[Holiday report card]
I spent my time during the holidays not by going abroad but by lending my hand in some projects - ranging from Arts, Sports, Youths and Community.

I really enjoyed being a youth liason officer for Youth Caucus in conjunction with the Fifth Asean Ministerial Meeting on Youth. During this project, I hosted three Vietnamese delegates. And till today, I still chat with them on MSN.

Dreams in Flight was a performance to celebrate the opening of the Singapore Arts Festival. This was the first time I performed in an arts event. Three nights. The crowd was awesome and so was the friendships forged.

I was a participant in the NorthEast Dragonboat Race. This year marked the first time where I rowed in a ten-member dragonboat. It is a change and takes more effort for the momentum to biuld up. A great learning experience.

SHINE 2007 marked my foray into the National Youth Council (NYC) scene. As one of the 16 youth panellists, I put my marketing skills as well as creative thinking skills into action. I had long wanted to volunteer for NYC, however, my previous job would not allow it as there would be a conflict of interest.

As a Team Singapore volunteer, I was asked to perform at Field of Dreams, the closing ceremony of National Stadium. Apart from being in the 500-strong contingent, I was assigned an usher role to usher guests who attended the event.

I represented the Central Youth Council of the PAYM at the Singapore Dragonboat Festival as a participant. This was the second time I tried rowing a ten-member crew dragonboat. For this, we emerged fourth position out of eight. It was a good effort.

N.E.X.T Challenge is an annual amazing race like event. For this, I had the opportunity to plan and execute a game station.

For the Punggol CC YEC BGM, my role was in logistics. Many items to settle. It was nerve-wrecking but I pulled through with the help of some of my members.

It was by chance that I was involved in Olympic Dream 2007. Initially I was there to collect some information about the event and speak to some participants for a story for The Straits Times. Ended up that I actually became a participant and joined in the run to raise funds for charity.

I did not play a major role in Dominoes of Dreams. This was a SMU event to raise funds for the needy and the disabled. I was mainly involved in the execution of the games and a few sessions of sales.

Planning for the Bedok Reservoir-Punggol Young PAP Coffee Talk with George 2 had started way before my holidays. For this event, I played a key role as one of the two organisers. It was originally scheduled to be held after the announcement of the budget but was pushed back due to some internal delays. The publicity for this event was very positive. It was a job well done.

Since I did not take part in the SMU Social Science Camp last year, I decided to sign up as a facilitator this year. It was an enjoyable two days with my freshmen. I kindof miss sleeping in school now.

Throughout the holidays, I did several ad-hoc reports for Youth.SG. The highlight would be the official writer to cover NDP 2007 for Youth.SG. Since I had a press pass, I could literally go for each and every show and all the press conferences. But I did not due to time constraints.

The Bedok Reservoir-Punggol National Day Observance Ceremony was my baptism of fire. Just like how MPs go through theirs when they are faced with their first elections. I was the organising chairman for this event and it took several months of planning to ensure that this was a success. Of course, the support from the other grassroots organisations in the constituency was vital to make it a success as well.

Similarly, the Bedok Reservoir-Punggol National Day Carnival proved to be another test. I was by chance made the co-chairman and my role for this was to come up with a poster design and source for sponsorship.

Convocation 2007 was my first ever large-scale school project. I was taked to be the visual/video manager and managed creative talent. This meant having to provide inputs to the videos and brainstorm on concepts for the animations. I also had to manage the production of some of the videos. I remember going down for a shoot at East Coast one day. It was fun but tiring.

The most recent project was being a liason office for the Asian Youth Leaders Forum. I did not play a key role in this. This time I was taksed to host four delegates from Yemen. On the last day, I took them on a shopping trip down Orchard Road. I hope they enjoyed it.

Well, so this is how I spent my holidays. Four months passed just like that. Without a break. Without falling sick. Until now.