hakuna matata

it's been practically a month since i updated.. crazy times!'

my grades this quarter were slightly abysmal i think. but i don't care anymore. actually maybe it's cos it's the last quarter and it's hard to stay motivated.. dunno. will try harder next year.

anyway, last days of the school year were as usual crazily busy. meeting people, TRYING to pack, not sleeping as usual. next year i need to figure out my packing better.. and i have a ridiculous amount of stuff. oh i so did miss blogging. anyhow. props to all those who helped me move - i really appreciated your help:) philbert whom i called at the last min, colin who got up early to help me even though he hates getting up.

and then PV07 (SEALNet Project Vietnam). as usual i didn't really feel like getting on another plane (after SFO-NRT-SIN, and a 4 hour delay for the last leg) to go to Vietnam, but our lovely team changed that. i have to say, i was probably most surprised by our two MIT guys, just cos i guess they were very different and very endearing. not that the rest of the team wasn't, but something about the two of them.. or maybe i'm just biased cos my bro went there haha.

it was so horribly depressing just now, people leaving one by one until there were like 5 of us left for lunch.. but i guess going to tu's house helped, new environment so it doesn't matter if there aren't 20 of us. whereas being in the hotel and there being only 4 of us left to clean up... oww.

from being a very-last-minute trip member last year to a hybrid between a co-leader and the leadership i/c this year. the experience has been so different yet slightly similar. in that i'm sure we had just as much fun (or maybe more, hm) but now PT06 seems like such a distant memory. which kind of makes me sad, cos I think I would like to remember exactly what it was like. ah. luckily last year I compiled notes, kind of.

anyway, i'm not sure my mom would be exactly pleased about what i achieved in leadership though, most of our members wrote about how they see that leaders don't have to be loud and chatty to be effective leaders. and my mom's always going on and on about how i should talk, which i should, but well. i try... or i will have to try harder hm.

and i'm glad i pushed for the autograph book (or yearbook, as americans call it) thing. only problem being we gave it to people too late cos they had trouble finishing writing everyone's. and tu was apparently very surprised that people were so concerned with writing for everyone cos people stayed up until ridiculous times of the night yesterday to write before they flew off.

alright daniel came back so i shall chat w him and finish this later.

I really should be concentrating on studying for Int'l Econ (final on Mon 8:30am augh) but somehow the SEALNet meeting this morning keeps popping into my head. About how I've (as usual) gotten myself into something I have no idea how I'm going to deliver. Actually I sort of remember saying that at some point.. oh right that was about recruiting.

Anyway, I find it so interesting that KB (one of our professional mentors) is so invested in SEALNet and she's really all out to push us. I mean JH does say that sometimes.. His favorite phrase is like "I challenge you to..." I bet he got it from KB. And we finally have like set roles for each of us in Project Vietnam, which I think is great cos now at least there's something tangible (or defined, anyway) to work towards.

And the way the professionals 'dissect' and summarize our aims is so interesting. Sounds rather like work lingo or something.. And it was so amazing how KB got us to talk about our view of the 1. mission of PV 2. our stake in it 3. how we're going to interact. While we were talking she whipped out a marker and drew this really cool map on the whiteboard (those are really useful things) and organized it/used black lines to show us who we'd be talking to (mainly) and stuff.

Actually I don't even know why I think it's cool.. Stepping back it could be seen as a rather artificial way of distilling things. But I think it worked for me.

So what I've gotten myself into is like planning the service leadership curriculum for the entire SEALNet (okay I'm quite sure I'll have a team, but the initial impression was that she was going to hold me accountable for it and KB is quite scary haha). cos I was asking, isn't that the SEALNet-wide curriculum that everyone uses, and KB said (actually I forgot what exactly she said). But later Tu was like, but there ISN'T a documented curriculum at the moment, we've to start doing that. and KB was like "oh yes, I forgot to add: there IS no SEALNet, YOU are SEALNet." and I was like okay!!! well done...

Alright at least I've gotten that out of my system. I realized the way I punctuate kind of depends on my mood. Now it's like a semi-formal thing or something.

At this point I feel like SEALNet is going to have a huge impact on my life. Leading a project and all. And I wish my frat would have that kind of impact, but somehow I don't know if I can see that happening..

Actually this whole business with professional mentors sounds vaguely like CCAs in school where we had teachers-in-charge. And uni stuff is so different cos it's all student-run. I guess sometimes it's really nice to have people around who know more than you. And in that sense I guess that's what former-committee members (in the case of S@S) and older-bros (in the frat) are for. Which I've kind of just realized. A little late there.. oh well.