Day 9: Mid-Autumn Nightmare

Such a drastic change in weather. It has been raining the whole day and its wet and cold outside. While everyone was huddled in sweaters and jackets, I was running around in a T-shirt and Jeans celebrating the rain! HAHA

Lessons today were all Project Management, Practical first then Lecture after lunch.

After practical, I went back to my room, and wanted to unlock my luggage, which I had somewhat stupidly locked it with my number-padlock in the morning on impulse...

AND I CAN'T UNLOCK IT!!!! Apparently the last digit of the padlock has malfunctioned, so although the number is correct, the gear just won't click and unlock it. NOOOOO!!!

After lunch at the vegetarian restaurant, because we didn't want to boss to deliver food in the rain, I asked the restaurant staff for directions to any hardware shop nearby with the intention of buying a metal cutter or something. In the end, I bought this:

and proceeded to break the lock, with help from my roomies. End result:

Cat and Mouse; Hammer and Padlock

Great success at lock-breaking, and now its time for lecture. After lecture, everyone had group meetings to decide and start work on the Statement of Work (SOW) and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) for the OIE Video which is now used for PM Project too. After thinking and thinking, we got hungry and distracted, so out we went to a nearby Muslim restaurant. Looking at the caps the restaurant staff were wearing, I would think that they are from the minority Uighur group or something.

Anyway, it was still raining, but we had time to burn before our mid-autumn celebrations, we went for a walk around the campus, partly because I was attracted by the orange sky. It turns out that the sky was orange around the main block because the main block was lit up like so:

However the night wind was really strong and the raindrops were so fat and heavy we all wanted to go back. But not before some group photos taken behind the main block!

At night, we had our own mini-celebrations for Mid-Autumn Festival! This would be the first time I'm celebrating it overseas and away from home, but I guess this makes it even more unique.

Reflection:

Today being mid-autumn, a festival for reunion, I had a lengthy phone call home, to update my parents and to tell them what I have experienced. Over 20 minutes of conversation later, I realized that indeed I missed seeing my parents. However, here I am, in an overseas immersion programme, and I must make full use of the chance to turn the challenge of being away from home into an opportunity to learn more about myself and more about places and life beyond Singapore.