Akan Datang...

Project Superkids came to a successful close on the 2nd of December at NIE, leaving behind several picture memories captured on the spot for all involved to reminisce. More to come soon! I hope. =P

9th September GESL meeting : Birthday cake surprise

Our most recent GESL meeting was held around a fortnight ago on the 9th of September, and the various committee heads took turns to report their respective progress so far. But even before the meeting formally commenced, there was a surprise in store for five of us – Robin, Sheela, Marc, Michael and me (Eileen). We were I was absolutely clueless as to what the surprise was, until Marc told me that it should be a birthday cake surprise since his birthday falls in the month of September. This made me even more confused because my birthday happens to fall in July! But apparently, the cake was meant for the July, August and September babies…to save money, as what Wilson openly declared. Lol. So after Shirley and Marcus had successfully struggled with the lighting of the candle outside the meeting room, the cake was brought in, followed by the singing of the birthday song, photo-taking and blowing out of the candle.

Thanks peeps for the mini birthday celebration, with the birthday cake kindly sponsored by Samuel!

22nd August : NIE Director's Race'08 + Post-relay run dinner.

The sky was overcast half an hour before the stipulated flag-off time and most of us believed the Director's Race would be called off at the last minute. Daniel, Marc and Michael attempted rain dances too and it did pour soon after, but the skies eventually cleared before the flag-off time of the relay race at 6.40pm.

Not to be boastful or anything, but I feel the six of us did a pretty good job in completing the race within 90 minutes. At least we weren't the last few of the GESL groups to finish the relay run...of course, Daniel's impressive timing of 9+ minutes helped lots. And in the first place, we still bothered to participate in the race even with rumours circulating around that there wouldn't be any prize money involved. Plus, there were no goodie bags for GESL runners too...>_<



That's Samuel, chiong-ing the final 50m of the relay run.

Team Sapphire runners!

Team Sapphire runners with the team manager, Wilson.
Naturally famished after the 2.4km run, Michael drove us (Ivan, Samuel, Shirley, Wilson and me) to Marina Square for a Japanese feast @ Waraku. Ruth joined us for dinner too!





p.s. Thanks Michael, for kindly offering to drive most of us home after dinner! =D

NIE Director's Race'08

1st runner : Eileen
2nd runner : Shirley
3rd runner : Ivan
4th runner : Daniel
5th runner : Michael
6th runner : Samuel

The five of us who could make it on Wednesday afternoon made the effort to do a practice run, led by Daniel, familiarizing ourselves with the 2.4km route at the same time. We're kinda prepared for the run tomorrow evening, and we'll certainly do our best! 加油, runners!

8th August : Project Runway'08 Fashion Show

Mas was already at work, aiding Shirley with the costume in one of the function rooms at the Students' Hub, when Sheela and I arrived at 1pm. To ensure that the bottom half of the costume would not loosen and fall, we had to resort to 'borrowing' some string from one of the clubs on the sly. (They had coincidentally stored some materials in the room...shhh.)





Daniel popped by a while later and was asked to comment on the henna by Sheela, thus beginning an amusing conversation :

Sheela : So how's the henna?
Daniel : (peers at the henna) Hmm...can lah!
Sheela : (looks questioningly at Daniel) Hmm? Nono...it's pronounced as hen...na.
Daniel : ??

LOL.


After the costume was settled, there was still much to be done. Mas and Sheela then proceeded to touch up Shirley's hair while Phey Ying and Ruth began the task of painting Shirley's nails with the five Olympic colours.


The touching up of Shirley's hair was a little tricky though. Several hair pins were needed and Phey Ying had to use lots of hair spray to make Shirley's ponytail sufficiently stiff. Still, the end-result was awesome!


Mission accomplished! Many thanks to the modeling team for the conscientious effort - Ann, Mas, Phey Ying, Ruth and Sheela!


Team Sapphire girls! (Gasp! Sorry Ruth, I blocked you from the camera!)

Team Sapphire guys with Shirley!

And finally, everyone together!
Thanks to the guys who chiong-ed to the venue quickly, we managed to occupy almost the entire row of seats at the back, with a rather good view of the T-stage.


Check out the following video clip for Shirley's graceful catwalk, not forgetting Wilson's brief cameo appearance!



It was an intense competition with creative masterpieces from the various GESL groups. Though Team Sapphire did not make it into the semi-finals, all of us truly did our best and I'm certain we enjoyed the competition process. And to Shirley, you were a wonderful and courageous model! Thanks! =D

Project Runway'08 : The headdress + The costume

The first sketch of the headdress was completed within the Orientation Week. Inspired by movies such as 'Troy', we decided to have it made of leaves.


Intially, we used glittering gold and silver leaves for the headdress, spending a considerable amount of time poking tiny holes through the leaves and inserting a wire through them. We believed it would work, but unfortunately, it self-terminated shortly after. =(

Michael then proceeded to make another headdress from scratch, much less 'bling-bling' this time, yet with an added realistic touch.



As for the costume itself, which is the most essential component of all, here are the detailed sketches by Costume I/C, Mas :



More pictures of the fully completed Project Runway'08 Show costume to come tomorrow! Watch this space!

*picture credit goes to Michael and Mas*

Upcoming...

Project Runway'08 Show...in just three days time.

We can do it, Team Sapphire!

Project Runway'08 : The poster

After hours of holing up in one of the cosy, air-conditioned (thank God!) meeting rooms at the Students' Hub, we managed to complete our beautiful and 3-dimensional poster for Project Runway'08 two days before the stipulated deadline! A round of applause for all our efforts to make this possible! =D






Special thanks to : (NOT in any order of importance)
1) Weiming, for the very prompt and creative poster design.
2) David, Robin and Weiming, for their D&T brains and craftsmanship.
3) Ann, Phey Ying and Ruth, for their swift sewing of the curtains.
4) Mas and Sheela, for their delicate makeover of the Barbie doll.
and last but not the least...
5) Samuel and Wilson, for their overall supervision.

Great job, people! =)

*picture credit goes to Samuel*

Project Runway'08 : The overall costume design + Earrings

On the very first day Team Sapphire was formed, we were presented with a major project – Project Runway’08. This project was to coincide with the National Day celebrations and it was a necessity to base our masterpieces on the two themes of ‘Uniquely Singapore’ together with the ‘Youth Olympics 2010’. The two essential tasks at hand were to hand make a beautifully eye-catching costume for a selected model of our group, who would be parading on the T-stage during the fashion show for all to view, and also to construct a poster showing the rationale behind the costume design. The deadlines to be met were the 1^st and 8^th of August respectively.

Within the brief span of twenty minutes allocated to us that afternoon, several ideas were enthusiastically contributed and we hastily managed to churn out an overall costume design linked closely to the two themes.

Of course, this artistic sketch couldn’t have been completed without Sheela, the artist of Team Sapphire.

Back at home, Michael, the team’s Creative Director, worked hard on the preliminary designs of the earrings. Six possible ones were displayed soon after for all of us to vote for, with the majority in favour of the first design.

Because the earrings had to be striking, David came up with the brilliant idea of using leftover golden ‘Ferrero Rocher’ chocolate wrappers as a coating for the earrings. That night, poor Michael finished twelve whole chocolates on his own and his throat became sore. Thank you for your noble sacrifice!

*all dialogues are partially fictional*
*picture credit goes to the respective owners*

An (edu)blog for Team Sapphire [GESL]

Hi, all Team Sapphire members! =)
I decided to take it upon myself to create a blog for the team as I figure we will be dealing with several upcoming projects and activities. As such, it might be better if all our various programmes and preparations throughout our stint at NIE are penned down. At the end of it all, we can present this (edu)blog to Daniel [our team facilitator] as an additional journal log for the team and I believe reading it will serve as a reminiscing walk down memory lane for all of us too. ^_^

That aside, I realize this blog template is a little bare. Hopefully, I'll be able to beautify it soon, so please bear with this for the moment. I'll be publishing regular entries with pictures to go along, but if any of you guys are itching to add in updates of your own, do let me know and I'll be glad to hand you the password. Also, feel free to leave any comments in the tagboard, located on the right.

Last but not the least, welcome to the (edu)blog of Team Sapphire and cheers to its success! =D