3 aspects of life in autumn 2006

It has been an enjoyable and eventful autumn term, it seems that it was just yesterday that i left the airport. time just whizz past and it's the end of term now... before i left, the three things that i set out to concentrate on in london were god, studies and running and thankfully, managed to have integrated these three aspects into my life and they have been quite fruitful.

God

Before i came here, i was quite apprehensive that with heavy workload and lack of christian friends, i would just neglect my spiritual relationship with god. thankfully, god has drawn me closer to him through my friends. it all started with a simple phone call to shining, asking her if i could put up at her place with bryan and joseph while searching for apt during my first wk in london. a chain of events led us stay together, and i guess because of them too, i went to all souls church and ocf (overseas christian fellowship) i really thank god that i like the church alot, the messages are so contemporary but the service is tradiational and serious. thank god too for ocf and my small group!! they have been important in keeping my faith alive and making my stay in london to be filled with the love of brothers and sisters in christ. i guess this is the power of having a fellowship... haha, it seems that its really enjoyable to go for bible studies on fri nights and supper following that... i really do enjoy the time with them... it kindda reminded me of my own cabbages small group back in singapore...

Studies

This term has been quite hectic, i wouldn't say extremely though. I started off feeling kind of stress about rationalising and brain storming of ideas and concepts but as time goes by, i guess we all began to understand the gameplay better. though the workload is still heavy but i think i managed to keep the stress level lower. it has been an eye opener too. having coming straight from a levels, we are all to accustomed with our rigid system and final product driven mentality, and i am still learning to get use to AA's culture of continuous experimenting and learning from mistakes. i used ot think that learning from mistakes and improving from mistakes was easy but after a term here, i realised that we were soooo lacking that aspect in our education system. we would always fixate our thoughts and ideas on getting to the final product or outcome... but our tutors would always want us not to have a fixed outcome and just have faith in experimenting. reviewing on my performance, i guess i have not really been every creative and i just don't have the artsy flare, i guess i'm a very information based and rational type of designer... i dun really have the fluff and creative juices that produce works that evoke the senses... but i know my passion at least... haha, thank god for my media studies... there were four courses for media studies to choose from for autumn term: drawing, construction and drawing, information system and videa. i chose drawing and info sys (we have to make 2 choices and the tutors will randomly select us)... the main reason why i chose drawing was because i do not know how to draw for nuts at all!!! but thankfully i ended up in info sys class cuz that was where my real passion lies... making maps and diagrams through tonnes of information... haha, it was really fun... hee, managed to get my first result back, which was very encouraging, a dist! heee... i guess this is the only course where the tutor actually gave a dist, for the drawing classes, the highest grading was only a high pass.. but this is just the first term... shall continue to work hard... i guess i should put in more effort into my studio work and try to learn as much as possible...

Running

Haha, i just joined a track club (Highgate Harriers) a month ago and it is really refreshing to be back on track again... easpecailly training at such a scenic location of the foot of parliament hill and the start of hampstead heath... running at 2 deg was also new experience and challenge... slowly getting my fitness back too... hopefully i'll be fit enough by apr 07 for competitions...