SABE LECTURE SERIES
REACHING NEW HEIGHT
By DEV MENON
Last Tuesday, 30 August we got a Public Lecture organized at La Quadri Ballroom, North Wing, UCSI University. The speaker is a guy named Dev Menon from Kluang. He delivered a speech entitled “Reaching New Height” about his experiences on the journey study overseas. It was an inspiring talk by such an amazing guy. His life sounds like not so easy and yet it’s hard as he had to go through all the challenges he met.
One of the space which caught his imagination is China and most of the travel done by himself. Instead of using his mother tongue, he speak Chinese when he is travelling there. To him, one good thing about speaking more than one language is that you can learn about other people's culture and communicate with them when you travel to that country. This make me start to think about that should I learn Vietnamese before I have my experiencing architecture trip to Vietnam at the end of the year? It sounds interesting but I don’t think I can make it since I have so many works to do especially Design. This subject is such a big burden and it’s killing me.
One of his story which most impressed me is that he went to Mount Everest. Such a brave decision and I was like Wow, you been there and joined the Everest base camp. Based on what he say, the journey to the top is really tough and challenging. For me, climbing Mount Everest is a dream for many, and an unparalleled experience for thousands. But it isn’t for everyone. This touched me again as it’s quite similar to my life being an architecture student. Despite what you might hear, architecture school is terrific. However, to me, surviving in architecture school is hard and the toughness can compare with the climbers of Mount Everest. I know that it isn’t easy and I can still remember moments of crippling panic as I looked around the studio during my presentation. The horrible memories. Being an architect is a dream for many also but it definitely not counted me in. This is because I’m getting more and more tired with this course.
Back to the lesson which Mr Dev shared “Slowing Down Is Important”. I’m agree with his point of view. With this it relate back to my design studio group work. In everything we do, we want to be quicker, more efficient and more productive. This is really just to say that we want everything to be faster. And yet, despite all this rushing around, we don’t seem to be accomplishing anything extra. Rushing around doesn’t help us to do things better. If anything, it only increases our chances of being stressed and negatively affecting the people around us.
“Nothing meaningful is easy” also the quote which inspired me. Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain and difficulty. I may have a hard time standing up in front of the lecturers to present my design to them. Until today I’m still thinking of the idea of wiping my entire body with antiperspirants. I sweat a lot when I’m so nervous to give a presentation. But it means a lot to me after the presentation as I put all my effort and sacrifice my sleep to accomplish the design works.
Lastly, the quote “ Home is a feeling, not a place” is the one which I like the most among all of the quote shared. To me, home is where I have an unlimited supply of clean drinking water. I realized this thought when I came to kl and filtered my own water to drink everyday. Besides, home is where my family shares a sumptuous meal every day. My parents are both good cooks and their children are excellent in eating. Out here, I have to survive so I eventually learned to cook or having meals outside. Having a study here taught me the importance of home. I can only go back home during sem break and it made me realise how I miss them so much.
