the death of magazines?

by

We discussed in ADV483 about the death of print, tv, and radio. With the internet sticking around, these media are suffering. Anyway, someone in my class said that if anything at all, he thinks magazines would be the first to go. Prof. Clifton just laughed coz she said immediately after he said that, a few hands shot up in the air – all female. Apparently men around the early 20’s are a hard target market for magazines which is why men would argue against magazines while women would be like “uh uh, you ain’t taking away my magazines.”

Sure, I’m one of those female tech nerds. I cannot live without the internet. My dad says my eyes are turning square like the computer monitor coz I spend too much time on the computer. My sis used to say I would never get a boyfriend coz I keep sticking to the computer and don’t meet people (GUYS in particular) outside. Proved her wrong anyway since I’m now with a wonderful guy for two years already. That’s all beside the point. The point is I spend hours on the computer, yet there are moments when I feel I need to read a magazine. Even if I know the magazines might pile up coz I might not have time to read them, I damn well need a magazine to flip through.

I like magazines coz they are easy reading material. I like certain magazines just coz I like the layout. Incidentally, even when I entered college, I was still reading CosmoGirl. The magazine was targeted at high school kids, but I simply loved the layout so much. Not to mention that I’ve been reading this magazine since its first issue.

My best argument why magazines are here to stay: You can bring your laptop into the loo when you’re doing the big one, but it isn’t comfortable. Reading magazines is a much better choice of activity while in the loo.

in my world

by

In my world, we walk in coloured bubbles. Mine is pink of course.

In my world, we listen to happy music on our cute little headphones.

In my world, we only know happiness and the best things are smiles.

In my world, we survive on hugs and happy air.

How I wish I could live in my world forever.

PS: An event that occurred earlier today prompted me to write this.

the sudden realisation

by

やっぱりね。

The feeling. The horror that creeps up to you and washes all over you. I knew it. I knew it all along that it was a mistake. Even as we sat in those meetings then, a small part of me knew that it was all a mistake and those who unknowingly came forward to pitch their ideas had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They will literally wasting their time for something that would never have even happened in the first place.

No. That’s not what hit me suddenly. As I was reading my ADV450 book (yup, the one that makes me laugh), the chapter assigned for reading was about those monster-type clients you’ll meet in your advertising career lifetime…I was reading about that one type – the hack. The one who talks over and over about one great idea and shoves it down your throat.

It hit me. It happened didn’t it? The way I was made to go to him and he told me his fabulous idea. The idea that someone told me later that it was used as the first version and that was a long way back. The work that I was supposed to do, but didn’t happen in the end coz I couldn’t produce it…coz I just wasn’t good enough. Fast forward. It is now produced by someone else and they’re so proud of it. Sure. The thing is that I could produce that too. Ok, anyway that’s beside the point. The point is…the colour…the buttons. It resembles what he told me. So, it happened didn’t it? そうでしょう？でしょう？酷いね。。。

pick a number from 1 to 9

by

We failed miserably. Everyone from the Spring 2010 ADV450 creative class. Our first little test of whether those creative juices flowed within us.

The test was simple. We were told to pick a number from 1 to 9. Our lecturer then had us all put our hands up. Every time he called out a number and it corresponded to the one we had in mind, we put down our hand. It only took him 9 tries to get everyone’s hand down. But of course, there can only be 9 numbers from 1 to 9 right? WRONG. What happened to 3.5 or 2.3333333 or one and a quarter? Aren’t those numbers too? He didn’t say to pick a WHOLE number from 1 to 9. We just assumed it.

The lesson was to not let our assumptions limit us, our creativity.

That I will have to argue. I told Jayce about that little interesting test. Even he said that only a creative class would allow for such answers. Any other class would just have you labeled as the class joker and smart aleck.

Because this is how the world functions. How society has shaped the majority of us to be. You would need some guts to go against it, to allow yourself to be that class joker or smart aleck kid and not be bothered by how other people think of you.

That’s exactly how Singapore functions. We mug and mug to become the elite. We mug and mug to give the correct answers in class. Creativity? Sure, they talked about thinking out of the box and all, but how come I still cringe when the teacher calls on me? How come I’m so afraid of making mistakes? How come I’m still afraid that my classmates will think I’m stupid.

I’m afraid I can’t teach you anything just because I studied overseas and you probably think I can bring fresh ideas to the table. No. I do not have the magic or capability to change how things have been done in a certain way for X number of years. Each of you have it in yourselves. You can either do it the same way you’ve been doing for X number of years or you can prepare yourself and allow the change to be made.

I’m sorry, the last paragraph is kind of a rant over a job/work.

technology and us

by

[edited on January 26, 2010 @ 12.46pm]

Apparently my friend is required to bring the tablet PC to class everyday to take notes and do research. So what if it is supposed to last for 4 years. What happened to the traditional pen and notebook? Haha, the teacher is soon going to regret it because half the time, students will be surfing Facebook.

[edited]

I was curious when a childhood friend tweeted about getting a tablet PC. Knowing that she is in secondary school, I was wondering why she even needed one. She said her school wanted their students to use it for research and learning purposes. I was appalled when she said that it was bought and not even loaned by the school.

My question is why would secondary school students need a laptop or even a tablet PC for that matter? I understand that technology is advancing and has become a part of our lives. No longer are the days of flipping through books and encyclopedias for information for a school project. These days, students just turn to the internet. However, to ask students to buy a tablet PC for school use is just too much. I expected the school to be loaning these technology gadgets if they thought that their students needed it for learning purposes.

Isn’t your home desktop or the desktops in the school computer lab good enough for research? How much research does a secondary school student even do to warrant for the use of a laptop? I’m a college student who owns a laptop. Even I seldom bring out my laptop for research and learning purposes.

How about students whose families can’t afford laptops for their children? Does that mean these children are going to be at the losing end when it comes to their education?

Technology and Singapore’s education system wows me sometimes.

get a life, please

by

Things just got messier huh? Click to read the article.

All this media attention Ris Low is getting has got to stop. What is she even thinking? That she can play on the sympathy of Singaporeans? Get a life, please. If she thinks she’s 19, she can jolly well act her age and not her shoe size.

Thought she had learnt her lesson and was taking steps to become a better person. Clearly not. She just craves media attention so much that she would lie and twist facts.

And to those who defended her, do you still want to?

the ris low saga

by

Ok, I’ve been busy and the next thing I know, I have 4 comments on my previous entry waiting to be replied to. That means…my comments box is working fine now! Yay~~~ Thank you guys for your comments. That was the kind of comments I was looking for all along. I wanted to know how people felt, whether they had differing views and whether they were willing to share their differing views.

I shall reply to the comments via this entry.

After all the hype about Ris Low, the whole issue is starting to get a little stale. No doubt I’m still clicking on those news links regarding her in my Twitter feed, but I kind of think it’s time to move on.

I refer to this recent article about her. From this article, I can tell that she has learnt a lot. Despite the bad publicity, she has grown to face it and dealt with it in what I would say a “matured” way. I may have sounded like one of those unforgiving Singaporeans in my previous entry, but I think the most important thing is for people to learn from their mistakes and to strive to become a better person, otherwise, you don’t deserve other people’s understanding.

Perhaps as what Raynor commented, she is only 19 – one of those who hasn’t seen and come to understand the world yet. Maybe she thought a Miss Singapore World title was a glamorous affair and never thought about the other responsibilities that came with the title.

As for her poor English, if she were to brush up her skills, I don’t see why she shouldn’t be given another chance. I just feel that speaking good English is necessary for Singaporeans since we claim our first language to be English and our language of instruction is mainly in English. That should reply to Deanna’s comment. I would understand if she came from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Japan, or any other non-English speaking country. However, she comes from Singapore, a country where its citizens are native speakers of English, there is no excuse for speaking poor English. We probably use the language everyday. Having said that, I’m not boasting that my English is perfect either.

PS: Fran, you can send me that project email.

would you want her to represent us?

by

As we all know, Ris Low gave up her Miss Singpore World 2009 title amidst the criticisms about her poor English and her prior criminal offences. The joke is still on her as spoof videos are made of her and viewed by a wide audience. However, there are also those who defend her. I refer to this letter in TODAY written in response to the issue.

Why do you think those two reasons are not sufficient for her to step down? Sure, Singaporeans may not be as forgiving as we picture ourselves to be, what with the yellow ribbon project, but the fact that she did not even report her prior criminal offences when taking part in the competition is going against the rules. It’s like lying on the immigration form that you have not been previously convicted of any crimes.

We are not fooling the rest of the world that Singaporean English standards are higher than that. Every country who takes part in the competition wants someone to best represent their country, so does Singapore. What is wrong with that? Seeing that your English is so much better, would you want her to represent your country in an international competition?

If Phua Chu Kang could go take English courses to brush up his English after being criticised, so can Ris Low and the rest of Singaporeans who speak as poorly as her. Until she learns how to speak properly, I really don’t think she should be given a second chance.

if i could kill, i would

by

I’m angry. I’m angry. I’m angry.

I’m angry that I chose to believe what those people said at the election day. All the talk about food festival was a good idea. All the talk about we want other people to know about Singapore and SSA. BULLSHIT. I don’t see the passion.

And…it’s making me lose my own drive and passion. One thing I realised from internship, all the excitement and high hopes will not go through unless there are people to share and support it. It takes two hands to clap. I don’t have the energy to keep up without any support.

Maybe I’m having too many things on my plate. James Scholar, trying to get a job at Illini Media, SSA, J-Net, AAF… I already gave up my dream of coordinating the Lolita segment for the fashion show. I couldn’t talk to Jenny on time and I…simply can’t do it all by myself.

Thanks to Tiarra, I finally realised why it has been so quiet on my blog. The captcha code thingy is not showing and so, no one can comment. Yea, my blog does not receive a truckload of comments, but recently it has been too silent…like something’s wrong. ARGH. See, one more thing to settle.

The aquarium is also waiting for me to settle it. It’s not that I find it a chore, but ARGH…where’s all my time? Why do I have to use my time to settle people’s shit? WHY?!

newbies and elitists

by

So I have a new assignment for Journalism class which is to interview a professional journalist.

I spent a night scouring online newspapers and plucking out names. I was wondering whether what I was doing would be fruitful at all. Suddenly I had a brilliant idea to look for an LJ community for Journalism. Was thinking that maybe professional people lurk around such communities to have an idea of what people are talking about. It would certainly be easier to post my question there and have people respond, rather than emailing people I don’t know and having my email not being answere.

I found one and posted my request, crossed my fingers that either someone who worked for the newspapers/tv/radio or someone who knew someone else who worked in that line and could sort of introduce that person to respond.

Well, a few people responded. Of which, one was working for a newspaper. She PMed me. The first reply on my post was by someone who sort of chided me for not doing my own research. Ok, I did. It’s not like I didn’t do my research and then just came round for easy answers. And I thought what I did was perfectly fine. I did that for my first story. I wanted to interview a certain group of people, I emailed them and they didn’t respond. However, I knew someone who might know them. So I asked my friend for help. She became sort of like the middle-man.

Just today, I checked back on the community and saw an angry post by someone who said that he was tired of high-school kids/young adults posting their request and then not bothering to thank everyone that replies. He said that some people had to spend time looking up the answers.

The point is I get rather annoyed when people act like they are elitists. You help because you want to, not because you want something in return. What makes you think that just because the kid didn’t say thank you means he is ungrateful? Yes, even if the kid is ungrateful, that is his loss. With that kind of attitude, he may not get too far in life.

I can’t stand it when people who have been in something for so long, think they are elite and go around jumping on newbies. I’ve seen that in other communities too. If you think a newbie is on the wrong track, point it out nicely. Don’t be so mean about it. You were once a newbie too right?

By the way, a word for elitists. If you want people’s respect, you have to be humble yourself.