Sigh. I cannot believe my damn luck.

I ranked the NM3210 tutorial slot #1 and I STILL didn't get it. I wonder how they allocate the slots if demand exceeds supply... randomly? Because the only other slot I can attend is the one that's on my free day and is at 8am. This also means that I get to travel all the way to school for just that one hour, from 8-9am.

I started my first semester with an 8am class and never had those ever since. I really don't want to end my last semester with another 8am class!!!

NM3210 is starting to look worse and worse.

*angry*

Waiting for my video to load. So I'm taking this time to blog, else I'd probably never get around doing it.

Well, the day I've been waiting for ever since I started my internship 11 weeks ago has finally come and gone. There's a little odd feeling I get. And also the discovery that MAYBE I could really live the life of an OL for the next 40 years or so. Maybe these things, once you get settled into a routine, you just take it as it comes and 认命 - that life is going to be like this.

And the internship. I'd like to think that I did really learn something from it. Even though this internship wasn't compulsory, and even though I may just end up doing something totally unrelated in the future, I think yes, I did learn many things about the working life.

As an intern, I did lots of miscellaneous stuff, or for the lack of a better word - sai kang. They range from the mundane (photocopying) to the physical (packing and shipping CDs) to the tedious (proofreading, especially Vietnamese copy @____@) and my favourite, delivering stuff and running errands around the island. There was also the downright insulting task (male boss once asked me to peel a sticky label off the spine of a CD) and the emails, the calling - oh gosh I really hate the calling.

The meetings, where half the time I would just sit there with my eyes glazed. But I have to admit that it was really interesting to see how people work in the real world context. And also to see their thinking process. I guess all this is what a uni education trains you for, all that analytical thinking and whatnot.

Learning how to work with different people. Learning how to communicate efficiently. Learning that the way to piss other people off is by being fussy, unreasonable and demanding. Learning how to be diplomatic and courteous. Now I understand why we have an entire section on e-mail writing in NM3219.

More importantly, I think this internship kinda opened a tiny little window into my future. Provided me with options. Can I see myself doing this next time? I am still thinking hard.

Also the memorable characters - liaising with Mega Jerk, hounding Bar Guy and Sian-Sounding Client for their stuff, my boss the Witch who is prone to letting out random shrieks and needs anger management classes, the many faceless Business Partners I've spoken to, and my colleagues who are really nice folks even though at times I will I feel like I'm on a different wavelength with them. I will remember the lunches, muffins, Soup Spoon, prata at the prata shop next to Fong Seng (in my 3 years at NUS I've never been to Fong Seng and the first time I go there is with my colleagues), complaining about the Witch over lunch and MSN...

So I've said my goodbyes, bought muffins, took photos, thanked my colleagues for their parting gift to me, collected my cheque, promised to visit, and I walked out feeling this finality - I'd probably never come back here to work if I can help it, but yes it's really, truly over. I would say those 11 weeks felt like the longest 11 weeks of my life. I still think so now actually. I do not know what is this I am feeling - relief, happiness, sadness, regret, poignancy, indifference? Maybe a bit of everything.

Gonna enjoy this last week of holidays before I become a student again. I have plenty of videos to watch, Harry Potter books to read (thanks to my colleagues, I now have the entire series of Harry Potter books!), sleep my fill, meet up with Saint who is finally back from Switz!!! Check out the NIE website, sort out my hard drives... amongst many other things. Think about my future. This one scares me the most.

Oh, and I secured my German module for 1 point. Damn anti-climax. So I guess this is the end of my bidding stories, unless I decide to bid for something else for fun and lord over the year ones coz I have lots of bidding power! Hurhur.

Great, my video has loaded. Gonna finish up this episode. Frankly, I am quite disappointed with my lack of ability to process my thoughts into meaningful sentences nowadays. I can't even spell for nuts without checking dictionary.com every now and then. I think too much video watching has woolified my brain.

My hands are freezing.

The lack of competition for German is making me feel disappointed! I'm the only bidder for that particular group and it's only going for one point. I can't believe it. I have 1631 points and it's only going for 1 point?! This is so anti-climax lah!!! I was looking forward to some exciting bidding action and "showhanding" my 1631 points!

Bleargh. I think the exciting action will only happen in Round 2a when it's open to people from other facs.

Today is Empress's birthday! Happy Birthday Empress!!! :)

(I wrote this at work but now it's already 130am...
FINALLY. One more work day left!!!)

There is hardly a semester that goes by without me mentioning about bidding. Bidding, January, August. They are now synonymous! I don't know why I am so fond of talking about my bidding conquests. I think it's just a bad habit from the horrifics of bidding long long ago... watching the numbers increase with every refresh button you hit... and who can forget the server meltdown in 2005, compounded by the fact that everyone was trying to access the dying CORS. :) So anyway, here is my obligatory post about bidding.

The Module Preference exercise completely slipped out of my mind, hence no pre-allocated modules. Had to ration a bit coz I still need a large chunk of my points for German, but still managed to get my 2NM modules for 500 and 301 points respectively in Round 1a. That is a lot of points, especially have seeing that a lot of Psych mods go for 1 point, but since I have 2600+ to splurge as it's my last sem... and I see EC and PS mods going for even higher... it's a small consolation. Haha.

I have 1000+ General account points though, and I think it's such a waste coz I have nothing to spend it on. I'd gladly donate it to any year one who needs it, hahaha.

But then, I thought that bidding was going smoothly last sem and look where it got me now?

While I was putting off doing proper work at work, I saw this interesting sounding SW module - Human Development over the Lifespan. I want to know if right now I'm in a stage of my life called "The Quarter-life Crisis". Will they tell me that?

And so comes the classification of myself as a year 3-or-4 student. Because I'm sure there will be those useless introductory segments in tutorials where you are expected to say something remotely fascinating about yourself. Now, am I a year 3 or a year 4? Because technically I am not a year 4 student! But this is my 7th semester in NUS. So yes, I guess I'm a year 3.5.
And for once I am looking forward to school starting because it means that I don't have to work.

Getting hooked onto yet another K-drama... this one's called Fantasy Couple and I'm only at episode 5 and getting rather annoyed coz I really want to move forward with the story but the video loading is not cooperating.
Really looking forward to next week! I seem to think that I can accomplish a lot in that one short week of rest when in actual fact I'd probably spend half my time sleeping and the other half on useless stuff.

Aiiishhh tomorrow is Thursday. One of those stuck-in-limbo days.

But! 2 more days!!! :)