It's Finally Over!

yeap! IIP Project Presentation is over! THE one and only presentation that mattered most in our road to obtaining a diploma is over, at least for me. [sidetrack: i would like to wish those presenting tomorrow.. i mean today, the best of luck! p.s. were you guys rushing your arses off in school?? :P ] however.( i can hear cries of "But..?" even before i type this!) however, i am not dripping with joy as i thought i would. Why? because although this is THE most important presentation of my entire stay in NgeeAnn that i'll ever have, this is also THE presentation of my entire stay in NgeeAnn that i've had the most regrets from. ------------------------------------------------ alas. there is no second chance for everyone nor anyone else. (okay. i admit. i'm desperately trying to convince myself that i was dreaming, or rather, having a nightmare, about what had happened the presentation; and that i'll wake up from my nightmare and prepare myself for THE presentation later in the morning. ) in case you were wondering, at this point, which was the deadly virus that my laptop has caught, causing it to lose precious, un-backed-up files and folders that needs to be uploaded; my website is Perfect with a capital P and a cherry on top. Absolutely gorgeous. Simply wonderfu.. oops. you guys are still here.. sorry. i could go on for days about how attractive and awesome my website is. that's because it is. or so i think anyway. "then you regret what?!?!?!" yes, i can hear your screams aaalll the way from here already, thank you very much. my presentation. THE presentation. (read: it's PRESENTATION, not website.) THE ever-so-smoothly-delivered presentation, coupled with our it's-damn-nice-lah-fantabulastic website, has been playing and re-playing flawlessly in my mind; which would have eventually secured our entire group with big, fat, As on our report cards. (ya, i know, i know. we don't have report cards at NgeeAnn. but it definitely sounds much better than 'flimsy piece of result slip', aight?) THE presentation that has since became a not-so-smooth-delivery presentation, hopefully presented together with our it's-still-damn-nice-and-divine website, will do the trick as well. allow me to tell you, right up to the miniscule details of why was the regret formed through the entire presentation. (alright, it's not every single detail, just what matters most. to me at least.) so bear with me for a while. you can skip to the next post if you like. just don't tell me that you skipped my post aight? i'll be sad. ------------------------------------------------ THE PRESENTATION: Chapter 1: Way to get the cotton-candy-sugar-bunny scenario. ok. for those who don't already know. we students like to dig for information and experiences that happened to our friends taking both same and different modules as us. we basically like to share our information with one another. currently being educated and moulded into the future leaders of the next generation society, we will pursue fame and fortune fiercely, marry and settle down early, have a dozen or so of kids before thirty-five to save future population in singapore, and basically just get brainwashed by the top people and support them blindly for the rest of our lives... ooh.. oops..! err.. actually i really meant that we will not forget the less fortunate in our society, and therefore we will build up of our corporate empire, and in that way, we can create more job opportunities for the unemployed. yup, that's what i meant. we love to care and share. really. =] ok, back to school please. (hey, we gotta finish school before getting the wealth and riches right? our piece of certificate means alot to our caring society who does not want to under-employ you guys, you know.. now why do i detect numerous actions of what seems to be the rolling of eyes?) so anyway, i gathered and collated the experiences that i had obtained straight from the horses' mouths even before last semester ended. (i'm not being kiasu lah, i just wanna do my research well and be prepared for what's gonna hit me like a train would in the face if i didn't actually know earlier.) devils disguised as teachers sneering at me, laughing at me, mocking my presentation, disrupting my well-rehearsed presentation causing the already-nervous me to be lost somewhere in outer-space, and gasp! embarrassing and humiliating me when i do not have the answers to their questions they shoot me with. this was what i had conjured up in my brains, and even before i started this semester, this will be it in my mind whenever someone mentions the word I-I-P. not exactly a very cotton-candy-sugar-bunny kind of scenario eh? far from it! ------------------------------------------------ THE PRESENTATION: Chapter 2: Way to Complete Project. in my impression, completing IIP was a tricky thing and a not-very-easy-to-accomplish task. i was right. not only did we have to struggle through the project, we also had to juggle between the project itself, the many assignments that always seem to look reproachfully at me for not completing them, but also tests and more tests. therefore although i badly wanted allow myself to immerse and soak in the joy and happiness of being able to complete the checkout through E-NETS, i did not. but i was really thrilled that we could link our payment gateway to E-NETS, as from what i know, only 2 groups last semester managed to link and achieve payment via E-NETS. can you believe it?! only 2 groups managed to do that!! 2 leh!!

Now what would you think of iip if you heard that previously, only 2 groups managed to complete all the requirements if the project?! i therefore suspect that due to the previous batch's (many) unsuccessful attempts, we were given much help by the lecturers. (suspect only lah. not confirmed true. haven't checked sources.) but even if the lecturers really did help us a pretty great deal, life was still not a bed of roses nor a box of ferrero rochers.

[NB: please do not mistake that i meant to say my group's project is very good since we managed to produce a complete checkout process. i'm just trying to highlight the fact that IIP sounds very terrifying and difficult.] ------------------------------------------------ THE PRESENTATION: Chapter 3: Earth Invader. on Thursday, 17th March 2005 at around 2:35pm, something incredible happened to me. I WAS POSSESSED BY AN INVISIBLE MARTIAN!! come to think of it, it wasn't that incredible after all. the martian possessed me without me realising. that creep. i had noticed earlier that i was a little retarded in my thinking process once presentation had started, but did not read much into it as i attributed it to my being nervous. only later did i realise that the abnormal behaviour was caused by the martian trying to share my thoughts. (your computer will also slow down if you're running dreamweaver and flash with countless of files in there, right? yes and so will my brain lah!) it only introduced itself a little while later, as a harmless and cute creature. i really thought it was harmless as it did nothing to except to slow me down a little. (but i figured that it would help cos i tend to speak faster during presentations than i would like.) the moment my turn finally came to blow the crowd away with my presentation skills was the moment it decided to show me how friendly and sincere he was in wanting to be my friend. in its (one-sided) goodwill, it replaced my 'zhong qi shi zu' voice with what i was told that it was the epitome of a soft and gently voice. apparently the voice was gathered from the essence a thousand fairies singing, dancing, giggling while sitting on the petals of the flowers and the leaves on the trees, enjoying the cool breeze, bout of refreshing air and the mellow dew; and would make my voice soft, gentle, sugary and nice. i was horrified to learnt that it replaced my voice. (hey! i was and still am happy with my voice!) when the shock passed, anger took its (horrified, not martian) place. i demanded it (martian this time, not horrified nor anger) to come out and meet me face-to-face to settle my evidently irreversible voice. my words were dripping with honey, i had to show him some facial expressions to let him know that i was furious. bad move. it was not as cute as it had said it was. faaaar from it. i was horrified, for the second time. to cut the story short, it was basically a disgusting slimeball of a creature and even you would think so if you actually see it. (it would then be a "1..2..3.. altogether now.. EEEWWWWWW...GROSSS!!!!" ) if you saw what i had seen, you would have said the same words which i had said. i told it to get lost and go back to where it belongs where everyone looks the same and noone was ever disgusting or ugly. it finally got angry and apparently decided to take revenge. i knew i should be nice in the first place. too late. first thing it did was to whip a cloth and a bottle which says: 'Brainwashing Liquid. Caution: BRAIN WILL DISAPPEAR AFTER LONG!' i recovered from my initial to realise only too late that it had started to scrub my brain furiously, causing me to lose most information with regards to the presentation itself. after the seemingly strenuous exercise which gave it an ache in its arms and a hole in my brain, it decided that the hole in my brain was satisfactory, and moved on to what seemed to him, two constantly-moving, ball-like things with numerous red lines running on it. the instant it reached out to grab the objects of its desires, was the exact same moment my eyeballs really did pop out and would have definitey rolled away, (for good this time round) if not for it pulling them back at the nick of time. it then proceeded to control my eyeballs, and restricted my eye movements to ignore the left side of me. [sidetrack: i think that it either liked or disliked those seated at my left too much to want me to not look at that area/person. i actually tried desperately to stuff this piece of information into the hole in my brain; but i still failed to block a tiny part of the hole, in which the data containing information to whether it actually liked or disliked those seated at my left, seeped out. (try as i might, i just could not save it from leaking out.)] while it was having fun, i was desperately trying to escape its control. it noticed and wrestled and wrenched, and finally emerged the winner and took control of my limbs. it made me wave my arms crazily around and forced me to point in directions that i did not wish to. its wrenching and wrestling caused me immense pain. at the crux when i decided that i could no longer take it and wanted to scream out loud, it suddenly and eventually left (for good), but not before i passed on to the next speaker to continue the presentation. relief came over me that i was no longer in pain and also regained full control over my limbs, and eyes, and got back my original brain and voice.

i had one thought in my mind when it soon dawned on me that i had screwed up my presentation, and everything practically went downhill from then on: someone please tell me that teachers will definitely look into our websites again and re-evaluate the marks accordingly. i was crushed.

i hate martians! *sniffles* ------------------------------------------------ THE CHAPTER: Chapter 4: Looking Back. we can't live in the past, nor go back to the past. therefore i've learned (and trying to put into practice) that it's pointless to harp on worthless issues such as the bad presentation. (oh how i hate martians!!)

what's worth mentioning, however, is the brief pre-presentation period while we were in The Room. it's quite funny actually.

when second we stepped into The Room, the tension started to flow in increasingly at a steady and fast rate. it would have killed us all if not for Mr. Steven Lim who finally broke the tension by saying that he could hardly recognise me.

"Why?"

teachers' reply (and i quote) was, "Because you are usually dressed so sloppily."

*almost fainted* "errr.. orh. teacher, thank you for your err.. compliment." (actually Miss. Nellie Chew was the one who prompted me in saying thank you. i merely follwed suit.)

but i really wanna thank teacher for breaking the tension, and also for the compliments about how nice our website looked. Thanks! =]

actually the teachers were being pretty friendly to us at that time, and it was far from the devils-disguised-as-teachers-thought i had all the time. it was almost like the cotton-candy-sugar-bunny kind of situation.

[ time to PR abit: to all the 11 teachers who were in The Room: thank you for just listening, and hope you guys enjoyed our website.]

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THE PRESENTATION: Chapter 5: Reminiscence.

i will always remember the entire process of our IIP. yeap. from the start right up to the before the martian appeared anyway. (chant: i hate martians! i hate martians!)

if i may say, IIP brings people together. as the presentation date drew nearer, relations between own group members, as well as across other groups evolved for the better. or worse.

relations and bonds in my group, fortunately, did not turn worse. and i guess that the night before the presentation in the atrium will be etched in my mind forever.

[time to PR again, but this time to my group: Thanks guys! we did a wonderful job with the entire project! =] p.s. sorry i screwed up though. hmm. ok. =/ sshh.]

it was my first time in school till so late doing project. (or anything else, for that matters.) the guards came to chase us out; the lights in the atrium were all turned off; the guards came and went without us realising that they had placed overnight fines on the windscreens of our cars; the only thing that made us finally leave at almost 3am into the morning was fatigue.

one thing i realised though, was that although we had a colossal amount of loose ends that needed to be tied up that night, not much pressure and anxiety was there. i guess is was due to the steady stream of jokes, and oh. one very important notion we held on in our minds that helped us come this far:

"YAY! after this we're one step nearer to our oversea trips planned for after the semester ends! JIAYOU!"

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authors' note: this post is also posted in lindsey's blog because she requested for it. much time and effort have been spent creating this post, therefore i hope you guys have enjoyed my post. =]

and author would like to thank Lindsey for her patience in teaching me certain fireworks and flash skills, and time taken off her extremely busy schedule to help and advise me on how to make my website prettier. Thanks babe!! *muacks muacks muacks!*