Reflections on NUS - 2005/2006
And so, year 1 in Uni came and flashed past my consciousness. Before I knew it, I had finished 2 semesters, the second of which was a relative disaster compared to the first sem which I did relatively well.
Year 2 was significant for many many things. I think it was perhaps the year that I took on the most challenges upon myself to handle. I had declined a position on the NUS Nav exco as I felt God leading me to work with NUSHA (Humanitarian Affairs), but committed myself to live with a group of Nav brothers in a place we rented at Clementi so I did not have to commute every day.
In this house, I lived for a year with 6 other brothers: Qingxiang (Mainland Chinese), Ma Hua (Mainland Chinese), Cuong (Vietnamese), William (M'sian, now a missionary in the Philippines), Jieyao (M'sian) and his brother Jye Hui. I must say, it was a pretty interesting living under one roof with 6 other guys of different nationalities. We spoke different languages, lived differently, cooked differently and were used to different things. But for the most part, things were amicable between all of us and I had a good time with Qingxiang.
NUSHA continued to take up a huge proportion of my time, both during the extended summer break and during term time. Summer break was spent trying to organise another overseas trip to Bangladesh, a freshman orientation camp, and attending an international Youth Conference. It was all incredibly crazy, especially the organisation of the camp. And we did all that with a manpower of 6, in the space of 3 months. It was at this FOC that I discovered that I actually had the capacity and charisma to give talks, and I did so for 3 nights in a row, speaking on volunteering, life and giving.
Bangladesh, after 6 months of planning, finally came to fruition in December of that year, and we spent a total of 13 days in and outside Dhaka. It was definitely eye-opening, in more ways than one. What else can I say? Hmm, if you want to hear more, come ask me about it! :)
The chances NUSHA gave me, I wouldn't have traded for anything else in the world. For the first time, I was doing many many things I never dreamt of doing, and I found myself diving head-first, neck-deep into most of them.
In the process of all this, I must say, I found a really good friend that I ended off mentioning in the previous blogpost. Hobbit deserves more than the cursory mention here definitely, but I shan't say too much for confidentiality and for the fact of most of you readers would fall asleep. I think one of the coolest things about the NUSHA committee was the fact that we were all very very good friends. And we really helped each other out a lot without complaints or politics. Jacq, Viggie, Ruth, Sab. :)
Sem 2 was one of the most inspiring semesters I had in social work. I mean, I took 2 modules under Dr Sim. What do you think?
And in both classes, there was a classmate, tutorial mate and project group mate, who would become very special. She came to introduce herself to me by stunning me with: "Hi. You're Liren rite? Zhixiang's friend rite?"
*Liren sits there with mouth gaping*
Oh. And there was a curry puff and 2 blogposts about hands and kueh involved too. :)
Year 2 was significant for many many things. I think it was perhaps the year that I took on the most challenges upon myself to handle. I had declined a position on the NUS Nav exco as I felt God leading me to work with NUSHA (Humanitarian Affairs), but committed myself to live with a group of Nav brothers in a place we rented at Clementi so I did not have to commute every day.
In this house, I lived for a year with 6 other brothers: Qingxiang (Mainland Chinese), Ma Hua (Mainland Chinese), Cuong (Vietnamese), William (M'sian, now a missionary in the Philippines), Jieyao (M'sian) and his brother Jye Hui. I must say, it was a pretty interesting living under one roof with 6 other guys of different nationalities. We spoke different languages, lived differently, cooked differently and were used to different things. But for the most part, things were amicable between all of us and I had a good time with Qingxiang.
NUSHA continued to take up a huge proportion of my time, both during the extended summer break and during term time. Summer break was spent trying to organise another overseas trip to Bangladesh, a freshman orientation camp, and attending an international Youth Conference. It was all incredibly crazy, especially the organisation of the camp. And we did all that with a manpower of 6, in the space of 3 months. It was at this FOC that I discovered that I actually had the capacity and charisma to give talks, and I did so for 3 nights in a row, speaking on volunteering, life and giving.
Bangladesh, after 6 months of planning, finally came to fruition in December of that year, and we spent a total of 13 days in and outside Dhaka. It was definitely eye-opening, in more ways than one. What else can I say? Hmm, if you want to hear more, come ask me about it! :)
The chances NUSHA gave me, I wouldn't have traded for anything else in the world. For the first time, I was doing many many things I never dreamt of doing, and I found myself diving head-first, neck-deep into most of them.
In the process of all this, I must say, I found a really good friend that I ended off mentioning in the previous blogpost. Hobbit deserves more than the cursory mention here definitely, but I shan't say too much for confidentiality and for the fact of most of you readers would fall asleep. I think one of the coolest things about the NUSHA committee was the fact that we were all very very good friends. And we really helped each other out a lot without complaints or politics. Jacq, Viggie, Ruth, Sab. :)
Sem 2 was one of the most inspiring semesters I had in social work. I mean, I took 2 modules under Dr Sim. What do you think?
And in both classes, there was a classmate, tutorial mate and project group mate, who would become very special. She came to introduce herself to me by stunning me with: "Hi. You're Liren rite? Zhixiang's friend rite?"
*Liren sits there with mouth gaping*
Oh. And there was a curry puff and 2 blogposts about hands and kueh involved too. :)
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