William Chong

Hello there. Couple of points:

• Taught my last class at Remuera Music School for the time being. It was a bittersweet day, and I’m definitely going to miss the lively and outgoing violin students that made such huge strides and worked hard over the years. I got lots of thank you cards, and I have to say that I would love having kids if they gave me hand-made thank you cards. Yeah!
• Cheryl and Henry finished their last exams for the semester, which was great
• My general manager’s certificate expires in about a week, which I may consider renewing if I’m not too late
• Oh yeah, my work contract expires in about a week too! Some prayer/kind advice on direction could help!

(More graduation pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26333&l=5c091&id=579606378)

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Graduation ceremony was excellent – got to really reconnect with lots of different people at uni, and felt very medieval walking around in robes. The great thing about my ceremony was that it included graduands from Architecture, Fine Arts, Planning, Theology, Visual Arts, Music and so on – which made for a spectacularly colourful procession, as well as a reasonably interesting ceremony compared to perhaps 300 BSc names being read out ad nauseum.

We had a family photo in the evening as well – my old boss’s wife is a very adept photographer and she gave me very nice photos afterwards to select from. You can see some of the ones she took here. Still deciding on which ones to purchase, but other than that graduation has come and gone and I’m now back at work.

Which reminds me, I should be working.

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So it’s a bit early to make any posts about the year in review, right? I mean, things are just starting to pick up. Holidays are starting, end of year is imminent. Life starts now! For me, on Tuesday I walked out my last undergrad exam with a distinct feeling of “don’t look back, let it go”. And from now on? The wide world awaits – new job, Albany-based, starting January 7th, new people to work with, and a new phase in life where money makes your mortgage go round.

Four years of Uni, and life went on through all that. Here’s a recap…

(DEEP VOICEOVER: Previously on …)

• I wanted to be a pop star. When you’re young and impressionable, you have crazy dreams. This was one of them.

Funnily enough, most recent Saturday it turns out one of our singers at NY called Selah Mahe came 9th in Season One. It turns out I didn’t envy her singing ability (high notes are for those than can do it well), and didn’t envy her gigging lifestyle either (singing 70′s and 80′s hits a la jukebox style. creative independence?). Either you make it as a pop artist or you don’t – leave out the manufactured mess in the middle.

• The Four of us. It was the close friend-group that you’d swear you’d hold on to for the rest of time. We were all striving for ambitious degrees: BA/BFA, BSc(CompSci), BMus/BSc, BA(Psych)/LLB. The latest from Paul is that he works full-time at Harvey Norman and lives for his weekends. The last time I saw him was at RB’s 21st. The latest from RB is that she works 6-7 days a week running a cafeteria at Whitford Golf Club. Alive? Yes. Well? Who knows.

• Music was easy, Sports science was a revelation. I still had laughs on Fridays at Andrew Fellowship. RB was formerly the Youth Fellowship leader who was headstrong and sure about walking with God. We all dreamed of bigger and better things, yet fractures in relationships grew.

• My mother passed away. I stopped being a child. My faith had never been more tested. Our family ceased to be nuclear, and grief-scarred, I saw my father, my brothers, sisters in different lights. You look around and see people take for granted their mothers, everyday.

• Old friends, new friends. Paperclip, Sportsci, NY, and soon in vivo. I achieved what I had set out to during my time at NY, and hopefully I’ll aim to do the same at in Vivo (my new workplace).

• My time at uni certainly shook things up and let me decide who I wanted to be – a dreamchaser, or a realist. I could be unemployed, let the government fund my chase after a fantasy of song-writing and soul-searching until I “make it”. Or I could fund it myself… it’s not to say that I don’t have dreams. I do. But they’re less wild, more picket-fence, less fame-fondling, more altruistic. I hope.

• I hope.

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This paper’s convenor has to be the laziest one I’ve come across in 4 years of courses. All our tutorials have basically been taken straight off the textbook’s online resources website – the questions all unchanged. During lectures she makes a very, very distant summary of 2, 3 chapters of the textbook at a time, yet everything in those chapters are examinable. What is the point of the lecture if we have to memorise the textbook after that?

Copying the online material from chapters 11-24 have so far given me 45 pages in MS Word. This lecturer is lazy. $500 into the student loan. Not worth it. ‘Nuff said.

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It’s a celebration of someone’s life.  Yet tragically two lives were very short-lived.  Sometimes words don’t really do justice to the hurt and sorrow of losing a loved one.  Cliches and pick-me-up phrases aside, some moments:

• Bubbles floating in the wind, dancing around the lowered casket covered with bangles and flowers and tears
•  Three men and a lady staring at international arrivals onscreen, eye contact with the grieving father an uneasy burden
• facebook moods shifting with the days
• drifting into thought as two men argue inconsequentially between the terms “stillbirth” and “miscarriage”.
• The male protagonist sets the mood as she sleeps; from the musical “Miss Saigon”.
• Tony Laf also sings it well.

As for learning about a breakup, it’s better to have loved.  A line of lyric says simply, “cos we’re moving on.” – an answer to the question, “it will be alright because?”.  But all rhetoric aside, she is sad.

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What all this does mean though, is that I’m fairly behind in my uni work – 3 assignments that need to be started on, none of them really fleshed out yet.  Other chores during the holidays too, like servicing the car, WOF, paying bills (my dad’s bill money ran out – uni poverty here we come), and it’s still touch-and-go for many other things and other people.

Take care everyone.

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Not much else to write in that title, it really asked for something nonsensical to head this post.  Really.  Am at Tamaki computer labs, typing up notes for 206.  Got 304 and 305 to work on too, both are reasonably difficult.  Sport psychologists don’t make particularly good lecturers, there’s nothing new she shows us, just summaries of the textbook of which we have to had read all through anyways (Swallow it whole, folks).

Had a second sandwich photo, but doesn’t seem to be uploading properly (black image).  Today a friend showed me a live track of the US-NZ foreign exchange rate – told me about psychological resistance at cent marks, pips, short selling (he made over $1000 on paper as we were speaking), supply and demand.  Once upon a time I had wanted to take a Commerce degree and be a stockbroker.  I remember my dad’s response when I informed him of my aspirations.

“You can go to a Malay polytech to do commerce.  It’s useless.”

(of course, in a Mandarin sentence).  The ferocity of his disapproval shocked me: I was taken to a relative’s house to have some sense talked into.  I remember my much-older cousin who did his Masters in Science and now taught Physics to private school students taking me up to his room, and pointing out all the things in the house that were there because of “science”.  (insert awe-inspiring dramatic monologue here).

… actually it was a pretty lame endeavour, but I told myself to pretend it was some sort of life-changing moment and let my dad have his way.  I dropped Economics from the following years’ subject choices in favour of Physics, and with that my aspirations for a six-figure salary in the future (or even $75000 a year, lol).

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Oh yeah, I like my electric toothbrush.  It works very well.

You know the feeling when you’re sitting in a business class lounge?

That’s what the postgrad lounge is like. We were invited by Jared and Kristy (read: we caught them making out and they let us in as long as we didn’t tell anyone). Lol j/k~.

Plush couches, quiet study space. I’ll bet there’s free internet too.

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I love these early finishes on Friday!  Got to relax and work on my assignment whilst I was in Sylvia Park.  The great thing about free wireless is that you don’t have to even been in the store to use it – Skyped with Tommy (who’s doin’ fine in Canada) whilst we were havin’ lunch in Burger Fuel.  RB seems alright too, though a touch homesick and undertexted.

Also finished one assignment – I’m onto it!  Alright, prepping for the weekend.

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Not much to say, except that I’m pretty envious of Rainbow and Tommy and all their exciting breathtaking travels.  One day I’ll have the means to do the same – I’d better try a different country to get some variety in our collective photobooks!  RB if you read this, I’d love to have a full-sized picture of the beautiful Lake Louise and the chatel you had lunch at.  Thanks for the postcard!

Oh yes, the title – I dropped Chinese 210.  I know, shock horror.  But I decided to do it within the 2-week grace period… pretty much the level of Chinese is just a bit too high for me.  110 was perfect for me – whilst I’m harrassing my Chinese dictionary full-time during Nora Yao’s classes, which was a bit disconcerting.  I may keep attending lectures though, and see what she says.  Teehee.

Two assignments to work on – aside from the food diary thing (you feel very bad writing in 150g of Rocky Road Ice cream, or 170g of Domino’s Pizza, haha) we also have a motor control lab report to type up.  Might start on that tomorrow and Friday.  These readings are actually really interesting, but there’s a lot to do.

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Got tickets to see the Macleans production.  This year it’s “Beauty and the Beast”… Disney songs are the most lyrical and well-written.  Those lyrics are very timeless, lots of people would agree with that!  Anyways, gotta sleep.  Take care!

One of my uni assignments requires a meticulous tracking of the foods I’m eating.  I even have to weigh them as much as I can.  So my lunchtime noodles had to be broken down like this:

• 250 g egg noodles
• 100 g silverbeet
• 50 g Shaved Ham
  • EN: 109 kcal
  • PRO: 160 g
  • Fat: 2 g (0.8 g sat)
  • CHO: 7 g (0.9 g sug)
  • Sodium: 1300 mg
• 2 chicken eggs
• 15 ml Kikkoman Soy Sauce

The work required kinda puts me off eating complicated foods, or foods without weight and nutritional breakdowns.  Mleh.

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As part of my Chinese revision, I break down lyrics from Chinese pop artists.  I’m on my 2nd song, but at the moment it’s very interesting how succinct and abstract these lyrics can be.  The first line of one of Jay Chow’s songs is only 15 characters, but has the following:

“As the eaves are like cliffs, and as the chimes are like the blue seas, I wait for the swallow to return.”

… how are eaves like cliffs?  How are wind chimes like blue seas?  How profound.

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