Tag Archives: camera

Year 2014 – Professional Photography Journey Began

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Smart Tuition
The tuition agency business was somehow as stagnant as before. I did not have the time and energy to “expand” it. The lack of credible and suitable coordinators was the main problem. There were quite a number of people emailing us to take up the job but we did not want to take any risk as we really wanted to help clients and tutors to our best ability and not treating it like a business. It was thanks to the existing team, especially Tricia and ET, that the business was able to sustain. We continued to meet weird people along the way and I got more and more weary of dealing with ridiculous and cunning people as well.
Photography
I took my photography to the next level by upgrading to a full frame camera. More people started approaching me and I began to take up event shoot instead of just sticking to portrait shoots. It was a tiring journey. I got to meet more people both online and offline. I was very excited to interact with all the good people in real person. However, just as there were many kind people in this world, I had encountered many eat-full-nothing-to-do people. It was irritating enough for “shoppers” to enquire for the fees when I had already stated the minimal amount on the website, but there were also many who were worse. I had entertained many people who had shown so much interest in engaging my help. We chatted for long time and I gave them advices but they eventually decided to waste my time.
Family
Things were pretty much the same as previous years, except that we were all more enthusiastic towards the arrival of my elder brother’s new BTO flat, which should be ready by end of year 2015 or beginning of 2016. By then, our current flat would be more “spacious” and there would be less conflicts. My house might still be very messy since it was my mum’s characteristic to keep everything. However, there might be a change in her attitude when we had an “extra room” while my elder brother would not help to mess up the living room again. Eventually, there would be a big problem for the family as my elder brother was a handy man. Apart from that, my mum continued to put stress to me, while I worked from home, by creating
Health
I had my right arm and wrist injured for a long period of time. The arm was due to volleyball games while wrist was because of holding to the heavy camera on a single hand for long duration. I fell sick twice for a long period of time too, taking panadol tablets more than I had ever taken in my entire life. My health was badly affected by my neighbours’ puppy who barked loudly every morning. My neighbours were helpless over the aggressive dog who was trying to destroy their main door.
Volleyball
My gang was quite active for beach volleyball games until towards the end of the year. Everyone was very busy, especially for those who were doing shift jobs. We finally had an indoor court game because of Jingkun’s request before his marriage. That was the first time I played on an indoor hard court after years.
Friendship
I felt I was disconnected with most of my friends. The struggle for work and photography had massacred every single thought to catch up with my old friends. I had no time to think of giving away presents or whatsoever. In the last three months of the year, I had to attend six wedding though and I had to be the “brother” for two of them. Photography did help me gain many new friends but not many kept in touch with me, most probably because the models were mainly into getting good photos. At least, they knew my character and felt safe to be with me.
Love
Boy-girl-relationship was a flat zero score for me. Due to photography, communication with people was mainly about the hobby. I did not really find new net friends to chat, except for a few occasions, I was curious with some sites like OKcupid, Omegle and the phone app Tinder. I was too busy to utilize them. Besides, it was not my forte to fight for attention with thousands of guys.
Conclusion
My life was stagnant except for the progress in photography. I did not party nor meet friends often to chill up together. To many people, my life was boring but I was glad that I was living it differently and meaningfully. Some people might be seeking to enjoy their lives to the fullest by partying around, some wanted different experiences of sexual partners; I sought to establish a name for myself and be remembered positively after leaving this world.

Year 2013 – Year of Stagnant & Frustration

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My year 2013 was full of downs. It was a year when things were not moving fast enough.
Family
My elder brother finally got married. There was not much difference since his wife aka my sister-in-law had been staying with us for more than half of the weeks for many years. A joy for my mum was that she needed not be working super hard to find out if both my elder brother and his wife would be joining us for dinner everyday. There was less grumble about this and thus relieving some stress from me.
Luckie was one of my greatest problems apart from the joy and comfort he had given to me. As I was staying at home most of the time, he had been posing lots of troubles to me. I had to clear his pee and poo and he would pester me to bring him down for a walk every now and then. My elder brother would usually lock him out of the bedroom at night and I would still be the one clearing all the shit since my younger brother was not at home most of the time. Luckie was unofficially an abandoned dog since his daddy had been neglecting him as I could use my fingers to count the number of times my elder brother had brought him out of the house. There was a period of time when I felt so bad for Luckie that I tried to bring him down almost every weekday but I gave up, knowing my elder brother would continue to neglect him if he knew someone was taking good care of Luckie. Whenever I thought of the moment I told my elder brother that I would not be free to help to take care of a dog before we brought Luckie home, I felt stupid.
My younger brother moved over to his good friend Derrick’s place for some months as it was nearer to his school. That was a period of time when I became even more stress since he was the one who would settle everything in my house, including sorting out bills and my mum. I was also worried about his safety, especially his illness, when I could not get to see him during weekdays.
Money was the greatest evil in the universe. My family was plagued with issues with money as usual that often I wished I could just move out of the house to avoid torment of my ears. Basically, my mum continued to grumble at my elder brother frequently for she expected him to help out with the household expenditure, including grocery. My younger brother also joined in to nag over the wastage of electricity. Things got better eventually after some dramas. I felt our relationships had improved a lot and the bond was strong.
My mum gave me one of the greatest headaches as usual, behaving like a child most of the time. It would not going to be fun when you already had big problems with your work and someone kept asking you obvious or stupid questions, grumbling over small things or repeating stories over the phone near you. For example, she would watch her favourite Taiwanese drama and turned over to ask what was happening in the show when obviously I was busy with my stuff to even care about the noisy television.
Friends
As I was stuck with work and photography, and facing financial downtime, I did not get to go out with many friends. At times, I rejected gathering invitations in order to cut down on expenditure and it was difficult to make people believe how bad my situation was – besides, I was really busy, with many non-profitable stuffs though. The person I went out most with was Gilbert. Even for my volleyball gang, there was limited number of beach outing and there were groups within group. I did a few voluntary work with the voluntary gang and the experience with them was fulfilling. The few get-together sessions with my younger brother and our common friends were excellent. I got to meet up with old friends like Hoay Min, Guoxin, Xiuwen, Mike and Wanling etc. There was a rare occasion of meet-up with ex primary school friends and unfortunately I had not been keeping touch with them and could not remember the childhood encounters with most of them. I also attended quite a few wedding dinners and was a loner at a couple of the tables. I got to meet quite a number of new friends through photography but I was not able to keep in touch with most of them. Irwin returned to Singapore a few times but I only managed to meet up with him for once.
I learned to distinguish between net friends and real life friends, as well as true friends and fine weather friends. I was, however, still trying to learn to lower down my expectation for people in order not to torture myself. If you were to treat others very good, do not ever expect them to treat you even half as good. Sometimes, I just felt too guilty when friends like Gilbert treated me too well because there was nothing I could offer to him as a buddy.
Somehow, I felt very isolated sometimes despite I had quite a few groups of caring friends. There was no close friend who stayed near me and shared the same hobby – photography.
Health
Ah Pa introduced her friend, Dickson, to me and with his knowledge and experience in Chinese medication, my back problem improved a lot, even though it was still haunting me. I got sick less frequently than before ever since I started taking manuka honey, keeping the usual sore throat, cough and flu away from me most of the time. However, my right arm gave me pain for many months due to beach volleyball. At the last quarter of the year, I also sprained or slightly dislocated my fingers after holding onto the camera for too long hours without rest.
I rarely exercised. It was the thought that I could have spent the time to bring Luckie down for a stroll that placed me in a deep dilemma. He could not run for long.
Relationship
At the beginning of the year, I got close to a girl but she was too busy to keep in touch with me after a week. Then, I realised she was not the one for me. I was never close to any girl despite getting to know many nice girls, especially through photography; in fact, I was too engrossed in photography that most of my chats were just discussions about the shoots. At least I could stand tall to say that I did not use photography as an excuse to get closer to girls.
No girl was able to spend time with me and I would never want to go into a relationship that I could only get to see my girlfriend once every fortnight.
I was also never anxious about getting a girlfriend given my financial situation. Perhaps, I had become a boring person with the countless numbers of worries and problems in my mind. I agreed that nice girls would not mind about my current financial status but I would mind if I could not give my girl a comfortable life. I would rather let nature take its own course.
The route to starting a family was not within my line of sight. I was, perhaps, depressed over the price of HDB flats. The supposed-to-be public housing to make sure every Singaporean had a roof over his head was more like a money-generating tool to push GDP up, so that the rich could become richer. I was not confident, at the moment, that I could afford a house in future.
Finance
I could hardly sustain my life despite I had been ill-treating myself. Income was at all time low since my NS days while I had to continue to give “protection money” every month, which was much more than I would spend on myself. CPF’s medisave extortion and life insurance added on to my burden. Basically, I was draining my saving every month with my bank account getting lighter. I got some of the cheapest camera gears but they were enough to weigh me down further more – photography was an expensive hobby and trade.
Most people who knew me well would know about my thriftiness but many did not realise that I was actually not earning much income. Almost everyone did not know I was in fact making negative income due to various financial loads as mentioned above. It was a joke when there were people who still tried to borrow money from met. Obviously they knew I was a very soft guy, and thus they would rather approach me than other mutual friends who were doing very well. This had helped me to reflect a lot on myself.
Due to the income problem, I hesitated a lot over to upgrade my photography gears that would bring me to a higher level. It affected me tremendously mentally.
On a better note, I would never get starved because I was thrifty and there were many kind people surrounding me. Before my saving could exhaust, I would have done better.
Work
My tuition agency was in a bad state as a few of the more consistent coordinators had left or taking up fewer assignments, and SEO was not well. ET got into a Taiwanese singing competition, Super Idol 8, and he had less time to help out, which resulted in a great fall of revenue since he was a very good worker. Unfortunately, the business model was more about helping parents than making big bucks – I knew of more ways that was less manpower intensive. Since it was my only source of income, it explained how bad my financial state was at. On a brighter side, I was also able to spend more time on picking up photography. That was because I was too lazy and frustrated to work on more features on my website.
I had to spend hours on my work everyday, including weekends. The workload was never consistent but the administration work had to be done daily. The least I had to do was to go through every new and updated tutors’ profiles, and also their submitted documents. I had to do SEO at least once in a couple of days. I had to be consistent with these because I placed myself in the tutors’ shoes that I would be anxious about my account and documents statuses. As for SEO, it would fall badly and would take many months or even years to pick up. Nobody understood how much effort I had to put in daily in order for my tuition agency to be recognised.
The most frustrating thing was that most people would think that I was very free. My time was very flexible but I was never free. I did not like the feeling of being the default person to handle everything whenever shit happened. If things had to be done, they had to be done and I would suck my thumb to settle them but not if being forced to. In other words, I hated to be taken granted of. This was pushing me to give up and simply get a “8 to 5” job instead. A pity that I was a very determined person. I had to work smarter but it was never easy to learn.
Photography
I spent most of my time on photography. I went through countless number of Youtube videos and websites. I took lots of time to go through potential models’ photos, discuss with them, shoot and do the post-processing work, which included filtering the photos and photoshopping. Unfortunately, lots of time for pre-shooting was wasted because of “models” who were wasting my time. It was very frustrating when things were confirmed and the other parties called them off out of a sudden or simply went MIA (missing-in-action).
Through photography, I was able to talk to more people but at the same time, I was also distanced away from many people. In fact, I was too focused in photography that I hardly kept in touch with my models after the shoots. Nevertheless, some of them were in relationship and I had to maintain a safe distance with them. I was also able to find out who were my true friends eventually.
Portrait photoshoot was very tough on me since I was too soft when dealing with my models and the shoots usually did not turn up half as good as I had expected. I was never a commanding person – even when I was lecturing in ITE, I would never instruct any student to help me in anything simple. I did learn a lot but the progress was never fast enough as there were too many things to learn at the same time while my gears were limited. In fact, I had to learn how to use the gears, see lighting, get good composition, watch out for model’s appearance and makeup, and pose the model at the same time.
Tricia guided me a lot through her experience but her critics killed my confidence often. I had problems communicating with her at times because of her extremely serious typing errors in Facebook messenger. There were too much expectation on me, pouring pressure and stress over my helplessness. Sometimes I felt like I was trying to fly before I had learned how to even crawl. Throughout the entire year, I spent most of my days in depression because of the photos I owed people despite I had warned them of the long timeframe before the shoot. I was more anxious than the models to get the photos done so that I could move on to other shoots. Tricia was too busy to go through the photos with me but without her catching errors on the photos (mostly due to makeup and hair), the final photos would not turn out to be good.
I got to realise the limitation of my first DSLR camera – Sony NEX F3 mirrorless. The auto focus speed was simply too slow and I could not expect the models to pause their expression, especially during event shoot. It did not come with a hotshoe and I could not attach an external flash without buying an additional costly adapter. I bought my Canon 650D but things did not go smoothly. I realised the cropped factor of the body was 1.6x, which was lousier than Sony NEX F3’s 1.5x – 1x (full frame) was the best. Since Sony was using Carl Zeiss lens, the quality was much better as well. Canon’s 50mm F1.8 lens was far lousier than Sony’s. Therefore, it was actually a downgrade of image quality that I could never get used to and in fact, it was affecting me badly. Instead of working on my creativity during the shoots, I was badly distracted by the quality of images. I lost my confidence ever since the switch. I knew I needed a better camera.
AFter I got both my photography website and Facebook page up, there were more models approaching me for photoshoot. However, most of them were not serious. Unfortunately, I was someone who would be putting in my best effort every time. I was also disappointed by the results of my Facebook marketing, such that the number of fans for a start was far less than what I had expected.
Through photography, I had learned a lot, especially on human. Most people would not bother much if things were to come for free. I had tasted lots of fake enthusiasm. At least, I was comforted by the existence of great friends, especially Tricia.

Bad Encounters with Online Sellers in Singapore

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For certain thing such as photography, your skill is restricted to your equipments. I may not be an excellent photographer yet, but I’m already being annoyed by the restriction, such that my full potential cannot be shown. My current camera bodies cannot give me the clarity of photos that I need to impress (to get businesses); my flash is not powerful and has limitation in rotation, and I need at least two of them for portrait photoshoot. Such restrictions can be neglected by playing around, but, at the lost of creativity. Therefore, I have been looking at refurnished (second hand) gears that I can buy at a cheaper price to move further in this trade – photography.
I have so far done three meet-ups and two are disastrous.
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1343429
Nickname: maxspeed
Name: Lum
Number: 93800867
Email: sugathlum@gmail.com
I saw this advertisement for a Canon 580 EX-ii flash and the owner made it sound like it was a very good bargain. Indeed, for the price ($400) and extra goodies that came along with it, it was a good grab given that the owner was honest about the condition.
I arranged a meet-up with him at Vivocity last week at 6.30pm. I went earlier to look at stuffs and at the meeting time, he replied me that he was still in a meeting and could not turn up. I told him I would wait for him for some time since I had to do some shopping. About an hour later, I had to leave since I had to packet food home for my elder brother and sister-in-law, and thus I dropped him another text politely. He did not reply me since he told me he was held up in his meeting, showing no sense of guilt.
A few days later, I saw in his forum post that he had sold his flash unit away. I would describe him as irresponsible and proud.
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1346875
Nickname: canonone
Name: Hua
Number: 9six5899one9 (96589919)
My next disappointment came after I saw a canon 24-70mm F2.8L mark i lens on the same forum. The seller insisted to meet at Ang Mo Kio and I made my trip all the way down, thinking it was a good bargain again since it’s written as “good condition and clean”.
The seller turned up earlier than the meeting time and I thought all was good. He started speaking in English and I thought he was an Indonesian Chinese who could not speak well in the language. At certain point of time, I could not figure out what he was talking about. When I noticed that there was problem with the lens and was discussing with Gilbert right in front of him, he suddenly started speaking in Chinese and I realised he was a PRC.
When I looked through it at the light, there were something like bubbles. The seller kept insisting his lens was in good condition though. It was obvious that there was a big issue with the glass of the lens at the part where it would fit into the camera, which was very unusual. I was not able to make out what those things were, but they were obviously not dust. I tried asking him to use a spectacle cloth to clean it but he insisted we could only use a blower, which I did not bring along. He was also quick to want to brush off the deal politely, which showed his guilt.
http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1347448
I realised he posted a new advertisement on the same forum a couple of hours later. There differences were:
1. The price was reduced from $1200 to $1100.
2. “good condition and clean” description was removed.
3. Rating of condition was reduced from 9/10 to 8/10.
If he was not guilty of the condition of his lens, he would not have done these. The problem on the lens was definitely not dust, which could easily be blown and wiped off. To put it in simple, the lens was not even 1/10 for the condition – it could not be used at all.
I’m not sure if he is out to cheat.

Thank you, my dear. Happy Valentine's Day!

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Happy Valentine’s Day, my love. This eight months of love you have showered me with is overwhelming. You have changed my boring life entirely.
I miss the time we have spent together at romantic places like the Fortcanning Park, Gardens By the Bay, Chijmes, Sentosa, West Coast Park, Clarke Quay, Desaru, Paris Ris Park, Esplanade, Bedok Reservoir… and they are all unerasable memories of mine.
I love it that you are willing to accompany me with my family and friends. You appear elegant each time and spice up my days.
You are one in a seven million in Singapore and simply unique. Although you have scars and bruises on your skin but no one can be perfect in this world. It is not about the lust when I caress your body but the special feeling I have for you. You just make me want to do more things together with you. You always satisfy my craving.
Which man would not want to have a soul mate to fight alongside with him towards his goals in life? You add special touches to my achievements and make others proud of me. I know you have your limitation, but it is the effort you have put in that matters the most.
Looks and character may be crucial, but it is the way you treat me that makes me love you so deeply. I love you more than the water in Yellow River and you make my heart bounce higher than the Merlion near Fullerton.
I have been promised stars but no one has even given me a leaf; I have been promised beautiful sight but I do not even see any hair. You keep me accompanied daily without giving empty promises, unlike others who have given excuses to avoid me for months or years.
I just need someone by my side and all I need is you now, my Sony NEX F3.
If anyone is interested in portrait photoshoot, do approach me!

My New Girlfriend – Sony NEX F3

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I have gotten myself a decent camera finally after many years of daydreaming. The credit goes to Weitat and Gin for accompany me to the showroom, especially Weitat for the special discount he has gotten for me.
My new girlfriend, Sony NEX F3, is a mirrorless camera, which ranges between a normal compact camera and DSLR. According to some reviews I have read online, newer versions of mirrorless cameras are equivalent to entry level DSLR.
Mirrorless cameras lose to DSLR in autofocus speed. This means that mirrorless camera users may not be able to capture moments as fast as DSLR users. As a user who has just upgraded from sub quality compact cameras and having a few touches of my friends’ DSLR, I find my Sony NEX F3 satisfying.
The thing I quite dislike about my new girlfriend, F3, is that it does not have a viewfinder. I do not like the feeling of having another person seeing what I’m exactly focusing on. Therefore, it strongly discourages me from capturing some great moments, people and especially eyes candies. After all, mirrorless cameras are designed to be used without optical viewfinder, hence, have smaller bodies.
The main reason I have chosen a mirrorless camera over DSLR is that it is much more portable given its size and weight. My brothers will be using it then, which makes purchasing of the camera more worthwhile. Other than that, the discount in price is a big bonus. Luckily, Canon has yet to come up with a mirrorless camera, otherwise I would have to make more comparisons.
I was, in fact, stuck between Sony NEX 5N and F3. NEX 5N is an improved version of NEX 5 and it has been out in the market for about a year. NEX 7 has recently being launched and is out of stock, but the price difference is far too high – around $600 to $700 more. My girlfriend, NEX F3, is new as well, however, is said to be a lower-end version of NEX 5N, which is around $200 cheaper.
– Resolution of images
NEX 5N is the winner despite NEX F3 is about a year newer. However, I do not need extremely high resolution images.
– Design
Both models look quite alike at first glance but NEX F3 looks more like a box, which is uglier. Looks of the camera is of a lower priority to me, just like a girlfriend, which nobody knows.
– Flash and external gadget
NEX F3 has a built-in flash, which is stronger than the external flash that comes with NEX 5N. I do not like attaching and removing of external flash. The main issue is that both cameras have only a connector for external gadget, including the external flash. Therefore, NEX 5N users may have problems attaching an external microphone in future for video taking, but of course, this is not a good example since you do not need flash when doing video shot.
– Price
As mentioned earlier on, NEX F3 costs around $200 cheaper.
– LCD
Both cameras depend solely on the LCD for phototaking. Both of their LCDs can be adjusted. NEX 5N’s screen can be adjusted to face downwards more, so that the user can hold the camera higher and still be able to view the screen. NEX F3 can instead, flip the LCD screen 180 degrees to face the front, so that the user can take self portrait. Both are useful but I think the latter is more useful for causal shooting, especially with friends.
The Sony salesman, Jose, was a very honest man. He did not persuade me to buy NEX 5N, which was the more expensive model. Instead, he advised me to get a camera as accordingly to my need. He did his work professionally such as showing me how to attach the external flash and the power of them. He also reminded me that NEX F3 was very new and thus there would be fewer online reviews about it, which could be the reason why I felt NEX 5N was much better.
I love my girlfriend – Sony NEX F3.
Photography has been my hobby since young. I may not be very good in it but I put in extra effort than most people to make sure my photos turn out better. I wish to capture all the greatest moments and people of my life, and bring out their best smiles in my unique angle. I want to be appreciated through my work and not words.
I hope I can get some models and improve on my photography skill for photoshooting.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

ITE Orientation Camp April Intake Day 2

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[Friday, 30 April, 2010]

The first second of the day was the continuation of Hirman’s reflection session. He could assign everything to his emcees but definitely not this task. His enthusiasm, warm-heartedness and firmness clearly stated the importance of the camp. He wanted the students to learn in the midst of enjoyment to see beyond themselves and spare thoughts for others, and to persist on no matter how tough their future would be. I supposed not everyone bothered to listen but those who had listened were people who were more likely to succeed in future.

I did not feel like sleeping afterwards for I was quite worried about the students. I tried to tidy up the photos inside my laptop but I was disturbed by a sudden alert that a student was falling sick. I woke Hirman up and it turned up that that girl did not have a fever. Later on, I went to accompany Aaron for his guard duty but I did not talk much. Upon returning, I was told that Hirman and George were back to settle the problem of the sick student. I went to take my bath before continuing with my work but I did not last till daylight.

Mrs Grace Cheong highlighted to me that by sleeping in front of the door with my head facing it would cause me to have nightmare. I was very glad to hear her advice for I felt protected somehow. The breakfast was nasi lemak and later on, some of my ex-colleagues decided to go for movie and I felt I should be ready for in case anything happened. I dozed off until noon time when I had a shock that I had missed out a few hours of photography. However, it seemed that the activities were not as fun as the previous camp.

I joined Iylia for lunch before we set off to capture all the precious moments. It seemed that she preferred to stick together but that would cause us to miss out some interesting events happening at other parts of the Singapore Discovery Centre. Anyway, I was quite disappointed that everything came to an end soon and dinner was served early so that they could prepare for the performance at night. I helped Iylia with the phototaking of all the classes.

The approaching of the night placed my photography skill into great challenges. I borrowed Diana’s new Nikon camera but it was not as good as what I had expected for a costly new digital camera. Hirman got me to go into the theatre to take photos and during Kelvin’s speech, I knocked out completely since I did not have enough sleep for the past three or more nights. By the time I woke up, the event was about to end. I went to the main area and my shagginess dragged me to the Hospitality Suite to rest.

When everything was over, I stayed with my two ex bosses and Mr Neo to clear up some of the mess. Hirman went off without me after he loaded up the equipments and my bag was inside his car. Mr Neo gave me a lift back to Clementi campus and we were earlier than Hirman. During the journey, I was very impressed with the ultra big moon.

I reached the lobby to see volleyball game going on. There was not enough time for me to go in to greet Mr Peh and uncle Jiaming. I left with Hirman in sorrow somehow. I followed Hirman to Bar Stop to meet up with Jenne and Joei. I had a glass of beer and a plate of chicken pizza. The earlier hunger had caused a lost in appetite and that we left too early for me to finish up my stuff. I felt very lousy for the first time for the little amount of beer I took caused me a bit of drowsiness.

Jenne insisted not to collect money from me. She sent me home before driving off with Joei. I was quite worried for Hirman for he might doze off anytime on the way home but I did not want to distract him by SMSing him to check him up.

It was nearly 11pm when I reached home.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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ITE Orientation Camp April Intake Day 1

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[Thursday, 29 April, 2010]

For as hard as I tried to sleep at 2am, the month of bad habit refused to my determination. I took more than an hour to doze off.

I woke up before 6am and the dark cloud cooled my enthusiasm down. Nevertheless, I began preparing for the camp. I was welcomed by the good weather when I stepped out of my house at around 7am. I stood all the way in the train from my place to Joo Koon. Seeing smokers in school uniforms on the way was demoralizing.

A stage was set up near the lake. Hirman was not the emcee like the previous time and I could see a big difference in the crowd’s response. On the other hand, everything was run more smoothly than the previous time, which Hirman claimed “auto run”.

I started my job soon but was never confident because the Sony camera was not with me. Using the old Olympus D-750, I was not able to capture moving objects easily especially when the light was slightly dim. However, there was this great advantage of being able to zoom ten times into my target, which most cameras could not do it. I missed out quite a number of precious moments.

I was impressed with the lunch set for it was a hundred times better than the previous camp’s food. With my laptop and the wonderful wireless internet access at Singapore Discovery Centre, I was able to go online as when I liked. Nevertheless, the purpose of my laptop was more for transferring files from my old camera. I faced quite tough situations when I was asked to help look after some equipment inside the room while using the laptop, such that I was not able to go out to continue with photography.

A late announcement of students having to go home caught me extra busy for a moment. I was asked to walk them to the MRT station together with Farahi. One of the girls was too afraid to highlight that her parents were on the way to pick her up and she walked slowly until I questioned her. I suggested her to get her parents to meet us at Joo Koon MRT station instead but they were already approaching. Therefore, I signalled Farahi to continue the walk while I stayed behind near the bus-stop. The parents arrived soon and I raced my feet towards the MRT station to meet up with the rest to stun them with my speed. I had a great chat with Farahi on the way back.

The darkness of the night restricted phototaking badly with the cameras on my hands. I spent the last few hours preparing the video for Hirman to broadcast to the students.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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Borrowing Gilbert’s Camera, Returning Graduation Gown and Working with Irwin

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[Wednesday, 28 April, 2010]

My brother invited me to a game of Command and Conquer Generals. It was the second time I moved my laptop to sit beside him to battle against the computers in the three-against-five war. I started blogging and knocked off at 5am.

In the morning, I went to meet Gilbert to borrow his camera just below his office. He took some time to explain to me regarding the functions. I felt quite bad for he had an outing on Saturday morning and he would not be able to use his camera then. Next, I went to Potong Pasir to return my graduation gown to the Serangoon Broadway photo studio. I could not recognise myself in the photo which I was having a handshake with the presiding officer, Professor Joe Chicharo, taken by them. They were good in selling products for they wanted me to get a larger version of the photo with frame at the price of $45, which I immediately rejected them.

I went to Vivocity to meet up with Irwin. I only got to see a quite pretty girl while waiting for him at the seat at level one. We proceeded to Starbucks and the golden area I sat when meeting Hoay Min previously was available and we started camping there for the entire afternoon. There were some distractions, especially from a couple. The girl sounded like a slut, raising her voice while flirting with the guy. Then, she repeatedly called “bitch” for very long that both Irwin and I felt like going over to give her a slap. An ang moh sitting behind the guy and besides our table seemed to be irritated by them and left.

It was not a very good afternoon for me for I had designer’s block. At least, I got to read through one edition of the Home Décor magazine, and some of the designs impressed me a lot.

We left in the early evening and had ultra late lunch at Long John’s Silver. We went to Daiso where I got myself another belt to replace the current one. After that, we played a round of basketball at the arcade. I tested Gilbert’s camera and the battery bar dropped very soon.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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KTV at Iluma’s K-Suites and Movie at Vivocity

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[Saturday, 3 April, 2010]

On Saturday, it started pouring before I could leave my house to join my ex-colleagues for the karaoke session at Iluma. However, after I opened my umbrella at the road, I realised most people were not carrying their umbrellas anymore; the rain had stopped specially for me.

The train was crowded. In return for the bad squeezy journey, I got to see babes all over the places, especially at Bugis. Since I was late, I made my way out of the underground as quickly as possible because the crowds would slow me down ten times my usual pace. I realised I got out at the wrong exit and had to waste extra time on waiting for the traffic light.

After reaching Iluma, I scratched my head for the location of K-Suites. Jenne called me to end my search at the fourth storey. I went down to meet them and I was the last to arrive. We were put into a small room at first but we decided it would be too squeezy for us and Jenne requested for a room with bed. As I walked past the rooms, I realised all of them were decorated nicely and differently; I was greatly impressed.

Our room was occupied mostly by the bed. Two LCD televisions were clear. At the side near the door was a controller, which included making a few sounds such as cheering, whistling and jeering. There was a small corner with a computer which came with internet access.

Zaki occupied himself mostly with the computer after he crazily stuffed food into his stomach. I joined in the fun as well, however, took much lesser food than him. The crazy thing was about the free-flow drinks since we had a coupon, which Jenne gotten from the previous fun. I was still shy like usual and did not sing until Jingkun picked a few songs for me. I died at the first song after chewing very long with the finger food.

With my younger brother gone to Germany, bringing the shared Sony camera along, I felt the great photography crisis when the images taken inside the dim room were horribly shown on the LCD screen of the old Olympic camera. I knew I could never get images as sharp and especially while using freehand during daylight.

After the karaoke, which we paid thirty-five bucks each, I joined Zaki, Jenne, Joei and Christine for the movie – The Lovely Bones – at Vivocity. Weitat and Jingkun bid me farewell after the toilet break, having a good laugh over the nacho Jingkun dropped into my shoes earlier on. Jenne did a quick shop for her pencil at Bugis before we took the train over to Harbourfront. We camped for a long time at the ticket booth for collection of the tickets, buying of food and waiting for Christine to withdraw money. Luckily, the movie started only after we went to the toilet to clear the water we consumed at the K-Suites earlier.

The Lovely Bones was filmed in an artistic and poetic way. It came with many horror scenes with anticipation of dangers. I found it quite dragging and in the mid of the two hours show, I really wished it would end soon. Zaki, on the other hand, loved it a lot.

At around nine o’clock, we bid each other farewell. The girls took cabs while I accompanied Zaki to the MRT control station before I crossed over to the opposite bus-stop.

Skai Chan @ http://sillydumb.com

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