Kennyster

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Sports Marketing

I started the first few Sports Marketing classes with a lot of apprehension. It was the first time that I was in a class that had so many people who were passionate and serious about marketing. The first team assignment was a wake-up call for me when a couple of groups probably outshone us. It was only like a 5% assignment but they took the effort to be really detailed, having props & even went on to calculate discount rate (although I thought that group was just being 'extra') .

But I guess that really spurred us to put in more effort in our final project & coupled with our 'hatred' for another group (B.E. guys are quite bitchy I realized! haha) , I thought we really really kicked major ass during presentation last week. Obviously there's still a written report to be graded, but based solely on the presentations that every group did, I'm quite confident that we were definitely up there.

Based on ideas, creativity & execution, this project is probably one-up over the Tiger Beer & URA projects that I did last semester. Which is a good thing I guess. =)

***
Internship: XM Asia Pacific

I guess I've gotten what I wanted. Of all the internship openings that SMU offered, this was the only "Account Executive" opening they had (until the DraftFCB opening came up on the day I got accepted for XM-Asia Pacific. damn...)

And for the last time, "account executive" isn't a finance internship. In a marketing agency, a client such as SIA is an account. The account manager is in charge of SIA's branding strategies etc. Geddit?

Anyway, I'm quite excited to finally work at a marketing agency. Advertising probably isn't as glamorous & uber-fun as I have envisioned it to be but I hope that I will learn tons of stuff & that should help me to decide on my career path in a year's time.

Sigh... One more year and I will join the 2 million plus gormless & souless worker-bees jostling for space on the 8am train. =(

***
Queensss...

Lin has gotten her first choice exchange university, which is in Ontario Canada (yeah, Canada again)

She's really really excited & delirious about it but as much as I am happy for her, I can't help but feel abit sad.

I didn't think that I would feel this way until I was talking to Kelda a few weeks ago. Somehow I told her that Lin was going on an exchange & that I wasn't going, her first response was "Oh no." , which kinda surprised me.

But I guess I got what Kelda meant now. Five months suddenly seems like a terribly long time. And it's abit depressing to sense that Lin doesn't seem the least bit sad about not seeing me for 5 months.

Ha... bugger.

Kennyster @ 2:28 PM

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Should I get D80???

Oh man, this has been the question that has been bugging me for the past 3 days.

Ever since fiddling with Eng Teck's D70 before he left for Korea, I have been yearning to get one for myself. The sensation of clicking the DSLR was pure orgasmic. Shutter speed was like zero seconds! Oh my goodness, where's the shutter lag?!!

But the IT fair at Suntec this week for Nikon was so disappointing. The Nikon cameras and lenses were actually more expensive than Courts and Harvey Norman. They justify the slightly higher prices by bundling useless stuff like 8R prints, multi card readers and umbrellas. I can't believe this marketing gimmick works so well for Nikon because there were hordes of people waiting to purchase the cameras.

Maybe I should sell my Panasonic camera on eBay and bundle it with a free AIA umbrella and a story book or something to boost bids.

Anyway, back to the D80, after looking through all the forums and articles, I'm thinking of getting it from external vendors like Alan Photo. They sell the D80 body at $1420. Plus the lens that I want (Nikkor 18-200mm VR) is selling for $1388, which brings to a grand total of $2808. Which really made me think twice (actually, more like 50 and counting) times about getting it.

It is really damn expensive leh. At a time when some of my friends are investing in penny stocks, mutual funds and warrants, swiping $3K out of my bank is actually quite embarrassing and heartbreaking.

And most importantly, I don't know if I can justify the costs. I love photography but I'm not the kind that take photos of sunflowers, or an empty beer bottle on the floor, or arrange 5 stones one after another to contrast the lightings... If anything, it's probably for travelling and landscape shots. (And if you do the math, I kinda need to take 6000 nice shots to make it 50-cents per picture.)

Hmm.. hmmm. hmmm... And it doesn't help that Lilin bought a pretty good camera (Lumix FX30) at $540. The shots below are the first few that we took with her camera. I think the quality is really good (of course, I recommended it!) and it is very portable... Maybe i should just screw everything and get a slim and sexy camera... Arghhh, haha, I'm so fickle-minded!

But I thought the wide-angled feature heavily marketed on consumer cameras are pretty over-hyped. I can't really see the difference leh.

And I just realize that the photo that I posted last month was salah. It should have been this one
instead.

Kennyster @ 9:57 PM