It’s been a long time since I posted anything on this blog. But I think this email I received from the NTU Students’ Union deserves to be the first post on my blog in a long while. There were some people who questioned the humour in this email and started a debate on whether polo shirts were a viable piece of clothing in Singapore’s hot climate, until they realised a missing letter. It brightened up my day. I hope it brightens up yours too.

This was a teaser to promote the opening of the new Student Cafe at our school, which was last year.

Pretty good combination I would say.

Sure, NTU has been getting some pretty bad press lately, but it looks like our garden campus just showed us what it was really capable of in the last week. Beautiful white and pink flowers have been blooming around the campus, and they look almost like cherry blossoms. I thought I’d go for a walk and take some pictures with my trusty LX3. Enjoy the full gallery after the break.

The more we try to figure out this case, the more we found various oddities which are not disclose. Due to clarifying from David’s best friend from NTU called Edwin who already pawned his bachelor degree we would like to express our big gratitude toward him for trying to reveal the truth. Finally we would like to spread the truth story about David Hartanto , our best friend.

The mainstream media states that he had committed those acts because he was depressed about his FYP project and his terminated scholarship. I’m sure we all agree they were not substantial reasons to push an intellectually gifted student like Widjaja to commit such a crime. In fact, Andrianto writes,

In some Media had Mentioned David stressed because his scholarship was terminated last month, he had attacked a wrong person because of misunderstanding. Does all this issue so oddity? David was clearly conscious that his scholarship will be terminated because his performance was falling down and that’s not professor false. Moreover David’s father claimed that David had told them 3 weeks ago, soon after he received message from NTU. And Family accepted and could bear the fee since it will be the last semester in NTU for David.

I always take conspiracy theories with a pinch of salt, as I would do with this article. However we should also always never come to any conclusion without looking through every possible angle. We shouldn’t be so quick to label Widjaja as a depressed lunatic. Spread the word, and let’s hope that justice will be served.

The full article can be found here.

It is with a heavy heart that I inform you that one of our colleagues, Mr Zhou Zheng, an infocomm project officer was found to have passed away in an apartment at Nanyang Heights at about 10.50pm on Friday, 6 March 2009. The Dean of Students, the university counselling professionals and other senior university officers were on site immediately to offer support and counsel.

This is really bad publicity for our university. Along with this week’s student suicide and attempted murder, this sort of implies that the staff here are as stressed out as the students are. People are speculating that it is a copycat suicide but I really doubt it.

Katsumi Mukai, the Japanese sculptor that I mentioned a few days ago has set up his exhibition of works he made while gracing our school for the past 2 weeks. Yup, he made all these at our school. In 2 weeks. The exhibition will last till 31st March at NTU, School of Art, Design and Media. More pictures of the opening after the break.

Hans Bacher, the legendary production designer for Disney’s Mulan and other great movies came down to NTU to give a lecture on colour and composition. This was a fantastic refresher course in how to create effective images. We often get so bogged down with datelines that we forget to incorporate basic rules of colour and composition in our works. We students need reminders like this every so often. Not to mention the harsh but constructive critiques he gave for all those who dared to approach him for advice. Tough love man.

In early May to end July 2009, we will be carrying out upgrading and refurbishment works in the student rooms and common facilities in Halls 8 to 11, 12 (blks 59 & 60 only) and 13 to 15. This upgrading and refurbishment exercise is necessary to ensure that these Halls will be comfortable but not lavish to accommodate the inaugural Youth Olympic Games athletes, coaches and officials from over 200 countries next year.

So I guess they’re implying that the halls in the current state are not comfortable eh. What I really wish they did were to build more halls to accomodate the influx of the Dragon baby boomers, and the increase in student intake due to the new schools formed in the past few years. The student intake has risen substantially, but the amount of accomodation has remained the same. We are fighting tooth and nail to retain our accomodation, and now we’re giving up half of our rooms to the Youth Olympic Games.

I’m sure this scene is repeated in the other faculties: people sleeping overnight in school on chairs and tables, because they work late into the night, and have to be in school first thing in the morning for lessons. We’re not situated in the most convenient of places, especially for the people staying on the other side of the island. We’re not NUS, nor SMU. It takes 2 hours for me to travel to school, and that’s only because I do not have to take a long bus ride to the MRT, and I do not have to transfer to a different train line. It takes even longer for those living along the NEL. I am thankful that I am currently staying in a hall, but there are others without one and yet take a longer time to travel to school.

A brand new Olympic Village would have been out of the question due to the rising construction costs, but are 2 or 3 more halls of residences too much to ask for? We could use this opportunity as hosts of the YOG to ensure students do not have to live in their school building, rather than ensure that the existing halls are comfortable. I am really proud that our country is hosting the YOG, but we should also take a look at how we can help our own students, while showing the world that we are a world class host.

Katsumi Mukai, a Japanese wood sculptor will be in ADM till the 5th of March to conduct workshops. For the rest of you, his sculptures will be displayed on the first level outside of the ADM building. Highly recommended. The sculptures feel very Andy Goldsworthy.