Friday blues

Hmm.

This morning I woke up really early.. at 6am. We were supposed to reach school around 7:50 so that we could catch a chartered bus from NYP Block M to Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Apparently there was some talk going on at NP, an experienced designer was giving us his time to share his experiences working on projects both in and outside of Motorola, where he is currently working now.

My dad drove me out to Upper Serangoon road, and I walked to a bus stop along Braddel Road where I was picked up by Alvin and his folks in their car. It was a previous arrangement because I dreaded waking up early and yet still be late because of the MRT ride.

We reached school 20 minutes too early, and Alvin spent some time playing a game on his laptop.. Daeus Ex.. or something like that. I was too stoned out to really pay much attention to the game's details, unlike Alvin, who was so fired up (about the game and its storyline) that he could have caused a spectacle.

By the time we were supposed to leave, only about 7 people had arrived and were ready to go. A bunch of my classmates and a few from Alvin's class were running pretty late.. which caused Garry to become incredibly irritated. I rarely saw Garry all riled up and furious.. it was on one previous experience which taught me to never get on his wrong side. And on that occasion it was my class people's fault as well.

I have no idea why some people just want to be late. It may not be intentional, but sometimes.. it's just so darn irritating that people have no regard to other's feeling.. making us wait for them with Garry striding around like and angry bull.. muttering his displeasure. It was very tense in that bus.

The talk at NP... was rather boring.. because I really could not understand the speaker (he's a Korean dude, and his Engrish (pun intended) was rather chocked with his Korean accent). Eventually when it came to the Q&A session, Jool, Alvin and I could not resist to not ask him some really chim questions.. but only Jool and I managed to stump him with our questions. Alvin later commented: 'you just couldn't resist killing him, didn't you?'

Alvin was right, I could not resist the temptation. But that said.. the questions asked by the NP people were really dumb.. like: 'how much do you earn?' or 'what are your working hours like?' and (I seriously could not understand the reason behind this one): 'do you work at home after work?'.

Forgive me for not suffering fools gladly, but if you're studying design, I'm guessing something's wrong with your school's curriculum if you don't work on ur projects at home after school. Either that or you've got some incredibly superb time management skills.

The talk culmulated in a small makan (I had third servings of noodles, soon kueh and cakes.. while Alvin had cakes for all three rounds... rofl) and a tour of the design facilities in NP. The moment I walked into their facility, the first thought which came to my mind was 'D&T freaks'. Why? Because whatever those people were doing.. it seemed like souped-up D&T projects. The only thing which surpassed NYP were their model-making facilities. They had almost every Rapid-prototyping machine availible, a full-scale workshop and even injection and blow-moulding machines WTF. To even hope that NYP IDC would have such facilities would porbably end in severe disappointment. I mean... we have final-year students having to share computers. WTF is that all about? The space is slowly getting smaller and they expect the work to get better.

Th only consolation is that the Product design people at NP.. well their standard is seriously below that of NYP. But I have to take into consideration that their programme is just 2 years old.. which means they have no 3rd year students... and only 1st and 2nd year student. That said, their stuff was either too D&T, or way too arty-farty. No kidding.

We went back to school (halfway through we suddenly realised JX had been left behind LOL).. a short lunch for me was soon preceded by a full-scale attack on my rhino model-making for my bike stand concept. I managed to finish my model by 3 pm.. after having a start at about 1pm. I also proposed a new product to Ms Liu for Braun Prize, and she was swayed over by my proposal. Furthermore, she also took a look at my bike stand concept and she was rather happy with it (I hope).

I went home.. feeling incredibly lethargic. I just thank goodness that my work tomorrow has been shifted from the morning to afternoon (Yay! No need to face off with unreasonable customers!) and I'd probably be meeting one of my colleagues for the last time. She's nice, but prone to spacing out at times.


Cheers,

Crawldaddy