WHO says dreams don't come true?

For 26-year-old Angelene Thng, daring to dream has nabbed her the top prize in AsiaOne's 'This Is Me : My Destination' vodcast competition.

Her cute and colourful animation of a PowerPuff girl look-alike sharing, her thoughts on where her dream destinations are captured the judges' hearts, and won Angeline a 30GB Apple iPod.

Her win caught the petite teacher totally by surprise as she never expected her 'amateurish' vodcast to come out tops, especially when this was her virgin foray into the world of flash animation.

'I didn't expect to win. I thought of doing it just for fun. I also wanted to gather some portfolio because I'm teaching this IT course so if I have something to show the students, they'd trust your skills more you see,' Angelene says laughingly. 'But now I don't dare to show them. I think they will laugh.'

Well, looks like Angelene has the last laugh now. The former designer, who's now teaching IT programmes like Flash and Dreamweaver to secondary school students, says it took her two weeks of burning midnight oils to put the video together.

Angelene striking a 'kawaii' pose with her coveted iPod prize.

Asked what inspired her to tackle the theme of 'My Destination', Angelene said it all came from her head.

'I'm the kind of person who imagines a lot. So I did mention in the animation that I like to go to Japan to see sakura. These are all dreams which I hope to achieve, like going to space to see stars and all that. We're too stressed up in life so I came up with this little book of fantasy, because my thinking is always very fairytale-like ... I guess there's a kid in everyone of us,' she explained.

Angelene's job, which required her to mingle with kids on almost a daily basis, was also partly why she took part in the AsiaOne contest. This is because 'when I mingle with kids', who are 'naive, they always give me a lot of ideas to do things which I do not think of doing' before.

'I find that their ideas are a bit more wacky, crazy. That helps a lot. When I saw this theme, it relates more to me... a lot of things start coming in so I thought I should put up something just for fun,' she added.

Now that channelling her inner child has brought her instant fame, sort of, what's next?

'Definitely I will take part in more challenging ones. If people like such animation, I guess I can explore more. I thought it's quite fun for AsiaOne to organise such events because sometimes when I go online, it seems all the contests are more suited for students,' Angelene said.

Well, the competition's not over for her as she still has a chance to win an Apple MacBook through The People's Choice contest, in which AsiaOne readers get to vote for their favourite vodcast and podcast.

Angelene's up against .... As winners of the My Music segment, they qualify to compete against the rest of the winners from the three remaining themes, as well as all featured entries on the Gallery Page at the end of the competition.

The grand vodcast and podcast winners will each walk away with an Apple MacBook.

How would Angelene feel if she won this too?

'I'd feel very honoured, more motivated to take part in more of these contests. Even though I've been a designer for so many years, some of my designs didn't win any prizes. In the end, something which I experimented with won something. So I guess sometimes imagination can take me quite far,' Angelene said.

AsiaOne readers also stand a chance to win an Apple MacBook.

By simply voting for their favourite podcast or vodcast in the The People's Choice Awards, one lucky AsiaOne reader will walk away with the MacBook.

More contest details here.

To view some of the entries, go to the Gallery.