Found something I didn't lose: NLC West Video
I decided to tidy up my C: drive today after (finally) managing to move all the necessary contents from the old computer to this new one. Tidying up, apparently, takes a considerable amount of time -- what with all the reorganisations and the creation of new folder-names-that-make-sense. Previously, I have had quite a mountaineous pile of discontentedly messy data, which didnt bother me because I had Google desktop running, and Google seems to be advocating to us to be as messy as possible so that they can show off their trusty search engine. But a bit of control among the chaos should turn out something good, I hope. All these activities led me to discover a copy of the NLC West corporate video, which amazingly runs on Flash, sitting at some weird location in the forest of my disorganised directories. "Erhh... this NLC West... what's that Kai?", you say...
Well, 'NLC' -- that's short for National Liaison Committee. And 'West' refers to its branch in Western Australia. NLC is a not-for-profit organisation for international students studying in Australia. Among the many things it does, the NLC contributes to Federal and State Government inquiries and processes into changing and improving international education in Australia, on behalf of all the international students it represents. "NLC Australia (Inc.)" is the main body with national office bearers running the show, and there are other NLC executive affiliations which include the branches from NSW (New South Wales), ACT (Australia Capital Territory), VIC (Victoria), SA (South Australia), QLD (Queensland), and TAS (Tasmania).
I played a rather active role in NLC during my undergraduate days while at The University of Western Australia (UWA). That was quite some time ago; 1999 to 2001. People who know me then would remember that I was Director of the International Students Services at UWA, and then moved on to take up the state executive position as NLC West's Secretary of State (for 3 weeks), before being elected as NLC West's State Convenor (that's the chair position of the state branch). By virtue of being 'convenor', I automatically get a seat on several committees on both state and national levels. And while it was really, really hectic and exhaustive throughout my stint (eg. NSW and WA has a time-difference of 3 hours, and people in the east like to call people in the west at 6am just because its already 9am there...), I did manage to have an enjoyable time with this experience and made so many friends. Amazingly, I didn't fail in any of my exams at uni too, thank God.
>> Now, back to that corporate video:
It was during my term in 2000-2001 that I commissioned and authorized a 'corporate-video' specifically for NLC West (I had a hand in its production too). It was fundamentally meant to raise awareness of the what the organisation does, and to introduce my fellow office bearers. Go on and view it if you can spare 5 minutes (clicking the picture will open up a new window and run the flash-video):
PS: (UPDATED) The soundtrack is originally a Solo Violin piece entitled 'Partita No. 3 in E, BWV 1006/I. Preludio'. Venessa Mae reorganised the same piece, which was also recomposed in 'Scottish Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 46/1st Movement', and called it 'I'm A-Doun for Lack O'Johnnie'. Sounds like a mouthful, I know, Jean, so dont laugh :P It has been quite awhile since I last immersed myself in such haute couture of the classics. "Indeed, denouements like Te Deum and Coriolanus can sapid and match the likes of La Sanadora and Pax Deorum (played in F#-major-allegretto-AND-appoggiatura)"... don’t you think?
PPS: The website indicated in the video no longer exists (dont really know what my successors did to its original contents), but the new national and state sites are still up... see above links.