Singapore: Cultural Envoy for Exchange & Development (CEED), An AIESEC Experience

We all dream of going abroad at least once in our life time and so did I, but how many of us that how it’ll will feel out there in an Alien Nation without your own people , your friends and yes without your home. A lot of questions go through your mind like How will the food be ? How will be accommodation ? How will the people be out there ? and yes Will I’ll be able to enjoy myself to the fullest and do my work with the same zeal as I have planned?

Well I had all those above questions running in my mind when I got the offer to do a 2 month Summer Internship at the National University of Singapore in the year 2009. I was pretty confident about the work I was supposed to do but since this was the first time I was going to any place far off where I’ll be left all by myself so there were some jitters too. But then God Helps those , who help themselves, and I actually helped myself during October ‘08 by joining AIESEC, the World’s largest Youth Organization. I was working in AIESEC till that time just as a member and had very little idea what it has to offer us. Before going to Singapore I came across this really cool program of AIESEC called CEED (Cultural Envoy for Exchange and Development) through which a member of any AIESEC LC can work in a different LC and can help then with his/her skills. Since I was mostly related with the CIM department I applied for this one only and to my fortune they had a vacancy there. I was excited about seeing the international face of AIESEC.

So I set out on my journey with dreams in my eyes of meeting new people and making new friends. My landing was fantastic and Changi really set the bar for what I was supposed to witness in Singapore. An exquisite country which has every thing to offer from the most Natural Zoos, Night Safari and Bird Parks to the Heavenly and adventurous Sentosa to the electric and Nightly active Clark Quay. The hustle & bustle of Little India, Chinatown to the really calm roads of Commonwealth. From the lucky Fountain of Wealth to the really amazing Escape Theme Park.

First Meeting

But where did AIESEC make an impact. Well Beautiful and Gorgeous things need to be discussed separately and well it was exactly the same for me when I was first contacted by Shean(Sleepy) and Amanda(The Orangutan) at the Raffles City Center. Well what can be a better introduction to a new team than meeting to really pretty Girls at a pizza place. It was a start I’ll never miss. We discussed the details of my work and I had a good time explaining the maps of India of Singapore to them :) .

EB Outing

  

Well after that I was looking forward to meeting the full LC and discuss my exact job profile. And to my surprise it was a completely Girly LC with Elroy(Mr. Laidback ) being the only guy. I met Wenny (The LCP) and yeah Bernice(Nasty). It was a fantastic day for me

as I was joining their EB outing so I really got to know the working of AIESEC in NUS. It was fantastic as I was shown the stats and goals by Nasty I was really awed . They were really optimistic and Realistic goals and that actually made an amazing image of a 15yrs established LC. After the meeting I had the first taste of a Chinese Delicacy called Dan Dan Mian the only vegetarian thing available in the Chinese Restaurant. It was the most amazing Noodles I have ever eaten and its name only is makes me feel hungry. After the meal I had a comfortable ride home in Elroy’s car where I really got the insight into the LC workings.

The Harbor Front Encounter with the Cow and Mai

Well I was invited by Sleepy to Harbor Front as she introduced me to some of her friends and well it was wow. I met the  first Indian origin AIESECer in Singapore, Rita(Brown Cow) and yes a beautiful woman and cute AIESECer from Vietnam, Michelle Mai Pham V ^_^ V. By far she was the cutest lady I met in Singapore. We had a tour of the Vivocity Complex and we ended up taking snaps in different poses. And well it was more fabulous as Rita invited me to her Birthday which was just a few days away.

Meeting at SMU

We all met at SMU to discuss about the progress of AIESEC in NUS and set the goals for the coming academic session. The discussions about Recruitments , Projects and Welcome Tea kept all of us busy throughout the day. We also discussed about tapping in new partners for the LC and creating maximum impact during the College Matriculation Fair. Bernice came up with some brilliant ideas about tapping the IT companies in Singapore. Overall it was a day packed with some real @work but in the end it was all a happy ending.

Cow’s B’day Bash

Well Cow invited me to her B’day in our last meeting and I was really excited about meeting some really new people and also experience an foreign B’day bash. Well it turned out to be a night filled with Ta-Boo & 7up game, Bachata, Salsa , some really interesting talks and yes Absolute Vodaka and Martini. I had my first and only date till now with alcohol as I gulped down 3 shots of Vodka and Martini each. ( FYI I am not a drunkard and neither do I plan to drink in future for leisure but well when its a sport and I lose then I really gulp all punishments happily. BTW I am proud I didn’t get high after all the above drinking.)It was a day I’ll always remember as I really enjoyed the Party and hospitality of the Cow . (Thank You Cow for that :) ). The night ended with all of us leaving for home at 3 in the Morning.

The African Dinner

Well work was going on fine when I was told about the opportunity to meet some International Interns  in Farrer park for an African Dinner. A new intern from UK , Abi arrived in Sinagpore a few days back and it was planned to organize an African dinner for her. Upon reaching the station I met people from the NTU and SMU LC also there were interns from New Zealand and Canada. But alas mother nature had some other plans . It was raining and the African restaurant was pretty far. So we people decided to settle on an Indian restaurant and well it turned out to be good as I ordered dishes like Dosa, Idli sambhar and Choole Bhatoore for my International Friends.

After the dinner we went for some walk around the area and had small talks amongst ourselves. We eventually landed at a Chinese Ice Cream shop and had some really amazing Mango Ice-cream.It was time to leave but not without a snap and another round of amusement and so we did before we took our MRTs.

Shisha & Karaoke @ Arab Street

One thing I noticed in Singapore was that whenever I thought it was over the country gave me something doubly amazing to enjoy. A similar experience was of Arab Street Shisha and Karaoke when Nasty invited all of us. After going to the Shisha place we headed to a Karaoke Bar which was the place where we had the maximum fun, was highlighted by singing on Karaoke . Another remarkable night passes singing and enjoying.

The Final Farewell

“Everything that has a beginning has an end , Neo.” – Agent Smith, Matrix Revolutions.

The above lines hold true for this amazing experience of my life too. It was the last time I was going to meet Shean and Amanda, as they were the only EBs available. An amazing lunch at a Chinese Restaurant at Raffles Place, followed by a short meeting at Starbucks and the Final Goodbye to Amanda. This is what summed up everything. I accompanied Shean at Starbucks and had some small talk including some Tech Stuff. It was fun and finally the time came as we said goodbyes. I was sad but at the same happy about the eXPerience I had as an AIESECer and the Positive Impact I was able to make on the NUS LC and also the Singapore MC.

Just before leaving I met Mai Pham once again and we shared Sugar cubes which I still treasure.

My journey ended in Singapore but the experience will live on the the friends I made there will always have a special place in my heart.

I would like to thank NUS , AIESEC, all the AIESECers in Singapore and Singapore for giving me the best eXPerience of my life till now. Love you all and Miss you.

Technorati Tags: Singapore,AIESEC,NUS,National University of Singapore.

Embeded Google Wave in My blog :)

So finally I have it here I have successfully integrated Google wave into my blog . The integration was pretty simple . But because of the Google wave sandbox limited edition only people with access to google wavesandbox can view the wave.

In order to view the wave . Simply login to your sandbox account and then viist my page . You can see the wave. Also the wave is public right now so anyone can contribute to my wave.


Play around have fun.

Its really easy for any one to contribute. The only condition is you should have the wavesandbox access.

I am loving it. :)

My Web 2.0nd Yr Internship at Singapore

“Serendipity. Look for something, find something else, and realize that what you've found is more suited to your needs than what you thought you were looking for.”

Spring Semester 2009,

I was busy with my work for Kshitij ‘09 and once it ended it was like a void in my life . I never realized that I had to look into something to do during my summer break. As I was fresh from my year round web development work I decided I won’t go for a web based internship.

The mailings started and after some time I was like bored when no replies came. Then came February 11, I woke up and checked my gmail and all I could in the unread posts was Re: Internship in Web2.0 . I opened the post and wow it was like there couldn’t have been a better start to my day as I read through the mail which said:

Hi Shubhanshu,

I’ve been forwarded your interest in Web2.0 internship, over the summer months. When are you available for a phone call?

I immediately got to work . After 2 rounds of interviews my internship was confirmed at the National University of Singapore.

As I was told that my internship would be in creating a web application using the latest web 2.0 tools, I was a bit upset about again working in the web. But then I thought this is what I am best at.

I landed in Singapore and from Day One I was told the exact design of the Application we were supposed to make.The application was a Cloud based Tagging and a Google Maps Mashup( a mashup is a web page or application that combines data or functionality from two or more external sources to create a new service ) which was supposed to be based on Google App Engine and was written using its Python SDK.

I was excited about the use of new technologies . Cloud Computing was a really fascinating field for me and working on some solid project in Python and that too on Django was something I was dreaming for since my last winter when I learned both.

My team consisted of my mentor, a Masters student in Software Engineering ( which to my surprise was also from Midnapore … ) and myself. The project was supervised by my professor.Also at the office I had a really good friend from Canada , who was working on E-governance and really helped me in all my Ideas regarding the application.

It was really exciting for me to start working with Google Apps Engine(GAE) the very fact that you can deploy your applications in the cloud and scale them as per your needs or as per people’s demand was something I have never worked before. We also used XML as a format for data passage between the different parts of our application which really gave it a modular look and made our app really extensible for future use.

Also the fact that we used services from different other web applications made the app a really neat example of code reusability.

We also had the crawler part of application coded in Java as my co-worker was already working on it before I arrived.

A basic design of the Application which I made is shown below:

After days of effort my application finally got working. It had features for user to mark places on the Map and attach information to it. A filtering scheme was used in the background to remove redundant data.

The day of presentation came and I preferred to call my application Tagging Singapore. The presentation went great and our application was applauded by the audience which mainly included professors working in Software Development and Entrepreneurship. It was really satisfying to see our efforts being appreciated. My supervisor gave me Farewell lunch which was the best Singaporean Food I ever ate.

In the mean time being a member of AIESEC I joined the Local Chapter at NUS as a Cultural Envoy for Exchange and Development and helped them with their Communications Department which mainly included creating their website and giving them Technology related suggestions. It was really fun being with a huge student community in a foreign land. The innumerable parties we had made it all the more fun.

I also attended a Microsoft Conference on their latest Web Technologies which included Azure Services, Silverlight 3.0 and the Expression Suit. It was nothing less than a marvel as I ended up winning 3 books on Silverlight in the Audience questions.

The National University of Singapore was a gem of a place with some state of art Architecture, really amazing Food Courts and an excellent transport system (which in fact was the trademark of entire Singapore). Even during the winter breaks the vibrancy of the place was quite evident.

I took more than 5000 pictures during my 2 months stay .As a part of my tourism spree I went to all the amazing places in Singapore – from the amazingly natural Zoo and Bird parks , the highly posh Clark Quay, the ever amazing and fun water-parks and the Heavenly Sentosa Island. The hospitality I got was really amazing and the friends I made were something I’ll treasure all my life.

To sum it up my experience all I would say that it was simply:

Code , Click & Celebrate.

Of those Mentors : I owe so much.

I begin to think of those bygone times,
Back to the class when we used to sing those rhymes.
Of being scolded when the syllables sounded wrong ,
And universally patted when I cam out strong.
Of writing spellings with utmost caution,
But defending myself for the wrongest notion.
Of making things work on the 10th trial,
And you teaching me how to write the correct mail.
Of logging into the shell at that nascent age,
And winning that GOLD with perfect grace.


You made maths a Beautiful fun,
But also made us workout under the scorching sun.
For punishing me right when I did wrong,
And scoldings by you which sounded like a gong.
That pretty smile when I cracked it the first time,
The compliments that followed sounded like a melodious chime.

Its been a life to my mentors I owe,
Mrs. Luke for being stern to get our grammar right,
Mr. Vinay for making us hog the limelight.
Mrs. Ghosh for the physics she taught with a smile,
Mr. CBT for his chats which were always worthwhile.
Mrs. Mukho for her Equational Humour,
Mr. Salil for his beautiful maneuvers.
Gaurav Sir was stern and we all know why,
Kali & Pandit Sir were too soft to be shy.
The ranks of Mrs. Tripathis for being the funniest of all,
Mr Farooq for the chemistry which made the class lull.
Mrs. Chatterjee for her command on words,
And Miss Chatterjee for her library cards.
Mrs. Hajela was known making us love nature,
Mr. David for his very own caricature.
Mr. Luke for the history he taught while standing tall,
Mrs. Srivastava & her scale which scared us all.
Mr. Vats for being the familiar face,
Mr. Pushpendra for his chemical grace.

Mr. Khastagir for his superb diffraction gratings,
And GB for his intense debugging.
GPRS was fun and he taught us graphs,
Mrs. Ghoshal our fac-ad for knowing us all.

Mr. Zhi Min for being the one to guide me through,
Mrs. Gloria for letting me do what I wanted to do.

There have been more who have changed me all,
In Maths to Science to Computers and Arts.
The facts of life they taught me well,
Teaching me concepts to be remembered in a nutshell.

From HTS to BHS to IIT & NUS has been the journey so far,
Of intellectual figures which gave me a sweet scar.
I'll move on and on in the life I have,
Adding more and more to my all time Favs.
Your presence made my world to sway,
From normal, towards the fortunate hay.
I want to return the favor as all I have to say,
Wishing you all a very Happy Teachers Day.


I might have missed a few names and might have been a bit more funny .
I apologize for all the wrong things I have done and any thing I shouldn't have written.
I love my teachers and I just acting smart,
To throw this post for the those who taught me the art :)

I am sure you'll love it .
PS: You can always comment if you were touched by the words.

Friends Together Forever

On this beautiful eve,
As I begin to write,
Of Love , Friendship & the Life Forever,
I simply believe that I am right,
And wish this dream ends never.

I have seen it all & faced it all,
From sweet honeydews to the worst pitfalls,
From gliding the air to treading the fireballs,
In my life I have felt it all.


But something kept pushing through the race,
Of life, love & ambitions with grace
Told me that I am here with a purpose in life,
And gave me friends to share the Five!!!

Its a journey I am still moving on ,
With a song I am singing along,
Towards the dream I am living on,
For friends , with friends & for the memories bygone .

To wrap it here I say it yay,
To all my friends "A Happy Friendship Day" !!!
**For them I prey,
That showers of blessings may soak them today !!! :)
**

---- Shubhanshu Mishra

** Edited Content

The Lover Within

Well I highly rate the National Service Scheme classes that we people have .....Our Society for Compation,Equality & Reverence.

We have classes of three hours each wednesday evening and our last class was anything but just fantastic for me.

Not to mention the satisfaction I got on creating my second poem in under 15 mins.

Now without making anymore fuss lemme proceed with the delivery of my creation:

LOVE & REJOICE

-Shubhanshu Mishra

Being in love is all we want ,

B'coz we dream of that eternal bond.

But there are hardships we are supposed to face,

And conquer those with eternal grace.

But never forget to strive ,

For that beautiful jive,

Of ultimate love

& extreme rejoice.

So , come all and join the fun,

Towards the horizon we have to run.

Love is our true companion in this flight,

For all we want is eternal rejoice.

Love is the sweetesd and strongest feeling a person could ever get .It not only makes him feel elated but also gives him the power to accomplish the most difficult jobs in the world.The granduer of love can only be understood by those who have loved atleast once in life.

This love is not only for your sweetheart but for any thing that you are passionate about.The mantra remains same......

Just go for it full throttle

Also remember the quote and always complete it whenever you say it to someone......

Time is too slow for those who wait,

too swift for those who fear,

too long for those who grieve,

too short for those who rejoice,

but for those who love,

time is eternity.

~Henry Van Dyke

Feel love deep into your heart and you will always rejoice with the power that it gives you. I felt it and now whatever I am I give due credit to LOVE for it.

Remember , never kill "The Lover Within"...... it will always be with you all your life and keep you smiling forever and ever.

Amen.

Thank you KKC for teaching us what love is.