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Saturday, February 28, 2004

Hell of "Ha Ha", Going Gaga!

Since hell is breaking (or already broke) lose till today. Ha ha ha! I think I'm going gaga for this week the next few weeks! I'm so tired! I love my red bloodshot eyes! I love my black rings! They're so colourful! Ha ha ha!

I just finished my lip-sync animation of Chubbles to Gollum versus Smiggle voices! And it was has cheesy gestures and body movements (but the lip sync was nice though) and the final video edited has absolutely no link between the Hobbits' theme music with Gollum! Ha ha ha!

My FYP team and had one presentation to our secondary client, Astreal, yesterday. The client rocks, man! They accepted our most of our story concept, with only minor changes! Now we're heading for more hellish work for our one week break of holidays (or not)! I have to do schedules to do visual effects test shots! Technical pre-production! Location scouting for Christian or Catholic cemetries! Equipments listing! And other red tapes of pre-production papers!

I love all the red tapes!

Besides doing more FYP pre-production papers, red tapes and standing up for execution line of interim presentation coming up on Monday, I got big, practical test papers on ACAN (Advanced Computer Animation) and AAUP (Advanced Audio Production) coming up, but I don't know what the fuck had they taught or what are they talking about! Especially, the big AAUP test paper! In which it is gonna screw up lots of my friends, who know nothing but nothing about the module's teachings!

Worse! After the first wave of assignments invasion, the second wave is coming!

Am I screwy or what!?!?! SP "rocks" my world, man!

Eiizumi's Crappy/Inspiring Quote or Quotation of this Blog:
"SP is a lie!" ~ Eiizumi and most of SP's Diploma in Multimedia Technology course's Year 3A kakis, or even for the 3B people, or some people from SP!

Monday, February 23, 2004

Take it "Easy" while the Hell is Breaking Lose.

Okay, I forgot from what day till today... Oh my God... Hell is breaking lose and I don't know what the fuck it is gonna end. But all I knew this period (when I didn't type my Blogs) is gonna really be tough time to go through. All my friends in my course are facing the same darn things.

I am now in a very busy, busy, busy mode. Next, Next week is my AAUP Cubase SX audio mixer test (worth 50% of the whole module) and many including me, knew nothing about that module. I am also trying to do all the FYP interim presentation stuff, in which the presentation is due next week. While having that, I am currently chionging my 3D lip-syncing animation assignment for my character, Chubbles.



I created him, but I'm getting sick of his sick face...

I did textures and mappings for both my Chubbles and Joseph's Remnant. Joseph did all the rigging of biped bones for both Remnant and Chubbles. I've only just manage to finish Chubbles' morph targets. I'm a bit down with flu today and can't concentrate really well today. Monday mood some more. I can only do the animation work tomorrow and the assignment date dues today.

I'm not the only one late though. Many of my friends are in the same boiling pot.

Worse still, the primary client, Mike, as well as the director cum scriptwriter changed the script (which made us to change the nicely done and professional-looking storyboards). Due to the changes of script, now we needed some professional-looking visual effects with integrated animation elements (which I doubt my team had the time and skills to do so). More, Mr Mike wanted us to do behind-the-scenes shoot production.

What else? We haven't met our secondary client, Astreal, for presentation. There could be possibilities of they changing their demands.

I got only one conclusion for all these shit. We're dying in the hell of SP rigid assessment periods and very bad modules and course organisation. And I'm not the only person who say that. All my friends in my course can prove it.

But in amidst of all these troubles, frustrations and anger I encounter, I couldn't care less (for anyone of them).

It is the "Just Do It" keyword that kept me going. Cos' my perfectionalism blood is pushing me to succeed.

Eiizumi's Crappy/Inspiring Quote or Quotation of this Blog:
"A dead end is just a good place to turn around." ~ Naomi Judd

Saturday, February 14, 2004

The Bachelors Gathering: Fighting against the Love in the Air.

Today, this Valentine Day or Friendship Day. Love is in the air. Yes, it’s the annual lovers’ day, Valentine’s Day. I woke up late after a tiring day yesterday, thinking I was gonna stay at home all day to avoid the unbearable love in the air outside.

I received a SMS from Chee Wee, asking me whether I wanted to join the guys, Kent, Andhika, Meng Kiat and Chee Wee himself for a LAN gaming session. Initially, I rejected them, thinking I had enough of these sessions after this week, in which we had almost everyday this week.

But still, I went to join them after lunch. And frankly speaking, this was one session I really didn’t regret afterwards. I couldn’t stay the loneliness at home neither, might as well join my friends and hang out.

I met up with them at the West Coast Hawker Centre, where they had their lunch before we went to Ginza Plaza to LAN game but we waited for very long for all the seats to start but we got impatient and decided to go to Selegie Road’s Parklane Shopping Mall’s Genie Funland LAN Game shop.

At one point, we argued to what transport to take to Dhoby Ghaut. I was suggesting we take MRT transit but Chee Wee wanted to take bus transit. Kent wanted to take taxi for five persons which were illegal. Andhika was in neutral, I managed to get him to take MRT transit with me while the rest took taxi.

I wasn’t in to break the law and risk getting caught and moreover, MRT is cheaper and efficient.

And that imbecile, shitty, bastardised, assholic Kent took a stubborn threat that if we don’t take taxi, he quits the LAN gaming session. It was fine with me that if he quits. I’ve seen this “stubborn threat” way too many times. It is very childish and immature of him!

After Kent left initially, we did consider taking taxi. But then, the rest of the guys thought that was very bad thing to do to Kent. So, I reluctant agreed with them to take five persons in a cab.

And again Kent gets his way. This is something we should never do, never let Kent win. He must learn the lesson he’s not god and he can never get the ways he wanted always. He must face facts and not ignore or escape it!

To me, Kent has always been a wuss and a wimp (it’s just that he never knew), even though he said that other people are and not him.

So during LAN games, I tried to make him miserable and never let him get his way. I irritated him during the games, of course. I took lost to him with stride and when he got happy, I never showed my anger, because anger only makes him happier.

Although, I lost the a few games to him quite badly, I took it easy.

But he was very rude and ill-mannered to me. He was beside me and was as noisy and irritating as the so-to-think young, secondary school, teenage Bengs, who were also beside me, shouting loudly and scolding vulgarities in the air (I meant they all are damn “kao beh”).

See how childish Kent is compared with the Bengs beside me?

What ever it is Kent sucks big time. I really wonder which girl would take him as her boyfriend for his manners, matters and bad attitude. When he cursed the air and people, he is cursing himself of demerits.

No wonder some people just wanna shoot Kent for no good reason all the time. He simply made himself a target to shoot at.



Chan Kent's presence not only ruin nice pictures, he ruin almost anything he touches in this world.

Eiizumi's Crappy/Inspiring Quote or Quotation of this Blog:
"People who sinned and were not punished is because the chance is already being given for them to change over a new leaf. Those who persisted sinning would only end up having the biggest punishment lesson of their lives overthrow their lives." ~ Eiizumi


Valentine.

Tonight. I met “her” again tonight. Who’s “her”? She is Zane Teo (for those who never knew). The story between me and her started 181 days ago. Just read my archives if you really wanted to know and bother to read.

She is a friend of mine and a girl I really like and fallen for during my ITP period last year. You can say I did fall in love but I never like to use the word “love” because there is a saying that “Love is mutual.” So you can see me using the word “like” than using the word “love”, unless it is mutual.

Anyway I was really surprised to see her again, especially today (she should be celebrating with her “boyfriend” but it a girl with her tonight). It’s been 29 days since I last seen her at The Substation for the COMGRAPH 2004 animations preview.

I was on my way home after a major LAN gaming session with my friends and was to take the MRT transit NEL (North-East Line) to transfer to the EW (East-West) Line back to Chinese Garden MRT station. On the escalator down to the platform level, I saw a familiar back and figure of a person. I remembered how she walked, how she turned her head and how her butt swinged side to side.

It was all very familiar but my curiosity got me to approach her and to take a look at her face to make sure whether it was really “her”. In a very typical I was to approach her from her back and take a direct look at her face. Then, she suddenly turned round, looked at me and said, “Hello.”

I was quite startled and tried to speak and tell her that she got thinner since I last seen her. But instead, I choked like an idiot on the thick minted mouth of mine as I ate a mint Listerine Oral Care strip just now.

Embarrassed by the awkwardness, the startle and the choke, I quickly turned away from her sight to my side of the platform towards Outram Park while she continued to walk with a female friend of hers.

Obviously, being in a very stupid state already, I could not go back to her and talk to her or even explain. I just stupidly went to my platform, standing there alone and wait for my train.

*Duh!*

Stupid right?!

But on my way home, I thought how she had changed a lot physically and wondered how she changed in her mindset and her heart. She was wearing single and a dress, with naked back. She looked feminine and was still attractive (to me).

But she’s quite strange to me now…

Definitely, if I had the chance, I wouldn’t really say she slimmed down but got skinnier. Was neither a bad or good thing, but she definite got prettier in dressing and feminised with what a normal narcissistic Singaporean girl would wear these days.

It was a girl with her this Valentine’s Day. Dressing as nice as her but I never saw her friend’s face. But really, it made me wondered sometimes whether she’s a lesbian…?

Nah… Impossible! Hee hee!

The only conclusion I can make is that I’m not gay. Ha ha!

Eiizumi's Crappy/Inspiring Quote or Quotation of this Blog:
"The magic is inside you. There ain’t no crystal ball." ~ Dolly Parton

Friday, February 13, 2004

The Amazing Feat of Feet.

This week’s Friday. Today, I took a journey that would be unbelievable to any ears of my friends and other people. Most would think this journey was crazy.

I’ve walked with Shian, my walking companion. I had accompanied him on a crazy journey to take digital photographs of urban and suburbs in Singapore starting from Raffles Place MRT station all the way to the finish of the Punggol MRT station. We covered about 25 kilometres or more, using about total of 6 hours...

It was an amazing feat of feet with the swell of ouch… Shian was one of two friends I knew who would walked with me at such a crazy distance, with a book of street directory as our map and a compass for general direction.

From Raffles Place, to along Queen Elizabeth Walk, pass the Esplanade Theatres, then to Suntec City’s McDonald fast-food restaurant for our lunch for about 30 minutes. After that, we went to Kampong Glam, pass Sultan Plaza, through some HDB flats where we saw MediaCorp studios shooting a scene in the heartlands with a familiar Chinese actor from the Jack Neo’s family of comedians, Hui-Ge.

After that, we went pass Lavender MRT station to some old HDB flats sealed for demolishing then to somewhere near Boon Keng MRT station, Berdemeer HDB flats of low income families under upgrading programme, through private terraces estates near Potong Pasir, went off-tracked, detouring Mount Vernon, to the un-opened Woodleigh MRT station. Then, we simply went along a road where the NEL (North-East Line) where the MRT transit travels underground, all the way to Kovan MRT station and the Heartland Mall near Shian’s home.

There we took the chance to toilet and refill our water supply for about less than 10 minutes. We then walked the Upper Serangoon Road straight, passing Hougang Plaza, Holy Innocent’s High School and Serangoon Secondary School. Across the undeveloped barren land between Sengkang and Hougang, there we see the “mountains”, the HDB flats of Sengkang.

Then, it was across the orange sunset painted Sungei Pinang to Sengkang heartlands. Through Sengkang’s Rivervale Drive and Lane, then to Punggol Road. Along Punggol Road, we went straight across the TPE (Tampines Expressway) by Punggol Flyover to the small suburb town of Punggol.

We finally turned left at Punggol Central for our final length towards the finishing line at Punggol MRT station and we reached it! The Punggol MRT station was surrounded by the barren fields of class. It felt like I was at an airport terminal and felt I was leaving for somewhere and I felt peaceful at that time…



The north-east diagonal track of Singapore: A journey on foot 25 kilometre plus of distance and 6 hours plus of time.
(Route tracked and drawn by Shian)

Both Shian and I were tired but we’ve achieved an unbelievable feat of feet by completing the north-east diagonal length of Singapore… Our rewards were the beautiful sunset with all the “mountains and mountains” of HDB flats beneath the setting sun, with open grass fields touched by the sun rays and the rest of our feet, of course!

Shian and I got blisters on our feet but mine was only a small painless one near my right ankle. At least we got something to prove that we went through this journey.

*Ouch!*

From there, we took the train. Shian took his to Kovan MRT station. I took the train back to the west part of Singapore via Singapore central commercial business district (which only took 20 to 30 minutes compared to the 5 hours journey on foot!)

We practically walked the whole of North-East MRT transit line (NEL)…

Some people may say we’re stupid or even crazy; I dare anyone to be walking this crazy distance of perseverance and endurance. And I bet no other is crazy enough to do that!

Ha ha! : p

Eiizumi's Crappy/Inspiring Quote or Quotation of this Blog:
Live every day like it’s your last, ‘cause one day you’re gonna be right. ~ Ray Charles

Friday, February 06, 2004

Rising Tasks & Lowering Memory...

From last Sunday till today. This has been another busy, busy week since a three day long weekend with the Monday as an extra public holiday...

There's obviously so much tasks to do. ACAN's modelling of my 3D character, Chubble and learning the Character Studio features' tutorials, AAUP's audio recording assignments that seems very relaxed and easy after being finished but yet it is more than meets the eye. Last but not least, the FYP tasks these and there but I just do all of the mounting tasks without a fixed schedule along the way with my friends.

On Tueday, I was doing the weekly report of the project diary for FYP, I realised that my team was supposed to compiled to some collages of textures and colours for our director Mike. But it was kind of late as I was realised at around 12am of Wednesday when I think all the rest should be asleep. I couldn't do anything.

Well, so much for be an initiative leader. But hey, I'm no memory bank and don't hope on me always. I forget things at times. But for that far reputation of being able to remember or recording down deadlines of tasks and assignments seems to vanish in me.

The reason I figured was too simple. I'm just too tired mentally. The gift I once have is almost gone.

Because of that past reputation, I have classmates and coursemates around me depending me on these sorts of information. Frankly speaking, I can say now to them is, "WHY DON'T YOU PEOPLE ALL FUCKING BE INITIATIVE AND GO FIND IT OUT YOURSELF?!"

I had had enough. Last time all these remembering this and that caused me too much worries and stresses. They'll have to be more self-inform and remember things and events themselves.

Of course being the leader, I remember the teams I need to remember. But my team members, I think, were still too dependent on me for all sorts of things. For the collages supposed to hand up on Wednesday's meeting with director Mike was totally forgotten, only to be realised on that meeting itself. Even if I told them in the morning, they couldn't do anything for their collages.

I was hoping that the self-appointed art director and the assistant art director would remember the task of compiling the collages which is their job actually. In the end, like everyone else in the team, they forgot.

I always got a feeling that they were expecting someone to remember for them.

Of course Mike was disappointed with everyone why we didn't do anything during the long weekend. But he didn't reprimanded us, instead he told us that we're supposed to know what we are supposed to do and must be initiative and be more pro-active. He can set deadlines for us but not to the rest of the job for us. He told me, the leader, that "it is time to kick butt".

Yes, I think "it is time to kick butt" if their allow their "butts" for me to kick. I'm a soft-spoken person as well as a soft spoken leader. Though having a great mind to organise and manage, leading a bunch of people with "mind of their own" is a problem for me. Especially with Kent, Shian Wen, Banu and Dawn.

Shian Wen is a pretty close friend and ally with me, so it is not a big problem to get his support and listen to me. But the rest were acting like different politic parties in the parliament, especially Kent, an extremist party. Never will budge as he's the centre of his own universe somewhat.

The thing I can't really stand in the team was the members' "chit-chat sessions" during discussions in a meeting. They never let an individual finish his or her say before cutting in respectfully. They cut into people's lines anyhow. The discussions went haywired.

Worse still, when I already forsee a route or process to work out a topic or task for a solution, they each cut in my line and go detouring all around the solution here and there before finally reaching the true point.

That really frustrates me. They sometimes see nothing I see, or see directly what I see.

I guess it is time for me to evolve and change to become a better leader. It is hard but I'm gonna try to bring out solutions to the many headaches of my FYP team. I'll have to re-structure, re-organise and re-style.

Eiizumi's Crappy/Inspiring Quote or Quotation of this Blog:
"Be initiative, be pro-active and be professional. The keys to success."~ Eiizumi