Cardboard Chicken Chop

Project Work is finally over! Yes, the horror of JC1 life is done!!!!!! The project of acronyms is out of the way!! We literally had to do a pre-PW worksheet to figure out the acronyms. Wow, time flies.

Being in the same group as Mark, Erica, Wei Qin and Ash was a surprisingly pleasant experience! We were initially a pretty disgruntled group because some of us couldn't see eye to eye. Just in case, I'm not being malicious or pointed or anything... I mean, it is a recognised fact that we all carried the burden of trying to fit in, see. There was little patience and understanding, not just within the group but also in the entire class at the begining. We were all trying to find ourseleves in the new environment, so it now appears to me that we were all just lost little lambs.

But as the days passed, we became a group that had one common vision (or should I say illusion?), that was to seem productive. Yeah we were slackers. When the results come out next year, we'll know of the extent but... we were slackers.

Woah okay then the killer Written Report (WR)  was due. I think we only started to panic after the first draft because we had to do an overhaul of whatever sloppy work that we had dished up to our tutor. Those were really dark times. 

I think we also got on each others' nerves once or twice but essentially, we channeled the angst elsewhere...

Some time between the WR submission and Oral Presentation (OP) prep, I think my group started getting closer... literally because we had to sit down and just generate content and trash things out over the seven days between the first submission and the second submission. I believe we were all high on the adrenaline of wanting to get the WR done, and when we held the bound copy of the second draft (with formatting still screwed up though), I think we felt like hey you know what guys we can do this shit

Our tutor was also really helpful with his comments. As much as I hate to say it now, it was good that he was 'cruel to be kind'. But let's not forget when he 'lost his screws' and we were at a lost of how to put the prototype together. And we were still hammering out the basic details of our project. And considering more surveys. When people were already rehearsing for OP.

Horror stories include Mark realising the screws were missing, getting a bag of too small screws from our tutor, going to ikea and getting the wrong screws and FINALLY putting the prototype together. I remember waking up at 2 am the day of the WR submission because I was having bad dreams about formatting.

I swear, everyone was dead by the time we got to OP prep. Presentation ideas were so tough to generate and we had to do a group item?????? NO. But we managed to plough through with lots of listing and planning.

It's  pretty amazing that the entire pre-OP period was only two weeks long. It seems like we had forever to prepare. OP was surprisingly fun after the initial brain death because we came up with our own scripts. All of a sudden, everyone was eager to rehearse, and we were aiming for four full runs everytime we met. Of course, we weren't all that on task, but we did better than expected!

Once, we had two rehearsals, went for lunch with John, bought the prototype materials, did another two runs, pieced the prototype together and even discussed some questions! Wow! Productivity and Fun!!!

We even developed some rules of late-coming. When Mark was late, he bought drinks for all of us. I was angsty and snappy so I brought red-currant puffs.

I think PW brought the class together as well! We would occupy classrooms and have rotational rehearsal sessions. Towards the dying days, we even went down to Yanch's parent's place to have rehearsals. That broke off into watching Gundam and playing cards though...

 Mark and his people

Look at the slackers (all of us)

Today, we went out for a class lunch at Swensen's to celebrate the official end of PW! We made a phone stack at the start of the meal and just enjoyed our dishes with no distractions. It was a really breezy day with good food, good company and good conversations. 

Mark dismantled the table we used for our prototype and gave us a screw each. Now we even have PW souvenirs!

I think the entire experience was, in fact, a blessing in disguise. I really did manage to get closer to my classmates over the course of the project. We did silly things like recite my lines as I was presenting: "Unfortunately, the relief of not being chased out of the library came at a cost of my 12 dollar lunch set, consisting of a piece of cardboard chicken chop, barely salted fries, and frozen mixed vegetables, sitting in a pool of condensation." 

My group really did come together towards the end and I'm so glad that we managed to learn more about each other through such an otherwise notably unsatisfying course. It wasn't all a seamless process but it's not always how you start; it's how you finish. I feel we finished on a strong note. We emerged with relationships unscathed, and even improved.

I just hope the positives do not come at the cost of our grades.