Lalalalalala

Dear Stressed SMU Student,

I had an emphatic day of work today. I woke up early to visit the trade office of International Enterprise Singapore (IESingapore) at Bugis Junction Office Tower at 10am so that I could get some documented information and professional advice about local SMEs and Xi'an, where we have stipulated that doing business in is good. It might seem a little odd that I'm doing this because most SMU students like it in the Li Ka Shing Library where the internet, powerpoints and air conditioning are available in a comfort-zone kinda way, but I guess I just like the idea that the research I'm doing beyond the laptop can value-add to my project. So why not the trouble? Besides, I had started to hit a wall of sorts with regards to the information searching online, and my group's BSM report was due at 5pm.

Once done with the visit to IESingapore's office at 1pm, I went straight back to the National Library to resume my research for my human capital management (HCM) report that is due on monday. Thankfully, the National Library isn't that far off from the office. The HCM report is proving to be very pressing, because the deadline is very near considering the scope of the report, which our professor has indicated as very difficult to do. And an exchange student group mate seems to be experiencing some difficulty in getting the information we need for our 3 man team, but it's alright, I appreciate a challenge.

2 hours on, and my research on HCM practices in Singapore's culture, while content-substantial, is still very vague, and I still hadn't began researching about Britain's HCM culture. So I had to apologetically inform my ethics group mates that I had to be a little later than the 1530h rendezvous time. This is because the National Library closes by 9pm and while I need the information, I still had a BSM meeting to go to after ethics which might end late and cause me to not be able to utilize the library's facilities.

By 4pm, I was somewhat done with Singapore's research, so it was a hasty rush down to SMU's School of Business and I'd already felt quite bad that I had to keep my group mates waiting. Crashed into the GSR, settled down, and then it was diving headfirst into solid ethics debating for 2 hours on whether the Bureau of Land Management should allow Questar to continue its angular oil drilling at the expense of Wyoming's wildlife and environment. The results were a little inconclusive, especially that of sustainable development under Adam Smith's free market ethical argument, but I wouldn't discount the meeting as unproductive. As long as our directions were positively and constructively aligned - which we were - everything is constructive; even if we argue forever to find that an idea is useless, it has served to trim and shape our overall argument better.

It was almost 6pm when we started to wrap up on the discussion and conclude that we need more meetings, so I hurried down to the School of Social Sciences at the other end of campus for my BSM meeting that I was already slightly late for (again!). A little more discussion and quite a bit of procrastination later, the meeting ended and it was 8pm. With a little bit more time to spare since the library closes at 9pm, it was back to the Singapore section at the 11th storey of the National Library to do some final research.

After 9pm when the library closed, Angie and I had dinner, which was my first meal of the day (aside from the very delicious tangyuan beancurd she had mercifully brought down for me to snack on during BSM meeting). The day outside is done, but there was still more tidying up to do for tomorrow's presentation, and more work to fuss over for monday's HCM report submission, as well as my 5-page LTM learning journal. Who can forget DMA presentation on tuesday and ethics presentation on thursday, with more meetings to come?

But that's for tomorrow to worry about. I'm gonna hit the sack soon, because I've gotta be up at 7am to prep for my presentation. :]

As I look back on the day, time had passed incredibly fast, and I reckon because it has been nothing but work and thinking all day. But it's really okay because in the end I'm still smiling about how the day has unfolded without me getting into an accident or breaking down, and you know what, Stressed SMU Student? It is your own imperative and your own choice to decide how you want to be bogged down or purposified by the hell weeks of 12 and 13. The rate the school is going, if everyone can see to it that it's not that bad, then everyone would be much happier. Make a choice and be positive about things, if not for anyone, then yourself.

Regards,
Happy SMU Student


(In reality, please just suck it up for me. One more whiner who comes along will have me telling him or her how pathetic he or she looks next to my ethics group mate, who is taking 6.5 mods this term and is still being a delightful group mate to work with.)




Audio Candy:
Metro Station - Shake It