The first person I met in school, Yong Wei. I remember the time we were all freshies and in our CS1010 class, we sat at the same table. I remember Yong Wei telling me he just came back from an overseas trip, and he didn't attend all the orientation events either. I did, but I was forced to. I didn't want to attend those trivial events, but apparently it was required, so I went for the talks-only orientation package with Donovon. Donovon was the pillar of my formative years in NUS. We trash-talked and whined about our course even before the first day of school and talked about how we even managed to land in Computing when we do not even have any Computing background. Those were the days where we went to and back from school together, as we were in the same course and we live very near each other. However, Donovon was in the IS stream and I was in the CS stream and we didn't keep in contact as much in the following years. But speaking about this, I recall how Donovon actually accompanied me to the University Hall to appeal for a change of course to IS, because I was whining about how much I hated CS already. The result was apparent - the transfer wasn't approved. So there I was, stuck in CS for eternity.

So now back to Yong Wei. In essence, I didn't really 'attend' orientation either. So we clicked, because we found out that both of us are the first person we interacted with in our NUS journey (if I recall correctly on YW's part). There, we expanded this social circle to include many others as we took on more common year 1 core modules, like MA1521 and so on and so forth. So, my CS circle ended up with Swee Khoon, Ben and to a certain extent, Jaslyn. We (the guys) were always in lecture laughing at the prof's miserable attempts at his lame jokes and discussing a storm about the lack of girls in the course. But those were the little things that made me happy. This is university life yo!

Then came second semester. If the first semester was roses, then the semester was the shit that feeds the roses. CS1020 was the deal-breaker in my formative years in NUS. I couldn't grasp the essence of that module and I struggled the entire semester. Not to mention the others in my CS group did well for it, so we kinda got separated after this semester. Since this module was  the pre-req for many other higher level modules, I was left behind my clique. That was when the nightmare started. I started taking CS modules alone and was left to face the challenges alone. Donovon was climbing up the IS track quite steadily so we didn't really meet in school as often, though at that time we still trained for IPPT together. It was intense. I often had to drag my body behind the energizer bunny.

1 thing that I really appreciate a lot during the second semester was how Yong Wei stayed back after school to tutor me to code in Java. Java was an absolute monstrosity back then but I conquered it, thanks to him. I remember how he patiently gave me simple questions to do, and teach me the methods step-by-step. Surprisingly, my CS journey went so much smoother after I understood the Java concepts. So thank you Yong Wei. :)

Then there's Swee Khoon. He was instrumental in my database module. I remember I was quite the academic wreck at that time, but Swee Khoon managed to pull me into his sort-of study group with Yai Hui, Daphne and Chervin. Tutorials with them were a joy and because of them, I finally got a decent TA. They just know which tutorial slot to choose. That database module was tough, but I enjoyed reading it just because of the people that did it with me. So thank you too, guys.

Besides all these people, there were many other kind and hardworking souls that I worked with during my formative years. Guys like Eugene and Poh Chiat are the most hardworking and intelligent people I've ever met in school and I respect you guys for that. Marcus, for lending me your MA1101r textbook, and chilling even when I didn't return it on time! :X For all the others that I unfortunately missed out, thank you for being there in my NUS life. It will never be the same without any of you.