djkr and friends take on Life

mount sophia is a rather nice place, if you discount the fact that you have to climb 139 steps every morning. it has a pretty serene environment, the lighting in the toilets is film worthy and timbre is outside my office.

week one has been rather kind to me. i have been eased into the process rather painlessly. work has come in slowly; i only had to do a writeup on a toolkit thus far. my supervisors/colleagues (they are the same) are quite nice. i got nothing much to complain about (maybe my $600 pay)

but oh, those 139 steps. it is an uphill struggle to drag yourself up those steps.  i guess its just one of those employee health benefits they don’t mention on the contract. climbing 139 steps every single day, that is sure to get your thighs into shape.

one week of internship has gone by.

for our first week, the interns from the 4 companies of alchemy, kult, nerf and avenueone met at alchemy for a week long boot camp, where alvin had arranged some of the staffers to come to talk to us, giving us a quick lessons on the industry. we even had an excursion to a colour separation place, a photography studio and a digital imaging place – which was admittedly very cool.

but i guess what i can be most proud of is the fact that one of our ideas that we worked on during boot camp has been actually submitted for consideration to a client. that met a burnt weekend (saturday 6pm to sunday 7am in office), but that is the motivation i need to keep going.

welcome to advertising, baby.

7 july is the day i leave kaiiten.

1 august is the day school supposedly starts.

27 august is the day i lived for 7670.25 days.

oh how time goes along.

plenty of things have happened.

i helped zoo/eu yan sang organise an event at the singapore zoo. it was a hectic hectic time. a lot of mad rushes (press release only ready the night before the event, leading to me staying at the zoo all the way till 9pm; back to office at 10pm working till 12 midnight to rush out the things i needed)
but the satisfaction was there, when the article came out in the dailies, television and radio.

i also managed to talk one of the managers at the zoo, whom i had been working with over the period of time. she told me in advertising and public relations its a matter of perseverance and hard work. its not all glitz and glamour once you step into the life. its a lot of deadlines, slogging. your pay won’t exponentially increase till you are in the line long enough, provided you get there. late nights, sleeplessness and pushy clients who want the world. it is dominated by ‘white men’ and it gets harder as you go higher. it not your normal 9-5 job.

i have been interning at kaiiten communications for 6 months already. i probably have learnt more compared to doing data entry or admin work.

wanna know what i have learnt?

Soft Skills

- Always do a last minute confirmation

- Always ask for a contact to reply to

- Research is always necessary

- Talk slower when I make calls

- Always introduce yourself when making calls

PR/IR Related

- What are Press Releases/Advisories

- Financial Technicalities

- That being PR, you are the middleman and must make both sides happy

- Calling News Agency to check on whether Press Releases have been through

- That if you are the client, you make the people come to you and that if you are the service provider you go to them

- That we send mails/make calls to the media to interest them

this is the bare minimum. of course there are a lot of nitty gritty stuff. and this list was written by me 3 months ago. in a while, i have another chance to talk to my boss about what i have learnt.

in my time at kaiiten, i have seen (and am seeing) 3 staff leave. its not the environment. i just guess it takes a certain kind of person to pr work. and at 6 months here i am more lao jiao compared to some full time staff.

other than work, the other thing that has been taking up time is driving. i hate driving. i have to learn it as i don’t expect my parents to drive me around. my instructor hates me (i think i am his worst pupil ever) and tells me i will never pass first time. the problem is i have to pass first time
or else my retest will collide with my time in ntu. which i don’t want. and the hassle of travelling from ntu to eunos will kill me. if you are reading this, please pray for me to pass first time on 22 June 07.

speaking about prayer, yes, i have not attended church for the last 1 year. no i don’t have a good reason. i feel so alienated somehow, if i go back now. but i feel i have become more angry, a vicious entity inside me threatening to explode. at least i know. all my problems stem back to 15 june 2003. exactly middle of the year. ever since then, my social, religious life has been like this.

aaron is finally coming back after 3 years in taiwan for good. he will be back 20 june 07 permanently. amelia will be back on the 24 of june 07. for a period of about 1 month. and finally dad will be back for good come july.

soccer on saturdays ( i play goalie exclusively, because i can’t play outfield for nuts) keep me going a bit. but thats so much it can bring me. and even then i don’t go regularly.

save me from the nothing i have become.

i got a thank you note from the zoo~!!

will update on life soon.

in a pr context, information only has to be published once: either in the press release or a factsheet….

other stuff learnt: double check the newsdesks you are sending to, don’t be shy, calling is part of the process.. etc etc..

3 months! and another 3 months to school!

on saturday, kumar and i headed to opera estate where we heard that some batch of ’03 guys from TJ were playing soccer regularly there. and lo and behold, there were all the old kakis we used to play with during our time in tj. it was sort of like a reminiscence game as we had not played with many of these guys since 2004. some of the key opponents from our time were there as well… it was much better then playing with random opponents at the street soccer court whom you do not know. i look forward to this saturday when we will play again. come to think about it, i look forward to every saturday nowadays.

i had to cut my game short as i had to attend the electronic music production course at sae singapore at 1200. so i left the court at 1100 (even then i was still late)

the first was rather dry; the theory of sound and various genres of music. basically it was a full theory lesson, and i fell asleep like for 5 mins partially due to the tiredness from the beginning. i think during that time i was sleeping, i missed out a pretty important part about EQ. great. i am looking forward the coming lesson now though, where we will get a hands on lesson in reason. yay!

during the break in the lesson, i went off to the nearby sunshine plaza a while and i spotted a limited edition final form sora from kingdom hearts 2. having a soft spot for these kind of figurines (and knowing that it is limited edition), i bought it and now it is standing nicely at my desk at home, together with auron (whose leg joints is broken, natural defect thats why i got it cheap) next on the list is balthier from ffxii!

on monday, my boss asked me to remember what i have learnt from my internship so far and list down what i want to learn. well i have learnt:
- that as a PR company, you are some sort like a middle man, you do a lot of legwork
- what are press releases and press advisories
- that i have to talk slower over the phone
- that in emails your main topic has to be in the first few lines for your email
- that getting sponsorship is not easy
- research!

i was playing card games during my chinese new year break where something peculiar happened. i kept on seeing the number 2 in my cards. during tai dee, during blackjack… sort of a weird occurrence of sorts. imagine during blackjack, holding 19 on hand, and just randomly taking the next card… it results in a two? it happened a few times too. maybe its a sign? or just a random event.

on monday night, siyuan and i went to the good vibrations festival held at Fort Canning Park. it was basically a music festival and the headline acts that night were the Beastie Boys and DJ Dan. but i enjoyed Jurassic Five more, who played just before the Beastie Boys more… with their excellent vocals and synergy. but the Beastie Boys who are in their 40s by now, were jumping up and down the stage like they were 20. and their infectious energy spread to the crowd, who tried…. running onto the stage, climbing up scaffoldings, being crowd-surfed… (one lady trampled on my head)

dreaded going back to office on wednesday. mainly because it was sian. but hey its friday again. and my electronic music production course starts tomorrow!

today, i made a contribution to local news. it might have been a small, passable instant in a 1/2 hour programme, however, it has an impact on the other folks who might have gotten that 30 second coverage on television. now, do i truly believe, not everything you read may be true. no need to start hiding from your TVs as of yet, just…. be wary.

the hunger to get a even a bit of air time… it is madness. a rabid unsatisfied thirst for attention and to stand out. and i shaped it today.

i feel like i might have changed the world of a few people today even.

it must be me watching heroes. now since we are on that point, heroes is an excellent programme and i love the stories are being woven together into a credible tale. i had my doubts at the beginning but it is great. i want more!

Amelia, my sister, flew to melbourne last monday to take up a course in University of Melbourne. i wish her the best of luck there and hope she studies hard.

had a very awkward time on friday with my father’s taiwanese friends at a dinner. i hardly spoke to their (mandarin speaking) children; make that never. i just went and collected red packets.

i have always looked forward to reunion dinner though. my grandmother’s cooking is not world class, but i love her dishes and i love her and for all the things she has done for my father and my uncles and aunt and of course, for us, her grandchildren.

happy chinese new year people.

watched singapore draw 2-2 indonesia yesterday at the national stadium. in my most honest opinion, singapore didn’t deserve the draw yesterday. honestly. but i also don’t appreciate indonesia’s unsportmanly behaviour. watched the match with janice, thaddeus, siyuan. joses was in the stadium but sitting with his friends. after the match, janice, thad and myself went to simpang for supper. it had been a long time since i had chatted with them and we had a nice long chat.

today in work, i ‘smoked’ a lot of people again. reminds me of my sib times. assuming a position i am not really in. but still managing to convince people that i know my stuff, which i don’t. smoke bomb.

some people think i am getting under paid for what i do here. but i beg to differ. in a sense, it gives me a peek into the exclusive and small world of public relations and media in singapore. i am meeting people (people are giving me name cards that i actually don’t really know what to do with them), getting interesting infomation (really exclusive stuff) and seeing the underbelly of the corporate world before i actually plunge into it in 4 years time. think of it as a 6 month field trip into the dangerous, backstabbing, office politics charged world of work. if i was an admin assistant in an events company, the experience would be completely different; i am pretty sure of that.

yea.