Reflections on NUS - 2007/2008
Year 3, with half of it spent in NZ, and the other half in Singapore absolutely just zoomed past. And before I knew it, I was standing on the edge of final year, with totally no idea of what it was going to be like.
Summer hols at the end of year 3 was quite enriching, I spent half a week at Absolut Camp, half a week in Myanmar, half a week at Marina Mandarin as a student helper for a Social Work conference, half a week at Camp SOS (Social Work freshman camp) at Caiying's request, and half a week at YEP Leaders' training.
I think there were several things of this holidays that eventually became turning points in my life. Firstly, having spent about a week in total at Absolut Camp and Camp SOS, I had gotten to know many social work friends whom I might never have gotten to know. One of whom was Caiying, who I kinda started giving more attention to as the realisation that she was leaving NUS became more and more real. And I truly, honestly, purely, enjoyed the friendship!
The other major turning point for me was the 4 days spent at the Conference. It was at this conference that I got to know most of the people I would eventually spend most of my honours year with. Some of those at that conference were Alexis, Kaiyin, Cindy, Amanda, Yuan and RachLim and Xinyan. I would say that even under pretty high stress at churning out conference transcripts, we really enjoyed ourselves a lot. And I was so glad to know these people!
The other major thing that I did in this year, was of course 2 major projects. The first of which was my Honours Thesis. I really must say, from the very beginning, it was a very God-led project. From deciding on a topic, formulating research questions, making the thesis proposal presentation, IRB approvals, finding research samples, meeting them for interviews, transcribing, and finally coding and writing the final report.
Year 4 was an eventful year. Social work modules were tougher, more intellectual, and required much more thinking. I think it was these modules that prompted me to think more deeply into many issues and reflect more on many things in my life such as how my family influences me. I became closer to most of my classmates. And this class really did many many things together.. wear same colour to school la, loh hei during CNY la, christmas party la, captains' ball la.. many many things.
In a sense, in year 4, what was most precious to me was no longer the pursuit of grades, even though the new learning did help me intellectually. The most precious thing I got in this year was security. After years of going through rejection in one form or another, in one magnitude or another, it was really hanging out with this bunch of social work classmates that helped me to truly find security. They were a group that I was totally comfortable with, who never judged but always sought to understand and accept me. It was so rare, and so precious.
And yeap, towards the end of year 4 sem 1, an unexpected blessing kind of dropped from the sky. You know what I mean, but that's another story for another day. :)
Summer hols at the end of year 3 was quite enriching, I spent half a week at Absolut Camp, half a week in Myanmar, half a week at Marina Mandarin as a student helper for a Social Work conference, half a week at Camp SOS (Social Work freshman camp) at Caiying's request, and half a week at YEP Leaders' training.
I think there were several things of this holidays that eventually became turning points in my life. Firstly, having spent about a week in total at Absolut Camp and Camp SOS, I had gotten to know many social work friends whom I might never have gotten to know. One of whom was Caiying, who I kinda started giving more attention to as the realisation that she was leaving NUS became more and more real. And I truly, honestly, purely, enjoyed the friendship!
The other major turning point for me was the 4 days spent at the Conference. It was at this conference that I got to know most of the people I would eventually spend most of my honours year with. Some of those at that conference were Alexis, Kaiyin, Cindy, Amanda, Yuan and RachLim and Xinyan. I would say that even under pretty high stress at churning out conference transcripts, we really enjoyed ourselves a lot. And I was so glad to know these people!
The other major thing that I did in this year, was of course 2 major projects. The first of which was my Honours Thesis. I really must say, from the very beginning, it was a very God-led project. From deciding on a topic, formulating research questions, making the thesis proposal presentation, IRB approvals, finding research samples, meeting them for interviews, transcribing, and finally coding and writing the final report.
Year 4 was an eventful year. Social work modules were tougher, more intellectual, and required much more thinking. I think it was these modules that prompted me to think more deeply into many issues and reflect more on many things in my life such as how my family influences me. I became closer to most of my classmates. And this class really did many many things together.. wear same colour to school la, loh hei during CNY la, christmas party la, captains' ball la.. many many things.
In a sense, in year 4, what was most precious to me was no longer the pursuit of grades, even though the new learning did help me intellectually. The most precious thing I got in this year was security. After years of going through rejection in one form or another, in one magnitude or another, it was really hanging out with this bunch of social work classmates that helped me to truly find security. They were a group that I was totally comfortable with, who never judged but always sought to understand and accept me. It was so rare, and so precious.
And yeap, towards the end of year 4 sem 1, an unexpected blessing kind of dropped from the sky. You know what I mean, but that's another story for another day. :)
0 comments:
Post a Comment