Highlights of October

	Singapore-Sketches of the Lion City British illustrator Lorette Roberts launches “Singapore, Sketches of the Lion City”, her first sketchbook of Singapore
	Singapore Writers Festival 2009
	The Next Wave: Re-imagined and Refreshing
	25th Singapore French Film Festival

NUS Students’ Vacation Stint As AYG Reporters

Lee Meixian | leemeixian@gmail.com
the ridge
A NUSSU Publication
The recently concluded Asian Youth Games (AYG) from 29 June to 7 July saw about fifty tertiary students involved in providing content for the official website.

These students hailed from four different tertiary institutes: Republic Polytechnic (RP), Singapore Polytechnic (SP), Temasek Junior College (TJC) and National University of Singapore (NUS). 18 of them were from the latter, forming the largest pool of volunteers among the four schools.

The project was subcontracted to Content Craft, a new media agency, which then assigned every volunteer to at least one of the nine AYG sports: Athletics, Aquatics, FIBA 33 Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Bowling, Football, Sailing, Shooting, and Table Tennis.

Every sport had its own team comprising reporters, photographers and one liaison officer, who updates the online fixtures and results and liaises with the Singapore Sports Council (SSC) for the approval and publishing of articles.

While RP, SP and TJC became involved primarily because of their links with SSC via other projects, many NUS students only came to know about this scouting for AYG journalists and photographers via a Communications and New Media (CNM) tutor, Ms Mary Lee, who is friends with the Managing Director of Content Craft.

But most of the NUS volunteers joined the team through their friends’ recommendation, not the initial call that Mary sent out to her students. Two additional photographers were also found through a Facebook advertisement. The fact that it was the first AYG and was held in Singapore made it a very good reason for many to apply.

Ngeow Jiawen, a third year CNM major, felt it would be beneficial to her resume, while Lee Guan Wei, a second year Industrial & Systems Engineering student, joined it “because it’s a good opportunity to build my photography portfolio and possibly opens up networks for me to shoot for the upcoming Youth Olympic Games”.

Others like Yap Xiong and Lee Min Kok, third year Sociology and CNM majors respectively, were interested in sports journalism and thought the AYG would be a good way to cut their teeth writing.

Said Yap Xiong, “I’ve written for newsletters before, but I wanted to try faster and different. Also, I thought it would be a great way to spend my holidays: watching sports for free and writing for an audience like myself. It didn’t sound like work, more like blogging.”

Others still joined it for less conventional reasons. Second year Law student, Daniel Chen, did it because he was not keen on taking on a law internship.

“That road seems so stale,” he said. “I saw this as a chance to get experience in something other than law. I rather like writing in general and journalism in particular, though I will not pretend that I know much about either.”

“I did not want to do what other law students were doing just for prestige’s sake. This experience as a reporter might not seem as sophisticated, but for me, it was a fascinating way to get into sports reporting.”

Having students for reporters, photographers and editors did not compromise the quality of their journalistic work however. Senior Content Producer, Micah Tay, was especially impressed with the photographers, calling them “wonderful, absolutely brilliant!”

According to him, the Games period especially was a constant hectic adrenaline high, “crazier than any sporting activity ever, but everyone pulled their weight, so everything came off all right despite the obstacles and issues, thankfully.”

Guan Wei was a photographer for three sports – Athletics, Football and Swimming, as well as the Opening Ceremony.

Commenting on the photographers’ frenzied schedule, he said, “flash reports have to be up on the website one hour after the event ends, so photographs have thirty minutes to reach reporters and further go through selection and resizing. While this is going on, there are still events occurring outside on the field.”

“There were also operational constraints. For Athletics, there was a quota of only 20 photographers on the field of play. It meant that at crunch times, we only get one photographer in charge of shooting three concurrently occurring events, all at different parts of the stadium. It also meant that we were bound to miss some shots.”

His Athletics team of photographers managed in the end by devising a proper rotation schedule to allow each of them sufficient time for shooting and returning to the Press Workroom for the necessary coordination with reporters.

The very short turnaround time was a definite obstacle for everyone but Min Kok accepted it as “the challenge writing for a website, especially a highly visible one like AYG.”

Doubling up as a pre-games reporter before becoming Liaison Officer of Table Tennis, he recalled attending press conferences totally blind and feeling completely out of place, saying, “We didn’t know a single person, to the point that we even had to speculate who was who among the VIPs!”

“As the AYG drew nearer, things grew more hectic. My partner, Shaiful, and I had to attend several events a day. During the two-day torch relay, we had to wake up at 5am to cover the event from start to finish, plus attend press conferences in between and churning out short articles in an hour.”

Jiawen, who was Liaison Officer of Beach Volleyball, faced the additional problem of an unsteady Internet connection at Siloso Beach, Sentosa on top of the pressure of deadlines.

Having to juggle updating competition results, editing the reporters’ flash reports and resizing photographs all on her own left her very drained after working there for five days straight.

Conversely, there were others like Daniel, reporter for Athletics throwing events, who expected worse but later found journalism—a field he was hardly acquainted with before—not as stressful as he had imagined it would be.

Crediting his team members for their help, he said, “My teammates gave me many useful tips on the reporting procedures and such, so I did not feel unduly strained. Writing the report itself was not too difficult either, mostly because we had prepared draft templates beforehand.”

“Perhaps the hardest part was checking through the report and making sure every detail was correctly recorded – statistics, numbers, ages, athletes’ names, and country names. That was particularly tricky.”

In the end, every hectic encounter also made for fond memories that the volunteers took away from this experience.
Yap Xiong remembered rushing between Bishan Stadium and Swissotel on the first day of Athletics to chase the organizers for his media pass, and later being denied entry because it was not yet ready.

Having to buy his own entrance ticket that day, and afterwards being able to don his media pass on the subsequent days, impressed on him further how differently people treated you if you were from the media.

“It made me feel flattered,” he said, “like I was part of something big and important.”

Min Kok recounted having to run ahead of the torchbearers to capture shots of them during the torch relay while fending off scores of other photographers.
Interviewing the soccer players after their preliminary matches was another “blast” for him, being able to “revel, ommiserate and share their emotions, ranging from euphoria in victory to disappointment in defeat”.

“These players were just kids,” he said, “but they displayed a distinct sort of level-headed maturity that I can only admire. It really shows that sports, no matter how old you are or where you are from, can unite everybody.”

When interviewed, Content Craft’s Senior Content Producer, Micah Tay, was grateful for the NUS volunteers’ hard work, saying, “The NUS folks are excellent, not just because of their level of expertise but also their can-do attitude, sense of ownership and commitment to the success of the project.”

“As we went along from May, many things were still undecided on the Games front and I dreaded the fact that each time we held a massive meeting, I still didn’t have a lot of crucial information to update the team with. Despite that, we had no fallouts and everyone just rolled with it and prepped whatever they could. I appreciated that.”

Content Craft is a new media agency that produces con¬tent on multiple platforms. The company is looking for content creators to work with them on various Web 2.0 projects to create integrated buzz in the digital media space. Anyone interested to join or find out more can email: yokeching@contentcraft.com.sg

Paint the Town Red

Raghuraman Uthama | u0700362@nus.edu.sg
the ridge sports
A NUSSU Publication

Liverpool Football Club – the Reds – needs no introduction. 18 league titles, 5 times winners of the European Cup, 7 FA cup trophies – the medals underscore a rich and proud heritage. Anfield, the home of Liverpool FC, is a ground any other football club fears visiting. The Kop, as it is affectionately called, is a seething cauldron of noise, the home support never failing to lift the home side and terrorise the away side at the same time.
The tour, organised by Strategic Sports Investments, a Profitable Group company, was entitled “KOP comes to Asia 2009”. An entirely adequate title it was, for it seemed like the Kop faithful had come down to Asia. Thousands and thousands of passionate fans, excited to see their heroes, turned out in droves at all the public appearances by the team.

The team landed in the afternoon on the 23rd of July, and it was straight down to business. There was an open training session in the evening held at the National Stadium. The absence of iconic captainand star attraction Steven Gerrard, who remained in England due to legal issues, did not deter the fans from watching the stars being put through their paces in the humid weather.

On the 24th and the 25th, the players took some time off to meet their fans personally. And what a reception they got. Screaming fans, some of whom queued up as early as 5 hours earlier than the players’ arrival time, mobbed them the instant they appeared. The Liverpool anthem “You’ll never walk alone” rang around Jurong Point, Velocity@Novena and Vivocity – the 3 locations where the fans got to meet the players on the 24th.

The players were clearly moved by the welcome and didn’t disappoint their fans, signing autograph after autograph and posing for pictures with their fans. On the 25th, the entire team took a cruise down Clarke Quay and Boat Quay with fans lining both sides of the river. Jamie Carragher, the Liverpool vice-captain, remarked of the fans’ adoration: “I don’t think you can get it anywhere else in the world.”

Sunday, the 26th of July, dawned. Gameday. The gates only opened at 3pm, but the queues started snaking long before that. By 5.30 pm, Kop East, the section of the National Stadium dedicated to the die-hard Liverpool fans, was full and a carnival atmosphere was present in the air.

Local celebrities Jamie Yeo and John Klass, the emcees for the day, along with some Liverpool fans, led the stadium in the various Liverpool cheers and songs. There was no holding back; some of the songs weren’t even suitable for children! As kickoff neared, the stadium filled – you would be hard pressed to see so much red in the stadium, even on National Day.
7.30 pm. Kickoff. Strangely, in contrast to the almost feverish build-up to the game, the first half of the game was a largely muted affair. Liverpool fielded a mix of youth and experience in the starting 11, but it was still a relatively strong side which should have been enough to see off a Singapore side that was almost at full-strength.

However, they simply struggled to breakdown a resolute, if slightly disorganised Singapore defence. Chances were few and far between, with Liverpool dominating possession but unable to produce anything of note in the final third of the pitch. Shahril Ishak, a livewire for Singapore, had one good chance, but he shot straight at the goalkeeper. Finally, in the dying minutes of the first half, Andriy Voronin struck from just outside the penalty box via a slight deflection to make it 1-0 to Liverpool.

The fans, who had been relatively quiet thus far, came to life, hoping that Liverpool would carry on their momentum into the second half. Their prayers were answered as Liverpool put 4 goals past Singapore to bring the final scoreline to 5-0. Even more important than the scoreline, however, was the appearance of star striker Fernando Torres and midfield playmaker Xabi Alonso towards the latter parts of the game. One could almost hear the sighs of admiration from both the guys and the girls as Torres, he of the golden locks, pop star looks, and deadly finishing skill, ran onto the field to rapturous applause and duly scored in the 80th minute.

Xabi Alonso, whose name was being chanted by the fans even before he had stepped onto the pitch, and is rumoured to be moving to Real Madrid, was greeted with cheers everytime he simply touched the ball. It wouldn’t be surprising if he decided to stay at Liverpool based on the support shown by the Singapore fans alone!

As the game ended, and the Liverpool players collected their medals for winning the game, the fans showed them one last time just how much this magical occasion meant to them. Manager Rafa Benitez said after the game: “During the game, I felt like I was at Anfield.”

There were magical moments apart from during the game as well. Idham, a 20 year old Liverpool Fan was born with a disease that has left him severely physically handicapped and wheelchair bound. Turning up at Vivocity with the hundreds of other fans, he was disappointed not to secure a pass for the autograph-signing session.

However, Gary Steele, a fellow fan, upon learning of Idham’s disappointment, gave up his only autographed jersey to the young man. Liverpool’s visit to Singapore was truly memorable. Ask all those fans who will safe-guard their autographed jerseys and scarves more jealousy than anything else they have. Let us hope it does not take another 8 years for the Kop to come back.

Techbuzz

Mazyiar Saleem | mazyiar@gmail.com
theridge
A NUSSU Publication

Eee Keyboard: Entire Touchscreen Home Theater PC – Asus’s is set to launch an amazing-looking Eee Keyboard, which is a home theater PC stuffed inside a keyboard, complete with wireless HDMI and a secondary touchscreen. The keyboard is expected to come out somewhere in August of next year. It packs a 5-inch built-in display, a 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 1 GB of RAM, 16/32 GB SSD, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. As far as ports are concerned, it’s got wireless HDMI, 2 USB 2.0, VGA, HDMI, and audio in/out. Pretty slick for a keyboard.

Eizo’s FlexScan Monitors Activate On a Motion Sensor – Eizo has come out with a couple ofmonitors that have built-in motion sensors. The monitor will switch to standby mode when the presence of a human is not detected for 40 seconds. Outside of that, both are a pretty standard monitors with 1600 × 900 native resolution, 178-degree viewing angles, and a 3000:1 contrast ratio for the EV2023W model, and 1920 × 1080 native resolution, 160-degree viewing angles, and a 1000:1 contrast ratio for the EV2303W. The monitors are expected to retail at about $385 and $455 respectively.

Fuji 3D camera – Fujifilm is coming out with a new camera soon. The most obvious difference from regular point and shoot cameras is that fact that Fuji’s 10-megapixel shooter employs two lenses, spaced about the same distance apart as humaneyes, which allow for the taking of simultaneous photos of the same scene from different angles. This is where the 3-D magic originates. When two slightly different images are presented discretely to the right and left eyes of a viewer, that person’s brain combines them into a single image, resulting in a stereoscopic illusion of depth. The camera has an expected retail price of $600 and should retail somewhere in September.

Philips 3D Autostereoscopic TV- Requires No Glasses – Philips’ 56-inch HD 3D display has four times the standard resolution of any TV. Added to that is the fact it can be watched with your own eyes – without wearing silly glasses (or imposing a serious headache). Autostereoscopic displays are an important innovation because they produce good depth perception without the use of special glasses. The early word is that this TV will cost approximately $25,000 and will be made available mostly to businesses first.

Rumored Samsung 6.5mm HDTV Prototype -Thinnest LCD TV Yet? – Samsung has managed to cram an LED backlit HDTV into a housing that’s no more than 6.5mm thick. The current record holder for thinnest HDTV is Philips with its 8mm prototype LCD, which was shown in Berlin last year at the IFA electronics show.

Review: Jabra BT3030

Mazyiar Saleem | mazyiar@gmail.com
theridge
A NUSSU Publication

Nowadays, with almost all new phones and multimedia players supporting stereo Bluetooth and A2DP functionality, there are a growing number of people making the move to Bluetooth headsets.

Jabra has also come out with a headset that aims to provide you with the benefits of a Bluetooth headset without making you feel too geeky.

The device features a ‘dog-tag’ look, and also comes with a lanyard so that you can hang it around your neck. Personally, I didn’t really like the whole idea of the dog tag, since it’s not really my style and I find it cumbersome to have stuff hanging off of my neck.

But this is one of those designs which you’re either going to love or hate – there’s really no middle ground. Other than that, the build quality of the device is decent and it feels robust and durable– although the optional clip is quite flimsy and leaves much to be desired.

Setting up the device was a simple affair, as it promptly paired up with all the phones we tested it with – including a Nokia, a Sony Ericsson, an HTC , and an iPhone.

The controls are flush with the surface of the device and offer good tactile feedback. They allow basic operations like play/pause, volume control, and changing tracks- something that should be sufficient for most users.

The headset worked seamlessly with the phones’ software, pausing music when a call came in, and resuming automatically once the call had ended. The device also uses the single indicator light nicely to display a range of notifications (battery state, connectivity, etc).

The BT3030 comes with a set of in-ear headphones, which are quite decent. But you’re not restricted to these, as the headset features a 3.5 mm jack, meaning you can use whatever earphones you fancy.

Sound quality on the device was fairly decent, although the bass was quite weak and music sounded thin and lacked fullness. Worth notice though is the fact that sound doesn’t get choppy when you walk or run, making this a great device for those looking to use it while exercising.

Call quality was also decent, although the other partydid hear a ‘clicking’ sound when the headset was being used with the lanyard. The lanyard also took the mic too far away, meaning that sometimes the only option was to speak up or the other party had trouble understanding what we were saying.

Also worth mentioning mentioning is the fact that the Bluetooth headset has great battery life. Charging for roughly 2 hours, it can give up to 7 hours of music. One problem with the design though, particularly the lanyard is that it gets tangled with the earpiece cord – and can make quite a mess.

Overall, the device performed solidly – pretty much as it should have. The only real gripe people might have with the device is its design- which is also what is supposed to be its greatest selling point. Recommended retail price is around a 120 SGD.

Michael Jackson [1958-2009]

Hurrairah bin Sohail | hurrairah@gmail.com
theridge transmedia
A NUSSU Publication

The story of Orpheus is as follows. It is said that the greek’s music could charm birds and beasts, men and gods. After the death of his wife, he forswore the love and company of women, instead spending his time playing the lyre. His music made him so desirable that eventually he was torn from limb to limb by a horde of women, scorned by his oath of fidelity to his deceased wife and driven insane with lust by his music.

While I will not go as far as calling Michael Jackson the offspring of mythical deities, the similarities with Orpheus are quite evident. Blessed with precocious talent, he found worldwide acclaim for his music, innovative dance moves and the extraordinary ability to entertain millions. But as he deviated from the norm, becoming ever more reclusive and removing himself from public life, the media started its slow cannibalization of an icon.

It says a lot about the times we live in that a person whose achievements in his field are par excellence and in all probability will not be equaled at least in our lifetime, was brought down from the summit to the base level of a caricature, an object of ridicule. Granted that Michael Jackson was not the poster child for normality, one still wonders how negative press exacerbated simple weirdness into complete divorce from reality…

A discussion of all the treatment meted out to Michael Jackson in life and death, with all the allegations, controversy and hoopla would probably require more space than these pages have to offer, so perhaps I will indulge in that another time. Right now, we should all focus on what made Michael Jackson so famous in the first place, his music.

Taking the stage and touring well before he was even ten with his brothers as the Jackson Five, Michael was wowing audiences with his amazing range and tone, his soul and funk styling, along with dance moves that were born of the innate qualities of showmanship and the joy of performance. In the words of one of the Jackson Five’s greatest hits it seemed like “ABC / Easy as 123 / Or simple as do re mi”. The Jackson Five were an integral part of the Motown sound and had other hits like “I’ll Be There” and “I Want You Back”.
But it was always evident that Michael Jackson had enough charisma and talent to make it on his own. And eventually he did strike his own path, forever changing how we viewed pop music. The arc of albums Off The Wall (1979), Thriller (1982), Bad (1987) and Dangerous (1991) is in all probability the greatest – maybe Stevie Wonder’s set of albums from Talking Book to Songs In The Key of Life can match them for technical ability – set of music put down.

Off The Wall, coming almost at the tail end of theMotown sound took everything great about that genre, mixed and mashed in soul, gospel, funk and disco and gave us gems like “Don’t Stop Till You get Enough” and “Rock With You”.

While Off The Wall was pretty much a record that synched with the trends at the time, Thriller completely changed the paradigm. Michael Jackson introduced his now famous “Moonwalk” – kicking the bar for entertainers way up into the stratosphere. He shot a 15 minute short for the title song, redefining play a pinch harmonic solo on “Beat It”, shattering any perception of nicely demarcated genres. Thriller to this day is the highest selling album of all time.

It was going to be hard to match up to Thriller and while the next albums seem to pale in comparison, we must compensate for the fact that the reference point is Thriller. That being said, Bad and Dangerous did offer up unbelievable songs like “Man In The Mirror”, “Dirty Diana”, “Smooth Criminal”, “Heal The World” and “Black and White”.

During the tail end of his career, Michael Jackson still showed flashes of his brilliance, specifically with “Earth Song” which was similar to his earlier hit “Man In The Mirror” in musical terms, but poles apart if you pay attention to tone. Gone was the uplifting swoop of the choir – replaced by a more morose and foreboding feel and perhaps mirroring Michael Jackson’s own outlook at life.
In the course of his lifetime, Michael Jackson set fire to his hair, pissed off Paul McCartney, allegedly molested children, dangled his baby out of a balcony and had more nose jobs than should be legally allowed. But in my opinion we should remember him for his music and body of work. Not because of sentimentality or any respect we owe the dead, but simply because it is that good.