from prestigious schools. But I wonder why she never took semantics and the impersonality of blogging into mind. " i was under the rather naive impression that nobody reads my blog ", she had said in an apology.

A top student making ignorant mistakes as such? She should already know from her seniors’ experiences (read: Dawn Yang, Daphne Teo) how viral blogs can get. So even MP-daddy was ignorant about the Internet’s far-reaching abilities. "But she wrote in a private blog and I feel that her privacy has been violated. After all, they were the rantings of an 18-year-old among friends ."

(Blogspot’s a public domain.)

Well, whatever her viewpoint is, I think it’s also about covering your butt well. So that no one can fault you — in this case, bearing in mind the tone and basis of what one has to say, and respond in a mature and dignified way. Why put yourself up for fire? Somethings I just can’t understand.

(I’m very unsettled by the paparazzi nature of ‘netizens’, too. I guess that’s why ‘citizen journalism’ must not and won’t be allowed to take over traditional media.)

I don’t wish to go as far as saying that IQ is inversely proportional to EQ, but from this ’saga’, people may jolly well have put (or even, reinforced) stereotypes on students from such schools.

Self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe.

(Sings: Jang jang! It’s their life…)

Jamming was great yesterday.

We have a latest addition to You and Whose Army?. Lead guitarist James, 17 and already a shredder. Haha. Shreds aside, I must say he is talented. Read Bonk’s gush on him, heh. That makes us four. (:

Stress is good; it makes me want to pick up my sticks to whack something. And I guess the practice worked. I didn’t rush as often as I used to — kept reminding myself that louder is not faster. Phew. I think I’ve pretty much nailed the syncopated drum pattern for our latest original. But I always get carried away and forget the outro. Bleh. My arm stamina is not good enough too. Must practice more!

So we killed four of our previous originals, and are sticking to the current three that fits our band direction the most. Indie? Haha. Bonk’s songwriting skills are actually pretty admirable. He wants to get gigs soon. SO DO I.

This jam saw a blister threatening to form on my hand for the first time, too! Woah.

Practice!

Emileen at the New Face finals. She didn’t win, but she’s still my favourite childhood buddy!

Kenji-something, apparently my age. Can shred acoustic siaaaa. The SingIdolies (namely the guys) were doing self-intros to him right after his set. -_-

Today, in the Library. The Convex people are doing the JobsCentral Career Fair, and Lanxi was doing her job as a faithful A-board woman!

Plug: It’s at Suntec Singapore, Hall 402, 28 - 29 Oct. Visit www.jobscentral.com.sg/careerfair to register! (You guys owe me one.)

(I know my smile looks forced… I wasn’t ready lah.)

Yes, yes. School has started, and not surprisingly, my attention-deficit problem has returned. It’s not easy trying to pick up English while absorbing information.

Of course, I’m quite determined to put in 150% into this final semester. Good, fun electives and lecturers (save a certain ro-butt-ticks): It’s a plus that I’m not letting up for anything.

Life’s good. Life’s changing, I’m definitely moving on from the past. Hooray!

Random note: I absolutely LOVE Whose Line is it Anyway. Improvisation’s the funnest thing in the world, yessum. I hope GoogTube won’t get on the wrong side of copyright laws… This soon.

MUST WATCH VIDEO!! SOUTH PARK MEETS WORLD OF WARCRAFT. 

Till it’s too late to run for cover.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1234827,00.html

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/ 

Serene brought to my attention the use of microchips that people are starting to implant in their bodies. For medical purposes and commercial purposes alike — this is telling of what the Bible has stated in Revelation 13:  

11Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. 12He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13And he performed great and miraculous signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of men. 14Because of the signs he was given power to do on behalf of the first beast, he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

 18This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.

Signs of the end time? Well, keep watching, and praying. 

This was my ‘departure-mail’ to the agency. Soppy, yes. But it was 99.9% true.

It was a step of faith for both the agency and her.

For an agency to put its dollars into a greenhorn; for a curious student who didn’t know what was in store for her.

That step proved addictive for her – she fell hard and fast for Advertising, and came back thirsting for more. At the old building along Outram Road afloat with ideas and ambition, yet grounded with wont to solve its clients’ problems, as how all responsible and effective agencies should.

And it was the occupants of the building that kept the agency flying. Apart from them being literally always all over the place, they were also crazy but down-to-earth, grumpy but loving, serious but funny, weird but wise, random but hardworking…

To a girl all of eighteen (now nineteen), that was awesome.

What kept her head on her shoulders, however, was the patience of the seniors around her. Though unobligated, they willingly guided her despite her inadequacies – towards her newfound goal of being a good copywriter.

Such, many tell her, is very rare in this industry.

Rare?

She was baffled.

How could such a big, rare secret be kept under wraps for so long?

Surely juxtaposing the name of the agency with something that rings (for a pussy in the well) wasn’t to make it easier for taxi drivers to understand the pitches they’ve been winning. Or any other person on the street to see the sweat, blood and tears that make up a ’simple’ black and white ad in the newspaper.

But the Chinese saying goes: A fire cannot be subdued by paper.

So, as this is being written, the secret’s slowly revealing in itself – and she feels even more reluctant to leave. She wants to remain part of this family and join them as they create greater fires.

(Not the Indonesian kind, of course.)

However, the educational system asks for her back.

She has to go, but not without a heart brimming with pride for the agency she’s spent a total of 9 months in.

She’s the intern who’s temporarily leaving, but whose heart never left DDB.

Thank you Alex, Cozette, Ida, Yvonne Low, Jimmy, Justin, Alan Lim and his team, Chris Lim, Joel, Benson, Thomas, Chooi, Samantha, CK and the visualisers, Ling, Hui Chin, soccer boys, MoF – and all of you DDBers who’ve made this a fantastic learning experience for me.

I’ll work even harder to get back in.

With much love,
Benita.

I read your reply over and over again — and that weight on my heart whenever I thought about you was lifted. I’m glad I finally mustered the courage to clear things up.

It’s always one of the best feelings in the world to have closure.

You may not be reading this, but thank you.

And thank God. (: 

Today was nice.

Sir Silver and the RSAF team treated me to lunch at Pete’s Place, an Italian restaurant in Hyatt. Food was good, company even better. All good things do have to come to an end, like the end of my gobsmacking spaghetti when I took a dump an hour later.
 
It also marked the last of soccer I’ll be playing with my ex-colleagues-to-be. For now. It was kinda bittersweet, with me scoring my first goal — yes, after 9 months. Significant, huh. I couldn’t help but wonder if that’d be the last time I play soccer with them as a DDB-er.

Well, it was great fun even though the air was at PSI 83. I almost cost a senior his um, descendents, despite his wife currently pregnant. Haw haw. Damn paiseh. My knee still feels rather shocked. Haw haw.

16 of the promised 20 turned up for my ‘testimonial’ match. Great turnout still. Here are the 11 who made it for the shoot. Haw haw.

Left to Right: CK the Head of Visualisers, Ben the Senior Art Director (SAD haha) victim, Alan the Group Account Director, River the visualiser, Leoric the IT support man, Mr Nanyang the production hand (if you remember a certain old post), TT the Creative Director, Melvin the Finance Director, Jimmy the Associate Account Director, DQ the Regional Finance Director, Justin the Head of Traffic.

Thanks guys. I’ll miss you all. (:

P.S. They made me pose lah. 

I had to play violin for a wedding yesterday, and all that had to go wrong did go wrong. Which actually makes me thankful that it could have been worse, i.e. not making it — in all sense of the word.

My morning started off at 7am. I’d intended to reach there at 9.30am, which was an hour before I thought the wedding was supposed to start. It’s at a Catholic church at East Coast area.

Here, the booboos start.

I lost one side of my contact lenses that I just bought. Then my violin fell over, but thank God nothing was broken. Then I dropped my sunglasses and the lens got scratched. Then I got on the wrong bus.

When I finally reached the wedding venue at 9am, there was not a soul.
So I said hi to him. Ok not funny.

I WAS 2 HOURS EARLY.

Then the horror of all horrors:

During the wedding’s MARCH-IN ceremony, my E-string gave a sharp "tuck" sound.

It had loosened. Though the string off-key, it was a MARCH-IN. What, stop the entrance? Nooo. I whacked the climax of Canon in D on the A-string. Which sounded positively weird to me. I was trembling after the song. I’ve never felt so embarrassed in my life.

The rest of the songs were fine, but like my sage of a brother had advised, "you better not ruin someone’s once-in-a-lifetime."

Oh, and my handphone rang. I was POSITIVE I turned it to silent mode, really!!

GRAHH.

Watched the SuPerstar musical (put together by SP, where else) at the UCC last night. Pretty impressive, I must say. Adam and Bonk were drumming. Well done, boys! Ha. I feel all the more compelled to think that I’m the weakest drummer amongst the 3, yet I’m the drummer in our band.

MUST IMPROVE AH. MUST. 

It’s the last week of work. I’m welcoming the break. 

They put more into you than they actually realise; you put enough into them without giving away too much of yourself. Fantastic strategy. 

Put your hands on these ropes,
They’ll start burning faster.

I was carrying my bag and about to step out of the office when Y asked me if I’d done up the copy (for a rather tricky brochure). It definitely felt good to be able to reply her with a confident "yes". The boo-boo 2 weeks ago had rattled my confidence, despite it being my first major boo-boo ever.

Well, I had forgotten to sign off an ad that I was working on. That was the first time I ever had to OT to sign off an ad; something that I didn’t really know I had to do. Despite already being on the way back home, I went back to sign it off anyway, so it’s all cool. I’m glad that they were very constructive about it too. (Wow those sentences rhymed!)

"You’re only as good as your last ad." — Sir Silver. 

Work’s coming to an end soon and frankly, I’m not eager to leave. It’s funny how work hit top gear only at the end of my stint. I don’t want to break the spell — not when it’s in the midst of getting the right brew.

This is the part of my whole stint that’s the most draining. Mentally, and emotionally.

Because of the length of stay that I’ve been at DDB, there’s not much left of the ‘intern’ tag that covers me anymore. Neither can I shy away from internal bureaucracies and responsibilities and hide beneath the wings of Sir Silver, who’d veto everything for me.

I jump into doing briefs that I’ve the least inkling about what’s been going on, and then improvise and learn as I move along. And it’s stressful. Not deadline stress, but a sort of debt-stress. To put it simply, I’m surviving on favours now. Favours of seniors who’re still patient with my inadequacy, lack of experience and skills. I’ve no idea what’s being said about my performance as of now, but S.S.’s reminder that there’s a limit to their patience haunts me.

I’ll slog these last two weeks out.

The company’s going places right now. It’s won another couple of big accounts recently, and working there has become more desirable than ever.

I’ll work even harder to get back in. 

Ed: No, they didn’t give me a swop. Someone remind me to be less compromising. Mumblegrumble.

Sho Ling Tay/is/staff/npnet   27/09/2006 09:23 AM

To Balachandran Ramaswamy/is/staff/npnet@npstaffdom, Yeong Choy Chew-Kong/is/staff/npnet@npstaffdom cc Khartini Abdul Khalid/is/staff/npnet@npstaffdom, Maria Buang/is/staff/npnet@npstaffdom Subject  IS Enrolment - LIM YOU HUI BENITA

For your reply to student, pls.

—– Forwarded by Sho Ling Tay/is/staff/npnet on 09/27/2006 09:22 AM —–

You Hui Benita Lim/mcm/student/npnet@NPSTUDENTDOM   09/26/2006 11:04 PM

To tsl23@np.edu.sg cc Subject IS Enrolment

Dear Ma’am,

I’m very unhappy that I failed to get a level 3.2 IS (MCM) module of choice because of the overloaded server during my selection period.

Like every other kiasu student, I was already on NPal 10 minutes before my selection period. But when my timeslot opened, the server was swamped. It took a very long time to load, and the "page has expired" warning kept surfacing when I tried to submit my requests. In just 5 minutes, almost all the modules were snapped up, leaving only one or two modules that had plenty of vacancies left.

After conversing with a friend, I came to know of students using the ‘back’ and ‘forward’ buttons on their Internet browsers — apparently it allows you to go back without having to refresh your cookies, enabling you to ’skip’ the server’s reloading time. Very important time, I must add.

Well, I had stuck to the request on the NPal website:

Please do not use Back or Forward buttons on your browser or double-click a hyperlink.

This, I believe, was to prevent the server from overloading and thus slowing down. But it was obviously ignored by everyone else, and I could only watch and wait in horror as vacancies disappeared before my very own eyes.

Helpless and with only one module with vacancies available during my next selection timeslot (I hoped for better modules then, but alas. I was wrong.), I had no choice but to take it although it’s irrelevant to my future, or interests.

Of course, the purpose of my email is in hope that in my effort, I can be granted the module of my wishes, Ethical Dilemmas. But if there is REALLY nothing that can be done, I will take my given module — Mobile Robotics — with maturity.

However, I do hope that there will be measures taken and improvements made to the website, and prevent such server overloads from happening again. It is rather unfair and a great torture. Hope to receive a reply soon.

Yours sincerely,
Benita.

At least it’s known, that though the iceberg is melting, the flood that it causes will not show pity.

So let it flood. We’re ready. It’ll be like Gold Coast’s waves. Icy cold, but not chilling to the bones. Only pure relief when its over. And a little shudder.

Anyway, this is my favourite headline of the week. From Soccernet,

Police examine Barton’s backside
The Football Association were this morning awaiting referee Andrew Marriner’s report into Manchester City midfielder Joey Barton’s shorts-dropping antics.

Perhaps ‘Police examine Barton’s buttocks’ would have been funnier. Or punnier.

Uh, whatever. 

Okay, here’s my most beloved Ahmarockahstar’s band performing at PowerJam. Admittedly not their best that I’ve seen, but STILL good enough to kick major butt. Do support them! Presenting…

Sevenfalls!