For all you kids in school, if you've had a bunch of students walking right up to you giving you fancy stickers, you'll recognize them as the moguls from m:idea. You'd also know by now that they were promoting their flagship event…….m:idea Youth Choice Awards (MYCA)!!!

MYCA 2012 took place at Zouk this year, with about 400 youths turning up, an overwhelming of 91,000 votes garnered, it was with no doubt that the event was a roaring success!

Of course we went to see all the glitz and the glam happening that night, and here's a visual review of what went down!

Returning Officer for the General Elections 2011, Mr Yam Ah Mee, graced the event that night.

"Band I Wanna Throw Myself At" winners for 2011, Jack & Rai returned as guest presenters for the award this year.

Recipient of the "Most Awesome Personality I Wanna Be BFFs With" award, Irene Ang enjoyed herself that night.

Winner of the "Cutest Male Personality I Wanna Bring Home" award, Nat Ho was definitely befitting of his title.

Felicia Chin was definitely deserving of the "Hottest Female Personality I Wanna Date" award in her DKNY dress.

Nominated for the "Band I Wanna Throw Myself At" award, local rock band West Grand Boulevard was also present.

For the opening act, we had the oh-so-famous Baracuda Batucada!

One of the funnier moments of the night was when the director of School of Film & Media Studies, Ms Anita Kuan, hugged Nat Ho in excitement.

When accepting her award, Irene said, "Actually I feel that this award should be called 'The Mother I Wish to Have'".

"Pursuant to Section 49, Sub-section 7E, Paragraph A of the m:idea Youth Choice Awards 2012, I declare that all of you are the best tonight!" announced Mr Yam Ah Mee, winner of the "Best OMG! Moment" award.

Even though Michelle Chong, winner of the "Coolest Comedian I Wanna LOL With" and "Celebrity Duo I Wanna Chill With (Alaric Tay)" award and Alaric Tay, winner of "Celebrity Duo I Wanna Chill With (Michelle Chong)" award were not there, they had their thank you speeches recorded for the event!

Michelle, appearing as one of her many The Noose alter egos, Lulu.

The night ended with song performances by Ukelele Movement.

And that my dear friends, pretty much sums up the m:idea Youth Choice Awards 2012! I shall hereby leave you with a rather cute picture of Mr Yam Ah Mee and members of the People's Association!

All photos courtesy of Klix Photography.

m:idea Youth Choice Awards 2012 is a month-long campaign organised by m:idea, a media conglomerate from School of Film & Media Studies, that invites youths to vote for their favourite personalities and brands. The voting campaign culminates in a fun and casual awards show where youths, celebs and brands nominees get together for some merrymaking in the spirit of carefree and hyper youth.

Full list of winners:

Hottest Female Personality I Wanna Date: Felicia Chin
Cutest Male Personality I Wanna Bring Home: Nat Ho
Coolest Comedian I Wanna LOL With: Michelle Chong
Best OMG! Moment: Mr Yam Ah Mee’s “Pursuant to Section 49″ after General Elections
Celebrity Duo I Wanna Chill With: Michelle Chong & Alaric Tay
Band I Wanna Throw Myself At: West Grand Boulevard
Favourite Restaurant: Astons
Favourite Dessert: Ben & Jerry’s
Favourite Nightspot: Zouk
Favourite Fashion Brand: Uniqlo
Favourite Beauty Brand: The Body Shop
Favourite Tech Brand: Apple

For full media coverage, log on to http://mideayouthchoice.com. 

The Astronomy Club organises a yearly camp to gather like-minded youths from secondary schools to learn about astronomy. And just recently, I dropped by this event to  join in a solar observation where I saw the sun up close and personal for the first time.

And there I was, greeted by this super cool high-tech telescope that looked like this:

Setting up the telescope is no easy feat!

Here's the expert who's handling the equipment with care

The telescopes came along with solar filters that avoid hurting people's retinas from the sun

One of the students trying out the telescope to look at the sun, and this is what he's supposed to see...

Is that cool or what?

Are you guys posing for the camera or looking into the telescope?

This is the camp's 18th year. So if you're a die-hard astronomy-enthusiast, don't miss out on the next astro camp happening at the end of the year!

You know, I've set my eyes on Mass Communication since the age of 15. When I first saw that brochure, I thought to myself, "I definitely must get in there!" And I worked hard for it, and here I am today, in my final semester of my three academic years.

Throughout these three years, I've come to realize that some of the reasons why I picked Ngee Ann included the fact that they had the hip hop dance club, New Revolving Age (NRA).

I went through all the tough trainings just like the rest, and even though I stopped NRA after a year (due to my overwhelming school work), I still enjoyed the times that I danced. I learnt a great deal of things from the seniors and these aren't just lessons that you can learn anywhere. Some of them teach you a little bit of life lessons here and there, and you get to see things from a different point of view. And you have to admit, the fact that NP has over 100 CCAs for you to choose from is amazing. That means you're spoilt for choice and you won't have worries like, "Oh what am I gonna do? There's nothing I like here..." because it practically covers almost every category of activies.

Now the next reason why I'm glad I picked NP, is the fact that I got to go overseas to study. Even though it was for a month, my stay in Wuhan has really taught me a lot. The experience was extremely pleasant and I believe my friends and I have picked up a skill or two about photography from our lecturer, which led our techniques to improve by leaps and bounds. Here at NP, every student gets to go overseas for at least once during your 3-year diploma, so widen your horizons by travelling abroad with us!

Last but not least, I always liked how there's so many events going on in school! Some of which included the Halloween event, Scarefest, organized by Stage52. It's events like this that makes the students in school go crazy because we all get to enjoy ourselves very much. You would think that a Halloween event organized by students would be meh, but no, these kids prove you wrong. And it was a successful event, which ran for 2 years, and if anything, the queue got longer instead.

The aforementioned were the main reasons why I'm glad I picked NP. And if you want to find out some of the other reasons why some of my friends picked NP, click the image below to find out!

Now you know our reasons, so what's yours?

We all know that fashion plays a big part in our life, especially one of a teenager. So, we take our time to shop, dress up and look pretty/presentable at all times. But....today, I decided to take a look at fashion from another angle: practicality. We often like to wear what we want without having to care much about anything else, and unfortunately, sometimes we end up damaging or dirtying our outfit because of unforeseen circumstances. This is even more so during this period when our weather is extremely unpredictable.

I scouted for people from the various schools to ask them why they decided to wear what they wore to school that day. And here's what they have to say…

Regina Er, School of Business & Accountancy

"Today was a rather sunny day so I decided to keep my look simple. Shorts and sandals are my comfortable wear and I never leave my house without them on most sunny days! Despite that, I still bring along and wear a cardigan just in case the weather turns erratical and I'd need to keep myself warm. I ALWAYS think of a Plan B."

Aaron Goh, School of Engineering

"I chose to wear jeans and not bermudas or shorts to school because the weather recently has been rather cold. The rain comes and goes, and when it does come, the temperature seems to have taken a rather big dip. And, the reason why I wore these accessories and necklace is because they give off this nostalgic vibe and I'm really a person who's into vintage stuff, so this is essential to me."

Charlotte Tan, School of Film & Media Studies

"My usual wear range from dresses to random tops and pants and today just happens to be that random top and pants day. Because the colours I'm wearing might look a little dull, I decided to carry my laptop with the red polka dot sleeve today instead of keeping it in my bag. The rain has been unkind to me for the past few weeks so I made sure I wore my white creepers because psychologically I feel taller and safer with them."

Ong Zhi Yang, School of Health Sciences

"I had my six-week attachment and I just came back from the two-week break. So my friends and I are wearing our uniforms so that it will help us integrate back into the workforce for our four-month attachment. Basically, we wear it for in-campus trainings and even for documentation of nursing skills that we learnt in year one and year two. The main idea is to help prepare us for the attachment."

Chee Jiamin, School of Humanities & Social Sciences

"I tend to travel around a lot within school itself, so I try as much as possible to wear outfits that are more cooling. And that's also the reason for having so many maxi dresses in my closet! I wear these bangles because I like to hear them jingle when I'm walking as it reminds me of the times when I was young and played with the bell chimes. Also, I wore this pair of gladiators because they're just more comfortable compared to my other footwear."

Joanne Seo, School of InfoComm Technology

"As you can tell, I'm wearing the Sports and Wellness (S&W) because that was my last class for today. I decided to shower in school afterwards so I actually kept some of the toiletries in my bag, which I also use to contain my other files and homework. I went with this pair of shoes because I knew I would be doing sports today so I really wanted something easy to run and play in."

Lim Hwai Yi, School of Life Sciences & Chemical Technology

"The lecture theater (LT) always felt too cold for me so my jacket's my best bet when it comes to days with long lecture hours. I cannot live without my jacket because it'll feel like Siberia in the LT if I do. Also, I decided to go with the haversack and not my usual slingbag today because I've been exercising for the past few days and I just wanted less force to be on one shoulder. So wearing a haversack bag would balance out that force and thus easier on my shoulders."

Like I mentioned in the beginning of the article, we sometimes don't consider other factors when dressing up, but these people above have proven that it pays well to dress with practicality! You can still look good even if you're dressing to fit the weather. So, make sure you think again before heading out on a cloudy day in a pair of suede shoes!

It's been about three weeks since I started internship in school, and since my company is located in school, you would think there isn't much to eat. But…….you're wrong!!! Here, I'm gonna show you some of my colleagues' and their favourites from within school!

Introducing, colleague number 1: Nevin!

His choice would be the Ayam Panggang set from the Panggang stall of course! (MUNCH)

"I like this stall because I tend to eat a lot and the portions they serve are huge. As for the dish itself, that's because I love spicy food. The chilli they use is absolutely fantastic and it just simply adds more flavour to the food!"

Next, we have: Samuel!

Samuel's lunch was just as simple as Mee Pok from the Fishball Noodle stall. (Makan Place)

"Usually people would just eat mee pok as it is, but because I'm a big fan of mushrooms, I made a special order of adding extra mushrooms. Plus, the uncle tending the stall is a really nice person, and it just brightens up your day to get served by polite people like him."

One of the company designers, Amanda's in the house!

Amanda picks the Fried Fish Bee Hoon from the Fish Soup stall as her number 1! (MUNCH)

"I don't require a lot for my daily meals, and something as simple as this is good enough. I've been eating fried fish bee hoon for quite some time now, and I have to admit, this stall's is quite good. The soup is delicious and the fish is crispy, and doesn't becomes too soft from absorbing the soup."

Best friend with Amanda, we have Mandy!

Mandy goes gaga over the Chicken Curry from Simply Curry! (Makan Place)

"They're generous with the ingredients inside. Once, I requested for drumsticks, and the auntie actually gave me 3 drumsticks and around 4 pieces of potato. The curry is good and not too thick. Their potato may not be as soft as those outside and not absorbing enough flavour, but their curry and chicken make up for that."

And how can we miss out one who likes to scour for good food wherever she goes: Shery!

For Shery, she picks Spicy Italian BMT from Subway! (Makan Place)

"Subway has been with me for as long as I can remember; in the sense that, I grew up eating that. It makes me feel healthier (I don't care if it isn't, but at least psychologically I feel that way). And, I get to pick all my favourite veggies and top off the sub with some fabulous sauces. Spicy Italian is my current 'DO' because of the yummy combination of pepperoni and salami! I marry my sub with Raspberry Cheesecake cookies!"

Last, but not least, we have my best friend, Iffah!

Iffah, a fan of an array of ethnic food, picks Hungry Jack's Grilled Chicken Carbonara as her favourite! (Makan Place)

"The cream could afford to be a little thicker and they could use less of the small pieces of veggie (I'm not exactly sure what it is….) But other than that, this dish is excellent because of the tasty sauce. The grilled chicken is just nice and not too tough. It may be a bit oily, but I can deal with it. Overall, it's just something you'd definitely want to eat when your taste buds are demanding for some good ol' carbonara!"

And that, my friends, are evidences of good food that exist in school! You may think that eating the same food for the 3 years in poly is going to bore you, well, let me tell you this: TRY SOMETHING FROM EVERY STALL! Stop complaining about eating the same stuff by trying something different every day or week! I'm sure you'll come to find yourself in love with more than just one dish. By then, you'll be able to switch between your favourites without much hesitation as to whether to eat in school or eat outside!

NRA Dance Club, formerly known as New Revolving Age was first founded in year 2000, with a crew of 8 members. As of now, their strength is about 300. THAT is how much this club has grown.

When the term grown is used in here, it's more than just in numbers. It also includes the definition of them growing physically, mentally, and most of all, growing together as a club.

One of the things NRA focuses on for their members in the beginner classes would be "getting the basics of the basics right". By that, Mohd Sophan Ng, Principal of the club means, "getting them down on the floor and getting their body frames right". The next fundamental would be, isolations.

Isolations, would be the moving of parts not done in daily life. In this case, chest and hip isolations.

"The basic trainings will last for about four to five months, and if they are ready, they'll move on to the next level," added Sophan.

After the basic trainings, there'll be choreography for the students to learn, and they never fail to have fun during class.

Trainings aren't the only things that these passionate dancers do. They participate in competitions as well. Some of which include the annual Suntec Dance competition and the Impressario Competition. Members can either choose to volunteer to join these competitions themselves or are selected by the trainers to form into a team. 

Sophan highlights, "When we pick people to join the competitions, we look not just at their abilities, but their characters as well. Person A may not be as well-trained as Person B, but if we see that he tries harder than the latter, we'll give him a chance to let him join the competition, hopefully it drives him to his maximum potential."

Danzation the event is synonymous to NRA. This event is a channel for current members to have their fair share of experience on the stage. It mainly serves as a platform for the members, to see if they have the tenacity to train under extreme conditions.

Danzation was supposed to be held next year, however, it has been pushed to 2013 so that it will be held in conjunction with Ngee Ann Poly's 50th anniversary.

Something I personally like about NRA, would be their fashion. Bright colours is a norm and colourful and pretty dance kicks (shoes) would be a plus. An example would be:

If you're looking to join NRA, be sure to join their auditions when they open up next year! And, fret not if you're worried about whether you can dance well or not, because this is what Sophan says:

Photo courtesy of Shane Chong and myself.

"We're looking for people who are willing to move; willing to go all out. The audition is their one-time chance to get something they want. It's not so much on whether they can or cannot dance, but more of whether they try their best and give it their best shot."

Started by three Ngee Ann students, Poshism is an online fashion community that marries fashion journalism and shopping in one. It allows users to upload their outfit ensembles onto the site together with where each piece was bought from, and also garner ratings for their look.

The founders behind it - Felix, Chester and Edwayne tells us that Poshism was started in hopes of providing a platform for people to express their own sense of fashion and for them to leave their own mark in the fashion world.

"We decided to start Poshism to introduce a fusion concept to Singapore. Ultimately, we feel that fashion needs to be shared. It is actually a good platform to inspire people to find their own persona and individuality", Chester emphasizes.

With Singapore breaking into the Top 10 list of Fashion Capitals in the world, Poshism could not be introduced into the local scene at a better timing.

"Despite the fact that the fashion industry is not at its peak in Singapore, and local designers lack the support and capital to grow and develop - the designers in Singapore definitely have great potential," Chester said.

Below are some of the looks that users uploaded:

Uli Chan's Summer Brights

Street Docs' On The Street with Suqin

Kenneth Geekface's Moves Like Jagger

Felix Loo's shot of Iskandar

Street Docs' On The Street with Liza

As long as the picture does not violate Poshism's policies, it will be featured on Poshism. Users don't have to worry about whether only certain styles of looks are accepted because Poshism doesn't seek to look out for certain traits in looks, because they strongly believe that everyone has their own fashion sense and how one expresses their individuality. Instead, they let users rate the looks that are uploaded.

With this being a fashion feature, what's a little fun without finding out what are the styles of the workers in Poshism?

Chester: My style when it comes to dressing up? It's definitely comfort first. If you're asking me about my daily wear, I'd prefer simplicity.

Cory: My style varies greatly day to day mostly based on my schedule of activities for the day. I have some days where I go crazy with my outfits but nowadays I'm leaning towards a more classy feel to them. Simple but chic.

As for Felix, his style ranges from classic wear to punk style.

As you can all tell by now, fashion in Singapore is definitely an industry with lots of hidden potential. And Poshism just proves to be a platform that helps anyone and everyone who are interested in the fashion industry to bring out their best. So if you're itching to start or pad up your fashion/photography portfolio, join Poshism today and start uploading some looks!

The holidays are here and I was at the Singapore Art Museum for the Night Festival. This year, it's called Voyage Night Festival 2011, and quite a number of exhibitions/installations play around with lights (also because that's a theme)!

One of the them includes 'Passage Illuminations', where the whole building is lighted up with different colours at an interval of 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, another colour will be lighted up as well, so the overall feel would be a kaleidoscopic display of light and shadows.

Another installation known as 'Le Parking en foile' (Parking Mad), makes use of Volvo cars parked in front of the Singapore Art Museum (SAM). The cars flash lights from their windows at different timings and it almost seems as though they're conversing with each other!

Other interesting ones like 'The Cloud' and 'Curiosities' also added to the beautiful lightings and colours in the night.

An interesting exhibit I made into a .gif:

Besides all the lighting fun, there was a huge installation, and I mean HUGE because of the space it took up. It's called 'A Dozen of Those'. It basically has 12 large, red helium balloons, each held by a faceless brown figure (which immediately reminds me of Domo-kun) sitting on a brown boulder. When you enter the Museum, you get greeted by this sight and it's just simply astounding(in a nice way of course).

Last but not least, one of the most memorable thing I took away from the Night Festival is this mini kopitiam. Daniella Beltrani's 'The In-between Food Court', was quite the hit because it was the only place (or so I know) that sold food (exclude the shopping malls because they're not part of Night Festival and they don't open past 12am).

They served simple local delicacies like Satay to Mee Rebus and Kueh Lapis. And what better drink to accompany these than our favourite Bandung?

I had a little talk with her and got to know that the reason why she suggested this idea to the artistic director of Substation, was because she just wanted somewhere where people can eat. Because when people eat, they relax.

She was better known as the "ang moh waitress" that night basically, this stand alone project she made was just this opportunity for her to interact and chit chat with her customers. If you think that's all, you're wrong.

Ms. "Super!" (her favourite catch phrase) also took instaxes of her customers, wrote their names on it, and then stuck them onto herself.

"It's a way of remembering them, really. Once this is over, I'll put all the pictures together and give it to the Substation. I feel that interacting with people is really important to people because these encounters we make, happen in everyday life as well," said the 'Walking Memory Bank', a title a customer had given her.

So that's what I did for the holidays so far. Tell us about the crazy things you did during your holidays!

If you've been keeping up with the latest campus hype, you'd know that C'ING 2011 has been running for 7 weeks, from late May to mid July. And the final concert took place on 7 August at the St. James Power Station!

C'ING 2011 (pronounced "sing") was organised to encourage the creation and composition of good, original music that's uniquely Singapore. It also aims to get people to appreciate the Chinese language through music. To run the campaign, the Chinese & Media Communication students who conceptualised the event had even set up their own productions company known as JIJ Productions.

I'll leave you with pictures of the artistes who showed up to perform!:

The Mainworks

Black Forest

Nic Lee from MiLuBing

Teresa Tseng & Jim Lim

Shuang Zi Zuo

The winner of C'ING 2011 was Nelson Tan! He took home cash and prizes worth over $2000, which included a music production course as well a publishing contract with SOMA Productions and Publishing and Universal Music Publishing Group.

Top honors goes to Nelson Tan (second from left) and his "Growing Up".

The team behind C'ING 2011 - JIJ Productions: Jessica Shen, Zhou Jingyi and Isaac Lim.

Ms Sim Ann, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Law also showed up!

Jessica presenting Ms Sim with the token of appreciation.

Pictures courtesy of C'ING 2011

Operation Juvi is a student-initiated humanitarian project started in 2010 after the 2009 Sumatra earthquakes and 2009 fire in metro Manila, providing the needy clothes donated from Ngee Ann Poly's staff and students. This is the second year in running and they are aiming to collect 10,000 pieces of clothes!

Joel, a Year 2 student from the School of Business & Accountancy, and volunteer of this project explained that the project name came from the latin word 'Juvi', which means 'Aid' in English. To date, the project has provided clothes to poverty-stricken areas in neighbouring countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia, and has further plans to include countries such as Malaysia in future.

"They live in poor living conditions and they are lacking in basic necessities such as clothes. As such, the donation of clothes would provide them of some relief and to assure them that they are not forgotten and there are still people who care for them," Joel said.

Rather than collecting donations in the form of food or money, they decided that clothes is a better choice as it was a necessity. On top of that, it's easy to encourage people to donate used clothes as there are many who have clothes that they no longer wear or want.

The clothes are all piled up together in one room.

As a firm believer that the donations will go a long way in helping the people in those countries, Joel told me that the people there are suffering from poverty and some are even still recovering from the effects of natural disasters.

"Disasters will always occur. Natural disasters are real and recurring in the Philippines. They are hit about 20 times a year. And as a result has displaced many Filipinos, destroyed buildings and driven a more than a few hundred thousandof them into poverty. The people there are also trying to move on with their lives and living in areas with very few facilities with little clothing and food," he says.

Operation Juvi Team working together to split the task

Students working hard to organize the clothes into different categories

And it's not just NP students that Joel and his team are gathering clothes from. Over the past few weeks, the team has sought the help of secondary schools here and would be collecting the bags of items from them.

If you think it all stops at collecting and gathering clothing donations from the public, the process is more tedious than that! After the mass collection from the public, the team goes on to sort the clothes by gender and the category of clothing (i.e. shorts, skirts, shirts, etc.) and then send the boxes over to the organisation that they're working with, before being transported overseas.

They are currently working with HighPoint, an organisation that aims to help rebuild lives of people in need, especially ex-offenders and their families. In this case, HighPoint is helping the people in the needy countries in collaboration with Operation Juvi.

Carefully labelled and categorised!

Joel is also heartened by the eagerness of the students who donated the clothes, saying "the reception has been good and our own students have been very helpful in taking some of their precious time to pack their clothes. I'm also glad that they make the effort to bring them to school to donate it".

Joel Tan, the Year 2 Business & Accountancy student who decided to follow up Operation Juvi 2011

When asked if they would be able to successfully gather 10,000 pieces of clothes, Joel replies with a smile, "I believe that we can hit that goal. After all, nothing is impossible." As of now, there's no future plans for Operation Juvi (next year) because the students would be starting on their internship soon and it would be difficult to organize any plans.

"So what was the most interesting piece of clothing that you've collected thus far?" I asked.

"We have collected many unique clothing such as traditional dresses but the most interesting piece to me would be a super large sized baju kurung. It could fit two people in it!"