The Second Semester

I met Amelene over dinner a couple of days back, and as I set my tray down I asked: "So how's the second semester?"

The short answer: terrible. The long answer: incredibly fun. It seems impossible that a semester can be both and more at the same time, but it is. I'm taking five modules this semester - the typical load - except one of them is this crazy, 8MC-equivalent course named CS3216 (alternatively known as Software Development for Existing Platforms; alternatively known as "The Facebook Module") and suddenly I look up from the grindstone and it's Week 4 of Sem 2 in NUS, and I wonder how I got here.

A short explanation: the 'Facebook module' is this course that emulates - approximately - how it feels like to be working in a tech startup. You're dunked into this pool of talent, and it's up to you to pick your teammates and choose your projects and program and design and market your way to riches. Or at least to a big nice A. And it's really tough, because we're asked to build whole applications in just two weeks (each), and the pressure is intense to deliver on whatever it is you set out to do.

I don't intend to go into detail on why CS3216 means so much to me, or even what we do in it, because blogging's part of the module and I've got a place set up where I can write about my experiences. But the course is really heavy, and it probably explains why I've been so inactive here over the past coupla weeks.

I have four other modules: EC1301 (basic economics); MNO1001 (bullshit, err, management); ACC1002X (accounting) and CS1102 - (a programming module called Data Structures and Algorithms ... and it is challenging, believe you me). I've spent four or so sleepless nights thus far in the semester, all of which were in COM1, programming for the Facebook module. Which means I have yet to catch up on all my other modules. Which means I should get back to work. Which means I am sorta kinda totally screwed.

The First Sunrise of 2010

This outing was quite a failure, to be honest. Joash, Garrick and I went to Buntal to shoot the first sunrise of 2010, along with another dozen or so Photoborneo.com photographers (and I had no idea that this was such a big thing). The plan was to sleep between 2 and 4, but while Joash managed to get some shuteye, and the one hour enough to sustain him throughout the drive up, I lay spazzed on Joash's couch for the allocated sleep time and so went to Buntal completely sleepless and feeling very much like I usually do at NUS. We left at 4am. Shot all the way through to 8am. When we reached there, there was a whole bunch of Photoborneo people, setting up tripods and cameras and sitting around on driftwood and the like, their LCD screens glowing in the darkness.

I'm just going to post up the 9 shots that turned out okay.

The sad thing? There was no sunrise that morning. It was too cloudy, and it was the monsoon season. Which suited me and Joash just fine - we went to do street photography in the village lanes instead.

I'm not going to post captions for the pictures below. I normally do, because I look for stories with my camera, but this time around I'm looking to find a unique visual 'voice' - what some people call 'personal vision' ... okay that didn't make sense, did it?

Right. I forgot. Less talking, more showing. We went to Buntal on the first day of the new year. This is what I saw: