a fairly accurate jog through my (design) journey.

we had final presentation for the main studio project today and i had been going through quite a rough time before it, hadn't been sleeping much the nights before and totally didn't sleep last night. usual stuff actually for ID. and throughout all that i kept wondering to myself if i can really handle this sort of crazy lifestyle for my whole life if i am going to become a designer. it is really madness.

i was totally shakey and sleepy and wonky when i biked to school this morning having not slept at all....hardly knew what i was doing when i reached school. thankfully i was third in line to present and the presentation was received surprisingly well. the night before i had been worried and feeling really insecure and dissatisfied with this and that, and thinking how i could have done it all better if i had just managed my time better. then suddenly after i finished presenting and got the feedback and comments, all the pain and trauma from the past few nights and weeks and months just suddenly melted away and i totally felt like design was worth all the pain and madness again. this is like some version of the post childbirth pseudo amnesia i remember mrs ban telling us about in secondary school. it is how you forget all the pain and trauma of childbirth the moment you see your baby.. and then go ahead and have another kid! [haha i should check with june since stan and june are parents twice over now! so fast! heh congrats again and thank God!!]

anyways and then i wondered if i would experience the same dissolving away of all the tiredness and madness of the past days if i had gotten less than positive comments... not really sure, i definitely have had crits where my concepts were less well-received. but i think even during those crits you still experience this same release and rejuvenation to find the energy to be able carry on in this not so smooth path, through watching other people's presentations and being inspired and spurred on by them as well. listening to all the comments and feedback also really helps put a broader perspective on concepts and designs and where those could take us.

oke lah, not gonna quit this journey anytime soon yet. still quite inexplicably and almost inextricably addicted.

.
.
.
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. . . . . haha so addicted that someone even had to buy new underwear today cos they ran out of clean underwear cos they were too busy doing this design project to do laundry!! haha that is dedication man...

far and nearly faraway.

i am in school right now as today is the Kickoff meeting for the Sony Ericsson project. this means that we have a sit down consultation with Claus and Charlotte our two tutors and really talk about the project, make sure everything is set straight, (or at least any broken bones are set properly in good casts) before we move ahead into the cadding and prototyping stage for the final presentation.

when i arrived extra early in school today, studio was almost deserted except for one person who is like the usual designated music player in our side of studio. i did a doubletake...it felt rather familiar. not unlike back home when we go to school on saturday sometimes and unexpectedly find some warmth in the little cluster of people there. well, you find home at the strangest moments sometimes.

it was actually a rather rough night for me last night but thanks to timely online prods and shake-ups from great friends i am blessed with, i made it through. special thanks to my journeymate man. it was exactly what i needed to hear. thank God for you!

oke lah, time to get ready for the Kickoff liaos. take care you all. for those i'll be seeing in Milan, can't wait!! be well meanwhile. :]

quick catchup post 5 : frisbee, soup, flowers, makan, dressups, more makan..

spartan frisbee! i was in tshirt and shorts!! beep me if you need proof haha.


vilken soppa! a warm and wonderful soup and beer fest we had in school in IKDC, felt almost like our all-year-round oktoberfest parties in studio back home in NUS.


sometimes even the down days are made a little better with flowers popping up left right and centre regardless of your mood...




and down days are lifted up just a little more when corridormates leave food for you when you come home late and are feeling absolutely too tired to cook. thanks much. :]


frodo and the wizard of oz! we dressed up for a costume party at one of the Swedish corridors in our block..



and no week can go too wrong when we have our unbeatable international dinners in the best corridor in the world - the one and only EF international corridor of Sparta!

quick catchup post 4 : pancakes, ollievisits, johnturns21, sketchingclass, claireturns22!

24th feb 2007:

artistic pancakes(a butterfly? two heads?? someabstractnonsense?? :) made with Marta and her free oatmilk lactose-free pancake mix she got free from a school field trip to a oatmilk factory. she's studying food science!


2nd march 2007:

ollie visits!! and gets secretly caught on phonecam in one of the most interesting museums i've seen so far. skissernas museum of public sketches. so the ideas and sketches are exhibited instead of the final art pieces. cool huh?
more about ollie's visit as blogged by thomas the good neighbour..


4th march 2007:

john turns 21! remains of the cake.. the super power cake made by gabrielle..


6th march 2007:

sketching class during workshop week in IKDC...intense stuff but i have finally forced myself to learn to make perspective drawings...not been easy though! but a super patient teacher in Daniel Paulin and 6 survivors at the end of day 3. didn't complete my final marker rendering but it was still an achievement definitely for me.



and claire turns 22! just realised that john and claire actually have the same birthday, just that the birthdays were celebrated a day before and a day after their shared 5th march birthday...


OH YES!! and my bike has been successfully zhnged!! thank God!! i can now ride uphill all the way home from town!! woohoo!! it is no longer a 25 mins walkstruggleridegiveupshiver journey home from town, but a 10 mins quick and cheerful zip home on bike!! joy.

Snökaos! Snow chaos in Skåne..

my own personal kiruna in the balcony i think i have no access to...


i had been sleeping for about 40mins from 630am to 7+am and woke up to resume work for the presentation today only to get a call from Ingrid my crazy funny classmate at IKDC who was part of the crew that dressed Alec up as a nun in Milan last year... i thought i was late for presentation or something but thankfully it was news that the presentation today was cancelled due to extreme snowing yesterday and overnight...it was truly bad last night trudging through calf-deep snow and getting snow blown in my eyes cos of the scary winds.

i was like shocked and then abit relieved cos i really wasn't that prepared for the presentation today and though undeserving i have been blessed with an totally unexpected extension. thank God. i will have to work hard over the weekend though, cos the presentation will probably be postponed to next week and next week Olivia will be coming to visit. haha maybe amidst all the cooking and shopping she can also train me more in perspective drawing.. or drawing in general..

oke time to catch up on some sleep. take care folks.

here, there and everywhere.

it is one of those nights i am up doing work and being an inefficient workaholic.

i think this blog has been quite happy dappy so far and i guess that was part of my positivity plan but it's probably more realistic to also say that there are the down days and this might just be one of them. but hey, that was part of it too lah, learning to overcome these things and growing up abit in a good way hopefully after this experience.

i miss people here, there and everywhere. but time is flying lah. soon i will miss my time and the people here too. humans are strange beings lah.

oke will have no regrets, be thankful, and get back to work now.

love and miss you all. but will be a strong little rock! and survive, well. :]

worry not, just pray for me, and trust.

take care and be well!!

kiruna, in between 44 hours on the train.

it all started with an unexpected free bus ride from kiruna train station as the ice hotel transfer coach driver took us even though i think the coach was only meant for people who were going to stay at the ice hotel.. and we met a few other kind souls along our way in kiruna, more bus drivers who took us further than they had to, caring folks at the lappish huts and all.



so our first stop was the ice hotel which is pretty much a must-go place in kiruna and it didn't disappoint but we chose not to stay there cos of our tight budget and instead stayed in an igloo at the Ripan hotel place...even though i suspected that igloos weren't really quite swedish but it was mad cold fun anyways.



the igloo had this mysterious blue foam door. haha that's like one of our model-making materials in ID..



lappland felt really surreal...a cross between the hobbit shire and the elvish lands with little hobbit huts and vast dreamscapes surrounding.



we took a bit of a walk during our last morning in lappland and ended up helping to chase the reindeers back to their living areas.. super surreal. this is peiching venturing ahead into reindeer land.. and happy belated birthday peiching!!! am super sorry i didn't double check with your mum and hence missed it..arghs.



i was really taken by the sight of our magic reindeer amidst all the forest....really looked enchanted siah.



ultimately i would still rate it as a super good trip even though it was rough along the way with the -30 degrees temperatures and having to not sleep for two days after cos i had the puma presentation the day after we got back. we didn't get to see the northern lights and were quite disappointed but i guess we only had one chance to catch it so the chances were slim to begin with... maybe if there's still time i'll go over to Norway to find jo and stay a week to catch them lah, but i think it would be really nice if the IDiots on exchange could go to lappland together and stay in the hobbit huts. sure feel like happy hobbits haha.

the puma presentation went surprisingly well also, i am very glad for that cos i think it was quite undeserving cos i had been away the week that we were supposed to really work hard for it. thank God for that and for bringing us safely home from our kiruna trip too. more pictures from the trip can be found on my flickr page..

haha and i'm getting abit lazy about the uploading pictures and blogging... please prod me more if you really want to see more entries. and thanks for reading and caring. anddd happy new year! 新年快乐！！

school school school

heyos, i've been busy with school. not really managing my time well or at all...so i've had to have some overnights doing work already.. not in school cos it's not quite a stayover culture over here but doing work at home on the comp. the design design part is really kicking in soon and today i more or less have to do most of the work for the puma presentation as i'm leaving for kiruna tomorrow and will only be back on wednesday afternoon..and the final presentation is on thursday.. GREAT PLANNING. haha! i should've known better.. but anyway it just gets tighter later on in the semester so maybe this will turn out to be the best time to have travelled anyway.

anyway i think i am starting to enjoy school more cos i am learning alot. the teachers are people still very much in the industry so their comments are really down to earth and constructive. you don't feel like you need to second-guess what they actually mean. they say it like they mean it. it is quite stressful though. i had thought previously that my 6 months here would be abit more restful than the crazy semesters we have in NUS ID but it was not to be... we're encouraged to follow the year 3 track so i did...and thus am living a familiar but tiring life now. not that different from back home - chionging overnight doing work, feeling stressed and panicky and excited, friendly classmates, crazy classmates sometimes heh, and helping out with the milan fair booth has been fun too. i hope i really will get to go down with them though! i just really miss the IDiots sometimes esp when working late on my own. cos although the class here is quite tightly knit and fun and all, i guess there's nothing as wenxin(heartwarming) and qingqie(closeknit) as home lah.

i miss the chingchongs/acronymgang much too. come online at weird timings in singapore so it's normal timings here more leh! haha but at least our facebook group is still alive so i feel a little happier everytime i see an update.

i miss alot of people. but i probably shouldn't try to list them all out.. later still miss out people then *lagi worse. (*even -more- worse.) i hope you guys know who you are! haha. and especially for those who haven't been great recently, be well soon. if i were back home i would get you out for a pint to talk. take care much!

i've been cooking quite a bit recently too. proper food oke! chia family style pork and potatoes and ma you jiang ji (sesame oil chicken, with ginger). friends' biased reviews were all good! haha. photos are on Marta's cam.. maybe i'll put them up when she gets back from her super short trip to London..

well i'll be in up north in Kiruna from tomorrow (saturday) till wednesday. so take care, be well, and talk to all of you soon again.

God bless.

rice and chops : weekend thoughts.

well, when the party chops(stamps) on your wrist start figuratively piling up it's probably time to stop and get some rest....just in time to do work for the rest of the week! it was quite a weekend with impromptu lindyhop-ish dances and cosy parties at some of my classmates' apartments in lund and malmo but weekends can't quite last forever. and it is not going to be an easy week as we have two presentations, tomorrow and thursday, and then the final presentation for the Puma brand extension project next thursday.....the day after i get back from the kiruna trip with stella and peiching... but i guess it will be much-needed good training for me to learn to work early and finish way before the deadline...so friday will be my personal deadline. pray for me! it is going to be quite rough i think..

other than that school is becoming more engaging and interesting, there is alot of opportunity to explore and learn. although i think i can't say for sure yet that things here are -drastically- different from back home in school in NUS(National University of Singapore) in terms of process and schoolwork. but for a start, the crits so far for the *main studio project have been very constructive and encouraging. brutally honest at times but always supportive and encouraging. something which maybe comes from learning from tutors who are still very much in the industry. so i've been learning quite a heckofalot which is always a good thing for me. i'm in a good place, i'm quite sure.

(*main studio project - i'm not sure i can explicitly say what it is about yet..no non-disclosure agreement signed or anything but just to be safe lah.)



non-burnt rice in a normal pot cooked on the stove!

and in other news, i have officially killed my rice cooker. i am really sorry!! especially to the dearest bunch that bought me the cooker for my birthday before i left. it is completely my fault.. i was using it as a boiler to heat up my rather cold room and one night i forgot to unplug it before leaving home....so it boiled until it died.... argh! felt really **pekchek but i guess maybe it was a blessing in disguise that it didn't burn my room down and also that i had just managed to cook rice properly both in the cooker and on the stove just a few days before it died.. so i should still be able to cook decent rice for the next 4 months.. just that my room will be back to its cold and dry original state again now.


***hai, rest in peace, my dear cooker. :/



** pekchek - frustrated
*** hai - sigh

school begins..with a cold.

hej hej,

school has started proper for me here in Lund.. and it is certainly not going to be easy. i was feeling quite apprehensive about the workload (cos it was recommended that we follow the year three track) which means that i am going to be as busy as a full time 3rd year ID student in Lund...and that was probably the original idea of going on exchange so hey, why not? i will definitely be learning alot for sure, and as for losing out on all the weekend trips everyone else seems to be taking here, i will have plenty of time to travel in june and july so no loss in the end i think!

someone said to me before i came over that "the first things all asian students catch when on exchange is a cold" ... and just as i was feeling happy that i managed to stay healthy for about 2 weeks....wham! here i am with a pretty bad cold. but i'm sure i will survive! got all the medication with me and i've decided to use my ricecooker as a boiler for my room too, to help heat it up a little more and add more moisture in the air too.

and today i realised that even though i utterly fail at making rice in my ricecooker, i am still a fairly decent porridge-maker with the ricecooker.. but then again if i manage to burn porridge then i really really win liaos..

more about school, i'm taking 5 modules here..
1) industrial project II which translates into the main studio module, for me it's probably going to be an accessory design project with sony ericsson.
2) electronics: possibilities and limitations. this has been quite tough for me cos it is reminiscent of junior college physics and chemistry...which to put it mildly, didn't quite work out for me.. but i think it is useful knowledge that ties in with the sony ericsson project so shall try to persevere on with it! had to borrow a scientific calculator from my kind neighbour thomas to do the online quizzes...
3) 3D Modelling.. i think this will be a short Alias rendering course, pray that i can pick it up quite efficiently..
4) Design Management I .. it feels like us going to business to take marketing modules... not been thrillingly exciting so far but i think the project will be quite interesting too.
5) Svenska for utlandska studenter : swedish for foreign students.. it's tough stuff but fun too. first time i am learning a language that i don't already know from young.

oke i need to get back to work and then get some rest now.
hope all of you are well, especially those back home, those going abroad, those already abroad, and all reading this. oke so that's everyone..

take care lah! pray for me! talk to me soon.. : ]


lund fun facts: did you know that sony ericsson's headquarters are based here in Lund?