So for week 6 it was thanksgiving week,so everyone was in holiday mood and spent part of the week going for thanksgiving dinners and shopping on Black Friday =D

On Wednesday we had a wonderful Mass Media Thanksgiving Dinner in the house that we shot the Harvestfest video in and we all gathered for food and a good time =) It was a great time spent getting to know the rest of the Mass Media Department and we also had some games to bond over with.The next day, Thursday was thanksgiving and we spent the whole morning sleeping because its a holiday =D before heading off to Harry's friends house in Cuportino for a gathering of Singaporeans around San Francisco and we had ourselves some Singaporean dishes with turkey.Yummy.and i made friends with a pastor who stays down in San Diego.Cool. And after dinner Harry brought us down to Tanforan Mall to do some early Black Friday Shopping and bask in the american holiday with crowded malls full of people.The funniest thing is that we got our groceries done there while everyone else was busy buying everything other then groceries =P On Black Friday morning we went to watch Hunger Games:Catching Fire with Pei Ying before doing some black Friday shopping back at Tanforan Mall,we managed to get some awesome stuff at cheap prices!After dinner we joined Pei Ying for her Fellowship at the Cafetorium and they had a cupcake decoration competition with a Thanksgiving theme.On Saturday we met up with PY again and went to visit the exploratorium to see the exhibitions before going over to Reverend Lau's house for dinner.His house is situated next to a long flight of stairs called the morugay steps or something like that,i tried walked up it and my the time i got to the top i was totally winded.
Then this weeks Sunday service was a little different as it was a baptism service.Several people got baptised including Harry's son,Matthew!Congratulations!! His testimonial was inspiring and witty.We went out for Buffet at MoonStar to celebrate his baptism.After that Harry took us down to Pacifica Pier to see the beach.Although it was cold, it was a great time just taking in the smell of the ocean and feeling the sun on you.

All in all it was a great week taking in the american culture and joining in the fun of thanksgiving!

Mass Media Dinner!

Thanksgiving with other Singaporeans around SF!

Reindeer Statue,so nice =D

Cupcake making Competition,all looking so ridiculous and funny!!

Working on the lights!

Exploratorium visit!I wanna go back cause i didnt finish walking around the place =(

Dinner and Desert at Rev.Lau's House

Congratulations Matthew on your Baptism =D

Pacifica Pier!

"Crunchtime"

Hey guys, Shawn here.

I missed a week of posting an update, so here's a long one with pictures to compensate. Haha.

The past two weeks leading up to the big ChristmaSing finale had many "obstacles" for us to clear. "Obstacles" in the form of children's programmes, with kids from pre-school to 4th grade or higher doing Christmas performances every other day for an audience of parents. On both weekends, we've cleared both the Mandarin and Cantonese ChrismaSing performances respectively.

Some time was spent in the workshop cutting wood, painting, and helping to build a homemade device that lets curtain drop from the top of the stage quietly without the audience hearing the usual squeaky noises of drawing curtains. It worked, to a certain extent. We couldn't get it ready in time for the major performances in the hall though, hopefully they can get it up and running properly in the future. Design & Technology classes back in secondary school helped when it comes to cutting wood with the machines and handling equipment.

We've been rotating through different roles, sometimes on camera, sometimes on sound, sometimes as the vision switcher, remote camera, etc. I guess it's safe to say that we're all pretty familiar with the equipment now. A new toy came in this week too. A wireless transmitter for the Sony EX1 camera.
We took it for a spin during the Cantonese ChristmaSing performance, and it turned out really nice.

Other than that, we've been helping the staff here in converting a building into more dorm rooms, for future study groups and interns that will have the fortunate opportunity to visit this wonderful place.
We helped out in building some bunk beds and some cleaning work, a good way to work off some calories inbetween performances.

The big one is coming, and it's the English ChristmaSing performance, on such a large scale that we've got to move half the building to another building to accommodate. I may be exaggerating a little bit here.

Anyway, the big performances will be held at the Scottish Rite Auditorium. We've seen the interior and exterior photos, and looking at the list of things that we have to do, we know that this weekend is going to be the busiest and most mentally exhausting yet, with two days of setup to be done, massive rental equipment coming in.

We sat in watching the big rehearsal on Sunday, and sort of got a feel of the scale of the performances. Some performers have been practicing since July/August, as I've been told. There's some sort of... excitement building up whenever we're close to such a production, even though everyone dreads the setup and teardown period.

Personally, it's my busiest holiday season yet, and I'm sort of looking forward to it.

Where recreation is concerned, we didn't really have much time to go out and roam around, except going out in the evenings for a quick meal and get to know members of the church better.

One particular evening, we had the opportunity to visit Parkway Estate on Chestnut Avenue. Apparently, it is common practice for residents living there to decorate the front of their houses with elaborate Christmas decorations. So in a way, it's like Orchard Road during Christmas, but with much fewer people, and better atmosphere without hundred of people gawking at decorations with a hundred and one languages you don't understand.
Quiet and calm atmosphere, cool weather, nice decorations, just like how I've always wanted Christmas to be :)

I managed to send an album back to my home church too. Since I've always done Christmas photo and videography for them every year. Seems weird not to do so this time round, so I decided to maintain the tradition.

Other than that, it was much time spent on the rooftops appreciating moonrises and sunsets, editing photos back in the apartment and storage space management on my harddisks. Kenneth's moving ever closer to the screen in his gaming sessions on the Play Station 3 each passing day as well. Heh.

Okay, think I've covered everything.
Until next time...

Signing off,

Shawn Ang.

Hi guys,spazzed out again and didnt talk about week 5 and 6 =(

So this one will be about week 5.

So lets start with Monday.Which was my Birthday =D Hehe Happy Birthday to me!So it was our off day and so we decided to go out.To Alcatraz.So i bascially spent my birthday in prison.Not something i was expecting but okay.But it was totally awesome there.Harry dropped us off at the pier and we took a ferry over to "The Rock".Which was once United States Penitentiary Alcatraz Island,a Maximum Security Prison.It was a pretty cool place and the audio tour is awesome,with past convicts and guards narrating the tour for you.We spent like 3 hours touring the place,pretty cool.After that we returned from alcatraz island and walked to pier 39 for some tasty clam chowder.After that we walked to the exploratorium only to find out that it was closed on mondays sadly.After that we took the BART down to Tanforan at San Bruno where Harry picked us up and brought us to Red Robin to celebrate my Birthday with awesome burgers before going to watch THOR:The Dark World with Phil.It was an alright movie to me,but it was an awesome birthday spent.So Thanks to everyone for it <3
I spent the next few days just touching up the Thankfullness Video and fixing some little mistakes i accidentally made(My bad) and then on Thursday night,Harry brought us out to a SF Cutters Meeting at the Adobe Building. There were interesting presentations held there by different people like the Project Manager for Adobe Premiere and an Aerial Video Enthusiast  who talked to us about Adobe Premiere CC and about using UAV's for shooting video respectivly and a few other interesting ones.There was also two raffles where the audience could win prizes and such. And i managed to win one of the raffles and got a book on Television Production.Sure to read it in my free time =D
We then spent friday setting up again for the two remaining Thanksgiving Dinners on saturday and sunday.Saturday was the Cantonese Thanksgiving and Sunday the English Thanksgiving. It was a interesting experience shooting Image Magnification for a large crowd as its slightly different from shooting a concert or such as the main point is to provide those people in the back a good view of the speaker or performance so most of the shots were close ups.All in all it was a fun week ending with a good time eating great thanksgiving food and Shooting at the same time =D

Going to Alcatraz on ma Burfday!

Apparently its illegal to celebrate my birthday =(

Fishermen's Wharf for lunch!Clam Chowder =)

Red Robin's to Celebrate my Birthday!Thanks Harry and Family!!

SF Cutters Meeting at Adobe =D

Thanksgiving Dinner again and again!!Love the creamed corn!!