Brain Whirl

I’ve been mulling over my latest tutorial assignment – a short Film Reflection essay to be exact.

On my way home just now and as I was walking up the slope towards my block, words start coming into my head, shaping the first paragraph. It was a crazy ‘brain-whirl’ moment when sentences formed and I could start reading the first paragraph of my to-be essay off my brain. I had to take down the lines on my phone, in case I become preoccupied with something else and the words escape me.

When I hit home I quickly scribbled the paragraph down on scrap paper. Then my brain battery went flat. LOL.

No matter – I have a good start. The mind-map is roughly done and I’m good to go with my introductory paragraph mostly formed.

Man I love brain-whirl moments like this.

 

Email yay!

Looks like the man on holidays hasn’t forgotten about me yet =p Have fun over there, dear!

I still have the following work to do:

• CH4244 individual assignment
• CH4244 group project
• Research Assistant work
• Sunday School teaching preparation

Lord, please help me, I need to stop procrastinating!

 

It is finished!

No fireworks, no screams of excitement, no nothing. When Ms Fong finished checking through my bound thesis and smiled up at me, “恭喜你！” I grinned back at her, “谢谢您！”

It was only after I boarded the bus home that it slowly sunk in – the paper that I’ve been working on for close to a year is now complete and submitted. It occurred to me that it doesn’t matter whether I score A+ in the paper or not, it is the fact that I have endured the project and God has revealed His grace and providence again and again in the process of my work.

Life goes on and I have two more assignments to complete, but all my lessons have ended and I’m quite, quite jubilant

Dear LORD, thank You for providing me with so much, thank You for sending help from so many places even though I had not been consistently diligent. Thank You for the muses, thank You for the inspirations, thank You for the lovely people who had helped me, encouraged me and inspired me

This is the contents of the Acknowledgment page in my Honors Thesis:

I would like to thank the following people for supporting and encouraging my research and writing for this thesis paper:

Dr. Nicolai Volland, for his patient and detailed guidance in the process of producing this paper. He has provided both constructive criticism and encouragement, as well as taught me to research independently. He has been a truly inspiring supervisor from whom I have learned much!

Organisers and participants of the Pacific Asia Student Seminar (PASS) 2009, for sharing many insights regarding Taiwan and Cross-Straits issues, as well as being such great friends. Special thanks to Mr. Zhang Jiajie, Mr. Rich Chen and Ms. Anna Liao for spending much of their time sharing their views with me and even sharing books and readings to support my research! My classmates, who have generously provided me with information about administration as well as their support. Participants of the surveys, for sharing their thoughts and offering their support for my research, which has encouraged me greatly.

Mum, Dad and Yucong, for their ceaseless patience, understanding and support, as well as their supplying of soup, pep-talks and hugs for my work.

God, for allowing me to experience His abundant grace, peace and joy in the process of research as well as sent me help from many ways.

 

In the midst of my HT race

My Mr Chua ♥ came today!
I should enjoy having him around for the duration of his holidays
If not I think his next holiday would be his honeymoon O_O

I’m 65% through my HT! I’m sure that I’ll be able to finish it!
Now it’s just how to keep the quality in the midst of rushing )
(Okay, I’m not exactly rushing my head off doing it, because I want to be in good condition whenever I write so that the stuff will be good.)

加油 girl! You can do it
Many many Praises to the Lord who is consistently seeing me through my toils ♥

 

HT outline

HT outline draft got the thumbs-up-go-ahead from Prof ) Yay! Things are always nice when Prof says it’s okay to go ahead~

I love my thesis topic – it’s so…relevant. For those who don’t already know, my topic is “A Comparative Study of Singaporean and Taiwanese Minnan Chinese Identities”, so there will be a lot of examination on how Taiwanese Minnan people and Singaporean Hokkiens look at themselves. What do they call themselves? Taiwanese? Chinese? Taiwanese-Chinese? Taiwanese-Minnan? It’s all very interesting and contemporary to explore, especially since there will be some discussion about Taiwan-China relations etc.

Excited!

Side note:

On my way to school today, there was a man in his late fifties/sixties sitting in front of me. After half an hour on the bus, in the excruciatingly slow morning traffic, he started to talk to himself. He gradually got louder. When some people alighted from the bus, the South Asian man (will refrain from categorizing them as “Indians”) sitting beside him changed seats. The old man started to exclaim profanities and some other things in Hokkien. He started fidgeting around his seat and kept looking back at the other people on the bus. I kept my expression blank and looked straight ahead. He suddenly exclaimed that he was going to pangsai and grabbed his bottom repeatedly and shouted about finding a kopitiam.

My heart pounded wildly and I was on my guard in case he gets violent. He alighted at the same stop as I did and went off.

In the whole process I was caught between fear and a great sadness for the man. It was always sad to meet people who are stretched beyond mental stability. Society gives them many labels and we are almost all afraid of them because they are so unpredictable. For the less empathetic, they stop regarding psychiatric patients as human. For the more empathetic, they are afraid of being around patients for the fear of saying the wrong things that will “set them off”. Many times I would wonder, when I look at psychiatric patients: What happened to them such that they ended up like that? Congenital issues aside, many psychiatric conditions are externally influenced.

See how important we are to each other! We are not just responsible for ourselves, but the people we interact with! The things we say and do to others are all so important in protecting each other from emotional and psychiatric harm.

 

HT chiong ah!

Came back from a consultation with Prof V =D feeling much clearer and focused about my thesis. Will start writing draft 1 later!

I love the Honors Room =D

 

HT research resumes today!

So excited…haha…

When I was strolling through the shelves picking the books up, the research-adrenaline came rushing back into my veins like 5 cans of Red Bull I love this part of research – the pick-up-books-and-scouring-for-useful-information bit. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could get a job in future that pays me to scout out information? (Which is why I’m pretty excited about the Research Assistant job commencing next year *beams*)

I love it too when ideas start forming in my head and they start to come together as full-bodied descriptions

Now onward to HT!

 

Back from Malacca last night

It was just a short 2D1N trip and so much happened…

According to itinerary we:

• Climbed Bukit Cina to look at graves and get feasted on by h.u.g.e mosquitoes
• Went looked at a temple that is part of the commemoration of Cheng Ho but actually facilitates the worship of 大伯公
• Saw a well that was supposedly dug by Cheng Ho’s troops when they were in Malacca
• Visited the night bazaars
• Visited Cheng Ho museum
• Shopped before boarding the bus home

Not on itinerary:

• Watched Kung-fu panda on the travel bus. Apparently most of our other classmates were watching it too. We were all pretty amused by the Master “Shee-Foo” (Shifu) and Master “Oohg-gway” (Oogway/Wugui). Orientalism abounds in the movie. And a panda with an African-American accent?
• Laoshi’s bag containing his camera and various documents were stolen. In a C(h)endol shop. I was quite disillusioned by the rampancy of crime in a beautiful place like this. It was an organized crime because we realized afterwards that there were two people talking to different people in our group before laoshi’s bag went missing – they were distracting us. Laoshi must have been quite upset by this (and there was a long process of record taking at the police station, etc) but he didn’t really show it obviously.
• We travelled to a few places to get our various tickets settled (return bus tickets, Xinjiang song & dance troupe performance tickets). It was pretty amazing because we were without maps and guides and simply asked our ways around a completely strange place. Definitely memorable.
• Watched Xinjiang song & dance troupe performance at Pay Fong Secondary School. The performers were really good, especially the singers – I couldn’t detect flaws that I could pick on. The music was set too loud though, but that was a boo-boo to the site organizer. The troupe was good. We however had to leave halfway, because everyone was so tired and the programme was scheduled to end at 11pm!
• Our very nice classmates got a bag for laoshi as a way to comfort him. I think it’s not the bag (laoshi should be rich enough to have any kinds of bags he wanted) but our appreciation of the detailed planning that he had made to take us around the place. We didn’t have to worry about anything because everything was settled. For me personally I feel it’s also a way for us to let laoshi know that we don’t think any less of him because the incident happened – it was just as unfortunate for us as it was for him.

Maybe more when I feel like writing.

 

I’m one-third through my work for the semester

Boy am I glad to finish up that piece of assignment…

 

Now onward we go~

 

Chiong ah!