I'm exhausted. Fine, I didn't actually run the Road Run, but the triple combination of sickness + sun + pressure to nail the important shots took a toll on my ill body.

On the bright side, I learnt quite a fair bit. I spent almost the entire event shooting alongside Jack, a pro the school hired, and he taught WS and me quite a number of practical tips pertaining to event coverage. I guess experience is really important. Haha. Besides that we talked a fair bit about equipment and he said I had to upgrade my camera body to improve... And I agree. I get quite frustrated at times because the camera doesn't have the functions and capabilities I need to get the right shots. I can do more than what the camera does. I was trying out his $6000 pro-level body and it was totally gratifying. If you miss a shot with that you must really suck. But sigh, to upgrade means you need money, and at the moment I don't have that. Where do I find $2000 from? Or about $1400 should I sell off my current camera + its assorted accessories?

And speaking of money he offered me a job after the A levels... It sounds quite fun, but I think I'm probably entering NS early. Shit.

Shall end here. Need to go through the photos and sleep.

Finally, a decent break from school. Although my joints are stiff and I can feel the fever slowly creeping back, I shall attempt to finish this post before I swallow the pills and try to do some homework.

You see, even when you're on MC it's hard to escape the drudgery of school work. While at the clinic just now, I was having a hard time replying to CCA-related smses because my fingers were so damn stiff and my brain felt like it was hanging upside down.

Anyway, here's a quick update of my very boring and mundane life.

1) New rig. Almost.

My motherboard died more than a week ago, and I spent the whole of last Saturday night reassembling my entire computer. The new system is awesomely fast, although I don't know why I need such a powerful computer. I no longer game, and the only really intensive applications I use are Photoshop and Lightroom. Okay, and perhaps maybe GIS for the next few months.

Here are the specs for you geeks out there:

AMD Phenom II X4 920
Asus M3A78-EM
Asus 9600GT 512M
KVR 4GB DDR2
Hitachi 160GB SATA2
Seagate 1000GB SATA2
BenQ 1640 DvDRW
Vantec Ion2 460W
No brand cheapo mid-tower ATX case

I'm probably going to get another 1 or 2 case fans to cool the system.

2) CCA

I think we screwed up the execution for the session yesterday. Must do better. And that thing HAS TO SUCCEED!

3) Vietnam Trip

I absolutely know nuts about the trip. I only know that I'll have to sing and dance (OMG, Edwin singing and dancing?) and that we might have to do homework there. I'll also be missing the Kuantan trip... And that's ultimate sadness because most of the geog people are awesome people.

4) College Annual

Haha the Annual is out. Although it's remarkably small, thin and devoid of information, I still think it's quite worth getting because it was my face on 3 pages and some of the pictures inside were by yours truly. Haha.

5) Goodbye!

I watched Slumdog Millionaire just now at The Cathay with a gang of people and teachers from the school's Geog faculty. Although the turnout wasn't exactly fantastic (it's quite sad that so many chose to remain behind in their own comfort zone), I still think it's quite cool that we had a Geog faculty movie outing with enthu people turning out. Haha.

Slumdog's quite a good show, although I was expecting more of an emotional roller-coaster ride. The real eye-opener for me was the stunning yet depressing images of the slums of Mumbai. A week ago I was reading this handout about the exact same slums, and I nearly fell asleep because the black and white text analysis was completely dull. Today the imagery totally leaped out at me and I was finally able to understand the scale and magnitude of the slums. And when I was walking home just now, I suddenly realised that all of the solutions and mitigation measures that we regurgitate so frequently during tests and exams seem so naive and inept in comparison to the scope of the problem. No wonder the teachers are always barking at us. Life isn't about what's in the syllabus and what isn't.

Slumdog was also a catalyst for me to think of my future career. For the past few weeks I've been hearing different people telling me to start searching for the suitable course that I want to do, and I've always tried to put it off. But while walking home just now (I do a lot of self-reflection when I'm alone and walking. Don't know why.), I was thinking of my future life and I thought it wouldn't be bad to go ahead with the policy planner thing that I mentioned during the HS interview last year.

I know it isn't glam or exactly a money-printing job, but I think it aligns to my interests. I've never wanted to be a high flying banker/economist/insert whatever most people my age want to be here. But somehow another part of me feels that if I go ahead with the urban/population policy planner thing, I shouldn't restrict myself to Singapore. If anything, the GIS course last Wednesday taught my groupmates and I that Singapore was too well-planned, well-executed, and in general there's not many things left for you to do. Working in the World Bank/UN would certainly be tempting - imagine being able to help plot and steer the development of those LDCs. And it allows me to travel! I like travelling. And with travelling comes rather good photo opportunities. Haha. Talk about the perfect alignment of all of my interests.

I shall work hard and try to leech more information from those career guidance thingy.

Remember to watch Slumdog! Meanwhile, here's a link to a gallery of photos by Reuters. They examine the Slums of India.

My computer died. I'm supposed to submit a proposal tomorrow.

Fark!

I am humbled by the task before me.

I've been inundated with so much photog work, I feel like just giving up. Work just keeps streaming in from teachers, from students, from emails and from SMSes. It's insane. As I told Francesca last week, photog has become a heavy burden - even taking photos, once immensely enjoyable, has become a frustrating chore.

Sometimes I wonder why I'm doing all these. I ponder why I'm expending so much time, effort and energy to ensure that the society will no longer diminish into obscurity but stand out proudly like it once did. That the members can benefit the most; that I fight tooth and nail for them to have the stuff they need; that they can be proud of the CCA that they're in.

I've lost count of the number of times that I was just milimetres away from losing my temper and losing control. You know, throw everything down, tell everyone to fuck off and don't bother me anymore.

But luckily for them a part of me always wants whatever I'm involved in to succeed. Losing my temper would only be counter-productive. I hate failure. I like success. Failure isn't the mother of success when you only have one shot. If I have my finger in the pie, I want it to be the tastiest and the best damn pie ever.

Perhaps that's why paracetamol's been my constant companion for the past few nights. With all the tension headaches, my brain feels like it's at the epicentre of a Richter 10 earthquake and the heart of a VEI 8.0 Ultra-Plinian volcano. It's so bad I can't sleep at times. My mind doesn't feel settled and at peace at all. Random things keep popping up even though I'm trying my best to catch some sleep so that I don't collapse in class and get accused of being "trying very hard to fall asleep".

To make things worse the teacher's heaping pressure on me to lead a team into the SLA Spatial Challenge. Yes, the competition is exciting and probably useful for whatever I'm doing next time. But no, I don't have the bloody time.

Fuck. I shall go do some work before sleeping.

Wow the new instructor is good. I think his enthusiasm and experience will certainly bode well for the club. By experience I mean both his photographic skill and experience in running so many different photographic societies.

I certainly wouldn't mind having someone to guide me along instead of having to cross the river by feeling the stones, one step at a time. At times I really unsure about the next step...and being able to get some top quality advice is certainly helpful.

Despite all the uncertainty surrounding the next batch (they just came for Orientation today), I'm sure of one thing - I definitely want the mega project to succeed.

There's no room for failure.