This is me  |
 Throwback 2020
 Oh 2020, you came so fast and flew away even faster. Remember 1 year ago, I was writing this throwback post, lamenting the fact that I had forgotten to write about 2017 or 2018 cuz I was too busy with life. Well, for this year, life had been too busy for itself. It's time to take a trip down memory lane and look at the highlights of 2020~ P.S. With everything that was happening throughout the year, I think I might have mixed up the timeline here and there. Jan: Planning a grad tripRemember starting off 2020 preparing for our long awaited, planned-for-4-years, grad trip to Japan. 2020 was supposed to be the year where we graduated form university and get ready for adulting. Had our first kinda sleep over at my house where we ended up planning the trip overnight, booked the hotels, airBNB, tickets etc. At that point in time, COVID-19 wasn't really a thing yet, it was still pretty chill, people thought it was just a cold and life went on. No TraceTogether, no masks, well, no nothing. We had so much planned out, our 14-day trip was meant to happen in May, right after our FYP poster presentation. We were so ready for the trip, but no one was ready for the following months to come...
Feb - Mar: Last Sem Best SemThis was the period where news started to come in about COVID, infections across the world were rising, but nothing much was happening. We were all studying and mugging, preparing our group works, finals and working on FYP. I remember spending most of time jumping between classes (you can check out my module reviews for my last semester in BME here) and lab work at MBI. Had a enjoyable time working on my CRISPR project (that same one I did back in year 3) Find out more about my FYP here. Remember spending a good amount of time actually looking forward to our grad trip considering that it was like 2 months time... On the other hand, we were also getting pretty pessimistic on the chances of travelling since COVID was getting pretty serious around the world and in Singapore. It was somewhere around this period when it got bad here as well. First, lessons with more than 50 students were to be held online via Zoom, soon everything was shifted online. Joined the first e-Open House for NUS as well since gatherings of large groups were not allowed. It was a pretty weird way that I ended up back as a student ambassador for Engineering after taking a break in Year 3. Came back, joint the core group, rushed out introduction videos for the faculty, played around to make an Insta filter and executed the open house pretty well considering that our team had like what, 2 weeks to get everything out. Got to meet a lot of new people and work with the old gang again. Brings back year 1 memories of running events and not sleeping...
Apr - May: Circuit Breaker & GraduationApril was when the famous Circuit Breaker began. The entire country was under a pseudo-lockdown where only essential workers were allowed to leave their homes and we were advised to only leave for essential purposes such as buying food, stocking up on groceries etc. Remember the madness on the day LHL announced this. Everyone was rushing to supermarkets and grabbing almost everything that was available. There was a shortage of canned food and toilet paper (the most important thing we needed) on the day after the announcement and of course, a price surge on surgical masks everywhere. Who would've thought that people would be fighting over toilet paper... While there was all this madness going on, there was also a fear in me, the feeling of lost because our labs were closed, which meant that it was an abrupt end to my FYP, the school didn't really update us on how our final finals was going to be like and in general, there were a lot of uncertainties in our lives. Especially since we were bound to graduate in June, everything was pretty much a mess. In the end, we have online finals, which was pretty interesting, everyone being on zoom and answering our papers online. FYP presentation was also shifted online and instead of making a poster, we did power point presentation. Because of all this chaos happening, May passed pretty quickly, With my final exams over, it was the fear of not finding a job. Unemployment is scary, but the job hunt was scarier. Despite starting the hunt in December 2019, I didn't get many replies, and those which did were rejection emails. Managed to get through to the final rounds of 2 healthcare MAP programs but failed both in the end. However, I'm blessed that Dr. Tony (aka FYP prof that 'adopted' me in Year 3) had an opening in his lab and that's how I ended up here in NUS. It was also during this period when I made the decision to do further studies. Never thought that I'd put myself through such torture again after barely surviving 4 years of NUS and almost 15 years of traditional education. On hind sight, it's a pretty decent decision considering the circumstances and also the economy. Thus, I'm now studying Material Sciences & Engineering for another 2.5 years, so more module reviews and angsty Insta posts coming up...
June - July: Phase I, Phase II...Soon the government announced that we would be slowly re-opening and moving into Phase I of the 'new-normal'. This was about when I started my internship in MBI. Was planning to start full time, but NUS took a while to confer the degree (which eventually came on 30 June) and I didn't want to waste more time slacking at home playing DOTA, so started off as an intern first before everything was ready. Sometime in mid-June, we entered Phase II where we were given more freedom. Was working in shift work so half-day work everyday. Before opening up, there were also mask distributions for everyone so ya free masks! It was also announced that we were going to have our GE sometime in July. This was gonna be my first time voting and somehow, my area got reassigned to West Coast GRC which was a zone to watch this elections because the opposition was strong. Voting in the midst of a pandemic was pretty interesting. First, there was the allocation of voting time slots where we were advised to turn up to vote during our time slots to help with crowd dispersion. Well, at least for my area, there were long queues throughout the day so I guess it didn't really work? Next, there was the sanitizing before and after voting, which I feel is very necessary considering that we were all using the same booths. Finally, for the first time in history, they extended voting day... Apparently, there were polling stations which were overcrowded and queues were still not ending as the polls were about to close. After an intense polling day and midnight vote counting, results were out and it was rather surprising for various areas... Back to work-related things, I was continuing on my FYP project and on top of that, working on a bit of admin things to get my transfer to full-time soon. In July, I officially converted to full-time work and shift work ended somewhere at this period of time too. Working full-time in NUS is pretty chill (at least for now)
Aug - Nov: Full-time staff, Part-time studentStarted studying in August, balancing between having 2 night modules and labwork, on top of mentoring 2 Year 4 students who were doing their projects in the lab. Pretty interesting experience working on the same project, but this time being on the mentor end of things. With 100% online classes, I had the liberty to spend more time at work and also to be slacker on my preparations for classes. But on the down side, it really takes a lot of discipline and self-control to make sure that I paid attention in class. Also had to make sure to balance all the work I had on time. On top of having almost zero interaction with classmates, there was also no one that could help me with the topics that were being taught. Considering that I had no experience in MSE related concepts, I was struggling pretty badly with my core module and towards the end of the semester (especially after fianls) I was already considering dropping out. Didn't expect the results I got in the end and guess that's how I'm going to carry on with my Masters.
Dec: Rest, Relax & RechargeDecember was just a month of slacking off, playing DOTA and recharging for 2021. Started off the month preparing my lab work and planning out my modules for the next semester. Time past really quickly and it was soon time for our end-year lab lunch. Christmas came soon after and then it was New Year. With all the long weekends and clearing of leaves, I was working almost 3-4 days each week. Doesn't help that half the entire Level 9 lab was empty since everyone else was clearing their leaves too. With this kind of energy at work, there wasn't really a lot of mood to work actually. Managed to get a bit of progress for my work and managed to prepare everything for the super long weekends. On the second last day of the year, Mel, Sup & I celebrated our 10th year Frieniversary with our first staycay in 10 year. Reminiscing on the good'ol days, it was pretty interesting that we have known each other for so long. Although our paths are different now, it's nice to know that we all still have the support of each other in our own fields.
Recapping on my goals for 2020:1) Getting fit Wellllllll, I did it at the start of the year, but with the whole CB period and lack of freedom to move around in gyms, I think it failed towards the end. Put on so much weight just sitting around at home doing nothing. 2)Making more music In 2020, I found the recording studio and did a bit of recording. With the lock down, I slowly started to build my own homes studio and did a bit more of recordings and covers in my own room. I guess this was a success then... 3) ONE photos Sadly, this never happened in 2020. Before our first event, COVID hit and as such the group kinda disbanded... Even Jasper left so I doubt I'll be going back into this side of photography any time soon. 4) Staying happy Not exactly the best year to stay happy. Actually with all this that happened in 2020, I think my mental health condition went pretty downhill. As much as my life seemed to be on track with a job and further studies, there's a lot on my mind this year. Especially with the social isolation during lock down, I think it was pretty bad. Now that I'm volunteering as a PSSG at FoE, I think I've gotten slightly better at managing my unhealthy thoughts so it's a start... 2021...Now, let's set some goals for 2021. 1) Music Making more covers, improving my skills and techniques and acquiring new skills for music production is still top on my list (maybe higher than getting that degree). Hopefully I can get more things out this year and get back to songwriting soon. 2) Health Be it physical or mental, I think 2021 shall be a year to work on being a better person for myself. A broken person will never be able to produce the best work and be the best for the people around me. So, it's time to work on myself and look towards improving my mental state. 3) Friendship Maintaining old friend, filtering out the people who should no longer affect me and finding new people to work towards a similar goal in 2021 will be very important. As we move into Phase III in 2021, we can finally have in-person classes, so I'm looking forward to meeting new people in MSE and forging new friendships. Remember looking forward to 2020 with a lot of plans for the future getting crushed by the virus, in 2021, I'm going the cliché route of praying for world peace and and end to this disaster. May we have a healthy 2021 and maybe we can all actuate our plans that we had to put off in 2020.  Stay healthy and happy, Sam Labels: 2020, 2021, COVID, graduation, My Life, New Year, New Year Resolutions, Throwback |
