Second Orientation in Lasalle

Today I went for my second orientation for my current academic year. Why second, you may ask; well today's orientation is unlike the first on Monday. The orientation on Monday was focused on introducing us to the institute and it's academic structure, whereas today's one is mainly an ice-breaking session to let us familiarise with one another.

For today's orientation, we had been asked prehand to bring a number of items, including sketching and drawing materials, digital cameras and our sketchbook. There was also a nother requirement, and that is we were to come in black top. It was like kind of strange, because we had to walk around under the hot blazing sun, and wearing dark-coloured clothes seemed to be a contradiction. Perhaps the management wanted us to dress up to look like our institute?

After we were all gathered in school, we were then split up into groups of five. However, due to some reasons, many groups actually have 6 or more members. I believe ours was the most exaggerating one for having 8 members in total! The project was as such: all the various groups of each class would go explore a sector around our campus while paying attention to whatever we see, hear and smell. After gathering all our data, we would then return to campus, get together with other groups of the same class, and then translate our data into a single piece of artwork. Of course, the second part of the project was only disclosed to us after we returned from our research. As everyone of us was unfamilar one another, especially members of other groups, there were hiccups along the way. But nevertheless we managed to finish our artwork on time, just as as compared to other classes, ours seemed a bit too plain and uninteresting.

Though not really very pleased with our final artwork, I still feel this is quite a good attempt, as we did put our fullest effort into the project. As a consolation, I told one of my groupmates that if we were able to do something very artistic and professional at our level, then we wouldn't be in Foundation year already! Hopefully our class spirit will remain for the remaining year...

My group members roaming Kelantan Street


Along the way, we kept hearing something like Hindi music trailing us; in turned out that one of our members, Veronica, was listening to some indie music on her handphone!


Counting money spent at a coffeeshop near Kelantan Lane where we took a short break. Notice the colourful sketchbook on the table? Almost every other student in Foundation year is using this! (Damned, maybe I should change the "skin" of my sketchbook...)


Our artwork. Notice the "Citroen" signboard on the top left-hand side? We found it on the streets in Desker Road. It generated quite a bit of curiosity among our tutors; they thought we'd ripped them off some cars!

Hello, Lasalle

It is the middle of the week, and I have yet posted anything about starting of my new semester term yet. Well, I had intended to do so on Monday evening, but due to a last minute assignment which held me busy till yesterday evening, I wasn't quite able to do so. You must be wonder how come I already have had assignments when my lesson proper's supposed to commence only on Friday (These few days are just for orientation); well, it's not actually a school assignment, but a personal one. The grandmother for one of my friends passed away not long ago, and I was asked to do a short momento video on her. Since I was only given about 24 hours to finish, I have no time to update my blog until today. So here goes...

My school term starts on 13th August, which very coincidentally, falls on the first day of the Hungry Ghost Festival. And guess what greeted me the first thing when I stepped out of the lift in the morning? Yes, ashes of burnt incense paper! In fact, as I walked out of the lift, I could still some people burning incense paper at the far end of my block. Well this is still okay as compared to Qing Ming earlier this year. At that time, the moment I stepped out of the lift, a strong gust of wind suddenly blew through, and the ashes were flying around like dancing black moths.

I arrived at the institute quite early, about an hour ahead of schedule, so I sitted outside the campus, taking pictures of the new campus' exterior. I think the new campus looks cool, as not many educational institutes I've came across are painted in black. Or maybe there ARE but my exposure was limited. However, in a country with such a humid climate, I wonder how much money will be wasted on air-conditioning. That's something to ponder over!

After idling outside for a while, I decided to just go into the school, and I realised that there were already lots of people around. I initially thought the orientation had been brought forward, but later I realised that these people were the Year 1 students, which were my seniors. Everything was new, and everyone was alien to me. Until I saw Miss M. She was a polytechnic transfer student who was in the same interview group as me previously. Well she was fortunate for she had secured herself a place in Year 1, whereby I had to start from Foundation year. Well, although it meant I'll have to spend an extra year and additional money to complete my degree, but I guess having a solid foundation will be better for me in the long run.

There wasn't any lessons on this first day of school. It was just orientation whereby the various core personnel of the institute and faculty gave us briefings on what to expect and so on. Fortunate, these talks aren't about to make me fall asleep, except for one which I do not want to elaborate further. One unforgettable statement made by the CEO of the institute was to try fail as much as we can, except towards the assessment period. That may sound absurd, but the logic behind is that if you're too afraid to fail, you'd probably not dare to be creative as well, but by failing, you'd learn what can be done and what not, and from there learn from mistake and move on. I have had my first hand experience in it within my opera troupe as a scenic designer, so I totally believed in him. There was also a tour session to allow us get orientated to our new campus, but I felt this was one of the worst orientation tours I've ever been to; the guides in charged of our group were simply too irreponsible, they didn't bother to call out to us when we were frantically searching for them (because we don't know who our guides are), and they simply dump us at the main gate after the tour without telling us what's installed for us after that.

Our orientation ended at around 4.30pm, and initially I had thought of popping by Artfriend just around the corner to raid their inventory stocks. However, on thinking that the poor shop must have been invaded by my fellow schoolmates already, I decided not to in the end. It's always better to shop when the place's not too crowded, for I can't concentrate on my hunt for what I want to get!