Yesterday, Hirman gave me a call at as early as 7.30am and he was somehow lucky that the line did not cut off halfway since the Starhub reception in my room was absurd. Anyway, he wanted me to help him to do a video out of the photos taken during the camp. I had to switch on my laptop to transfer the files over to my thumbdrive and it took me longer than usual for the gigantic file size.
It was my first team-up with Eunice to conduct EIP at Bukit Batok. I had problems walking for I seemed to have strained the vein on my left ankle during the jog the night before. The pain was mild before I went to bed and thus I did not really take note of it. Walking down the stairs was the killer.
The class was noisier than the previous day’s class and hence it took me more strength to speak and more effort to control. Eunice was sick but still tried to help out as much as possible. The kids were cute as well. I had a great lunch with Eunice somewhere near the bus-stop before going back to our campus.
My shirt was wet under the hot sun and the thought of Hirman’s video, which was needed by 4pm heated my body up more. I quickly went to get some photos from Ateh and proceeded to Lab 1 to focus on the job. The transferring of the photos from the two thumbdrives and two video cameras caused latency in the processor.
I was not confident of producing the video for I could never settle for a low quality job, which I was forced to do given such a short notice and I really hated to disgrace myself. I could have done more to enhance the video. Selecting the photos, as well as to tally them with the song robbed my time. I was so tired that I even dozed off for a minute or so.
Just before I could finish it, the lousy laptop died on me. It was supposed to be a fast system but somehow, I could feel that the manufacturing error had been eating up the resources. I was extremely annoyed by the continuous auto increasing of the volume, especially when Jonathan and his students came in to share the lab and I could not reduce the volume and had to do with muting. I could have simply stayed inside the office with all disturbances inclusive of the air-con servicing.
I stared widely at the lousy laptop, too lost for words. I was fortunate enough that most of the work was saved and thus, I needed not redo everything after the crash. Deep within me was filled with emptiness as I watched the system loading slowly and the video compilation followed suit. I delivered the product late but the actual event was delayed as well to allow sufficient time.
As the video was played, my heart raced. I could see more rooms for improvements, especially on the selection of photos. I wanted to visit each individual OGL’s facebook account to capture some of the photos taken by others, but time did not allow me to do it. Nevertheless, the laughers did cover up some of my regrets.
Hirman made a good speaker. The tiredness and hectic preparation failed to bring him down as he managed the appreciation ceremony with confident and charisma. Diana was a natural host as well and I stayed throughout the event to witness and support the sincere work of all the great people.
I regretted not recording down the speeches using my phone.
After going back to the office, Herman offered to send me to the city since he would be on his way there. I was more than happy to travel with him even though taking the train would be much faster. I got to chat with Dorothy while waiting for him.
Hirman poured out his tonnes of workload to me and I hoped by listening would reduce his stress somehow for there was nothing much I could do other than offering some tiny help. I alighted near KPO and strolled to Dhoby Ghaut MRT station.
After taking dinner, I dozed off for more than an hour.
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