Hi everyone,
As a Postgrad student, you’re a bit out of touch with the happenings at the University. I think it’s partly down to the fact that Postgrads are generally older and also that we’re mostly here for just a year that we’re a little hesitant when it come to committing to University events and societies. The main reason for being out of touch is simply that we’re just far too busy working on our research (taught programmes have a lot of research work too!) and coursework that we tend to neglect the having fun part. I’ve said before that my MSc Business Analytics group is a really small one and that’s a good thing. The fact that it’s small also means that we tend to stick among each other too.
That said, I’m happy to have made friends with a handful of undergraduates who help give me an insight to what’s going on outside of our Postgraduate work. A few weeks ago, there was SurreyDecides, which your other Singapore Ambassador, Ecclesia, ran for VP Support. She did a wonderful job even though she came in 2nd because she got over 1000 votes, meaning she’s played a part in blessing all those who voted for her!
Another undergrad that I’ve also had the privilege of knowing is Joanne, a final year undergrad who’s the Societies Exec Chair among the thousand and one other things she does. (Seriously, how do all the undergrads get so much energy to do so many things? Most of us Postgrads are “old people” who have so much work it feels like we’ve been “whammied” by it all).
Anyway, she was one of the celebrities at Strictly Come Surrey 2017, which was in its 2nd year after a very successful inaugural one in 2016. So I decided to add 2 extra votes to Joanne and her partner Ben Clewer by picking up a pair of tickets to go watch it with one of my coursemates, Theo.
Here’s the both of them in the middle of their Paco Doble performance:
And here’s me trying to get a terribly blurry photo with her at the end of the event, just like how any fan would:
My sister and I have always had a good impression of watching ballroom and latin dancing thanks to the top drawer performances by the Caderas Latinas back when I was in SMU so it was a good reason for me to just relax for the evening and be entertained by all those who put in so much hard work preparing for it. It was all for a good cause too as all the proceeds went to Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice 
Never tried photographing a dance event before so I thought why not make this the first one. Was quite happy with most of the photos that I captured although the lack of good lighting in the University Hall meant that it was difficult to shoot. A lot of the photos were extremely grainy because I pushed up the ISO to ensure that my shutter speed could capture as much of the dance movements as possible. There’s always a compromise somewhere I guess. I had a lot of fun photographing it all though so that makes up for it. Lots of room for improvement for me in terms of photographing stage events like these. It was still an enjoyable evening just not thinking about my research paper for once! 🌃
Here are some of the photo highlights from all the dancers’ awesome performance on 24th March 2017:
Processing and editing all the photos were no mean feat either. Good thing my research paper was done and dusted to allow me the time to work on them.
I’m obviously making up for lost time with these posts because I promise that you’ll that Portsmouth will be featured next!
God bless you! 🌈
Ben
