Irritating Interviews IV

Sadly, blogging is now turning out to be a rare luxury with increasing workload and impending piano examinations. Nonetheless, I must persevere and complete the choleric chronicles of my inane interview adventures. Ha.

Interview #16
August 7th, 2009
Company: All Eights
Category: Laboratory Diagnostics System Distributor
Position: Technical Marketing Executive

What's Hot:
• Located off Upper Paya Lebar Road + 3 direct bus services = 20 minutes public transport time
• Although situated in one of those industrial warehouse-like building, it boasts of a "proper" air-conditioned office, furnished with meeting rooms and cubicles. (Unlike ACHEMA... Haha.)
• Impressive training opportunities for marketing exectuives, both local and overseas, funded by All Eights, SIM and external companies.

What's Not:
• EEeee. Not one of those sales job again...
• Asked to do an impromptu mock sales pitch. I felt as if I was caught with my pants down.
• Speaking of pantless interview, All Eights sounds like... (Clue: Think HIV)

Bing Factor:
(On a scale of 1-5; 1 being a crappy job & 5 means BINGo!):

Interview #17
August 11, 2009
Company: AITBIOTECH
Category: Genomic services provider and Life Science Equipment Distributor
Position: Customer Support Specialist Product Specialist

The invitation for an interview came from a dubious-looking email:

Dear Kelvin

Would you be available for an interview??

A***
AITBIOTECH

After a few exchange of emails, I noticed A***'s abstinence of periods and commas, while consistently use of double question marks. But I shall resist the temptation to reproducing more emails.

That aside, it was great timing that my parents were away from Singapore, allowing me free reign over the family car. Especially after considering that AITBIOTECH is cruelly located at Ayer Rajah Industrial Estate!

Expectedly, it was one of my most ill-prepared interviews ever.

A sales-based job in a SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) was a double turnoff for me, compelling me to employ my black belt of procrastination. Right up to minutes before the interview, I was still mugging rushing through my notes about AITBIOTECH.

YET...

If the Sanofi-Aventis interview was a catastrophic failure condemned forever to bring shame to Kelvins in the world, then the interview at AITBIOTECH could be likened as a spectacular Nobel-Prize, Pulitzer-Award winning success.

Halfway through the interview, I realized my random unprepared babble about "meeting new people" had fortuitously struck a chord with A***. It all past in an unexpected blur and a quick tour of the laboratory-office premises.

Before I left, A*** had outrightly offered me the job.

Shell-shocked and cornered, I whipped out my wisdom tooth card. That was, my plans to extract my wisdom tooth before commencing work proper.

As I left the Ayer Rajah Industrial Estate perplexed, I received another call from Recruit Express, which led to Interview #19.


What's Hot:
• Extremely amiable CEO: A boss I believe I could work well with
• Monthly salary of $2500: Meeting my minimum cutoff salary
• Although Under EDB's Local on-the-Job Training (LOT), A*** had chosen not to enforce the mandatory one/two year bond.

What's Not:
• Sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales sales

• Ayer Rajah Industrial Estate is simply not friendly to public transport users.

• Monthly salary of $2500: Sorely insufficient since I was expected to have more own tranport

Bing Factor:




Interview #18
August 12, 2009
Company: Singapore - MIT Alliance
Category: University Research
Position: Executive (IP/Research)

My second interview in NUS was in the heart of Engineering. The walk to the Office certainly brought back more memories as opposed to that at School of Medicine. For the umpteenth time, I was filled with disgust, bitterness and nostalgia as I saw engineering muggers sprawled lifelessly on the tables outside Dilly's Creation. Heh.

Ironically, the ubiquitous muggers lay buried in their books, I too was "blessed" with a 2 question-test, designed to gauge how boomz my England would be.

After an hour of scribbling legibly (at least to my best effort), I awaited for Part II, which thankfully featured only two interviewers (K**** & FL).

While the interview was not as spectacular as that in AITBIOTECH, I was cautiously confident that I had made at least a positive impression on FL. (That apparently had unexpected implications later on... but I digress.)

While the interview was not as spectacular as that in AITBIOTECH, I was cautiously confident that I had made at least a positive impression on FL. (That apparently had unexpected implications later on... but I digress.)

What's Hot:
• Non-sales, FINALLY.
• Postulated higher starting pay.
• SMA Office would be located at NUS Faculty of Engineering. Which means... Great food at cheap prices! Techno Edge (AKA Engineering Canteen), Olive Cove, Dilly's Creation, Pavilion Cafe, and McDonald's...

What's Not:
• Administrative, logistical and desk-bound. ZZZZzzzz.
• NUS... Not exactly looking forward to the protracted bus/mrt/bus journey.

Bing Factor:

Interview #19
August 14, 2009
Company: MW Medical
Category: Mobile Clinic
Position: Management Trainee

This was one interview I was initially extremely excited because I had somehow comprehended that the post was some management trainee position at a French multinational company.

Then Au**** from Recruit Express informed me of the salary allowance, which would be a literally groundbreaking S$1800.

All hopes shattered when I googled "MW Medical".

That day was a sleepy morning, and I took the Circle Line to Marymount for the first time. I arrived rather early so I detoured to Shunfu Mart to get my extra caffeine fix from a cup of Kopi-peng (Ice Coffee).

I arrived 15 minutes early to a boring looking clinic in Sin Ming Plaza. It was one of those moments where I spot another candidate already seated and filling up a form.

"Ah-ha! Rival spotted."

As I proceeded to fill up the application form, I heard "Kelvin!".

Oops. It was a fellow NUS BioEngineering mate! Talk about tiny Singapore.

In short, the interview was rather forgetable, but much more should be said in my next entry post.

What's Hot:
• Management Trainee = Great potential for rotation to different departments
• Located walking distance from Marymount MRT Station, slightly over half hour in journey time

What's Not:
• Management Trainee = Great potential for sai kang (AKA shit job)
• $1800 Allowance

Bing Factor:

Professing Professor

These days, the line between reality and fiction blurs. I am almost used to being addressed as Dr Kelvin or Professor Lim, at least on my work NUS email.

But as of recently, my academic recognition has even seeped into my old NUS email.

Subject Header: Appointment

Hi Professor:

Hope you are well! I was wondering if you are free tomorrow at 11 am to discuss some doubts from Chapter 3. Pls let me know if you are available. If not, please let me know, I will come up with some alternative time slots.

Warmest Regards,
S*********


HMMMMM... I really need to check who in NUS is teaching Chapter 3.

Premature Promotion

Taking a brief respite from my innervating irritating interview blog entries, I've decided to spill the beans on something I've been busy with.

Yes, in the past couple of months, friends and foes have speculated that I was slacking around during my job hunting season. But in actuality, the truth couldn't be further from that.

I have been deep in research, furthering my studies in secret.

In fact, I have become the first NUS student to complete his postgraduate studies within 2 months!

As one of the youngest researchers in NUS, I am currently in the midst of setting up my own research group.

All interested candidates, please email me your CVs/resumes and "statement of purpose", like this young man from India has.

Subject Header: Research Guidance

To

Dr. Kelvin *. *. Lim
Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research
Department of Biological Sciences
Faculty of Science
National University of Singapore
14 Science Drive 4
Singapore - 117543


Sir,

I am R. S****** from Hyd******, India. I am writing this mail regarding the opportunity to gain research experience in your lab.

My main interests lie in population dynamics and sexual selections. I have just completed my field research project titled "Selection of the egg attachment sites by the Indian Golden Gecko Calodactylodes aureus" and currently working on its manuscript. In the past, I have worked on several short projects on reptiles and birds.

I would like to improve my skills under your guidance as a research student/volunteer. I am aware of the dedication and hard work that is expected on my part while working under you and I assure that given a chance I would strive to reach your expectations.

Please find the attached documents (resume and statement of purpose).

Thanking You

Sincerely
--
R. S******
Flat No. ***
S****** S***** Apartments
E********* Colony
Hyd****** *** ***
Andhra Pradesh, India.
***********@gmail.com
Mobile no.- +91 ***** *****

"Experience should be counted not in years but in frequency of action"

Finishing Finale

I meant to blog about this last week, but never really got to click the "publish post" button.

3rd May 2009: Multipurpose Sports Hall (MPSH) 5

Today was a special day.
It was not only the last day of my life exams, it marked the end of my academic life in NUS as a bioengineering undergraduate. Physiology II (PY1106) had the honour to be THE PAPER for Kelvin.

Of course, I figured that my final paper in NUS should be a walk in the park.

1. Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ)
MCQ examinations are what students would kill for, as opposed to those lengthy essay or calculations-galore papers. Put it simply, how bad could it turn out?

Even a monkey trained to shade one oval per line would be able to score around 20%.

2. 60 MCQs for 2 hours
2 minutes per question?! Gahhhh. A pure insult.
Judging that a good number of questions are based upon simple recall of facts, it shouldn't take more than 30 seconds.

3. Year 1 kids.
HAHA. This is the "old bird" speaking man... What do all those Dentistry, Pharmarcy and Nursing freshies know?

4. Me = 2 Exams only.
Since the Chamber Singers II small group singing test had long passed, I effectively had the whole study break to prepare a miserly of 2 papers.
(Of course, how effectively I made use of the time is pretty questionable.)

I could list a few more reasons, but you get my idea...
.
.
.

So Kelvin strolled in to the examination hall, to table 89. "Let's end this with a smile!", he thought confidently.

Listening to Dr. Sanjay Khanna recite the same list of instructions for the last time, he cranked his head to see the digital clock strike "1700".

"The time is 5PM. This is a 2hour paper... You may begin."

*rustle of papers*

Kelvin's eyes settle on the first question... And his heart skipped a beat.
"Nah... They probably reserved the most difficult questions for the first part," he manages to convince himself.

After eliminating the obviously wrong choices, Kelvin attempts to wring out the best answer. And like all other previous papers, he marked a tick on the left hand side of the question to indicate that the question deserves a second look.

The second question.

"Ah ha! You're not going to play mind games with me!" Kelvin triumphantly guesses that the second question will be as difficult as the first one. He knows that all attempts to break him down psychologically would fail.

And yup, he makes another customary tick at the left of question two.

The third question.
"Yes! The questions are still... difficult?" Kelvin negotiates the question valiantly.

And another tick to the left hand side.

The fifth question.
"... ..."

*Two more ticks*

Halfway through the paper, Kelvin soon observes that the "ticks" were fast losing its significance. "I should start marking out questions that I know instead..." he ponders to himself cruelly.

Time flew by in a blur as an epic battle for survival unfolded before his eyes. No prizes for guessing who had the upper hand.

As a coup de grâce, irritating kids started leaving the hall 15 minutes before the end of the paper. Arghhh.

Let me tell you, it was a pretty gruesome sight at table 89.

While the final year students were declaring that they had finally finished, Kelvin was simply... finished.

Final Semester

It was all planned out.

As my final semester in NUS inevitably drew to a close, I had great visions of ending it with a bang.

It would include having atas lunches with NUS pals, at the not-so-newly-opened NUS SUN Asian Bistro.

Great Ambiance.

Pretty Chic DecorAnd of course, seemingly great food.

Of course, after these sumptuous lunches, wouldn't it be great to enjoy to round the afternoon up with an free afternoon concert at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music?

BUT NOOOOOOooooooo.
How did my last two weeks turn out?


Day 0 was on 19 March, Day 29 was on 17th April.
Go figure.

Murderous

After revising my FYP report for the 4251483th time, I am STILL at work on it.



Strangely, the only person I wanna meet personally now is my mentor.
*stab*

Shakespeared Songs

Ha. The long-awaited concert of the century is finally over!

My heartfelt gratitude goes out to all who came to concert. And for those who did not, I am also thankful that you didn't. :p

The concert was riddled with so many screw-ups, it was inhumanly possible to list them all.

1) Everyone went FLAT by probably more than a semitone in some songs. It's pretty telling especially when I can't even reach the supposed low F, even after trying to croak it out.
2) Diction was much to be desired. The lyrics were all derived from the great works of William Shakespeare, so it was a pity that hardly any words muttered were discernible.
3) Some pieces started off very weakly, as if no one was quite sure about the actual starting first note.
4) Starting off weakly unintentionally is bad, coming in for individual parts at different times was even worst. It sounded like intermittent bird-dropping.
5) Pitch? Hello? I know there were dissonant chords, but we manage to stretch its definition to possibly the realms of noise.

And just when you thought unaccompanied parts were bad, the bringing in of instruments could not salvage the situation.
6) I know I'm nitpicking, but Miss Cello player, the bass section is relying you heavily for your notes. Coming in at the wrong time certainly did not help matters.
7) Timing timing timing between the choir and the pianist. While an untrained ear might not be able to pick out tonal mistakes, rhythmic ones are much more apparent. The coordination between us could be summed up as "Faster or slower, but rarely in unison." Of course, how could anyone forget the disastrous ending of epic proportions when the choir ended 1-2 seconds earlier than the pianist!

I wonder I can grab the live recording of it, then you can witness some of the atrocities committed.

But my conductor, Dr Katherine Wallace, sums it up most nicely and politically correctly...
"Thank you once again for a great concert last night. I felt there were some truly exquisite moments."

LOL.
Despite massacring Shakespeare, it was still pretty fun though.

La La La

If education was meant to inspire students the wonders and joy of learning, I think it has failed me on most accounts. In fact, I am convinced that there are murderous consequences...
Of course, there were rare moments in NUS when I genuinely looked forward to lecture... but tragically, these "interesting" modules seem to gravitate strongly towards the Arts and Social Sciences faculty.

This semester was no different. Despite having fulfilled the university requirements of elective modules, I decided that this was my last chance at taking a module that I truly liked.

It was a tough decision with tempting (at least to me...) modules such as Reason and Persuasion (Philosophy), Japanese/French/German Language, Science of Music, Music in the Global Context, Introduction to Film Art.

But in the end, I rashly bidded for MUA3211: Chamber Singers II.

Module Descriptus:
This course allow students to learn the fundamentals of vocal production and choral techinique through participation in a vocal performance ensemble. Students will participate in regular rehearsals, and will learn and perform choral music with an emphasis on Renaissance and Twentieth-century music. Through this course, students will gain knowledge of diverse repertoire, composers, genres, styles and period performance practices. They will also learn fundamentals of vocal production and choral technique and will experience working together in a unique team ensemble.

It was unplanned and unexpected because it was worth only 2MCs (as opposed to the normal 4MCs), 3 hours of lessons, and even had a compulsory audition. In other words, this module is really damn boh hua lah.

But who could resist the temptation of NOT taking a module at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music? The cacophony kaleidoscope of music I hear as I walk to my class is sufficient to make my day.
Fine, I'm not very rational again.

Nonetheless, I've stuck long enough to realize that there's a performance in less than 48hours... and to think that I've never gone for any of the free noon recitals at Yong Siew Toh Conservatory before.

Guess I'll view the conservatory concert hall for the first time, from the stage. AGAD.

Monday Noon Recital
Venue: Conservatory Concert Hall
Date: 16 March 2009, Monday, 12.15pm

PROGRAMME

Piano Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 14 (1912) by Prokofiev
IV. Vivace

Khoo Hui Ling (MUS3), piano

Sonata in A major (1886) by by Franck
III. Recitativo - Fantasia
IV. Allegretto poco mosso

Cantabile by Paganini

Jia Xiaoke (MUS4), violin
Liu Jia, piano

Three Shakespeare Songs by Vaughan Williams

Fancies I by Sven-Eric Johanson

Sigh No More, Ladies (from Much Ado About Nothing, Act II, Sc. 3) by George Shearing

Conservatory Chamber Singers

The Start of The End

2009 began tumultuously with this.

Already a few weeks into school, and reality finally beginning to sink in that my days in NUS is indeed numbered.

Especially, now that I've officially run out of opportunities to sell my remaining textbooks, after a very unsuccessful attempt at BuyBackAsia.
So here's a final shot. Anyone interested in the following textbooks, please contact me. I guarantee the best price, value and quality!

Title: Essential Cell Biology
Author: Alberts Bray Hopkin Johnson Lewis Raff Roberts Walter
Edition: 2nd

Title: Biology, Concepts and Applications
Author: Cecie Starr
Edition: 6th

Title: Marketing - Real people, Real choice
Author: Soloman, Marshall, Stuart
Edition: 4th

Anyone interest?
A donation is much appreciated...


On a separate note, my Final Year Project has been a bottomless pit in terms of time and effort.
I'm beginning to suspect that my mentor expects me to be in lab during normal working hours, even if it means skipping my lectures and tutorials.

And of course, after conducting my daily experiments in lab, I would have to crunch out some useful numbers, to prove that I'm making groundbreaking discovery.
But I think I'm more more of an alcoholic than a researcher.

Indeed, culturing all these bloody (pun intended) human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells have driven me close to insanity.

But the final straw had to be this...

Do notice that there a tiny lump of growth in the tissue culture flask.
And NO. The flask is supposed to contain clear cell culture medium and NOTHING MORE.

To prove that the twenty-cent-sized lump has to be some sort of insidious creature, here are some photomicrographs of it on the edges...
I get goosebumps whenever I see these evil fungal growth.

So you could imagine how I almost fainted when I found the "MOTHER" Fungus growing in the tray of water in the incubator. The motherfungal thing was at least half the size of my palm!

You might not "appreciate" the gravity / grotesqueness of the situation if you have not handled cell culture before. But it's probably the equivalent of finding first finding a cockroach in your food, and then discovering the cook is a cockroach!

Fine, bad analogy.

On another random note, I just found out that playing 围棋 (WeiQi) and "digging gold" is much frowned upon in Bishan Community Club.

Finally, this entry wouldn't be complete without announcing to the world that I have officially joined...

The Conservatory Chamber Singers of
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Music

It sounds good, ain't it?

Haha. Actually, it's because I'm taking this 2MC module by Yong Siew Toh "MUA3211: Chamber Singers II"

Module Descriptus:
This course allow students to learn the fundamentals of vocal production and choral techinique through participation in a vocal performance ensemble. Students will participate in regular rehearsals, and will learn and perform choral music with an emphasis on Renaissance and Twentieth-century music. Through this course, students will gain knowledge of diverse repertoire, composers, genres, styles and period performance practices. They will also learn fundamentals of vocal production and choral technique and will experience working together in a unique team ensemble.

As I've mentioned, this is my final semester in NUS. So I decided to fulfill my final wishes and end it off with a bang. Indeed, this module is absolutely extraneous which probably has no effect on my CAP and might even siphon some of my precious time from my FYP.

But who could resist not taking a module conducted in a classroom with a Steinway Grand Piano?

Final Year Crap

No. This blog hasn't died yet.
My only excuse for a relatively long hiatus is the inordinate grotesque amount of time my final year project has been soaking up. It has derailed numerous ambitious plans I set out to accomplish in the December holidays, but it didn't take long for me to realize that it's already 2009.

Christmas was literally bloody short.

But nonetheless, I still manage to hit an ultra-last-minute trip to Hong Kong.
But because my FYP interim report is due in less than a couple of days time, I think I'll hold off the detailed blogging.
So to tide the dearth of words in this entry, here's an article I wrote for The Online Citizen.
And yes, it's about everyone's favourite political party to hate/love, the Singapore Democratic Party. Heh.

SDP: Misunderstood, misguided or misaligned?
By Kelvin Lim / Writer

The Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) is arguably Singapore’s most controversial political party, boasting a colourful history involving ideological clashes with the government, inter and intra-party disunity and facing an inundating surge of legal lawsuits and charges.

After years of negative reporting by the local media, the public standing of SDP seems to be permanently marred in the eyes of some Singaporeans.

A quick search into recent archives (2008) of The Straits Times on news pertaining to the SDP has indeed yielded a less than flattering picture.

Date	Headline in the Straits Times
22 August	Chees, five others charged with illegal assembly
2 September	Illegal assembly: Woman fined $650
14 October	Chees deserved jail terms for their conduct in court: Judge
14 October	PM, MM get $950k damages; Amount determined in part by ‘egregious’ conduct of the Chees
15 October	A-G takes trio to court for ’scandalising judiciary’
24 October	Two fined for taking part in illegal assembly

Raison d’être: Civil disobedience

It is tempting to dismiss them as politicians who are bent on breaking laws and creating trouble, but scratch beyond the rebellious surface and it might reveal more than meets the eye. The rationale behind their actions has been explained on their website, and also detailed by Dr Chee Soon Juan’s The Power of Courage.

The SDP states that the most fundamental objective for a political party is policy-making, followed by implementation of policies upon successful election into the parliament. But without free and fair elections, they rationalise that the only alternative path is “for citizens to exercise their rights through peaceful mass protests to compel the PAP to accede to the people’s demands for a free and fair election system”.

In a nutshell, they have been advocating political change through nonviolent action.

Nonviolent action is a means of social change that avoids the use of physical violence. Sometimes going beyond institutionalised methods such as petitioning and voting, it takes the form of civil disobedience. As the name suggest, civil disobedience involves a refusal to disobey selective laws and regulations which are deemed to be unfair and unjust.

Various famous historical examples of civil disobedience were the Salt Satyagraha by Mahatma Gandhi, the Montgomery Bus Boycott sparked by Rosa Parks and resistance against South African apartheid, led by Nelson Mandela.

Framing that principle in the Singapore context, Dr Chee purports that Singapore has its fair share of “unjust laws”, which aim to circumscribe basic human rights such as freedom of assembly and speech. To “overcome” these laws, he advocates breaking existing “unjust laws” even if it results in stiff penalties. He reasons: “The Government can jail 10 persons; it can even jail 100 persons but it cannot jail 10,000 persons.”

Liberalising the Speakers’ Corner: A fruit of civil disobedience?

Since Dr Chee was appointed as the Secretary-General of SDP in 1993, it remains debatable whether his confrontationist approach has yielded tangible results.

In a working paper published by Asia Research Institute titled “Calibrated coercion and the maintenance of hegemony in Singapore”, Dr Cherian George posits that these tactics are aimed at provoking a strong response so to expose “the repressive core of the state”. Yet, due to the Singapore’s small geographical size and its traditional economic strength, the People’s Action Party (PAP) has been able to respond to the multiple acts of civil disobedience with little visible political cost, by limiting legal action to organisers and speakers instead of the participatory audience.

On the other hand, long-time political commentator, Mr Alex Au points out the recent relaxation of regulation on public protests at Speakers’ Corner as a visible fruit of civil disobedience. During the IMF-World Bank Summit held in Singapore in October 2006, Dr Chee Soon Juan and Ms Chee Siok Chin engaged in a standoff with the police for three days and nights, and were prevented from marching to the conference venue. Predictably, it generated unfavourable press coverage worldwide and even earned stinging criticism from the World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz when the authorities tried to bar accredited activists from entering the shores of Singapore.

In any case, one may never know for sure whether the move towards liberalising public protest at Speakers’ Corner on 1 September was impelled by the SDP’s acts of civil disobedience by, or a deliberately-paced progression towards active citizenship.

A clash of ideals

Former NTUC Income chief, Mr Tan Kin Lian is by far, the most successful organiser in attracting record breaking numbers to the Speakers’ Corner, and advocating justice for unwitting investors who have invested in complex structured products especially those linked to the collapsed Lehman Brothers.

On 14 October, much to the dismay of the SDP, Mr Tan highlighted the importance of investors staying within the laws. He cautioned of “groups that wish to expand their anarchical ranks and would happily urge you to break the law”, and bluntly warned against doing “what many stupid and selfish politicians in Singapore have done and seek self destruction.”

In a reply posted on the SDP website, the party accused Mr Tan of joining in with the voices of scaremongering. Rhetorically, they asked where Mr Tan could have assembled the DBS investors, if activists had not campaigned for freedom of assembly. Rather than disparaging civil disobedience, fighting for political and civil rights could “come in very handy in [the] future”.

There is much debate over the validity of what the SDP has been fighting for, such as whether current laws are really unjust in the first place. Furthermore, people who support ideals pertaining to freedom of assembly and speech may not be willing to intentionally go against established laws which restrict its very definition.

SDP on a tightrope

In March this year, SDP launched a series of “Tak boleh tahan!” (Malay for I can’t take it anymore!) campaigns to protest against rising inflation which resulted from price hikes including the GST increase. Conducted at HDB estates such as Toa Payoh Central and Bishan, it was a calculated move towards engaging heartlanders on bread-and-butter issues.

In the months that followed, the SDP also tried to reach out to local university students at National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Singapore Management University (SMU).

Of late, the public outreach process has all but stopped as the SDP and some of its stalwart supporters had been besieged by a series of charges and lawsuits. With hefty compensation sums awarded to Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in recent defamation lawsuits, the SDP faces possible bankruptcy and deregistration as a political party.

The party is placed in a more precarious position than ever before. While it has managed to win supporters through the Internet, it remains to be seen and tested whether the newfound support might translate into substantial public support to prevent its demise.

Combined with a lack of consensual support between opposition parties and an ever evolving PAP, SDP must find a way to leapfrog ahead of the current conundrum while maintaining continual contact with Singaporeans, both online and offline.

Dr Chee recognised that “no campaign or movement can guarantee immediate and automatic success”. Whether or not SDP translate its grandiose political ideals to reality without going under is anyone’s guess.

Don't ask me why I'm inserting this random webcomic strip here.

BN3101: The End

So there we have it.

BN3101: Biomedical Engineering Design, the mother of all Bioengineering modules has finally drawn to a close. And what an experience it has been!

For all who haven't had the privilege of taking this module, it's a compulsory design project module that all NUS Bioengineering students have to take in the first semester for their third year.

The Project (for 2008)

• You are working in a Medical Device company
• You have no choice who your colleagues are
• You are given a small budget and a dateline to do a proof of concept design
• Your team is to present to management at the end of 12 weeks a design solution for a new total ankle or total wrist replacement.
• Your team is to convince management that you should be given more money (US$1 million) to bring concept to clinical trial.

What to Design

• A total wrist replacement
• Instrumentations for insertion of the device
• Instrumentation for cutting guides

I had manage to delay the inevitable for a year when I bolted out of Singapore to seek solace in New Zealand. But fast forward one year, BN3101 was back to breathing down my neck.

I was dreading every moment of it after hearing all the horror stories from my fellow BIE mates who had already gone through fiery flames of BN3101. Furthermore, the implication of doing a design project module concurrently with a final year project seemed almost insurmountable.

Like it or not, I had no choice. LPPL.

Things started off with a sour note when BN3101 held 4 pre-lectures on week 0. (What the heck are pre-lectures anyway?!) It was expected that everyone mastered Solidworks in that week so each group could start designing on the medical device when semester officially begins.

On another note, for the first time in short history of BN3101, the bioengineering batch was tasked to design two types of prostheses. Half was tasked to design an ankle replacement and the other half, a wrist one. My group was assigned the latter.

So with little engineering background (Bioengineers are not real engineers btw, unlike traditional engineering fields i.e Mechanical/Electrical/Civil engineers...) and zilch knowledge on orthopedic implants, everyone unwillingly embarked on this seemingly impossible task.

After a couple of weeks of brainstorming, my group presented our brilliant ideas to the specialists at Department of Hand & Reconstructive Surgery, National University Hospital.

And boy old boy. Who would forget that condescending remark as our group entered the meeting room "these are the guys that want to design a wrist prosthesis in one semester!" *cue in snigger*

Dr Tan Ter Chyan was so convinced about the impossibility of our project, he assured us that he would talk to Prof Casey to change the scope of our project.
.
.
.
No, he did not.

To be fair, after having quite a bit of fun ridiculing us, he did rope in Dr David Tan to help us out. Nonetheless, everyone was pretty much sian jit pua (Coxford Dictionary: Hokkien adjective to convey boredom, weariness, frustration and emptiness) after the interview.

Of course, apart from designing a total wrist arthroplasty (artificial joint reconstruction) system, we had our individual roles such as intellectual property protection, regulatory affairs, market survey. I "wisely" chose design rationale and design verification.

Aargh. I have no idea how many journals, American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) papers and British Standards I had to put up with.
*strikes off future research/career in Biomechanics*

As a group, I personally thought our group was progressing at snail's pace. For example, we only finalized the name of our supposed company in the last couple of weeks before the deadline. Previously, we were unofficially called "terroWRIST" (fingers point to a certain Wayne...)

But thankfully, things did not retrogressed to the dismal state that plagued my previous design project, ME4253: Biomaterials Engineering. It was no surprise I made it my personal goal that ME4253 will be my final NUS project which I screwed up.

The Vascular Graft project that gave me a heart attack.

The smiles belies the bitterness simmering beneath.

With our amazingly helpful mentor, Dr Kim Sangho chasing us for our presentation slides, we actually manage to complete our presentation slides 5 days before the actual day.

And that left us to plan for other interesting stuff.

1. Fake brochure printed on Glossy Paper

The jeans blue border was a personal eyesore to me, so I manage to convince the rest that it didn't look too professional. Much to the dismay of Kenny. (Haha... Oops.)

2. Board to illustrate our amazing surgical instrumentation

Pity the hideous colours and font type though...

3. Surgical simulation for budding pseudo-surgeons

4. To top things off, our dress code was the antithesis of PAP.

However, to others, we looked like :
A) Mourning/Funeral/anything depressing
B) Mafia/Secret society/黑社会
C) University Cultural Centre Usher
D) Waiters/Waitress
E) Etc. Nothing really flattering... Seriously.

So after 12 weeks of group meetings, complicated lecturer-student scandals, McDonald breakfasts, Olive Cove pancakes, YIH lunches, Eusoff escapades and even more pancakes, Wiz-a-Wrist was born.

Wiz-a-Wrist™
It's worth the risk.

The day of presentation (ON A SATURDAY) began miserably with a lack of sleep and last minute printing of individual reports. The disgusting unappetizing lunch at the infamous YIH canteen didn't help matters.

To think we originally planned for a feast at NUS SUN Asian Bistro.

We did try to make it up a bit by having dinner at Kim Gary, Vivocity.

I digress.

It was a fuzzy swirl of events after lunch. But in short team averNUS nailed the presentation, had a clean sweep of the awards and lived happily ever after.
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I wished.

While we thought we emerged as possibly the strongest contenders in the "Wrist Group", there laid an even stronger contender in the "Ankle Group". Group 6, helmed by Eric Cher, stole the limelight. On top of garnering the Best Presentation Award, they took home the Most Innovative Award, which I was personally convinced we would get it.

Nonetheless, they were the rightful winners. As I read about using Fuji pressure-sensitive film to find out about the pressure distribution, Group 6 was already there using actual real films to test their prototype. When our group made use of wood and saws to attempt to model our surgical jigs, Group 6 had produce impressive acrylic models, presumably by rapid prototyping.

Wayne, the master carpenter at work.

So averNUS were relegated to runner's up position along with two other groups.

But hold your breath, everyone.
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While we did not emerge as best presentation, we clinched the PRESTIGIOUS DIRECTOR'S AWARD with the following 500 words!

BN3101, Biomedical Engineering Design assembled a team of six people, heralding from different ages, nationalities, and cultural backgrounds. United towards a common goal of perfecting the total wrist arthroplasty conundrum, our diversity enabled us to explore different perspectives to this multi-faceted problem. Starting out with six disparate designs, weeks of adaptation and accommodation gradually converged the best elements of each design to one original idea.

It was in consensus that this module has differentiated itself from other NUS project modules. The concept of adopting a Quality System Template whereby each member was tasked to an allocated specialization further provided a holistic depth of realism. This enabled us to pick up new skills such as CAD drawing with Solidworks, appreciate the intricacies behind a patent application, the workings of FDA etc. This in turn, gave us a slice of what a potential bioengineering job might entail in the future.

Apart from the academic aspect, BN3101 has successfully bonded the six of us as a team. With camaraderie forged, we could trust one another to complete our individual tasks before every meeting, further easing the burden of a difficult module.
The impact of BN3101 was not only observed as a group, but felt on a more personal individual level.

As leader of Group 12, Kenny acknowledges the difficulties in managing a diverse group while taking on an equally daunting project task within a tight schedule. Yet, BN3101 has convinced him that team work was the geist to handling massive projects. By and large, Kenny has thoroughly enjoyed the whole working process and unforgettable experience.

Puay Han contends that BN3101 has increased her knowledge about product development process and product marketing. She hopes that this useful course of learning would be applicable to future career option.

Krizia appreciates the formidable task of solving a real-world medical problem by translating an abstract idea to a concrete design solution, and compelling her “to think, act and talk like a real design engineer”. Furthermore, she values the opportunity of an actual self-made entrepreneur/orthopedic surgeon as a principal instructor of BN3101, who has enriched the learning process.

Like Krizia, Wayne agrees that BN3101 is especially challenging when it comes to designing a solution which is able to meet the needs of patients and surgeons while maintaining its practical feasibility. He posits that unlocking this perennial problem would be creativity.

Unexpectedly, BN3101 has unraveled the meaning of being a bioengineer for Qian Lan. She fondly recalls how this module has taught everyone to be open-minded and allowed the final prototype to be a marriage of various innovative features from different members.

Last but not least, Kelvin is enlightened on the inherent limits of learning through top-down pedantical knowledge and how BN3101 has done the exact opposite. He concurs that “only through learning how to learn, can the learning experience can be truly be expanded beyond boundaries.”

All in all, we as members of Group 12 hope that BN3101 will continue to be a cornerstone to NUS Bioengineering course.

LOL.
Okay, the award ain't that prestigious, because submission was optional and carries absolutely no grade weightage. Nevertheless, it was more of a cheap thrill that my last minute effort to compile, collate everyone's thoughts and ideas paid off.

The day ended with a unimpressionable Quantum of Solace at Vivocity, which was probably more forgettable for Qian Lan who slept through most of the movie.

Korean Kim Chee, a formidable mentorThe white man behind NUS BIE nightmares

On hindsight, BN3101 was most painful because there was so much self-learning to be done. But it was ironically enjoyable because everyone was suffering together. As they always say, misery loves company.

So yeah, guys and gals of Group 12/averNUS, you have truly been of great company.