Choosing between polys - that was such a long time ago for me. It feels especially nostalgic for me as graduation draws near, marking the end of my time in sp media and comm. Thinking back, the past 3 years just went past so quickly.

From learning the basics of communication and figuring how the media industry is like in Year 1

To learning more in-depth production, public relations and advertising, and getting more involved in organizing school events and parties in Year 2

And finally launching integrated communication campaign and industry attachment in Year 3

Thinking back, I was quite reluctant about choosing poly as 3 years seemed long compared to JC or private schools. But I’m now wishing this is a 4 or 5 years course. 

They say Poly period would be the best time of your life. I say media & comm is probably the most exciting course in poly.

Your mind is never at rest.You are continually striving to influence all those about you. You have some excellent ideas but you persist in trying to persuade others just how great your ideas really are. Maybe you are trying too hard. Take it easy – remember, ‘Everything comes to those who wait’.

You are in need of rest, some peace and quiet. You feel the need to be close to that someone special, that someone who can give you that special consideration and unquestioning affection that you seek. If you don’t find that ‘special someone’ and resolve your problems very soon, you are liable to become extremely introverted and cut yourself off from society.

All the problems that you have been experiencing of late seem to have become a part of your life and there is little that can be done to change the situation. Your emotions run high – but even though you feel as if at times you are about to burst this situation will pass. Try to release your pent-up emotions by participating in some extra physical activities like running, swimming, whatever. There must be some favourite pastime, not necessarily strenuous, that can help you to relax.

You are on tenterhooks and appear to be extremely nervous and upset. You are bored and you feel that life has far more to offer than this present day mundane existence. The way that you feel indicates that you have the need for a responsive and understanding relationship. You are prepared to follow up any opportunity which may present itself. However you are very choosy and you refuse to be swept off your feet unless integrity can proved to be 100% genuine. Therefore you are holding back, keeping your emotions in check because before you let down your guard you have to be sure. You are too trusting and you have no desire to be hurt again. You are responsive to conditions around you – but forever under control.

Being afraid that you may be prevented from achieving your hopes and dreams is making you anxious and nervous. As a dreamer your ideas can at times move into the realm of fantasy and you could be following that so called illusive dream.

I must say this is relatively accurate. Choosy, pent-up emotions, actions kept in control. Been pondering about these, and its good to be more assured that these are my current situations so I can work on them.

Will blog about Christmas soon. Have fun in life. friends!

I think I’ve been seeing the world, life and people too clearly for the past years. Too frequently exposing the ugly truth of people. It’s time for a change. I guess at some stage of life, it’s better to be unclear and start exploring more.

I feel a little insecure but a lot more interesting and peaceful. I would also become clumsy in front of so many, but I learned that opinions of you, from people who aren’t important, really don’t mean anything.   

The whole world becomes visionally undefined, filled full with possibilities.

I dream to be a more cheerful, eloquent and active person

I dream to live a life of class and elegance

I dream to play the piano and violin

I dream to live a life of spiritual pursuit

I dream of being a simple person

I dreamed of not being me

Though for the previous 5 days I’ve been in school without the gang, that I hang out for the past 3 years, it wasn’t too bad. Tatami Room became our make-shift office. Campus Radio is sharing the place with the Comm Agency so that made 12 DMC people. That actually took away the sense of absence of my gang.

On Thursday we got a surprise from Ms Lum. She got us a little Xmas tree. That really made our day, and gave us more sense of belonging to our little place. That’s why she’s one of my favourite lecturers. So motherly, really. Hahah!  

So Adam seems to be the happiest Intern, being surrounded by OLs, taken-care-of, with a posh environment(changi airport). Firdhuas too is enjoying himself every minute post-processing videos in a relac-one-corner suite. Feels happy for these two and can really see them going far in their fields.

Life at work can be quite tiring but unlike school, after work hours, you’re totally free. I’m enjoying this nuaing-at-home. And meanwhile Im looking forward to more work next week, and the next Friday meetup!

While I’m feeling quite comfortable, things become especially quiet.

Everything has slowed down since the dinner and party. I still check on my Tweetdeck but the updates on DMC group are significantly lesser. And I guess it’d only go slower.

We went iluma and Ion to get clothes in preparation for monday. Then the four of us sat in Starbucks and chatted about our past and future for hours. And I just pondered if we’d gonna meet and sit like this few years down the road.

As we enter new environments and leave old ones, friends come and go. We feel lonely in between but smile again when we make new friends.

We’re so adaptable, and I guess that’s how we survive.

 …the applause.

Throughout the 6 weeks, Ms Kwa brought us on an adventure into Twitter, Google Wave, Google Docs, Facebook. We’ve realized about our subconscious use of Continuous Partial Attention, and felt the emergence of potentially more powerful information machines like Bing and Wolfram Alpha.

Today, we’ve all come to an end of everything. Let’s talk about the point of it all.

New Communication Technologies are an inevitable step we, the human race, will all take. The uncertainties we’ve felt about this change in the landscape of media are not unfounded.The rise in communication prowess of individual is a threat to professional communicators. Advertising, PR and Promotion are rapidly being commoditised.

What does it mean to us, the future communication professionals. Would we still have a Ogilvy/McCain/Saatchi&Saatchi to reside in? I’d love to think they’d still be able to be the big brothers.

When our generation replace the majority of consumers world, would traditional mass media still have the market share that they have today? Or would we be buying majority of media space from Google, Facebook, twitter, Bing and xiaxue.

There are countless uncertainties and almost-certainly, the entire landscape would have an overhaul. What these all mean to us, is that we have to continuously change our steps, be aware of the million changes to the world and communication.

What I’ve learned in year 1 and 2, seem to be very different from #nct. It’s scary, menacing, and yet, extremely exciting.

Following ms kwa words, I hope and want to be brave enough to be the first batch to venture the new frontiers despite all the threats and uncertainties. The world changes every second and so would I adapt. Speed, courage, awareness, creativity,  openness and social-networking are the notes taken.

The point of it all?

Anticipate change and adapt new relevancy constantly.

Note: Special thanks to ms kwa for giving us one of the best modules in DMC.

An Argument would Fall Flat 

Traditional books will undeniably be replaced by eBooks. 

Traditional books are environmentally unfriendly. Millions of trees are chopped for publishing. Such books are also resource-inefficient in distribution to the masses, and the less mainstream books may not be easily accessible. It is also tough to manually search information in books  for scholarly research. 

Even if habits are hard to change, technology can force the change in us, by the global need for higher efficiency. Afterall, this is the era of Google. Where information are getting googalized for instantaneous information retrieval. 

The Digitization of Traditional Books

In secret locations and using secret methods, human beings are scanning lots and lots of books for Google. About 10 million books is digitized per year. The total number of eBooks in existence is estimated to be 65m. And other than Google, Amazon has been scanning large volume of books, as have Microsoft and Yahoo! 

With the increase in supply and demand, 3,000,000 eBooks are downloaded every single month. 

The 4 Trends of eBooks 

#1 Unbundling. One fine example would be the iPods. Think how have iPods unbundled music albums (people now download only the most popular tracks out of the whole album), revolutionized the landscape of music industry, and almost-totally wiped out CD players. Will traditional books be eventually unbundled, with people only reading the most interesting chapters, for the benefit of time-efficiency?

#2 Wikipedia, which is free, collaborative and online, has eaten into sales of paper-bound alternatives. So books that people would not traditionally read in their entirety, or that require frequent updating, are likely to migrate online and perhaps to cease being books at all. Telephone directories and dictionaries, and probably cookbooks and textbooks, will all fall into this category. 

#3 Interlinking of books. What if books are interlinked? Just like hyperlinks on a webpage, we may be jumping from books to books to books, instead of just sticking to reading one. We would then be exposed to a much larger amount of books than we would previously be.  And this will raise a fundamental question of, what would then define a book when book is no longer book-like.

#4 Greater ease to publish your works online. Without the need for a publisher, you can publish your books on your own, online for a very low cost. One fine example would be stephietan’s magazine, Manifesto. By this publishing option, printing  and middle-man cost is effectively reduced to zero.  Link: http://issuu.com/ilovefashionation/docs/manifesto_issue_1

However, in future traditional books will still exist in small volume, due to habits, physical need for the feel of books, and the pride of owning one (think souvenir). Even though many of us would still prefer reading on solid physical books, eBooks is definitely the next step for human race – the coming together of  information in digital form for instantaneous Storing, Searching, Retrieval and Sharing.

This period of life, is called graduating.