Happy 42nd Birthday Singapore. Well, the National Day parade had just ended and it marks the seal of the first city bay area NDP for the nation’s 42nd birthday.

Also it had been 10 years since I’ve actually watched NDP live and contributed as a performer as well. With that in hand I know the time and commitment one needs to have to contribute for the NDP, especially having to start rehearsal as early as January every week. Besides the rather arupt and mini hardware showcase by the air force and army, the year’s parade this year is considerably smaller given the smaller stage area. However, given that, performances this year are largely dampened and not as spectacular as what as I know was before.

It was agonising watching the NDP parade on TV hoping that the performers don’t screw up on screen otherwise painting a bad impression on our events and knowing that the world’s watching too. Besides giving the primary school kids credit for their rather messy performance, they also do not look entusiatic to perform at all. Our singers are all largely constipated, not to mention the Soka association with their super unsynchronized moves (I wonder why are they even qualified to perform). Other than that, other performances are excellent, I feel that with the exception of those I mentioned, they are actually the ones which really let all the previous NDPs down. And seriously, they should bring back more of the old NDP which we all grow up hearing during the 90s era. If you watch the parade as a whole you will enjoy the overall experience but frankly with these little details in place, the performance was a disaster.

At least the fireworks were decent it looked as good on TV as viewed from my home, I guess the thing which really made this year’s performance a memorable one is the new setting and environment with a potential large viewing audience, otherwise I guess the bay area would be better off for Formula 1 and the upcoming Sheares Bridge/Singapore Bay Run.

Here are some quick snippets of the BlizzCon 2007 held in Anaheim Convention Center in Los Angeles.

Few noticable annouvments include details on the new WOW expansion, World of Warcraft:Wrath of the Lich King with new large Ice worlds. Not to mention plans for a Warcraft Movie in the making (Computer Generated just like those in-game cinematics we all know of Blizzard).

Besides that the public have their questions answered by members of the different teams at Blizzard. At the World of Warcraft Items and Professions panel, the development team discussed their plans for the Inscription profession, on top of Starcraft 2, and DID we mention Starcraft 2 again? this time yes with another indepth walkthrough of orgasmic gameplay which I believe is worth more than the 10mins it can offer, more at the Play Button:

More details on the in game engine and Starcraft 2 Campaign Storyline, continuing from where Brood war left off (long read click “show more” to read):
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Run for Charity People! It’s fusion of fun and sports, get-together and the best thing, it’s in the benefit for Charity as well!

Event Details
Date: 19 August 2007
Closing Date: 17th August 2007
Eligibility: Open to all groups of people

Categories
Walk Hope Run (6km)
Family FunRun (3.2km)

6km Running Route

Angsana Green E2 >> Turning Point Changi Sailing Centre >> Angsana Green E2

3.2km Running Route

Angsana Green E2 >> Turning Point After Singapore Island Resort>> Angsana Green E2

Registration Fees
Individual Runner: $15/pax
5-9 Runners: $12/pax
>9 Runners: $10/pax

Registration
Register and collect your event t-shirt and wrist tag at:

Runner Entitlements:
A sports T-shirt and attractive goodie bags will be given to all participants while stocks last. A lucky draw and exciting performances await participants at the end of the run.

Race day conduct

• Participants intending to walk the route must start at the back of the line up. This is to ensure a safe and pleasant run for all participants.
• All participants must participate unaided. Roller skates, skateboards, in-line blades, baby joggers, roller skis, bicycles, pushchairs, shoes with built-in or attached rollers or any other wheel-based transportation method or animals are strictly prohibited anywhere along the run route.
• All Family Run participants who under circumstances need to have wheel-chair assistance or baby prams are still allowed to join in the walk/run

The Ngee Ann Kongsi scholarship presentation was on today at the Teochew building along Tank Road. The ceremony saw almost close to 3/4 million dollars worth of scholarship and bursary awards given unconditionally in line with the Ngee Ann’s long-time stand towards rewarding and helping deserving Teochew students for academic performance and excellence. Concurrently, there was a Clay art exhibition at the ground floor of the building, which kept my parents (who were there to support the event as well) amazed.

No doubt you will definately marvel that the Ngee Ann Kongsi is a rather wealthy organisation. Owning not only various properties all round Overseas and Singapore, including the whole plot at Orchard spanning from Wisma Atria, Ngee Ann City, Meritus Mandarin to Cineleisure Orchard. Commendably, being a non-profit organisation, 80% of their earnings are donated in benefit of charitable and educational means.

Coincidentially met up with some of my army troopers who were award recipients as well. Kumwah was there and so was David, who is currently on a bursary in NUS. Caught up on times and unit stuffs during the Hi-tea reception, those were the old days.

It’s not everyday where you receive an award like this, looking at the laminated Scholarship certificate hand-signed by the Ngee Ann Kongsi President and Education Chairman himself, this scholarship, beside being a valued item in my portfolio, will definately be the driving force for further excellence.

I remembered going out for run few month ago always listening to my “favourite” radio station Class 95FM, well so as it was. I don’t know why it’s labelled ‘Singapore’s favourite English radio station’ but I just always felt that something was missing in the shows they have. Then it finally struck me “why am I always toturing myself listening to ads?” I didn’t come to realise it then till I actually counted the number of songs played within the peak hour 6-7pm show- the time which I usually do my evening Tanglin runs as well. On average only 4 songs are played in the one hour block, the rest of it was news, traffic reports, endless DJ chatting and of course Ads- lots and lots of them chain to chain, back to back.

I guess I regularly “outgrow” radio stations, 98.7FM was one of my favourite stations during my teen years, till like Jamie and Sheikh Haikel spoiled it (with some DJs fired in the process). Jeremy Ratnam was one of the few professional orginal DJs I respected in Power 98FM, so is my all time favourite and funnyman Rod’ Montero from Class95. The interesting thing is that they’ve left all their previous stations and one by one they are all in 91.3FM now!

I always labelled 91.3FM as a good source of trance/house music, which they primarily catered for when they came into the scene as a newbie not many years ago, but things are definately looking really bright for the SPH Works Radio station. Pity MediaCorp Radio never saw the light into listening to their listeners as much as their advertisers.

91.3FM is the way to go now- With their grarantee: “No more than 2 ads in a row” and they really mean it! What’s more SMS dedications are FREE too! After listening to few of their shows, the fusion of the few best DJs in Singapore in this very promising station will see the funny fusion of certain shows “kaputted” from their previous stations into their current show, namely Rod’s Good Service’ segment and even the regular funny caller Raju is on 91.3FM as well too. It’s interesting to hear the rather adrupt pause sometimes the newly transplanted DJs have when they say the station names “always on 95ummm 91.3FM!”

91.3FM yea man, my new favourite station!

There was like 3 written tests this week for me, namely Communication skills for entrepreneurs (CSE) final test which I personally won’t be able to hit good 90+ marks for misreading the last question of the test. Mechanics III test was screwy too with some mistake(s) easily setting me to 70% total score, which contributes to 4% in the overal module score. Then to make matters worst, my Quality Control Module test is easily capped at 91/100 for a calculation error and more question mis-reads! (lesson learnt *shakes head*)

Dang so much for trying for Distinctions. This semester is exceptionally short, I seriously cannot emphasise that further with 6 semester exam papers to come in less than 2 weeks time. Last few semesters easily see a 2 week break after the last academic week for revisions, but this time it’s after the last week- BOOM exams!

So much for cutting the semesters shorter to cater for the intake in like wit the GCE “O” level exams. I personally think Though it’s still possible to get an A for these modules which is the barest minimum I should get, it’s these little bits and pieces of marks lost which makes the difference of a distinction.

Nevertheless the week ended with a bang with my project group being the first in the class to submit topping it over the rest and possiblity securing good project grades in the process.

My NAPFA test was today as well, cleared my weakest station – Standing board jump with a reasonabel 231cm, not only painting the fact that you can actually train for SBJ (especially techniques) but setting the rest of my Napfa up in the tempo and boost my morale.

Overall here are my results for today’s NAPFA at the Singapore Polytechnic stadium:

Cheers to the track team (who were training there concurrently) for cheering me on for the 2.4km segment. The run was rather messy with at least 30 over runners running each time on the 400m track, making overtaking a chore and delaying timings significantly. The 1st lap start with me as 3rd behind 2 more guys leading the pack. I saw myself moving up to 2nd on the 2nd round and leading the race from the 3rd lap onwards, this made pacing rather tricky as all I have to do is to chase the next runner I lapped.

Nevertheless, finished the 2.4km pole position with 10:14 which is a 5 point A for my standard. SGrunners Tiwaz and ex-track Alec was there too for their “west side evening run-cum cheng-tung desserts later” run. “you sure you run like that? you can easily run 2mins faster right?” Tiwazz said, haha. Classmate Qiwen was taking the test there today as well, cheers on him attaining silver despite running up 4 blisters on his feet for running his 2.4km barefoot.

Lastly, congrats for Zixuan who managed to hit 10 pullups (from zero) in the period of hardly 2 months, remarkable!

Woot! crossed the 600km mark for recorded running mileage this year!

The SP Rotaract Installation 2007 was on last 20th July 2007, but didn’t had the time to do an update until today where I actually have “some time” after few exam papers.

Held at the Singapore Polytechnic Graduate’s Guild Clubhouse Ballroom, I saw myself being the event camera man after Peili, the new Rotaract Club president elect invited me to event, then it was like “hey Shaun can you take pictures just like what you did for our Medan community service trip last year?” no problem of course! well if my temperamental camera corporates, that is!

Was there to help out in the setting up of the event in the mid-afternoon after classes. The event commences at about 6.30pm, with the Queenstown (South) Rotary invited together with all the Rotaract clubs all round Singapore ranging from all the Polytechnics and Universities. Rotarian Wolf is the guest of honour for the night. There were a few technical glitches prior the start which got solved after swapping the defective presentation laptop with my own which can get the projector to project images on-screen. Got about some last minute touching up such as putting the banners, clearing the place up while the rest got up preparing and rehearsing their speeches for the later segment of the event. Oh yes did I mention that the theme of the event was hip hop?

Peili Our new President Elect!

In the Ballroom

Presentation of appointment by Rotarian Wolf

The double up for the camera is ChenLing who was also my good double for photos during our medan trip. The 2 of us with cameras, you won’t miss a coverage. There was an address and handling over of the presidential position from the outgoing president to the incoming, all witnessed by the VIPs and Rotarian Wolf himself, who gave a speech of his own thereafter.

Thereafter is the induction ceremony where new committed rotaract members are inducted into the rotaract family with induction certificates presented on stage. The exco members are later called on stage with the friendship band and appointment pin presented by our new president Peili herself. I even got one myself for my efforts on the Medan Trip!

Dinner Buffet was on next, with noodles, 2 courses and red bean desserts to top everything up. Not excalty an abundance of food but just right in portions with everyone full just when all the food is finished.

Audio are kindly mastered by SP DJs who kept the tunes spinning from the presentation and background music for speeches, handling over and the games which followed thereafter. The games saw bizzare “sabo” sessions where one person is called up from each table to perform a task metted by the crowd- the results are interesting ranging from pole dancing to break and group dancing. All funny, and everyone was awarded prizes and tokens of appreciation for participating.

There was a networking session where all the different school/organisation rotaract members got together to exchange namecards. A small night dance session is on thereafter with the dance floor open with all the funky disco lights on.

Group Shot!

The VIP table and President Peilli

Thats all folks!

That’s it, all the best for the new SP Rotaract 2007 Exco!