How my first TEDx event went
It was sort of like a dream come true… Like going to a live recording of a TV show you watched.
Life. What’s the point?
That was the topic at hand for the first ever TEDx Event that I will ever attend. A little too heavy for my taste but another part of me slightly enjoyed these deeper questions that really warrant interesting and elaborate answers.
What I love about TED talks is that it looks at a single topic question and views that answers from several perspectives. For this particular event, there were psychologists, leadership consultants, ex-convicts, film-makers etc. All top people in the fields weighing in on this one big question.
This being my first event I didn’t really know what to expect. I thought we’d have to listen to people talking for 5 hours straight. I realise now, after writing that, how delusional that sounds. The format was 3 talks first followed by a lunch break, 5 talks and a performance followed by a tea/coffee break and then the final 3 talks. Pretty dope for a FREE event. I did wish that we were given a ID card with a necklace thing though, I’ve always wanted something like that from TED. Instead everyone got a tiny circular pin that you could put through your shirt or bag.
I was quite surprised to see how many young people there were and that they were all from different schools. Some from NTU itself, others from NUS and myself from SIM. I wouldn’t exactly say that the talks were life-changing but some of them really made me think about the point of life and what it means to live a meaningful one. A good reminder for my next TED talk would be to bring a book and write down the important points.
There was a brief ice breaking game where we got to know the people sitting next to us and we had to take a selfie with them. I thought that was pretty fun. I wasn’t playing to win or anything, I just thought it’d be nice to get to know this girl that sat next to me during the talks.
Her name was Theresa (if I’m spelling that correctly) and she’s an NUS student studying Psychology. She from Sweden and she likes metal music and doesn’t like celery (the game was that we had to find one thing the person liked and one thing they didn’t like). Thinking back about it now, I kinda wish I didn’t say “free events” as the thing that I liked… Oh well.
I also wish that we exchanged twitter handles or instagram names so I could share the photo with her. That will probably be something that I would regret in the long run. Hell, I’m regretting it now.
Anyways, to cap it all off, the talks were pretty good towards the end. Full of emotional stuff and great food for your thoughts. It’s a shame that the venue was a little far being on the other side of town. But I can’t wait until the next TEDx event in Singapore. It was definitely one I’m not going to forget soon.
