(Statue seen in London)

“Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better.”

-Florence Nightingale

虽然我个人觉得今年的春节气氛似乎不是太强烈，还是要祝福大家在新的一年可以过得饱满，过得充实！

我个人的愿望是可以不断进步，不论学业（*其实很重要）或生活，人际关系和心灵成长，都希望可以更好。家人和朋友也欢愉地过日子。

妈妈准备包红包给我了！祝福大家也拿红包拿到手软噢！

Well, I have also been rather busy this week in particular. Other than my part-time job in ACRC (Asian Communication Resource Centre – a rather funny name for a simple 2-floor library), I took up an ad-hoc job as a phone interviewer for some year4s Fyp. Haha, it was rather smart of them to not reveal the topic of the research in the email recruit letter, haha when I got there, then I was told that it was a study on the public perceptions of homosexuals. Well, there’s no backing up for me, at least no need to, but I felt initially that it was going to be really challenging.

Indeed it was, there were a couple of hung-ups straight after I revealed the topic and also a couple of irritated voices warning me to NOT call again cos that will constitute harrassment. Haha, more frequently, I get housewives or senior citizens who tell me initially that they are not able to give me answers at all because of their low education level, however after some persuasion I could get them to try out some questions. However, just like many academic researches, the terms and sentence structure used are not really used in normal life conversation sort of verbal expression. There are terms that some do not understand fully and according to the “rules” we are not allowed to explain or to alter the sentences read out to them. While it is important for us to get their opinion, I trust that it would be much better if we could have a certain level of freedom to make the sentence more comprehensible for them by for e.g, using much simpler words, giving real-life examples.

Well well, there is so much to learn if I were to conduct my own research, so I guess I might be focusing on Journ as my specialisation (though I still believe that it doesn’t matter as much in NTU as 1) the degree does not specify which specialisation you graduated from 2) it always helps to have a wide interest in all topics related to media, at least for myself – the jill of all trades) But well, journ is still my top choice la!

Did I mention that I’m taking 24 academic units this semester? Haha, that’s in compensation for all the slacking in Budapest (Oh, Budapest…) so I’m taking the maximum AUs allowed though I thought it might be unnecessary as I have taken like 20 and 22 each for my first year..well. KIASU fx la you can say. At last minute of STARS still went on to  grab CS818 which is about personal information management; not an easy module at all.

Some other courses I’m taking are

1) IMC – Integrated Marking Comm (COM258)

2) Visual Literacy (COM206)

3) Interpersonal Comm (COM254)

4) Digital Lifestyle (EE8092)

5) Newspaper Practicum

Hahha, newspaper practicum is writing for ny chronicle, i managed to get my first byline but it was really toughhhhh. Haha wished I heeded jieying’s advice to not take it up, for only 2AUs, i gotta churn out 5 pieces of articles for chronicle that must be published and not spiked!! XDDDDD GGXX! Wish me luck! By the way, my article could be read here la.

CNY is coming Hopefully I get a nice break that time!

Hmm, not sure if this is good to be said here.but recently I had a spate with my really good friend and I haven’t found a good way to resolve this with her…not sure if it’s too late to do, i guess i might have been immersing myself in work to avoid thinking about this. not a really good way i think..well, anyone tell me what to do?

Haha, but I hope I don’t have to go to the doc this time round, it’s just a lil cold and a headache, I will survive! Haha, look! I survived Europe! This is NOTHING!!!! >.<

I couldn’t read your stupid signs and you couldn’t tell from mine,

so what else is left to say

when all is left unsaid.

Taken in a Prague palace (the biggest palace in the world). So, I am bewildered by the fascination over this supposedly mundane chore of changing guards..tourists seem to have a great interest in this procession that simply does not awe me. But like them, I stood with the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, camera in my hand, trying to get a good position to capture these smart-looking guys (except for one who couldn’t help sniggering, I suspect he’s a noob)…