On the Neptune

2009-05-23T23:41:00.001+08:00

Alas, I should have posted this entry this Wednesday, right after the HC investiture, with that particular sentiment and that particular mood, if only I didn’t need to catch up with my work. My blog has been wordy all the time, but well, I am just simply not used to use msn English here. So, here it begins.

Mentioning about HC Camp, a few phrases can describe it in more detail and vividness than an entire chunk of paragraph does. Memories of last camp, reflection of me per se, words of encouragement from peers, and intense pressure. They all came back. To life. The night we walked back from Tampines, exhausted we were; the night we disappointed our seniors, self-condemned I was, the pact of the three; the morning when we were late and were punished to run a 2.4k; the morning when I tasted salty and bitter sea water and had sands all over; the moment someone encouraged me as we ran back from jetty…

Looking at my juniors. Watching them in the eyes. They were struggling, sweating, shaking, and panting. No matter what, I kept recalling the past. It simply reminded us of ourselves. Juniors, I know you were trying your best, I know too well that you had been drained from night-walking and have not gotten enough rest; some of you were pushing yourselves to the limit, you could not complete the PT and your arms could support yourselves any more. Watching you all, I was in pain, but it is a trial that all leaders have to go through, it is about the determination in mind, which transcends mortal capability, about transforming each other’s encouragement as a form of energy and persevere, about achieving a miracle, looking back and discover that is not an impossible. Truly, I myself also had regrets. Tiong Wei and I spent some time discussing it, and thanks to him, his philosophy worked and I found my direction now. That is my experience during the 09 HC Camp, familiar, but more insightful.

The Investiture in the Auditorium was another main event for the 16th. After having our friendships for a year, it was hard to say goodbye. But as Cheryl has said, goodbye is never an apt word for this occasion. Regina Spektor has once sung in The Call (I always said that her voice was like an angel’s):

Now we’re back to the beginning
It’s just a feeling and no one knows yet
But just because they can’t feel it too
Doesn’t mean that you have to forget

Let your memories grow stronger and stronger
‘Til they’re before your eyes
You’ll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye

May the precious friendships and memories remain to an eternity.

Watching the juniors in my seat, I could picture the moment when we were standing on the spot where they were exactly standing. It made my throat felt uncomfortable. When I took off my House Committee Badge and pinned for Huang Rui, telling him about this 6-year-old Badge, I choked my words, for more than once. But when we cheered in the end, I cheered in the top of my lung. I knew this was my last cheer. I pictured Theen Yew telling the OGMs of Xcion in a fine afternoon of January that they must cheer as if this was their first and last cheer. This was the moment. The end. And I must cheer this way so I would not regret it.

A great basketball game on Thursday, with Jia Wei, Grace, Kirk, Ellery, Zhihao, Jun Yang, Wilson, Jovian, Thaddeus and Jerome (there should be more, but my apologise for not able to recall). I have not touched the ball for a long time, but some sense did come back when contact has been made to the ball. Even though I have no plan to train up for this so far, I knew I will, after As.

Napha Test yesterday. My friends said that we did not need to treat it so seriously since we are non-Singaporeans. But I did not wish to lower my standard because of this. This is an excuse for endeavoring. I tried hard and I knew I did not fail myself.

It is late now. Time to brush up my concepts tomorrow. Otherwise my physics tuition teacher will shake his head and sigh if I ask something that I am suppose to memorise next week. Adios amigos.

2009-04-30T19:27:00.005+08:00

I need mood to blog.
I must be free.
I must have “blog-able” things to blog.
Fortunately, I have all of them today, how very rare and amazing.

Alright, I’m sure Jin Yong is not an alien name to all of you. He’s a famous Cantonese Wu Xia (Novels on Martial Arts) author in China, and in fact, in the rest of Asia where people speak Chinese. Singapore is no exception. For a matter of fact, I saw Keith read his novels last year. So yeah. Well, I’m not going to fill my entire entry with Jin Yong’s life story, nor am I going to talk about his well-known novels such as She Diao Ying Xiong Zhuan (Heros and Vulture Hunters) and Shen Diao Xia Lu (Legendary Vulture, Heroic Couple). I just want to highlight one point. In his novels, the Wu Shu masters always have one or two ultimate moves of their own, and not known by masters from other gangs. This results in masters trying hard to learn each other’s ultimate moves secretly in order to be more powerful, and eventually, invincible. I kind of borrowed that idea. Well, at least can draw some parallel between this and a floorball experience today.

Pardon me to be unable to go into the details since I’m an amateur in floorball and don’t know the terms they use for each technique. Mat, thanks for lending your floorball stick to me to play for a good one hour and a half. I played with Theen Yew first, by mainly trying to shoot into each other’s gate and score and I was beaten. Then he lost to Jun Yang. After which, I played against Jun Yang. I just cannot control the Bucky Ball shaped ball – okay, they are both balls anyway – but somehow I managed to observe a few moves from him, attempting to apply them and scored a few, while Jun Yang scored steadily with invulnerable defence and swift attack. But soon we lost count and fight for the ball, and I learnt a lot more staff. This is more fun than just simply trying to shoot into each other’s gate, what was of inconvenience was just that we had to search for the ball from under the sofas, tables and other trash whenever we lost it. Where was Kaizen then? With his Twilight. I didn’t go because Min Yun said she’s got the DVD. Whoever read the book said it is spectacular. I didn’t touch the book since I bought it. Well, I don’t think I’m reading it any time soon either.

Okay, I shifted the boring portion of the entry to the back:

I did not expect today to pass this way, especially when it seemed that my morning has been following a propensity of weariness. Physics lecture was boring, and I has been nodding off for a few seconds for several times before came back into focus. I did that when I sensed the lecturer was going to explain something important, because when I dozed off for that few seconds I was actually following the lecture. Not entirely though, and I actually regretted that I did not completely fall asleep during this lecture today. It continued on during GP, this caused me to be rather quiet during the lesson, and for a few occasions I just switched off. The teacher noticed, and asked me to present the answer. I was lazy to write down the answer previously, so I had to think while standing in front of the board. It was rather embarrassing, and I was aware that the teacher was watching with the corner of my eyes. But somehow I pulled through, and amazingly, my answer was not entirely wrong.

There was only one free period today, as my Chinese Lit teacher decided to add Reinforcement or Further Improvement lessons – whatever you call that – every week. And this free period is actually my lunch break. Knowing I was going to have a double Chinese Lit, a Maths and a Physics Mock SPA, I knew I had to get myself some coffee already. I say “had to” because I per se did not drink it often unless I had no choice. With stomach rich in lunch and coffee (next time I should switch to latte), I was super energetic in what was left of the morning, and of course, the entire afternoon. The Chinese Lit lessons revised a piece of essay written by a famous official in Jin Dynasty. Perhaps what you all have heard of are Qing Dynasty and Tang Dynasty, but yeah, Jin Dynasty was an even earlier era, and the essay was well argued. Or perhaps the reason why it aroused my interest today was that the teacher was better (this was an essay taught last year) or the effect of coffee.

We discussed about [modesty and inner peace] and [moderate ambitiousness] as well. The phrases in each pair of the square brackets describe a single word. It would be something even more bombastic and complex if I translated into Chinese, but this English version is the best I can come up with so far. We talked about how [moderate ambitiousness] can gain us altitude, and [modesty and inner peace] can provide us with gentleness. However, we can only apply the latter after achieving the former. It is logical as well. If there is no altitude and achievements, there will be no place – if not, then ludicrous – for Men to be self-contented and confident, because that confidence will be tantamount to inanity. Something profound and insightful right?

This holiday will be good, though my tuition teacher strongly encouraged to sit down and labour on Organic Chem during Labour Day. Hopefully I can have time to gym this week. Actually the chance is slim. I will most probably resume it next week before going for the Camp the week after.

gym

2009-04-04T15:25:00.006+08:00

I’d better update my blog before I forgot the password. Now I miss my home much more than ever for some reason indescribable with words. My family, my best friends, and the city I am so familiar with. Stream of consciousness always occurred to me. I know everybody has this stream of consciousness, but sometimes my consciousness, my memory can retrospect back for many years. Complex thoughts and emotion, are just like the montage, which actually means a rapid succession of different images or shots in a movie. Is that the last few stages of growing up? I do not have a single clue, but by guesswork, the answer is evident.

I subscribed a broadband from SingTel last weekend and I am euphoric, because I finally do not need to be disappointed by the poor connections in the hostel or going through the process of asking around my juniors to see if they happen to have a spare one. I will surely enjoy the leisure time spent on the Internet. Friendster, Facebook, Xiaonei (On-Campus), QQ, MSN…yeah.

Last year, school always ended earlier so I was able to use the school gym for fitness, but it is not the case of this year, I can only spare one hour or so on Thursday afternoon. The badminton school team is training there as well, so it is naturally slightly crowded, but not a big deal. Last year I my friends were not able to gym with me regularly. It is rather difficult to arrange a common time slot to gym or play basketball. But fortunately I have one this year, and both of us are improving faster than ever. Clarence has said that “I eat, I happy.” Here I must add on, that “I eat, I train, and I happy.”

Yesterday was Track and Field Day, Alpha Warriors have put in enormous effort in the races and cheerleading. Unfortunately, we were not privileged the moment of hoisting the trophy for the Champion of Cheerleading. But the Alpha Cheerleaders are always the champions in my heart, for the pain, the joy, the sweat and the tear they have experienced. This is the spirit of warriors, the spirit I respect highly of. Hereby I quote Mat, that “the essence of creativity is to face failure with no fear.” He is right. The Alpha Cheerleading 09 is the incarnation of creativity and delight. Perhaps they did not get the title this time, but for the initiative for innovation, the boldness, audacity of innovation, and the confidence of innovation, they are first class, and no one else can outdo them.

House Committee nomination has already started and HC Camp is drawing near, the event I has been longing for the entire year. The planning is on the way. Exciting, is it not? I just could not wait for that day to come, and after which I could blog about it.

2008-12-31T09:00:00.002+08:00

Truly, as I have mentioned in the last entry, a November morning in Singapore is chilling. A bright, sunny December afternoon in China, however, is freezing. That is how it is.

I did not go out far in Tianjin honestly, apart from roaming in the circular (not exact) area with my house as the centre and one thousand metre as radius, helping to buy food from the neighbouring supermarket, and Crazy English magazine from newsstand opposite the gate of my residential area. I need to keep myself being dipped in an English environment all the time even I was away from one of the most authentic one is South East Asia. Oh, I also purchased some movies as well, and they might come from Somali if you know what I mean, because the movies were so cheap.

However, I did take a longer journey in Tianjin, on the Christmas Eve, because my best friend Tianyu’s house was outside what we called “Outmost Boundary”, meaning the most remote area in Tianjin, because it was away from the heartland. The houses there were grand, and they loomed into my view from the dark as Chenmeng and I walked into the residential area in the evening. Nevertheless, the security at the gate was poor in explaining directions. Left, right, left. Better than Left, left, left. Otherwise we would find ourselves have walked in a circle and came back in front of him. It snowed the day before, and everything was covered in icy, milky carpet. Actually it was more than my description. The snow had been so heavy that it made riding bicycles or even driving a difficulty. I say “we walked with snow crunching under our feet”, but I would rather prefer “we waded in the snow and had to avoid having shoes sunk inside the snow.”

That night, we had a potluck dinner, or Bring Our Own Food, if you still remember the still-not-too-old J1 students’ catastrophe just ended two months ago. Fortunately I did not think of that then, and I had a good appetite. The salad, grilled beef, pork and chicken on the table were very popular. The movie we watched that night was Zohan, a quite GP-friendly movie with a collection of facts about Obama, Afghanistan and Martin Luther King. It was a fantastic comedy, something much more than a PG of course.

That is all I can tell so far. I wish to stay at home, but I also could not wait getting my hands on the new semester, though I know much tougher things will be waiting, maybe I have to deal with the same thing again. But I know when the competition, which is against my will, is over, what is lost will be restored. Let's hope, or let's pray.

2008-11-29T15:20:00.001+08:00

3. Drifting, Rafting and Kayaking

November is chilling, even for a country located on the equator and experiences summer all the time. Maybe this trace of chill is too slight to be felt indoors, but it would be another story if camping outside. That was what happened on the second day of the Student Leadership Camp.

Usually during the holidays, my “next day” starts at 9 o’clock. But this time I woke up 3 hours earlier. Or more. I was waken by the freezing rain at around four o’clock. But due to the weariness, I wrapped my windbreaker tightly around myself and went back to my sleep again, until six o’clock, when my noise handphone played the noisiest songs of the century. I purposefully picked them so I could be aroused.

I got up reluctantly, trying to fight off the fatigue. I saw Mr Heng went back to the shelter with his jacket and an umbrella in his hand. Maybe he just finished his morning jog? Very likely. At any rate, as agreed, we station masters met Mr Loh and Sherman at the summerhouse near the beach. I zipped my windbreaker from the bottom to the collar, but the icy cold wind found its way in anyway. We were briefed shortly, after which we were dismissed for washing.

I had no appetite in the morning. A result of waking up too early. But I knew that I’ve got to have some food in my stomach anyway, so I stuffed in one piece of bread, without peanut butter or jam. Salty, sugary or greasy food in the early morning made me feel sick.

When everybody finished their breakfast, there was a general briefing at the beach for the participants. They then proceeded to a hall near the boathouse of Changi Beach Park, where they were instructed by life guards or instructors or someone in between or someone doubled the two roles, about basic techniques of making a raft. It was mainly about how to tie a strong knot. The station maters were sian-ing (Shall I put a double “n”?) at the side. I was just eager to be in the sea and kayak. Enjoy the moment when the kayak was carried up and down by the tides. It had been a year since the last time I kayaked during OBM. But this time I was going to try out the single kayak. Shih Ying, who was in charge of the same station with me, had asked me about which type of kayak I was comfortable with, but I have no idea because I guess it was no difference for me. So he went to discuss with the chief life guard, who dismissed the idea of each of us three having a single kayak. The final decision was that I was going to kayak solo, whereas Shih Ying and Nadia took the double seat kayak. It was a good idea as I was no veteran of kayaking, so using single kayak with no necessity of two people’s co-operation would be easier.

Thus, Chong Keng a.k.a. CK, Wei Hao, Shih Ying, Mat, Paul started putting on the life jacket, followed by fetching paddles and kayaks. We had trolleys here for transporting the kayaks. During OBS and OBM we had got to carry the kayaks all the way from the beach to the boathouse. On the way to the beach, Wei Hao and I was trying to figure out what creative things we could say after saying “wa ka lah kong”, because the sentence was supposed to continue after saying that. It was first used by Theen Yew for fun during Student Leadership Congress, and now it seemed to have evolved into some sort of weird greeting for me and the ex-potential Delta House Captain.

It took another hour for the participants to carry their rafts to the beach. In the mean time I was staring at a wild cat at the beach. The cat was bored and was really tired of my stare. It walked away with a turnaround. But even so, it was still meandering at the beach area. It kept either licking its furs in front of its breast, or scratching its tummy with one of its legs. And I was bored of it. Shih Ying went forward and stroked the cat, which rather enjoyed it. I wonder where her kitty was.

All right, so now it began. When the signal was given, all the station masters went into the sea. In the kayak. =D. I got a lot of sand on my kayak and my legs. Shih Ying remarked that it was sandy. Sendy was not here right? Okay, okay, it is lame. The rafts were coming, and we gave instructions to them: roadblock: leave one person or one oar? Actually I reckoned that leaving one person was the same as leaving one oar right? It just that the raft would be lighter. Anyway, we had got to keep kayaking back to the original position because we were drifting as the effect of the current. Zai You had warned us about it, but I did not realise that it could be so powerful! Especially when we had to kayak against the current. Shih Ying gave me suggestions of using the technique of stern rudder so I could quickly resume paddling forward without being slowed down too much. If I used back paddling it would be another story. But at that time I did not quite get the hang of it, so I could only use back paddling tentatively. While we were heading back, the participants called us back, as they thought we were running away. LOL. Actually it was quite a struggle for them, as the rafts were slower than kayaks, and they had got to fight against the current as well. But sometimes the current could be used as well. For example, we I was talking with Guo Rong’s team, the raft was carried slowly to the shore, which was exactly what our station required them to do. Although they had to start again as they left neither a person nor an oar to me.

While we had to take care of staying inside the boundary, we had got to be careful of single-minded fishermen as well. There was one man, whose race was not to be mentioned as we must uphold the spirit of racial harmony, insisted to fish with one of our raft in front of him. You can guess the result right? When he hooked one of our participants, instead of saying “Are you okay”, he yelled, “This is my father’s fishhook!” Oh, so this kind of people was actually the heirs of their fathers’ legacy. But as the Jack Neo movie I Not Stupid Too had said, “I do not give fish to students, I want to teach them how to fish.” Sadly, this fisherman’s father forgot to teach him this important lesson, and I guess the title of the movie was wrong for this particular man’s case. It should be the direct opposite.

When our station was not patronized, I learnt stern rudder from Wei Hao, who demonstrated it. The sea trip was so fun!

We cleaned the kayaks went the activity was over. It was a burning noon. The sun was high. So we wetted each other using tap water while cleaning the boats. Mat and I went to the taps next to the kayak cleaning spot and showered by the icy water while we were fully dressed. Shiok!

To be continued: 4. Titanic Five – Tug of War

2008-11-17T19:32:00.002+08:00

1. The Trip Began

The second event was Student Leadership Camp.

The story started in the evening, when a few of our Alpha HC people, Mat, Theen Yew, Crystal, Teresa, Tiong Wei and me were sitting around a table in the hawker centre opposite the College. Most of us ordered shrimp noodles. Everyone was exhilarated about the upcoming Camp.

Back to school, in the Sports Complex, Mr Loh asked all of us to collect booklets and T-shirts. The design was done by Clarence, in the library to be specific. But that would be another story. Later, we organizers, which mainly consists of SC, HC, SportsXcel and OAC people were grouped together and shared our five strengths, while over hundred participants were having their ice breakers. After the sharing session, we were free, and it was now the participants’ turn to be explained about their strengths. Ms Kwan, Ms Norsheha, Mr Heng, Mr Loh, Mr Lim, Mrs Ang and Ms Chong were there. In the meantime, many of the HC people went to CR 106 to store their belongings that were not needed for night orienteering and the next day’s rafting and team bonding session.

I did not leave anything in CR 106, since I deemed that after team bonding tomorrow the Camp would be more or less done. However, I went there with Mat and Krystal anyway, just for the fun of it. When we headed back to the Sports Complex, I was still with my two bags. One was an exceptionally large travelling backpack which was bought for OBS in 2006, and one was my old school bag. And I still had two additional shoe bags (Orientation 2008) hanging from both sides of my backpack, which made Mr Loh joked: “Ni zai gan shen mo? Yao hui zhong guo ah?” (What are you doing? Are you preparing to go back China?)

Mr Loh was one of the busiest persons during the Camp. He had to transport a lot of equipments, materials as well as, humans between the Campsite at Changi Beach and the College with a rented lorry. A handful of the organizers such as Theen Yew, Mat, Eunice, Dinesh and I were not in the first batch that were to be loaned onto Mr Loh’s lorry, since our Stations were not the immediate ones. After Mat, Dinesh and I bought canned drinks from the vending machine, the rest of us organizers were transported by two other teachers who drove.

After getting lost at the Air Base area, Mrs Ang managed to drive us to the Campsite, where a big shelter had been set up and groundsheets had been spread out. It was around ten at night then.

We lay under the shelter for a while, and chitchatted a bit. I realised that I was surrounded my many SC people, not my usual acquaintances. But that could be the start of HC blending with SC. Cheryl was glad about that when the Camp ended. Oh, sidetracked – many of them then went to wash.

Dinesh had been off for 7-11 for a while when Mr Loh appeared and asked about him. Now Mr Loh left his packed dinner on the ground and gathered all the organizers at the Campsides (the rest had been left at respective Stations). Okay, the adventure had started at this point.

2. The Darkest Challenge

A lorry was driving on the slightly deserted main road. The wind produced by the fast travelling lorry was cooling, and it was so strong that our hair was blew backwards. And then we went abreast with another lorry which was full of dark foreign workers. We looked more or less the same. Shall we wave at them?

No more jokes, because here came one of the most haunted place in Singapore. The lorry left the main road and dashed into a dark uphill path. The path was not lit by any streetlamps. Only dark woods. Dark bushes. (Oh, no, dark bushes does not mean Obama and Bush!) Anyway, it was really tranquil in that area. And a bit bone-chilling and blood-curdling. The buildings were white. And it could be seen clearly in this particular night without moon. Yes, white buildings. Dark windows. Like hopeless eyes of nothingness. Of unknowns. A haunted place. Old Changi Hospital. It was not known why the Hospital has moved. But we were here anyway.

The lorry came to a halt at the dead end. The outline of a gate was visible in the darkness, as well as the silhouette of the morgue. Another car was already there. We jumped off the lorry and met Ms Ang, Mr Heng and other teachers. It was drizzling. Not that cold, but the icy silky tiny raindrops irritated me. We were all equipped with umbrellas and Mr Heng made sure we had teacher in-charges’ contact numbers. We reassured them not to worry. And the next minute they were gone. The car and the lorry disappeared from our sights. The red lights mixed with the darkness.

We were alone.

Mat, Dinesh, Theen Yew and me.

Just four of us.

The morgue.

I suggested to sit back to back so we could watch for each other’s backs. Having backs to unknowns gave us a sense of insecurity. We did not lean our backs to another wall of wire-net either simply because the thin wires could not be trusted.

So we sat in the open, a bit further away from the wired wall, and much further away from the morgue. We did not go anywhere near it at all. Beneath us was the tar road. Well, it was so not challenging. But that was what we did then. We sit under four umbrellas. Dinesh switched on his torchlight and shared his chocolate with us. So we crouched underneath the umbrellas and ate in a pool of orange light. Such a cozy night huh?

Now I will skip the details of the game and focus on the progress of the night instead.

Before the first group came, we heard people talking from the direction of the morgue.

At first, I thought there was another path there. But it seemed to be impossible. They were waving torchlights and laughing loudly. As they went out of the morgue and met us, I sensed very strong cigarette smell. This was a group of teenagers who were naughty enough to play games in the morgue in the middle of the night. Maybe they were more than teenagers. Some of them seemed to be drunk. One boy came forward and sat with Theen Yew. He looked rather sheepish, and was obviously asking for Theen Yew’s name. Theen Yew identified himself as “Michael”. Another guy approached Dinesh and claimed that we were daredevils. Wow, he was apparently drunk. But they soon took their leave and disappeared.

This is only the first wave. Second wave soon came. A black car rolled in. Its front light lit the bushes before we had a view of the car. It went passed us for a few metres and halted. The driver winded down the window.

“What (are) you guys doing here uh?” He enquired.

Theen Yew explained to him. He did not reply. “Are you patrolling?” Asked Theen Yew.

“No, I’m just driving pass.” Said the driver. Bah, you drove into the dead end of an old hospital premises? I think not. But the driver started the engine again and reversed. The second wave ended.

The third wave was before we started another round of game. One car and two motorcycles were parked in front of us. Three people went into the morgue. Well, people had had so much fun in that place. A belated Hallowe’en party? Anyway, when they came back, we were forced to call a stop for our game in order to make way for the vehicles.

We went back with the last group of participants. Washed, I lay in one corner of the groundsheet and drifted into sleep on the hard ground.

To be continued: Drifting, Rafting and Kayaking

Huang Wei

2008-11-15T23:04:00.000+08:00

Okay, okay, Project Work delayed my blog update. Now I am about to share two events. They will be in my memory, vivid as ever, forever. But when I read them, in form of blog, I find it extraordinarily appealing as well. And, oops, I almost forget, apologies for not updating the Danger of the Trump. I think I will resume to that task some other time. There are still plenty of things to manage until the end of this year.

All right, here we go. I feel as if I am taking a vial of memory and am about to pour it into the Pensive. Anyway, this is a piece of memory that happened two weeks ago.

It was still early. Six in the morning at most. I was not sure, because I was still in bed. But that friend of mine was already busy. He still had his last pile of belongings to put away. Maybe into his travel case, maybe literally “away” meaning “discard”. Qi Long had already got dressed and walking back and forth in the room. Everything else was as silent as the night, or what was left of it.

I stared at the ceiling and did not get up. I was pondering, and only got up after a while. This friend of mine was flying back to China. He was sent back. And I did not know what was the chance of seeing him again. All of us felt pity and distressed about it, because the sixteen of us had been together since 2005. Friendship is hard to break. Friends are hard to be separated.

Qi Long and I helped him to bring his cases down to the front yard of the hostel. Three of us bought some light breakfast from the vending machine in canteen. Qi Long paid for his. Most of the remaining sixteen had been in the Airport already, waiting, waiting.

The air of dawn was chilling. I was not cold only because I wore two layers of garments. One T-shirt and one short-sleeved shirt. If you have been in Victoria School, you would have known that there are bridges across the channel, connecting the school premises and the roads. I stood on the only bridge that was open and waited for Mr Ng to turn up. I looked around, the streets were still lit by lamps, and trees were shrouded by thin mist of November morning. At about ten to seven, Mr Ng’s car drove across the bridge and three of us were in soon after. This friend of mine was silent during the short journey to the Airport.

We reached our destination just when the dawn broke, and over the mobile, I arranged the rest of the people to meet us at Checkpoint 9 of Terminal 1. The girls were delighted to see him again, even though it will be seldom for us to meet him in the future. We surrounded him, and in seconds jammed the flow and the people who were queuing thought we had jumped the queue. Mr Ng had to use Chinese to explain to them the situation.

So we moved to a resting area beside the checkpoint. One of the girls suggested each of us to saying something to bless him. So we did. I had nothing much to say, since I had written them down on the first page of a Vocabulary book. He always wanted it. So I gave him. The same girl now suggested to sing a song before he took off. So the girls did. But the song never finished. It was cut short halfway, as that girl, who was always have a big smile, started weeping. I was shocked. But she simply did not care and cried and cried. So now the situation was that the girls started sobbing, this friend of mine, as well as the rest of we guys did not know what to do. We were just standing, as statues. Qi Long was the most silent of all, but I knew that his misery was kept deep inside.

Chang Cheng hurried to the crowd a bit later. He was overslept. A roommate, from the north-east of China. It was known as a rather freezing place in winter. My friend was pleased to see him.

Mr Ng soon came back, informing him that it was time to bid adios. Suddenly my throat felt tight. We followed him to the entrance of the Passport Control. For him, it was an entrance. For us, it was an exit, an exit from our world. Our eyes followed him to the Passport Control point. Waving. With concern. With sorrow. With pieces of wonderful memories in our minds…Truly, friends are hard to be separated, but friends remain friends even to be separated.

The Danger of the Trump

2008-10-12T00:03:00.017+08:00

During a few years of attempting to write ghost stories or mysteries, I came up with three major stories: Horror of the Bermuda Triangle, the Shadowy Phantom and the Five Beasts. I have, however, completed none of them, leaving only paper of scribbles.

The Danger of the Trump is adapted from the Five Beasts. I have started planning this story four years ago when I was in Secondary 3. The story was set in a normal city in the United States. However, my three years’ experience in a absolute new environment changed my mind, and I began to write this story in the local context with a slight change in the plot. An Asian story should be more fun than an American story since nowadays everything is Americanised. This story is purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual individuals or events are coincidental.

The Danger of the Trump

There was a downpour. Rumblings could be heard from the clouds hanging low oppressively under the heaven. They could barely be discerned from the dark sky. Only mistiness could be visible. The bellowing of the sky was alternating with the sudden appearance of violet lightning, which tore the nothingness apart with inexorability.

It was cursed night.

A black Cougar was driving quietly on a deserted street. Its quietness maybe due to the deafening bombardment of the bullet-like rain drops. Or perhaps it drove at an acceptable speed and did not accelerate at all. The head light shone the road ahead, and a clear moving reflection of the Cougar could be seen as well.

The Cougar turned a corner and came onto a narrow road without the presence of street lamps. It slowed down, and finally halted in front of an inconspicuous building. It is certainly very rare to find some place so dilapidated in this country. The driver pondered. He grabbed an umbrella on the co-driver seat and came out of the car. The umbrella is nothing more than a prop. He cursed, as he was soaked instantly. Then, he disappeared at the main gate of the building.

Without switching on the light, the man climbed to the fourth floor. He stopped in front of a door, felt the knob, and turned. The light in the room suddenly penetrate the darkness. The man squinted, and walked in.

It was a large laboratory inside, with researchers busy doing tests and experiments behind rows of long tables. Some are dealing with chemicals, with some are manipulating computers. Everything was so clean, sanitary and orderly that it did not look like somewhere out of an old building at all.

An old man with white work clothes came forward and greeted the man who just came in.

“Nice to see you here, Mr. Moon. Sorry, I am so underdressed.”

Mr. Moon did not seem to mind the old man’s attire. He simply nodded to him. There was no expression on his face. He was strolling on the aisle between two rows of tables. The old man hurried after him.

“The Boss was undoubtedly dissatisfied by the postponement of the date of completion of the drug. You know this better than I do, Professor Poon.” Mr. Moon said lazily without looking behind.

“I am certainly aware of that, Mr Moon. However, there are complications.” The professor replied.

“Complications should not be an excuse for your responsibilities. The Boss never forgives.” Mr. Moon snorted.

“But, please, sir,” said Professor Poon. “Please tell the Boss that the development of the drug is almost completed. Within a couple of days, it will be ready, and the Trump can be started.”

Mr. Moon stopped walking.

“You’d better.” said Mr. Moon, and turned to the door.

* * *

Two days later, the exam results were just out.

Joshua stared at his History promotional examination paper. He has chosen to answer the question about the Cold War. Mr. Lim had failed his paper, because he forgot to mention about the role of Britain in the Cold War, as well as the significance of Cuban Missile Crisis. Besides English Literature, this is the second paper he has failed. And he did not do too well for is Chemistry. He did not know what his parents would say.

The bell for the last lesson rang. He slipped his exam paper into his bag, and walked out of the classroom with his friend Xeric, chatting about a lot of lame stuff. When they reached the main gate of the College, Xeric asked Joshua if he wanted to play basketball at the court nearby.

“When can go Mac after that. Shiok right?” said Xeric.

Joshua considered, while Xeric’s spectacles were starting to turn brown after absorbing the light of the setting sun. A work of dissipation of silver chloride.

“I think maybe we can go on another day. I have to explain to my parents about my results first. If I survive tonight, we can then play basketball tomorrow.” Joshua smiled bitterly. “Besides, my parents wish me to eat at home, you know. They said ‘cos of the inflation thing over the whole world, it is not a good idea to waste money outside.”

“Sure then.” said Xeric, walking towards the bus stop on the left. “I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

“Bye.” Joshua waved, and strode along the sideway in an opposite direction. His dad would pick him up at the other bus stop round the corner.

Tonight, Joshua would have something else to worry about. Something just like a nightmare.

To be continued…

2008-10-08T22:01:00.004+08:00

Preoccupied with inexorable and inevitable truth, I had to revise. This left me little time to blog. But this last minute attempt failed me eventually, leaving me a poor Chemistry and Chinese Literature result. Yes, Chinese Literature. When I saw the result, I hardly could believe myself. And I became the most quiet person in the class instantly, deep in thought, misery and disbelief. Dementors would not enjoy it. I am certain about that. My teacher told me that I disappointed her the most, and I reckoned that she could have hit me with an iron as the entire this was such an irony. Chemistry? Please, I do not intend to talk about it, as it, well, yeah…

On a lighter note, these failures were forgotten quickly and I enjoyed the basketball game on Tuesday. Erm, forgotten maybe an inaccurate word. Or I shall put it this way, that the scores will definitely be forgotten, but the lesson will never be. Okay, coming back to the basketball game. It has been a really long time since the last time I touched the ball and felt its sensation. June, perhaps, after which the hostel basketball court was under a ludicrous nine months’ long reconstruction. The obsession with gym reduced the chance of playing basketball as well. So I really did enjoy the game.

There is something else. I start to read Inheritance Series again. LOL, now I cannot say it is a trilogy, since Paolini did not keep his promise to make Brisingr the last book of Eragon. Soon after June Common Test, I finished Eragon, and then keep Eldest deep in my drawer. But now, since two of my friends are reading Brsingr, another is reading Eragon…Oops, he has finished the book and proceeded to Eldest, I decided to begin reading Eldest, which I have never read before. Paolini’s style does not change in the second book. The rest of the magnificence of the Empire was spread out in front of the readers’ eyes with a pool of stunning vocabulary and events of amazement and shock. No wonder it has attracted the movie producer, but the outcome turns up to be almost a failure with a super compressed version of the Eragon, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter in which a farm boy was turned into a hero, a saviour and a Shadeslayer in merely a couple of days. Perhaps his brain was also compressed, as he was deceived by a dream so easily. Another Sirus Black’s tragedy.

Time is pressing. PW…

life

2008-09-05T19:07:00.000+08:00

This year is simply the toughest year for me – of course I am not referring to academics at all, though it is already hard enough and I cannot deny this fact – things has overwhelmed me, grievance, confusion and apperception, rendering me speechless. There are quite a handful of ears to be divulged to, but I simply do not wish to trouble them, though sometimes I truly did, out of desperation. I have heard from the two most sincere, and they let me realise things that are invaluable. I think about life more this year. As well as the pursuit of happiness, and being resilient. Have I, however, learnt these? Perhaps I am starting to. I can recall the mass conversation as if it has just happened. When four of the five were toasting for the reunion, my fingers were lingering above the keyboard. I was meditating. When the positive enlightenment struck me, I have known what to do, and so ended perfectly the mass conversation.

Life is more than you have thought of it, treasure happiness before it is too late. How spectacular life is depending fully on how an individual view it. The personal perspectives, realising there are no benchmarks in life. Yes, life is tough. It can never be defined as “righteous” or “unjust”, because, again, there is no way to measure how great life is. Life is just life itself. Acceptance and change are the only things can be done. Still, we live for ourselves – nothing can hinder us on the request of happiness.

2008-08-20T23:42:00.003+08:00

A couple of days back, 16th Alpha and Beta HC had their first combined non-sports function of Mexican food and Piñata whacking games. And then I learnt one thing. What is the phrase? Over dependence of technology. Yeah, that is right, because within less than two hours, the stove which was supposed to heat up the cheese began a strike. But this has nothing to do with the working class. What is more, the can opener has sacrificed itself for the greater good. I could not remember what we did to open the last can of cheese. Scissors, long knife were used to saw and cut the lid. Eventually, we screwed up the lid and rescued the cheese. I think it was Phay Key’s effort.

Tiong Wei has got to leave half-way for the Outward Bound India interview. Unfortunately, he could not remember the venue, and was looking everywhere for Miss Ang. I helped to call my P.E. teacher but no one was on the other end. Hence we knocked on the door of the P.E. Department but it was to no avail. We checked out the Leadership Centre, and it was confirmed that she was there, but Tiong Wei’s stuff was in the HC room…

The cleaning up was quite swift. I do not wish to describe the procedure, which could possibly be: bending down, using fingers to grasp the litter, straightening up and throwing the litter into the bin. Anyway, we all eventually went back to the HC room and snapped photos and most of the Alpha and Beta went to the KFC near Bedok Interchange together. And most of us ordered food. Right, Theen Yew? xD. Bernard seemed to be very fascinated by a chao da portion of his fries. He did not leave it along but put it into his mouth. We stared while he was chewing the seemingly enjoyable chao da. That was really funny. I bid adios to the rest at 9:00 PM and took the bus with Crystal. My maths tutorial was waiting for me.

And here came Friday, on which I had my TMUN from 3:30 PM to 6:00 PM. I admit that, this particular Friday was seriously a tiring day. I have nodded off before GP lesson, and rushed to the lesson venue, dazed, without realising that I had left my TMUN material in the HC room. So I have got to return and fetch it. I was supposed to report at 3:15 PM for TMUN. But I really did not intend to miss half of the GP lesson because Ms Thangam was explaining comprehension skills. Hence I left at about 3:30 PM, and within my expectation, the TMUN has not started. Schedules can never be put into reality.

So I was in the history room, being a “delegate of Myanmar” who was supposed to involve in a debate of Third World Debt. Jun Yang came a bit later and hence the “delegate of Afghanistan” joined me. During the debate, we presented two facial expressions alternately: sian look, and tensed look. Sian while we were listening to the “Russian’s” sarcasm towards the “American”, and Miss US’s rebuttal. Tensed when we were called. Jun Yang was making an attempt to draw a link between drug trade and debt, and I was caught off guard when my name was called, as I was reading a note passed by “Japan”. So I said something that seemed to make sense and quickly sat down. Soon all of us proceed to LT2 to tackle an “Iran Oil Crisis”. Since “delegates of Myanmar” present were only Fangxiong and Fangxiong, I was in a disadvantage comparing with many other “countries”. “President Bush” was beating about the bush as usual, and there were also Russian’s splendid rebuttal and sarcasm as always. Jun Yang got a point. They kept repeating themselves. Hence I dozed off when Friday’s TMUN session approached to the end.

The second day was a replica of the first day in terms of interesting level. I was enjoying myself in reading the Lord of the Rings, and was wondering how exactly Gandalf lifted the curse on King Théoden, the Lord of the Mark. I took my leave at 12:00 PM due to official excuse, and inhaling hungrily the cool air of that rainy day.

Yesterday there was P.E. I took that good opportunity to go to gym and had a very short training. Jun Xiang and Siva were there as well. Siva was concentrating on the super heavy dumbbells and vowed to lift them up. Jun Xiang was focusing on the stomach muscles’ training. I was following my regular training procedure. And then we started talking about Bedok Gym and the machines there, and then Jun Xiang asked me when I intend to go there, and then there was a recalling of timetables and there was no matching of time slots. Then off we went.

Whoa, it is too much for today. Time to grab shut-eyes. Adios.

2008-08-01T21:31:00.003+08:00

Memories worthwhile to recollect

I finally got rid of the hardship of the E-Learning Week this week. But the ramifications prolonged. Gravitation assignment was an example. More than half of the class reported that they have not completed it, and complained how much work we needed to do during the cyber-week. The teacher gave in and postponed the deadline.

And so began the Napfa Test. Our class was to complete 2.4k first. I did not feel right when we started running. My legs felt as weak as jelly, and I had to be much focused in order to maintain my pace. Usually I need not much effort to cover the first two circuits. But to the heck with the hunch, I pressed on, and I got it over and done with.

Thanks to Napfa, a tutorial was cancelled on Thursday. And the Test lasted for about two hours. The items themselves were not exhausting, but the process of queuing did. Especially for the Pull-ups Station. Haggy sounded very bored when he learnt that even our class had not taken the test. “Oh, it’s a long queue.” He sighed. Somehow I pictured a situation whereby people were queuing in the M1 shop to pay their bills or ask for information. Five, that was all I could do. Maximum six so far. I know it is very few, but last year I could only swung two. Not did two, but swung two. And because of my age, I need to re-take the test of broad jump. I jumped as far as what I did last year, but, oops, there was one problem: I had another birthday.

I was not paying attention at all during this week’s Physics Lectures. And I do have sound reasons. Okay, maybe the teacher was recapping old topics, maybe my mind was preoccupied with PW file submission, but most importantly, let me phrase it this way. Sometimes I do not understand all those offspring of Anglo-Saxons or Byzantines is because of their speed of speaking as well as their accent. But curiously, this Physics teacher sounds like none of them but I still do not understand what he is talking about. Talk slowly and do not mumbling lah, you are in the lecture theatre, not debate team.

And finally, I reiterate that really am delighted that the New Berlin Wall had collapsed. Okay, perhaps Mr Hasim can comment if this comparison is appropriate. He witnesses the history happened after all, as Liew Xun has mentioned. But maybe you have realised the idea that I was trying to convey behind the lifting of the Iron Curtain. Okay, okay, no more history. I am just ecstatic since I can picture the playing basketball and going gym scene again which happened at the start of year during the Orientation II period. Do not forget that, dude, okay? And this is such a good memory that I can never forget. That is why I felt so lost during the non-nuclear Cold War. And yeah, now I am just glad.

When you read TIME in which journalists enjoy twisting sentences in such a way that nothing is logical, your last paragraph is just not going to make all the sense, but there are some after all.

2008-07-26T00:33:00.006+08:00

Crawling in the dark tunnel of E-Learning, in which claustrophobia is the least concern, but had more rubbles of homework to clear out of my way, I signed. I expected to see the dawn of Monday...

That is how I feel for E-Learning. Once you finish one assignment, another one sprouted out of nowhere. And I was doing all this in the midst of completing Project Work (PW) 2-day Pilot Test in a secondary school, going to Nanyang Technological University for my external research programme course, training at Bedok Gym and attending meetings for Sino-Temasek Chinese Forum. At first I prepared to play basketball with Jia Wei. But due to the current circumstances, I cancelled it. It is a miracle that there are only left all the General Paper stuff, Mathematics assignments, Physics Gravitation assignment and Chemistry weekend assignment for me to finish.

General Paper question: What is the tone of this particular blog entry in Passage A? [1]
Answer: Sarcastic.
Examiner comments: Please answer in full sentences.

Okay, enough of my lameness. It is late, and I am going to grab some shut-eye. Tomorrow is not going to be an easy day. Adios amigos.

2008-07-19T22:23:00.002+08:00

I have reconsidered it and decided not to give a shit about it. So be it, he gave up; I give up, too. I cannot let him believe me, only time can testify it. Now I am going to throw this unpleasant memory away, for good.

Next week is going to be E-Learning Week. It is interesting that finally we can try something new. Sometimes I prefer to pick up new knowledge on my own and absorb it with my own pace, rather than being lectured. Only the tutorial time is when I need help. Another reason I am raring to start the E-Learning Week is because I have more freedom to arrange my own schedule. Perhaps I can go to Bedok Gym at least twice. I feel great after every exercise. This Thursday I saw Li Meng in the gym too. He was instructed by a very professional patron. That was an old man who gave many patrons suggestions.

I went to House Committee (HC) Room with a few HC members to do a room clean-up this morning. When I saw the room, I had known that it was not going to be an easy job. LOL. We cleared up the tables and cupboards, throwing away all the waste documents and broken stuffs, leaving only the important information and academic files and materials such as TYS and Words, words, words. The Physics TYS was the 2004 version, thick and detailed. Then I hurried to open the window because the air in the room was seriously bad, and one of the captains can get allergic to dust easily. After that, the year books on the shelf attracted my attention. I saw 1986, 1991 and 2001 version year books. And many teachers that I know are there, they have been teaching for more than one decade, such as Mrs Goh, Tiong Wei and Kai zen’s Mathematics tutorial teacher, TA lecturer and my attachment teacher in-charge; Mr Ang, HOD for Mathematics; Mr Chung, HOD for English. He is one of the teachers who chose me to study here with a scholarship; Mrs Leong, my former Mathematics B teacher; Mr Ng, the Biology teacher and Mr Low, my former Mathematics A teacher.

We were treated drinks by Mr Seng, who taught History, when we were done. He did a check for the room, made some critical comments and complains and started talking about how History and Economics are highly related. I decided to use “adios” instead of “see you” when we were about to left since he is a language teacher. He replied with some foreign tongue that I understood not. Okay, next time I am going to use Japanese instead of Spanish.

I had a brief lunch at hawker centre opposite the school, and rushed of for my General Paper tuition. It is followed by a dinner with Qi Long, Tianyu, Hongde at KFC near the Siglap Park. I think that is the name of that area.

2008-07-05T23:56:00.004+08:00

"Dominate sentiments, Man's most treacherous ally, and most perilous enemy. They can be used for, and ironically can be used against easily." This is my philosophy.

I knew it five years ago. But I am always tricked by this most powerful ally of mine and walked into its traps. Sentiments are subtle substances, and it seems that I can never learn from my mistakes. For example, I was pissed by something can never be spoken for a whole week now again. What is more, I was puzzled. And disappointed more likely. I struggled to figure out what has made the change, but failed. Twice, I hit the keyboard and tried to type out sentences that can insinuate what was bothering me, but as a Chinese idiom has pointed out, “欲盖弥彰” (the more ones try to hide, the more obvious it looks). So I gave it up, and avoided to talk about this subject completely. Maybe what I could do now is to wait and hope things could ameliorate, as a friend of mine has believed.

JTS

2008-06-29T21:10:00.001+08:00

We were mugging for JCT.

The Alpha Warrior Icon.

Trinity and Teck Kian were playing with the sparklers.

So concluded the June Common Test. I did well in Mathematics Test, and I was really in a good mood on Friday. I had a House Committee meeting, which followed by having lunch with Ben. I took my leave at around 1 PM and went back to watch Transformers again. It still gave me the splendid sensation, and certain scenes were still incredibly hilarious. At about 5 PM, I left for gym which was not far from the Bedok Swimming Pool. It felt brilliant to train after not having any exercise for more than one whole week. And it did have some effect, because after one hour my muscles were all bulged. But I knew it would not take more than a few hours for the muscles to return to their initial states, unless I train everyday. But I did not have the American time. So be it. I went back and watched a Hitchcock movie Dial for Murder. Hitchcock was one of the most successful directors in the film history and his movies were famous for suspends created.

Junior Treat Senior (JTS) Day was on Saturday. We were told to meet in school at 12:30 PM. I got up at 10:00 AM. Since I did not have many things to do on that day, I went to school straight away and waited at the stage. I brought a book so I would kill the time. I met Theen Yew soon, and we went to the school gate to meet Adrian. When we reached Pasir Ris Park, we had five people: Theen Yew, Adrian, Crystal, Tiong Wei and me. We prepared the first activity by pumping sea water into balloons at the beach. I was tanned during the process, and I wore a sleeveless T-shirt.

The Ten united at 4:00 PM, and we started to take a glance at each other’s presents for the seniors.

Here came the seniors. Our star Trinity Teo Jia Wei also came. We thought he could only come after dinner. But it was wonderful that he could join us earlier. Now, we were walking towards them. The path was narrow. The 16th was in one line. The 15th was gathered in a group. We tried to greet them, but they did not stop when the two groups of people met. They marched pass us and continued walking. Perplexed, we spun around and noticed that they had switched their House Committee jerseys with each other. For example, Annabelle was wearing Trinity’s jersey. “Trinity is smart today.” Annabelle declared later. But no matter what the prank was, we were half way through the first game ten minutes later. And half of the balloon burst even before the game because the seniors took them to play around. The captain water ball (“It sounds damn wrong eh!” Trinity chuckled) did not seem to work out, the evidence was that I, a defender, was still chatting with the captain Ashwin when the game had continued for ten minutes and had nothing else to do. Forget it, now came the water bomb attack, and we ran out of ammunition in 15 seconds.

Trinity left after the activities. Zul joined us with her new hair cut. We changed before dinning and we led the seniors to a restaurant near the beach. It was a low wooden building. A combination of pub and café. Everyone dined in the open. At about 7:00 PM the restaurant turned from premises of tranquility into a domain of cacophony, especially when there was a couple who got married in a bizarre way in the restaurant adjacent to ours. They arrived by a motorboat, and the band performed from afternoon to 10:00 PM at night. But that was the minor episode that I cared about, because Ms Thangam had come. All of us stood up, and she quickly gestured us to sit down. There were naughty grins on our faces. Theen Yew and I left when they were still eating. According to the plan, we were supposed to pretend to leave in order to prepare for them the surprise.

It was drizzling. And we feared that a heavy rain awaited us. So we quickly abandoned to have the surprise on the beach and switched to the wet weather plan. We transported the sands under a shelter and started drawing the Alpha Warrior Icon. It was hot in the shelter as wind could not reach here. And out of desperation and anxiety, we perspired profusely. Large drops of sweat trickled down, blurred my sight. We continued working on the Icon. I tried to make the Icon perfect. Theen Yew informed me that it had stopped raining. But both of us did not regret, because the shelter was actually a better place than the windy beach. The candles that we lit around the Icon could have gone out very easily there. Theen Yew also used a Chinese proverb which made me chuckle. A fine horse does not eat the grass behind it. That was the spirit.

But the thing followed was frustrating. Theen Yew rejoined the dinner while I had to wait under the shelter. This was not the plan. Aren’t both of us supposed to stay? I was really upset and bored. And what would the seniors say about my sudden departure? Only I “left”, and Theen Yew returned. I remained at the place for a damn one hour in solitude, with the candles in the darkness, walking around the Icon again and again. I worked on the Icon to kill time. But it did not work. It was almost perfect already. I chatted with my parents over the mobile so I would not bore to death. But since my mobile was running out of battery, the conversation was adjourned very soon. Signed, I stared at the flickering candle lights. Shi Yan and Krystal happened to walk pass, and I talked with them for a short well. They told me that the seniors thought that I had left. It seemed that our plan had withstood seniors’ scrutiny. But Shi Yan and Krystal could not stay long because the seniors might grow suspicious about it. I was disappointed as we bid adios.

Eventually, as reconsideration to my message, Theen Yew sent my good friend Tiong Wei to the shelter. Or maybe I was mistaken, he decided to come himself? I knew not. The conservation was short as well due to the same reason, but I was cheered up a bit by the irregular visits of people. At last, Mat, Phay Key and Krystal returned with bags of presents and cooked Tang Yuan. I helped them for preparation, and the seniors, accompanied by their juniors, arrived.

Eyes closed, the seniors stopped in front of the Icon. Trinity had returned. I led him to the very front of the Icon. The rest stood at other three sides. Still eyes closed, Theen Yew began his speech, and we fed the seniors Tang Yuan, and gave them presents. Then, we held their hands which had been gripping a sparkler, given by me, and lit the sparklers by the candles. Only by now, the seniors were allowed to open their eyes. They were ecstatic about the surprise, and for the following hour, all of us played with sparklers, tried to swish them with lightning speed and took photos of the patterns. We had successfully formed “SPORTS”, “DCP” and “α”. Ms Thangam watched our naïve deem in calm. Perhaps with half-closed eyes, indicating lameness.

We caught the last bus to Pasir Ris Interchange and parted there. Crystal was playing with her new toy dog on the MRT train. We had a good laugh. And then, Crystal was finally bored about it, while Teck Kian was trying to strangle Safwan’s Kung Fu flat faced monkey. Crystal let the dog lay on her lap, making me to think of “Let the sleeping dog lie”.

The train came to a halt. Bedok.

2008-06-21T10:57:00.005+08:00

Physics has been boring huh?

Hound of Baskervilles, by Arthor Conan Doyle

And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie

Mug. Now it is for real. I am not going to take any chances. Like last time, I did not revise Atomic Structure at all, because it is such a piece of cake. But the outcome? I regretted for that. This time it would not happen, though my GP is still not there. Alas. So as I have said, I have studied for another week. The last week. My juniors were starting to return. So we came down to study room and revised together, and sometimes, we got hungry halfway at night. My brother Tianyu went to the KFC at Siglap to buy us supper, after that we mugged again.

During a few breaks of my revision, I read Agatha Christie's crime stories. Erm, I think you should have heard of her, because she was supposed to be more popular than Arthur Conan Doyle. But it seems that more people know about Sherlock Holmes than Hercule Poirot. Anyway, I like both of the authors' books. And they are spectacular.

2008-06-12T21:11:00.000+08:00

Edgar Allen Poe’s “the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens” suits Wednesday’s weather.

I woke up early. At about eight o’clock, then I got everything ready and was on my way to Ben house. I ate at Macdonald’s at Bedok MRT, a cup of morning tea to sharpen my mind, and a piece of morning newspaper, for GP, of course. But there was nothing fascinating though. It rained then, so I stayed in the fast food café for a bit longer. Followed by a long journey to my destination. Ben and I studied “Graphs” until lunch time. It took me quite long to figure out one of the past year JCT questions (our school’s question!) after testing out Ben’s suggestion, though he did not believe his method would work. We covered more questions after I dined with his family. And when evening fell, we had already gone through the whole chapter of Graph and had a heated discussion about the essence of Calculus, first derivative and second derivative. I was surprised I could actually explain it because I had never done it before, and the tangled chapter was becoming clearer to me. So the whole day was quite fruitful. Ben helped me with some GP stuff as well.

And, I agreed to play basketball with Ben’s brother, but since the court was full, we dismissed this idea and returned to Ben’s house, when Ben was sleepy and I was drained. So I decided to take my leave.

Today, I started studying a bit later than the previous day. I read about GP essay techniques and worked on Physics, when I realised I need some help from teacher. In the afternoon, I got the query clarified, and Qi Long rung me to ask me come to Cathay to watch Kung Fu Panda. He and my other friends were already there. So I rushed there, thirty minutes’ late. The ticket checker told me the Hall was closed. But then, she scrutinized my ticket and let out an “oops, it is the movie that is playing. Oh my god, you are late” and in I went, a dark Hall, full of fidgeting silhouettes and people’s loud, staccato laughter. The movie was ready action-packed, especially the part when the malevolent would-be-dragon-warrior breached the prison (an abyss actually), and Panda fought for a bao zi (dumpling) with his Shi Fu (master). And Panda actually used a tactic that was similar to Shi Fu’s when they were combating for bao zi to fight the would-be-dragon-warrior, which was spectacular.

After enjoying the movie, we guys bid adios with the girls (they probably were going to have some shopping) and went down to eat. Qi Long, Yifan and I bought take-away Burger King and went to the basement food court to join Xiaolei and Shihao, who were eating Korean cuisine. I immediately bought kimchi from that stall. After that, we went to Zara and helped Xiaolei to choose a garment. I was attracted by a jeans wear, but gave up because of the price. We had a great fun there because we could make fun of each other when we tried out clothes. Xiaolei kept commenting that Qi Long looked like a policeman when he was trying out a particular outfit. But I put that as “a security guard”, which was worse. LOL! Then we took bus home.

2008-06-09T18:22:00.004+08:00

Half of the holiday has gone without being realised. And what did I do over the last two weeks? Besides entermainment, I was only working on "Chemical Kinetics" this single chapter. No revision of mathematics and physics. Just "Chemical Kinetics". And shockingly, I have not finished it yet, when JCT is only two weeks away. For goodness' sake.

So, recently, I started my revision on mathematics and physics. I must ensure that after all these revision, I will still have time for the differentiation part that is not tested. Like Maclaurin's Expension. If I do not do it during the holiday, I will never catch up when the school re-opens, when more homework awaits me. And yes, it is not going to work if I do not have enough physical exercises. And I will continue going gym. Actually, I had a scheduled time for gym this morning with one of my friends. Unfortunately, the computer games, or to use an allusion - Pandora's box, caused him to stay up at night again. So when I was half-awake this early morning, I got his message. After a few rounds of discussion in my state of half consciousness, I drifted to my dream very quickly, as I was at the very edge of dream and consciousness, until ten o'clock this morning. So we could only hope next time he will be able to overcome his Achilles' heel (but at least this earned me three more hours' sleep), if you happen read Greek stories. Or a Troy movie will do. All right, no more literature, I am going back to mathematics.

Sayonara.

2008-06-07T11:11:00.003+08:00

I chose not to go back to China during June holiday in order to study better for JCT. Many of us did the same. However, the boarders in the hostel did not share the same sentiment. By yesterday evening, the hostel was empty to some extent, giving me a chill of loneliness. And the home-sickness struck me when my friends who decided to travel back swooned with air tickets in their hands, humming pop songs of Jolin and told me what they wish to eat in China.

I found the means to overcome home-sickness was to stay away from hostel. Go to gym to have some aerobics, eat something heavenly outside, have a pleasant time with relatives at my cousin’s house or enjoy the environment at school which is conducive to study. As long as I was away from the place of gloom, I was happy.

Start from next week, many of my friends will be back from holiday vacations. And hopefully some of the others will be less busy, so we can study in school. And I have asked my junior’s friend to call for a basketball game next week, too. Pity that my junior himself is not able to present, as he has left for China.

2008-06-04T14:07:00.006+08:00

Two of my most favourite Goosebumps stories

I had my PW meet-up in Tampines Regional Library today. It was really astounding of our effectiveness. We completed our pilot planing, sample letter, survey planning, interview planning within two and a half hours, along with revision of our GPP. Yay! And I saw Zul in the Library, sitting just besides us. She said she recognized my voice first, then "Ms Thangam" was mentioned, so she was sure that was me. We had a pleasant short chat, and I resumed to our PW discussion.

To my amazement and astonishment, when I checked my e-mail today, I found out that R. L. Stine, the author of Goosebumps, Fear Street and The Nightmare Room, has replied my messege. I jsut dropped a note in his official website on Monday. And - yes, I read Goosebumps, though they are supposed to be for children - I was euphoric. Here it is:

Title: Hello from New York

Thank you for your messages, Fangxiong. I am glad you are enjoying Goosebumps. I'm looking forward to my trip to China. Your English is very good! Best regards, R.L. Stine

Haha, and I guess this is the finale of my today's update. I am going to gym later.

Cheerio.

2008-06-02T19:23:00.008+08:00

The most notable contradiction in history, Prince Caspian, from a race by name of Telmarine, which was the archenemy of the Narnians, saved Narnia.

To Zanarkand -- Final Fantasy

The most emotional time came when,
an investiture was going on,
Trinity shouted “Alpha”, (meaning seniors have placed trust and future upon us),
Ashwin told me the HC badge has been passed on for five generations,
music To Zanarkand was played,
and all these was happening at the same time.

Has watched Chronicle of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The movie was pretty good, in terms of complexity and visual effects. The duel between High King Peter, the Magnificent (“You can save the second part,” King Edmund, the Just, had said.) and The King of Telmarine was a bit funny, though it might not suppose to be. But that was not the problem, I enjoyed it. My general opinion was that the second Narnia movie was a bit bloodier than the first one. “You may find Narnia is a more savage place now.” That was the line, and I agreed with it.

Hong De and I did not choose the right time to view this film. It has been 7:00 p.m. when we reached the cinema in Suntec City. And the movie started then. The next round would be played at 9:30 p.m. Since we were starving, we went down to the basement to dine. One set of Korean cuisine (Parkway one was much better) was not enough for me. So I had to order 8 fried dumplings and 8 streamed dumplings (Yummy!). Hong De and I chatted about vampires after dinner, but there were still one and a half hours to kill. We strolled back to Citylink and walked back. That was not exactly window shopping, neither had we the interest and money. Perhaps we lingered a bit longer in MPH, where I browsed through Narnia, as in the book, so later I could follow. Plots were always getting ambiguous in movies.

When we finished watching the movie, it was five to twelve. We had missed the last bus, and got to flag a cab. But actually there was no such necessity to flag a cab. There were a plethora of taxis traveled around the heartland. The taxi driver did not know where our hostel was. We had to guide him. Oh, well, who was the driver anyway? And we ended up at the front gate of Victoria JC. Smart wit he was, huh?

I turned up in school today, again. With my friend Junya. It was hard to find someone to study with this week. Kirk has been away for holiday, so has Ben. Clarence and Haggy were rather busy, Kah Chin had Chinese Orchestra Camp, and Tiong Wei also could not make it. But Junya was glad to go to school with me today, no matter how early I got up. Impressively surprising. Usually he had problem of getting off his cozy bed. But he was determined this time. Econs students…Glad I did not take that subject.

And we regretted. The school library had stock check for the whole week and was not open for students. So we ended up study under TRC, roasted by the hot air of a never-ending summer. But I did not study much. Instead, I was engrossed in reading Eragon. The book was much more fascinating than its movie version, which seemed to be a replica of The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers. Just not as influencing. However, before we were off for lunch, I clarified all my questions regarding Chemical Kinetics with Mrs Low. So I had a sense of accomplishment even though I barely turned the pages of Chemical Kinetics Notes.

Shall work harder tonight. The schedule is tight…

2008-05-30T12:05:00.001+08:00

Return to Old Days

It was not my initial intention to come for Mardi Gras. I could have been loosen up in the hostel and watched some movies while eating some junk food. But eventually, somehow, I gave in. And I started asking from whom I could purchase a ticket. I got one from Pei Yi, who was from AVA, and did not need it.

It has been a rebellious day. The HC members all missed their first two periods of the day because of investiture. We took photos in the Auditorium during the recess and some decided to continue staying there. It was a bit too much, I realised, and grabbed Adrian in arm to LT1 where we had Physics Lecture. The rest of the physics students followed. We have already been late. I did not care. The lecturer was explaining the MCQs. I had done before and I knew how to do them. But still, I circled the two questions that I got wrong and listened to the explanations attentively. I had sworn not to let HC affect my studies. I had the Bible, given by one of my friends.

Our last lesson in the afternoon was a monotonous GP lesson. LOL, it is redundant to define GP this way, is it not? Get what I mean? Unfortunately, the classroom arranged for us was very close to the temporary stage assembled in front of the General Office for Mardi Gras, so the lesson was frequently disrupted by the loud music. But the fortune out of misfortune was that we ended early.

I went back to my hostel and grabbed some shut-eye. But I did not wake up until 6:30 p.m.! I would be late for Mardi Gras! And usually the food in the hostel was at its best state when it was just served at 6:00 p.m. After that, consuming lukewarm food, or cold food was inevitable, despite the fact that they were constantly heated by a miserably small flame at the bottom of each container. I hurried down to hostel canteen and had some lukewarm dinner. And perhaps Luke has failed to heat it up.

I rushed up to my room soon, and I decided to wear a T-shirt that I just bought recently. But then I discovered that my magnet ear stud was not in my jean’s pocket. It probably dropped out when I was trying out clothes in Op. I made up my mind to go to Parkway to acquire a new one. A glance at my watch. 7:00 p.m. Mardi Gras has begun.

I did not mind to miss the beginning. Usually the most fun part was when a celebration has begun for a while. So I made a mental note to reach school by 8:00 p.m. Luck was on my side. I got on the bus once I reached the bus stop. I when to 77 Street straight away, bought what I want, and headed back. It was already 7:40 then. I needed to walk across a lane for cabs before I climbed up the stairs of a bridge that was too small to call a flyover. Then, it clicked. Take a bus? Forget it. I am not going to be late. For reaching school after 8:00 p.m. Cabs were queue in front of me, so what am I waiting for? The cab hit the road and we rushed back to Bedok South.

Ticket punched, hand stamped, in I went. Ryan, the ex-Delta HC Member, Cheer Captain I reckon, was beat-boxing at Atrium. There was a crowd of people there, and I saw my CLL teacher. Or it was the other way round. I found an even bigger crowd in the vicinity of IP Block, Auditorium side. And I quickly recognized Kirk, Zhi Yang, Shimon and Jia Wei from a throng of students. After having a short conversation with them, I joined my junior Chengcheng and Dekai, who were patronizing the stalls. And I saw Sarena, who asked me if I wanted to buy dumplings. It was my friend Tianyu who went to Chinatown and obtained 300 dumplings. I did not pay attention when Sarena told me the price, because I was captivated by the word “dumplings”. I bought five. Later on I bought ten more, which cost me six bucks in total, but it did not matter, I love dumplings.

I roamed around, and joined Jun Xiang and Eran. Basically, we meandered around the school premises and took photos with whoever we knew. We took photos with Rimiko and Valerie, following my suggestion to use LT2 as background instead of the plain staircase in front of the Auditorium. Rimiko laughed at this proposition with an “oh-my-gosh”. We always tease each other this way. I have not acquired this photo yet as Rimiko was in New York City now. So cool! We saw Xiong Wei, Jean and Vanessa. Their faces were hidden behind masks. Eran initially failed to recognize Xiong Wei, even when she talked.

At the end of Mardi Gras, I met my senior Meng Tian. She helped me snapped two photos with Ashwin and Samantha (JC2). But think about it, Samantha was Kirk’s OGL during Zenith I, and I ended up knowing her as well. Lastly, I collected my WOW file for job attachment from under the letter slots, and took photos with Jia Jin, JP, Keith and more. Meng Tian helped again.

Browsing through my WOW file briefly and I tried to recall the four weeks in DSI (Data Storage Institute). It has only been three months since the last time I went there. But it seemed to be ages.

2008-05-26T21:43:00.002+08:00

The Moral of Theodore Roosevelt’s Story

It has been a hectic week. We worked round the clock for Titans, both Alpha Titans and their supporters (but we did not find any clock in the vicinity of us – pardon my lameness, LOL). Yes, they are titans. People who have gone through this deserved such honour. Also, we witnessed the last match of TJC basketball team. The opponent was VJC.

I do not understand why the coach placed the best players at the start of the game, as I noticed that one of the players played throughout the match, until he was too exhausted to perform his best against VJC’s stronger players. It was not supposed to be like that. However, I acknowledge that TJC basketball players are brave fighters. They fight for glory without arrogance; they fight for faith even if the odds were stacked against them. Although they lost to VJC by a 58 to 62, their spirits shall be learnt by each individual. Hopefully next year, the championship shall belong to us.

The match ended. The bus full of spectators of the basketball match came to a halt. The tires screeched. We HC Members jumped off the bus and quickly went to our positions to take care of the logistics of Titans. The titans had started their 5.7km run already. We carried a heavy dispenser full of glucose drink all the way to Lucky High, a hill which was famous for being part of the running track for the TJcians during PE. When we finally reached there, the first runner had run past us. We started distributing cups of drinks to Alpha Titans, watching them to run uphill and disappeared from our sights. Titans, was not only a physical challenge, but a dare of mental states as well. That was why some titans burst to tears not out of physical suffering, but the dismay of their failures of mental challenges. Some of them were obstructed by their physical discomforts. One of our seniors, though he was the first few who completed the long run, suffered great discomforts afterwards. He lay flat on the ground, face pale, eyes blood-shot, lips purple, and body stiff. We placed ice cubes underneath him, and rubbed ice on his limbs as well. He did not submit to what happened to him, however, and told Trinity that he was going to continue the rest of the items. That was how Alpha Titans pulled through the three-day-event.

I have learnt a lot during the Log Event, from what I experienced, and from others, especially Chester. I felt the extreme alertness for the first time. For every tiny bit of a single second, I had to keep my mind, my nerves and my muscles highly attentive. At first I did not do so well, and was scolded by some titans. They did not mean it, but they had been under extremely tense and stressful circumstances. I learnt my lesson quickly, nevertheless.

There was supposed to be a count-er during this event. Theen Yew, Chester and I took turn to take on this role. It was not easy, to maintain the volume of your voice, your concentration and rhythm of breath. But comparing to the titans, who endured great stress and agony, these were the last problems we should be worried about. The command of “Up, down, up, down” that I shouted turned out to be unnatural despite the fact that I maintained my loudness desperately. In contrast, Chester’s command was as powerful, and what was more, it was full of confidence and the easy-man-you-can-do-it attitude. This is what I have to learn gradually. And I realised there was much more to learn to be a leader after Annabelle met us after the Log Event.

According to John C. Maxwell, “leadership develops daily, not in a day.” Just like President Theodore Roosevelt, he kept striving to learn even though he became a president, even though he was not young any more. In his entire life, he refused to submit to hindrances. Once, a French ambassador took a stroll with him through the woods. A stream went into their way. They could have taken a detour, as it was just a leisure walk. But Roosevelt immediately swam across the river.

On January 6, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt passed away in his sleep. People found a book under his pillow. He was still learning and improving himself up to the very last. The Vice President Marshall had phrased it this way: “Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight.” He was not a person who could give up easily. In Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, he wrote: “Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” This has been my motto.

The spirit of Theodore Roosevelt is remembered and learnt. The TJ basketball team, the titans, and many more people who have overcome difficulties, are all incarnates of his spirit.

2008-05-25T18:08:00.005+08:00

Day 3 (II): Double Bond (-ing)

Fresh water really made me feel good. It could wash off all those salts and sands. And being dry was wonderful as well.

We had two bonding meals on the last day. The first one was during lunchtime, when the 15th Alpha HC Members and us juniors bought take-aways from opposite school. Tiong Wei and I went to Black Board, which was the furthest away from school. He purchased fried chicken, I took fish n’ chips. When sat there chat with Ashwin and Theen Yew while waiting for food to be ready. Then I bought Ice Kachang (I started eating it when a speaker mentioned that even ang mo-s like to eat it. ) in the hawker centre, where everyone got together and headed back to school.

On our way back, Tiong Wei proposed jokingly to me that we could act emo and eat in a corner so as to prevent our chips being “robbed”. Although this might be lame, but I decided to agree with his proposition. So when everyone else was joining tables in school canteen together, we sat at a single table. Some girls protested, though they knew it was just another joke. I urged my friend to join our table together with the rest. But the chips were still left on the chair unnoticed. But, haha, I knew how the show was going to end, and it meant to end this way, that was, both of us took out the chips and passed around. And this was the finale of our prank of “act good kids, act bad kids”.

After our stomachs were fully filled, we went to the “Starbucks” area near the Scope to have some sharing session, and the seniors read out our comments on each other regarding our strengths and weaknesses. Kaizen got a comment about “flexible, nothing to do with body movement.” In one comment, I was defined as “shy”. All right, I was speechless, LOL. Frankly speaking, I am not shy when I talk to anybody.

The whole afternoon was the process of selection of posts that we were going to run. I was a bit nervous because I was seriously afraid that I got a post of treasurer, again. But I calmed down quickly, because I knew that I had avoided my worst fear from happening. That was, I did not put the post of Vice-Captain (Sports) into any of my two choices. The reason was, I just knew. I just knew what the outcome would be. Just like one of my friends’ experience about competing for Captain position. Fear. And I had avoided it. I did not wish to set my expectation too high. The higher a person’s expectation, the more frustrated the person will be when the outcome is against him. So I lowered my expectation, and I got it, a Sports Captain. And I was happy.

When the camp was closed, we juniors and our seniors went to Tampines Mall for a bonding dinner. Yes, TM again, it could be an Alpha HC Resort already. We debated about the place to eat, and the conclusion was: Swensen’s. Most of us ordered baked rice with fish or chicken. I ordered an extra root bear with float. I had a sip of it. Mmm, it was much better than the root bear I drank last year on our way back from Outward Bound Malaysia in an A&W. I passed it to Trinity to drink and told him that it was “damn good”. He drank, and passed on. Tiong Wei claimed that he was going to have the last sip. But he did not finish all. I emptied the cup. And, oh, I forgot to say, that Theen Yew and Trinity swapped seats. So Theen Yew ended up among the seniors and Trinity ended up among us. Both looked uneasy, and the rest of us burst out laughing. It was really fun. Then Trinity and I played hand wrestling. My goal was not beating him, but to sustain as long as possible. He encouraged me to push myself as well. So I hold there for more than two minutes, and you knew what happened next. Besides that, both of us had red, dumb right hands.

The Captain and Vice-Captains intended to treat us bubble-teas. But since they had already paid the ice cream balls for us, I told them to save it until next time. We bid good-byes to each other outside TM.

Alright, I finally concluded the three-day-long event. But I have not given an account about Titans and Mardi Gras yet. They would be out in two days. Adios amigos.

final endeavor

2008-05-24T17:05:00.006+08:00

Day 3 (I): Final Endeavor

Another day, for a world that was no way approaching to the state of utopianism. Brave New World might be what Aldous Huxley wanted (to raise awareness? Well, I have not read the book properly yet). But we had no business with it. I would rather say Day 3 was:

A fresh new day, which marked the end of one legend, and the commencing of the other. We had proved ourselves by performing our boldness, audacity, endurance as well as the persuasion in our own ability. No one submitted to obstacles. No heroic flaunting. No abandoning of the weak. Nevertheless, the day began terribly.

“WHY ARE YOU LATE? IS THAT FAIR FOR THE ONES WHO CAME EARLY? WHAT DO YOU GUYS WANT THE PUNISHMENT TO BE?” The IC was furious.

“Permission to discuss, IC.”

“NO.” A short, determined bark. We all fell in silence. Stunned. And seriously, we were scared. This IC, though I did not know his name, was a nice person during curriculum talk. Now, he had the neither-forgive-nor-forget look. Overseeing us from behind the railing of the front of the Sports Complex, he was waiting for us to reply. No one had an answer, however.

We were ordered to run along the track non-stop. Not until we got another order. But the pace was quite okay for me, though I realised later on that we just covered another Napha-Standard-running. Just not as fast. The IC followed us from the second round onwards, and he turned out to be an extraordinary runner (or in another word, imba!) who was captivated by Titans. Hong Yi slowed down, gasping desperately for air half way through the penalty. An omen for his asthma attack later, on our way to East Coast Park. But he was fine.

But the rest of us were not quite. At that time, I mean. Running, doing push ups and star jumps was one thing, do the same in the sea water, with bloodshot eyes due to irritation; soaked by the salty aqua with sands all over the place was another case. When we all on our feet, I could feel sands accumulated in my tucked T-shirt as well as my PE shorts’ pocket.

Then, off we went, half running, half wading. I could feel the energy inside me was draining out, due to the morning punishment. And I did not have a chance to eat a tiny crumb of biscuit or drink even a drop of water. But the situation was not really that bad. I had some reserved energy sufficient to sustain me for the Sea Physical Training. We ran along the beach and soon on the pier. I am talking about the bridge protruding from the beach that for people to fish.

I was running after Adrian. He was still a few steps away from Zul who led the campers. And the gap was gradually becoming larger and larger. I was not allowed to outrun him, so I slowed down as well. I could see Adrian was trying to catch up. His mind was urging him forward, but the legs were failing him. Soon Teck Kian ran abreast with Adrian.

“Focus, Kaizen, focus!” He ordered, meant to encourage him. Adrian accelerated a bit, and slowed down again. Then he repeated it.

“Look at your aim.” I urged him from behind, using what we had learnt, or rather, been reminded, during curriculum talk. At last, we all assembled at the end of the pier. Many fishermen turned and looked at us curiously. We looked really lousy. Soaked, filthy, smelly, yet organized. There were instructors some more. So I guess these bystanders really had a hard time of figuring out what we were.

At last, some fool saw a few of us wearing Outward Bound T-shirt, and made the wrong assumption. While we were instructed by our seniors, an Ah Beng came forward and stood in the same line with our seniors, and made ridiculous postures. His friend managed an ugly smile. Suddenly, the IC turned her head sharply and spat a four letter word at him.

We were shocked. Would they take revenge? Never mind of that, we moved on, heading back to the beach where we did our Sea Physical Training. While we were running, the Ah Beng tossed a small fish at us. Missed. Too bad. Someone taunted “Outward Bound” and we ignored them. Soon, we jogged back. I was running at the back of the line. Jun Yang gave me encouragement. I nodded. But actually I was fine, and I had enough energy reserve.

We came back to the beach. How very lovely it was now! But ten minutes ago, I had hated this place. We walked to the stone table close to the bank, and got ourselves hydrated. Then we went to wash our faces and shoes with some Delta people. When we came back, our seniors had brought several packets of bread, some bottles of water and a few bottles of spread onto the table. We munched them down hungrily. That was when Tiong Wei came back from hospital. To ensure Hong Yi’s condition was all right.

Time for traditions. Seniors treated juniors ice sticks. Then everybody went under a particular tree to take photos. Zul told us that next year we had to take photo was our juniors under the tree next to it. And so on. Lastly, we returned to the beach.

“One last tradition, dump a person into the sea before we go off.” Zul announced. Everyone turned their attention to Theen Yew. Then, SPLASH!

Actually all the guys were dumped, including Tiong Wei, whose clothes were still dry. After that, we headed back to school. On the way back, we came up with a new Alpha cheer. Lame cheer.

Day 3 (II): Double Bond (-ing) is coming soon…

2008-05-23T00:02:00.003+08:00

Day 2 (III): Silent Pact

What happened next made me confused. It was the mixed, complicated emotion that bothered me. Tiong Wei and Theen Yew knew how much it has bothered me, butI have no intention to explain it here. I want to talk about the cause. Because this is something I did not clarify to the rest of the team. It was caused by myriad feelings that I had at that moment. Frustration, grievance, disappointment, self-condemn, shame and empty, unrealistic comment given.

At first was jogging for one round. The requirement, as usual, was to ensure no gaps between teammates. Then, we had to do something harder. Theen Yew was supposed to carry Tiong Wei on his back, while two of us supported Tiong Wei’s legs. Another one supported the bottom. It was tough. The distance. The time limit. And the weight. Tiong Wei’s leg was slowly slipping out of my grip. But with girl’s encouraging shouts, we struggled to reach the ending line, that was when one of them collapsed onto the track and the other followed. But they both turned out to be intact.

We were then given a very short time for water break. In order to fill up the water bottles in a lightning speed, some decided to go to the toilet that was actually out of bound for them. I watched the astounding scene in disbelief. A Captain from another House saw. He cursed loudly, and when we were all lined up, he exchanged words with Trinity.

I was waiting for the storm. But after a laugh of sarcasm and a few scolding words, it was gone. We were facing the assignment of carrying Theen Yew as a House. A very tight time limit had been set. I told our new Captain about my concern. “Come on, you must push yourself.” This way? Soon, Theen Yew was carried by Kaizen and Tiong Wei. They carried him on shoulders for less than half a round and switched with Mat and I. If they could do it, so could I. I told myself. But under Theen Yew’s weight, running became staggering only after covering a few metres. But I did not give up, though I was slowing down by second and my right shoulder could barely support Theen Yew. What had been mentioned about endurance? I questioned myself. At last, we wore off, and both Mat and I were taken over by the previous pair again. I felt shameful. And I failed to endure. Outcome? Exceeded time limit by more than one minute. We were scolded about it, and I felt too embarrassed to raise up my head, though I was told, and realised by myself later on, that it was not the fault of an individual.

Soothing words by two of my friends really worked well. I looked at them in the eyes. And we exchanged opinions. That was the end of it. It was late, and three of us should be in our bunks. But, to the heck of it, we were going to bathe. To wash off the unhappiness and frustration. Refreshed, we regained confidence, and the expectation to success. Great Expectations. The episode was never mentioned again.

We soon returned to Dance Studio, our dormitory. In the darkness, Tiong Wei switched on his torchlight. “Tomorrow we will do better.” he whispered, holding out a hand. “Yes, tomorrow we chiong.” Theen Yew said slowly, not accommodate to pronounce Hokkien words. We lay our hands on one another, and made a silent pact. It was a pact for proving ourselves, a pact for not letting ourselves down, and a pact for unity.

Day 3: Final Endeavor; the Birth of Leaders is coming soon…

cook

2008-05-22T22:27:00.004+08:00

Day 2 (II): Cooking, Being Cooked

The torch was lit. Bright orange fire surrounded the end of the torch instantly. Half of the face of the bonfire lighter was clearly lit, the other half remained in the shadow. Li Meng marched briskly with the torch in hand. The fire tore through the darkness like a meteor. This was a hide-and-seek between light and shadow.

He stabbed down the torch so it contacted with the gasoline soaked fire wood. No good, however. That bundle of wood did not produce a bonfire. What was more, the combination of the malevolent spirits of heat and light was climbing up the torch and soon it could lick Li Meng’s hand. One of the teacher in-charge, Mrs Lim, took the torch and brought it up. When the danger was dismissed, the torch was brought down once again and was rolled against the wood. A bonfire was born, which was dancing wildly, and was reflected in pupils of every HC members. At the same moment, their hearts were burning by excitement and joy.

“I announce the HC camp fire night is now open.” She said sweetly with arms wide open. We all cheered. I was staring at the fire, which puffed sparkling ashes continuously. R. L. Stine had described bonfire camps for so many times in his famous Goosebumps series, including Welcome to Camp Nightmare, Ghost Camp and The Horror at Camp Jellyjam. Starting a bonfire seemed to be so easy, and the campers could eat toasted hot dogs around the bonfire. But I disagreed with it now. (I shall discuss Goosebumps another time. Somebody said it is scary. Maybe as scary as Roald Dahl’s series. You get my point? Just like Anthony Horowitz has written in one of his short stories, a school principle banned Goosebumps because it was too scary. Okay, Mr. Horowitz has a weird sense of humor.) Okay, digressed. To prepare for the night, we all had put in tremendous effort.

For our camp fire team, we had to carry benches from the high up Sport Complex. For cooking team, we had to ensure good presentation and hygiene of the food. And obviously Alpha did not meet Ji Teng IC’s standard. He told us that we must clean the mess tin before cooking the next dish. Otherwise the residue of the previous dish would become carbon. “Seriously, do not eat it. It is inedible, and it could lead to cancer.” He said in a formal manner, with a slight British accent. I suddenly realised the one who instructed us during night walk the day before should be him too. Although the food was cooked in a rush, all of us enjoyed the meal. I especially liked the cheese wrapped hot dog. The corn grains were nice too. The rest liked Tang Yuan (Rice Ball) a lot.

Lastly, we were asked to clean up. Ji Teng IC “did not want to see any sign of human existence”. But this Delta Vice-Captain (Sports) decided not to punish us for the wastage of food as we cooked too much for the judges.

The night was not going to end this way. After a CSI in the college which lasted until midnight, we started our Night Physical Training. We were stormed by rough shouts once again. The unity of the 16th House Committee was challenged once more.

I am not going to say the politically correct statements in this entry because they are also politically well-known as well. But we certainly failed to abide to these principles under such great pressure. For the monkey bar assignment, we managed to pull through. But not so lucky for the rest of the tasks. For the dragon push ups, I have to say, my seniors were really nice. They kept lowering the standards, from making a circle to a straight line, and then, as we still had difficulties about doing it, they separated the boys and girls. We were scolded for both overestimation and underestimation though it was such a paradox. But this unorthodox way of training did have effects on us. It made us realise how teamwork was of vital importance, and how hard to make a team work as well. Demoralised slightly, we proceeded to the next task, which was – disastrous…

Day 2 (III): Silent Pact is coming soon…

day 2

2008-05-21T23:39:00.000+08:00

Okay, since I was urged to blog faster, here it goes. But firstly, let us solemnly mourn the people who died in the 5/12 Wen Chuan Earthquake in Sichuan Province, China. It has been a real suffering and ordeal for the victims. And I wish each and every one of them could have our blessings. Let us all pray for them, giving their mental support to overcome pain, physically and mentally, and let them regain the anticipation of seeing the first light of dawn.

Day 2 (I): Tough Wolves

The silence of nights was marvelous. Everyone was in sound sleep except for me, who woke up once or twice as I did not have a sleeping bag. I had my bones against the hard floor. As a result, I got up early.

Pin Qi IC returned me my valuables and offered some biscuits for breakfast to me. Then I set off to attend College Day Ceremony. Clapped, clapped, clapped, Ceremony ended. I ate some buffet and called Trinity IC. Across the phone, I learnt that I have to proceed to City Plaza, Paya Lebar to look for Annabelle IC. At first I was expecting Trinity IC to give me a time limit. But there was none. So off I went, with 16th House Committee Standardized Blue T-Shirt.

I was early when I reached there, so I was told to stroll around (in the building). However, knowing there was no point of walking in the Plaza, I went to hawker centre out of the building on the other side of the road, and had Ice Lychee there. I looked constantly at my watch. I had to say, part of the reason was the reunion with the rest. On my way back to City Plaza, my phone rang. Annabelle IC informed me that Alpha warriors had come. I jogged, and saw Gammas at the cross road. Although I did not know many of them at all, since we are One House Committee, and they showed surprise (I was not with my House), which was a sign of recognising, I greeted them. Victor (or Weektor, according to Theen Yew) repeated what I was informed and I went inside the building, joined my fellow HC members. I missed them even I was only away for six hours. But actually that was long enough. We greeted each other loudly and commenced the mission. The outcome of it was that, our Friday-Would-Be-Captain Theen Yew was wearing. Erm, let me put it this way, it would be seriously disapproved by all the healthy (in both senses) passers-by. We all burst out laughing, including the miserable victim. Theen Yew wanted to use our bagpack to cover, but Tiong Wei seized it away from him with a mischievous grin. “Oh my god” was all Theen Yew could manage.

We then jogged to the rest of the stations, including smearing our tooth with Oreo and showed our grin to the customers in a food court, and a more embarrassing assignment. I felt stupid and crazy. When we were asked to ask a question to a customer, he scrutinized us from top to bottom and had a mixed look of surprise and perplexity, and murmured a “can you ask someone else”. Our last assignment was to eat the watermelon without assistance of hands. We, the Wolves of Alpha, wolfed down the melon.

Day 2 (II): Cooking, Being Cooked and Others is coming up soon…

2008-05-19T17:20:00.000+08:00

Day 1 (II): Miracle Occurred

Hmm, I shall continue the story of Day 1 (erm, Trinity prefers “event” rather than “story”) and emphasize more on the kindness of my seniors, especially my 15th Alpha HC seniors.

We went for a night expedition. In the jungle full of darkness, and, unknown. And then, as if the hours we spent in it were merely a split second, I saw the clear sky of the night again. The white moonlight was poured on the open area. The suffocating feeling was gone. I breathed the fresh air hungrily. On our way back, Cheryl said she was hungry. In the contrary, sleepiness was quietly crawling upon me. The whole House failed to catch the last bus, and hence we had to go back to school on foot. Beta, Gamma and Deltas all jogged back. We Alphas decided to brisk walk as some of our members were unfit for running and we were not going to leave them.

Dehydrated, we halted at Tampines Bus Interchange. The fourth time, amazingly, in this week. Many of us lay down to rest. I decided to rest back to back with Mat. Instead of resting, our kindhearted Alpha seniors bought mineral water for all of us. We passed down and drank sparingly. Injected with new energy, we were refreshed and continued our journey back. Many of us were struck by sleepiness and fatigue as it progressed. We were wearing out. We encouraged Cheryl and Teresa, who proved themselves later on. At the first part of the trek, Krystal led, who often looked back caringly. I was walking in an automatic manner with eyes half closed. Most of the times. In some occasion, I walked with my eyes fully closed. I either lean against the traffic light post or squatted while waiting for the light to change. The rest of my teammates did the same. Mei Yi touched my head while I was squatting to check if I was all right. I said yes, and was on my feet quickly, not willing to show my weariness. However, miraculously, I could feel I was slowly recovering from fatigue. Gradually, I had shook off the tiredness and walk, with my back straight, abreast with Tiong Wei, who was already walking in front of the line. It usually cost me a lot of energy to keep back straight. And I could afford it now. Soon, we approached Bedok area and was walking along the sidewalk near the College. From a distance, a cyclist was riding towards us. We instinctively gave way. But he spoke:

“Eh, all dao me arh?”

It was Teck Kian. He came to bring up the morale. The team started to be lightened up. Trinity also came. Both of them rode back and forth. Trinity rode a little a head of us, and waited there and had a really big yawn. When he saw us approach, he rode a bit more. Thus, we reached school by three.

2008-05-18T23:43:00.000+08:00

All right. Here it goes the account for this Friday onwards. I am sure the introduction could have bored you guys as it is just a reflection of a JC student’s life. Okay, I screwed up my Physics SPA. As in, the teacher said I could not get Level A for this particular experiment already. I would not go into details about that cursed morning. However, I want to thank Chang Long and Xiong Wei for encouragement and understanding. Really, thank you guys! Now, let me skipped the description of a dull day and go straight away to that afternoon, when the lessons were over and the House Committee camp started.

Day 1: It Beat Blitz
I could sense the smell of gun powder. Actually the air raid had already begun. No, it was not the Blitz of Germany during the Second World War. But we were bombarded by the shouts of senior HC members:

“Am I talking to a BLANK WALL?!” “He’s asking a QUESTION!” “You all DUMB arh?” “I see GAPS! Even ELEPHANTS can walk through!” “Do not let me repeat myself like a broken recorder!” “Wipe the smile off your face! Funny is it?” “Do you have a sense of URGENCY?!”

We assembled on the track in front of the Sports Complex. Scolded because of not standardizing everything, and of course, shocked. Even Cheryl seemed unsure about it, as the seniors became seriously scary, and getting more and more dissatisfied about our performances. Finally, they said: “We have no choice, but to punish you all. KNOCK IT DOWN!”

Push ups.

It was followed by short distance running. We were required to run as One. As we failed this attempt, we got “knocked down” a few more times. Later on, we were ordered to shove everything into our bagpacks, ran to the Dance Studio, our dormitory, took out valuables and ran back. We heard a lot of encouragements of our peers. I heard Tiong Wei urged “GUYS, LET’S GO!” It was so urgent that, well, you could really feel as if a war was going on. I started to look for my handphone and wallet. I heard “ADRIAN, WAIT, MY WALLET!” But I could not find mine. The rest of the HC elects had all on half way through the stairs already. The Dance Studio was dark. We could barely manage to see the surroundings in the dim light of the setting sun that was sipping in. Mine? I dig deep into my backpack. SHIT! I could not find it. I balanced pros and cons quickly, and the conclusion is: To the heck of it – ZAO! Thus, Tiong Wei, Adrian and me, the only one who failed to recover my valuables from my bagpack, ran after the crowd of HC elects. And as you could guess, all the elects were “knocked down”.

And this was not the end. There was something even worse. I was thinking whether I should confess to the seniors that I failed to take out my valuables. At last, due to Tiong Wei’s suggestion, I approached to Bryan IC and told him about it while the rest of HC elects were getting together their valuables. When everyone was ready, he announced.

“There is a fellow saying he didn’t bring his valuables. But he’s lucky. Now, I want him to sprint to the Dance Studio, get the stuff and chiong back. In the meantime, the rest of us are in our half-squad position to wait for him.”

For heaven’s sake, this is the worst of all.

However, I sprinted all the way to find my valuables. I scattered everything from my bag onto the floor, and, yes! I was back. Bryan IC permitted me to fall in even before I could ask for permission. And here came the end of the most notable episode of Day 1.

To be continued…

friendship

2008-05-11T22:22:00.005+08:00

Damn pissed today. Not out of anger but out of disappointment. Rather disappointed. I do not intent to give an account for the episode. It is classified information. Only a few personnel could have access to it. But I still feel the need to say my piece. Communication, is of vital importance: I am really bothered for the fact that my worry and prognostication (I definitely did not want it to happen though) has finally come true. This could certainly compromise the coordination as well as synergy; in this case, I put it as dec-nergy. “Dec” is not twelve but ten. I could have said more. But I stop here, for the sake of friendship.

The pace of the lesson is faster than ever. Pentium speed, Mrs Goh has put that, with a computer term. And due to the events that I had taken part in, which occupied my time to a certain extent, I had to work extra hard to catch up with my studies. There was one case in which I did not have time to finish my Physics 2006 JCT MCQ. Mrs Cheong asked me what was the reason being. I had nothing much to explain. Say I forgot? No, I never forgot to do any homework. “Did not have time” was all I could manage to say, with guilty. I did not look her in the eyes. I was so embarrassed. She never pushed further, and I tried to finish and understand most of the MCQ in class. I did not miss much in the end. But it was a lesson for me. Hope it was the first time, and the last time.

its time

2008-05-11T19:08:00.003+08:00

Now it is time to explain this photo.

Who: Mat and I wrote this. The "16th Alpha HC Nominees" was contributed by him. The cancelation and "Member" was contributed by me. However, I failed to detect the grammatical error. But I definitely know how to spell errroor.

What: You can read it yourself.

When: 19th April. (Long time ago huh?) Afternoon.

Where: Thanks to Sarena, who provided her house for the meeting.

Why: Mat wrote this was just for fun. My graffiti was just simply trying to express the honest wish that hopefully all of us could be part of the HC. The reason why we start uploading this after the 16th HC is confirmed is that we are afraid that the seniors may scold us.

There are two versions of interpretation of this picture. I leave this part to you.

werewolf

2008-05-10T23:39:00.007+08:00

Well, I have no gift of blogging loads of stuff. So today I only manage a short paragraph. Too long for an introduction, too short for a story.

“I sleep with my eyes open. I can feel the slightest breeze that whistles through my hair. My ears can detect every nuance of the surroundings, and my muscles are tensed to prepare for confronting any potential threat. At occasional nights, you may notice a flash of a shadow in the corner of your eyes, but only find yourself staring into the darkness. You are no victim of hallucination, but you will never know that a creature has just darted pass. When the twilight approaches, I join the pack. And together, we howl, to the full moon.”

2008-05-09T21:15:00.005+08:00

The Ten joined Power.

The new Age is about to begin. The Age in which the Wolf howls again.

It was the first time I saw a grin spread on Jaren’s face, whose word was something I could never forget. It unified the power. The Power of Ten. It touched me. He pointed at the Alpha Notice Board. Something which I had seen for countless of times either when I passed by or read it on purpose. But this time, I felt the emotions of the Board. I felt its life. An unnamable feeling was building inside me.

“It is something you would have to maintain from now on. Because now Alpha is in your hands. You are the 16th Alpha House Committee.”

I expected him to name the chosen ones, but instead, we were informed about this. Amazing and surprising. Especially when only a few minutes ago, I was still unsure about my membership. We were allocated into different groups. And I was not asked to join Tiong Wei’s group, which worsened my worries. I joined another group which led by Safwan and Mei Yi.

A clear sky. With grass field glimmering under the sun. Safwan and Mei Yi described today as a sunny day. It was hot, I would say that. Particularly when my mind was burning by uncertainty and anxiety. I tried to banish them away, but I failed to do so. Somehow, for me, their jokes seemed to cover up the frightening fact that I feared to know. But it had to be broken to us eventually. That was when Jaren called us together and revealed the good news to us.

However, I felt loss. Emotions were expressed by the girls. Loss. I did not intent to show it, but I could sense it deep in my heart. And it was disturbing me. Some of us did not make it. They are my friends. After going through all these things. All these happiness, worry, and weariness. I was sad for them. But we are still One. And some day, all the nominees would join together once again, and celebrate the bond that once existed, and continue existing.

New challenges are lying ahead. Challenges that might engulf time into nothingness. Challenges that might waver the Power. This might be an inevitable process, in which pain and suffering dominate. Nevertheless, the Unification awaits us. The Glory awaits us. It is a new Age. Age of Theen Yew. Age of the 16th Alpha House Committee (2008 – 2009)!

miss

2008-05-07T19:44:00.003+08:00

By the time I got on board on 17/10/2005, I knew that my entire life was going to change, forever. I miss everything that happened between that point of time and the moment I posted this entry. They are like movies, flashing into my mind.

attentive ear

2008-05-02T22:49:00.007+08:00

Harry was walking alone on the never-ending road of burden, pain, grievance and fear.

It is really uncommon for me to blog twice a day. Usually I do not do that. Nay, I do not particularly like blogging. Not at all. But I seriously have something to say. Or maybe to be precise, I seriously want to say that I have nothing to say. Okay, go figure that out. If you are me, you will know how I feel. In previous entry, I have quoted that blog could be a result of an "unfortunate lack of a listening ear". By then, I thought it is really unfortunate enough. Lack of a listening ear. But now, for my particular case, there is not even a listening ear. How very pathetic! There are people out there who could treat their blogs as a virtual person to talk to, but I simply do not trust my blog at all. I could not confide my feelings (note that I do not use the word "secret", because I do share some of my secrets with my closest friends, or in some case, I keep no secret to them) to it. I have tried to confide them to someone, but, unfortunately, they were unable to understand the significance of them. Hence, I give up. Keep them to myself. Or maybe one day someone could finally understand. Someone could finally enlighten me. Are you the one?

2008-05-02T20:56:00.008+08:00

Volcano, a mystery that has a deadly beauty.

Last year, my English teacher asked us to write a story of fantasy. My story was Volcano Dance, a farewell between a young couple. Yet their spirity were joined together by immortality. Notice that both of the names of the couple have something to do with fire. Although it is not a story of ostentatious language, it is still one of my favourate stories I have ever written. Enjoy.

Volcano Dance

Werewolfscene, 2007

The hot air made her blood boiling.

She was falling. The lava in the large magma chamber inside the volcano greeted her with open arms. The next second, she fell into the pool of deadly lava, and evaporated instantly. Her soul turned into streams of light with colours of the rainbow. The streams shot directly to the sky high above, and beyond.

With a gasp, Sparkly woke up from the nightmare. She knew it was not true. But it would happen very soon.

The earth was trembling. She sighed, staring her reflection in the mirror which was placed on the stone-made night table. She was a very beautiful girl, with big black eyes, rosy cheeks, red lips and a well-shaped body. The ground roared and shook again, more furiously this time. Small pieces of stones were starting to shear off the stone ceiling.

Suddenly, a stone hit the mirror and smashed it into pieces instantly. Sparkly buried her face in her arms and started crying.

She was a girl of Volcano Tribe, a clan which was created by volcano god thousand of years ago. The people of Volcano Tribe lived in the caves inside the volcano. The volcano god cast strong spells at the edge of the caves to separate them from the pipes, which linked directly to the large magma chamber that stored the lavas. Thus, they were protected from the deadly lavas. However, when the volcano erupted each time, a girl of the Volcano Tribe must step out of the cave and jumped into the pipe, sacrificed herself into the lavas, in order to prevent the spells from weakening. This time, Sparkly was selected.

A hand gently rested on her shoulder. Sparkly looked up and saw Vesuvius, her beloved boyfriend.

“Are you afraid, love?” Vesuvius asked her. There was warmth in his voice. Sparkly did not feel cold and despair any more.

“I guess.” Sparkly said. Her voice was still trembling.

Vesuvius sat down beside Sparkly, turning his head to her and wrapped his arms around her. “Listen, my dear,” he said softly, “I really enjoy the days with you. I treasure every minute and every second with you.”

“But I don’t want to leave you!” Sparkly cried, hugging Vesuvius tightly and buried her face in his chest.

“Me too,” Vesuvius said honestly, “How I want to die with you, so we can live together in the eternity. But if both of us perish in the lava, we’ll break the rule of Volcano god and the whole clan will be wiped off the surface of the world.”

Sparkly raised her head when she heard this.

“To be the one. To sacrifice myself. For the clan,” she muttered to herself, “For Father, for Mother.” She wiped off the tears on her face with the back of her right hand, but there were still some tears glistened in her eyes. Then she stared at Vesuvius into his eyes and giggled. “And for you.”

She drew out her left hand from his, and stood up.

“Destiny.” She whispered to him and walked away.

Vesuvius stood up and tried to stop her, but no word came out of his mouth. He stood where he was quietly, gritting his teeth with pain and closed his eyes, as if darkness could engulf his pain. Hot tears rolled down at the very moment he closed his eyes, forming tiny streams and flowed into his mouth and to his chin.

One hour later, it was time. The main cave was filled with the volcano people, standing silently. Vesuvius was one of them. They were all bare-footed, dressing in red robes, and red colours were painted on their faces. Their facial expression was serious, and a bit sad. They were holding bright torches, eyes flickering. The torch light lit up the whole cave and cast wavy shadows on to the walls.

Sparkly entered the cave. To everyone’s surprise, she was smiling. She was beautiful than ever, with pretty eyes and the waterfall-like black long hair. Her eyes reflected the light and were as if they were burning. She dressed a bright red dress, with the colour of blood, with the colour of fire, with the colour of the setting sun. She was holding a red flower in her mouth. A few meters away, Vesuvius could see pride in her eyes.

Sparkly strutted to the center of the cave, people stepped back to make way for her. When she reached the center, she started to dance slowly with delight. At the same time, the crowd waved the torches and began to chant. She was such a professional dancer that she had captivated every volcano people. Every motion of hers was graceful and beautiful. She looked like a wonderful swan when she stretched both of her arms and spin; she was as if a beautiful peacock when she held up her arms, hands slid through the air; she could be likened as a magical phoenix as she jumped, shining hair swaying through the dim light. Soon she picked up her speed. She danced so fast that she looked like a red shadow to the rest of the people, who were chanting more loudly.

At last, she reached the other end of the cave, which connected with the pipe. She did not stop dancing during the whole process.

She could feel the hot air rushing in from the pipe outside the cave and started sweating. She felt dizzy and tried to steady herself when the dance came to the end. The crowd stopped chanting exactly at the same time and fell into horrendous, solemn silence. Only the crackles of the flames could be heard. Sparkly’s eyes scanned through the crowd and fixed with Vesuvius’ eyes. There was no fear in her eyes but calmness.

Despite the nightmare that flashed into her mind again, Sparkly took a deep breath, opened her arms as if hugging the air, and exclaimed triumphantly.

“Even in the death, may we be together forever!”

One day, I will write a story - may be horror story, about global warming. Gotta beat The Day After Tomorrow. To raise awareness.

"This time the warnings will not be ignored. This time we will prepare. This time we will rise to the occasion. And we will prevail." ---- Al Gore

Haha, you wait and see. Sometimes, I just hope that, Man will not be creatures like Transformers, have to leave their own home and search for a suitable habitat. This reminds me of a line that Optimus Prime had said:

"Before Time began, there was the Cube.We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power, to create worlds, and fills them with life. That is how our race was born. For a time, we live in harmony, but like all great powers, some wanted it for good, others for evil. So began the war, a war that ravaged our planet that was consumed by death. But the Cube, lost in the far reaches of space. We scattered across the galaxy, hoping to find it, and rebuild our home. Searching every star, every world. And just when our all hope seemed lost, message of a new discovery, drew us to an unknown planet called, Earth. But we are already too late."

Mankind, has to pay for their greed, indifference and apathy on the environment. If nothing but eloquent speeches are addressed.

Erm, am I being random? Dunno. Haha.

special edition

2008-05-01T13:01:00.016+08:00

Werewolfscene Special Edition!

Phay Key, Tiong Wei, Asheem and I took random photos

after HC Nominee Meeting

I have written my entry in a completely new form. And by the way, I finally have the time setting of my cbox fixed. Well, here it goes.

Zhi Hao has described one of his post as “neither out of inspiration nor motivation; just a mere case of fatigue, frustration and the unfortunate lack of a listening ear.” I acknowledge that it happened to me sometimes also. But most of the times, I would just like to have some of my thoughts, voices to be shared. And I define this particular post of mine as “an opportunity to divulge my virtual perspective about my current you-know-what ambition, and a glimpse of my Tom Marvolo Riddle’s Diary”. Of course you know I am no Riddle, what I mean is: a sharing of a tiny bit of my past memory.

To elaborate on the first part of my definition, I would like to say:

If I do not get the post in HC that I wish to run for, then I have one more person to congratulate.
If I do get the post in HC that I wish to run for, then I have 16 + 10 +1 more people to thank.

Similar figure of speech:

Alpha (Zephon) House: Wolves, ferocious when alone, deadly as a pack.
Scorpia (a spy fiction of Anthony Horowitz): One stung, twice as deadly. (Here, Scorpia is not a scorpion. It is a fictitious criminal organisation with motto of Sabotage, CORruPtion, Intelligence and Assassination.)

Mega House Function:

Preparation and Serving

I rushed straight away to the Hall after the HOD of IP ran through my Open House Physics Presentation with me; helped Chun Kiat joined the black veils together with tapes, and helped Ge Lin to transfer a scarily large amount of beverage to the space under the table. We were told to have dinner after work (around 5:40) and report back at 6:15. Hence I went to the hawker center opposite school with Kaizen, he had Milo Dinosaur, and I ordered Carrot Cake (Large) and some fruits as well. Then we headed back to fetch our shirts and pants. Hell, I forget to bring my belt. But it did not matter, it just a minor decoration, for my case. After applying wax and using spray for fixation, I finished styling my hair, and went back to the Hall with Kaizen. Shi Yun gave us instructions about serving food, and as time was almost up, off we went.

The music was played, and Ryan presided the function, with a black mask covering his face, only eyes and mouth could be seen. A lot of people that I know have turned up, including Ngia Fung, a.k.a. Bobby, two of my senior scholars Wang Meng and Chen Meng, and also Gavin, Zhi Hao, Glen, Jie Han, Haggy, a.k.a. Yu Hang, Kirk, Nat, J Peh, J Pung, Peng Ho, Keith, Chun Siang, Zong Ye, Lynette and Daphne. It became so crowded that before I could walk three steps from behind the veil, the snacks were gone! So later on I walked from the other side of the veil, so people there could have a share of food as well.

End of the Shift & the Recovery of PI

My shift ended at 8:00, and I finally was able to grab some drink from the bar and joined Glen and Jie Han at the sofa near the door. Later on, I went to the balcony outside the Hall with Kaizen for some fresh air. He said he was troubled by not able to help Tiong Wei, who was on MC, to get his PI in the pigeonhole outside the staff room. There was no access to that place at this hour. I considered it. No, there should be one way. I recalled that the door between the second and the third floor of the IP Block was never locked. Last year, when I left my stuff in the locker in IP Block, I could went to the third floor through the staircase outside the auditorium and went all the way to the third floor of IP Black, went down, and get my stuff. Would it work the same for the LT2 side corridors? I was thinking when I climbed the staircase. Yes. And – yes, pigeonholes. Kaizen found the one belongs to his class, and – Tiong Wei’s PI. “Call him.” I told him, and he started dialing the number. Later, after speaking to Tiong Wei on phone, we passed the PI to Ms Thangam who was sitting in canteen, chatting with Delta House Teacher-in-Charge Miss Lim, and asked her to hold on to the PI so she would have something to refer to if she received a call from Tiong Wei. But our PW teacher and Teacher-in-Charge was more interested in how we have our access to the staff room. We told her, and she was astonished.

End of the Function

Ryan thanked everybody who made the event a success and called an end to it. He removed his mask and helped cleaning the bar. We nominees started piling up chairs and cleaning tables. Chairs first. Then Ji Teng, Delta HC Member and I carried the tables down. Two at a time. Others followed. Then the Hall was swept and mopped. We had some leftover snakes, when down to the canteen. Short briefing conducted, hands clapped, and everyone dismissed.

Now, the second portion of my definition.

Memories.

A list of the first sentences that we said when I get to know some of my friends. Forgive me that I could not list everyone here because I could not remember all the “first sentences”.

Chronicle order:

Jan, 2006:
Soo Hiang: “It’s properly, not probably.” (Trying to teach me the difference between the two words on the first day of school.)

Jan 2006,
Clarence: “Oh my goodness. So tall.” (During Caption Ball on Orientation.)

Jun, 2006:
Me: “You are from 1B right?”
Keith: “Yup.” (For Tianjin Exchange Programme.)

Sep, 2006:
Siddharth: “Hi, so you have a blog?” (Through the tag board.)

Oct, 2006
Chang Long: “So Fangxiong is your name?” (During OBS)

Nov, 2006:
Me: “You are Rimiko.”
Rimiko: “How (do) you know? (On the bus in China for Tianjin Exchange Programme.)

Jan 2007:
Jun Xiang: “We go (to the) classroom now uh?” (First day of school.)

Jan, 2007:
Kirk: “Hey, can pass the ball to me?” (The basketball bounced away.)

Jan, 2007
Nathaniel: “Hey, you want go there and write our names down?” (During elective of World Cinema)

Feb, 2007
Me: "Nice one, Shimon." (During 5km Road Run, Shimon ran ahead of me.)

Oct, 2007
Haggy: “So how do you do this question?” (One week before Promos.)

Jan, 2008
Chun Kiat: “Hi, I’m Chun Kiat” (He was my OGL during Orientation.)
Me: “Erm, how to spell?”

Jan, 2008
Benjamin: “Let’s move forward so we got more space (for mass dance). (During Orientation.)

Jan, 2008
Jing Han: “Hey, I tell you my name twice already.” (During Orientation.)

Jan, 2008
Me: “Can we do skit instead?”
Zong Ye: “Yes, I like this!” (During Orientation.)

Feb, 2008
Me: “Hi, wonder if you could send me the Alpha Cheers?”
Trinity: “Sure, can wait a while?” (On msn.)

Mar, 2008
Ryan Lee: “Hey, you are (a) PRC right?” (In gym.)

Apr, 2008
Tiong Wei: “Hi, are you Fangxiong? You know later got HC briefing right?” (HC Campaigning Period.)

Apr, 2008
Sarena: “You can use tablet PC to take down minutes.” (During HC Nominee Meeting)

And finally, a well-known quote:

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"

---- Martin Luther King

obama speech

2008-04-27T14:26:00.003+08:00

"...we stand on the crossroad of history, we can make the right choices and face the challenges that meets us. Tonight, if you feel the same energy as I do, if you feel the same urgency as I do, if you feel the same passion as I do, if you feel the same hopefullness as I do; if we do what we must do, then I have no doubts, that all across the country, from Floria to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November..."

---- Barack Obama, on Democratic National Convention

2008-04-26T23:34:00.004+08:00

When I was in Secondary 3 back in my country, I came across the funniest (I hate grammar of superlatives or comparatives) – in the cold sense – test question, ever. It was a physics problem. The students were required to explain the physical phenomenon. The question was roughly like this:

大清年间，林则徐应洋人之邀赴宴。洋人上一道甜品，可谓冰淇淋，冒有白气。则徐以为热，故以口吹之，被洋人取笑。过后则徐回请洋人，上高汤一碗，表面有厚油，故无热气。洋人一口吞下，滚到地上，喜哈有声。

Troubled by the language? Okay. During Qing Dynasty, Lin Zexu (an official who banned opium) were invited by Westerners for a meal. The offspring of the Anglo-Saxons provided some snacks, known as ice cream. Zexu thought the snack was hot, due to his observation of the “white smoke”. Thus, he blew it with his mouth, giving the Westerners an excuse to laugh at him. Zexu took revenge later on. He provided them with very hot soup. However, a thick layer of oil covered the soup, so there was no escape of water vapours. Westerners thought it was cold, hence drank it up, and rolled onto the floor, gasping and laughing.

It is a “=.=” right? Okay, yesterday was really busy. The Track and Field Day. Well, now I know what is called “cheer in top of the voice”. Our Captain was a pretty good example and I have to learn from him. Alpha glory. Yes, Alpha glory, glory for Alpha. The Alpha cheerleaders have done a good job. I know, the rest of the Houses had a longer cheerleading duration and more dances. But I know how hard Alpha cheerleaders had trained. So, a pat on the shoulders to the cheerleaders.

After the relay race of PDPs, in which my PDP lost, my attention was diverted to things happened behind sports complex. Somehow, someone got a basketball somewhere, therefore I got a chance to practice hoop. Trinity shot a while as well. And soon Zhi Hao and Gavin joined me. Zhi Hao kept shooting but very few went into the hoop, so I kept calling him sucker, and he laughed and shot again. Okay, a three point, or, a zero point? Dunno. That was the end of everything of Friday that worthwhile for me to jot down. Titans trial is coming soon. See if I could get it over.

Cheerio.

titans

2008-04-24T20:15:00.005+08:00

Joke for this week:

Ryan: I got phobia.
Bryan: What phobia?
Ryan: Claustrophobia. You know what is that?
Bryan: Fear of Santa Clause?
Ryan: Hehehe...no you idiot. It's the fear of enclosed space.

I hate PE without Physical Training. And I have to start training for Titans anyway. Because if I do not, I would not pass the trial next Monday and Tuesday. So I went to train my squat thrust, 400 run, sit-ups and chin-ups during PE with Tiong Wei. Kaizen joined us later. Wish them good luck for the cheerleading tomorrow. I shall not elaborate on that now because I got a bad mood at this moment: I could not log into my msn. The hostel blocked it. Shit, shit, shit. Tomorrow I shall go train in the early morning, the premise is that if I am able to wake up that early. Nevertheless, I shall stay back and train after school.

HC

2008-04-21T20:39:00.018+08:00

Hi, hi, I’m back.
Things I want to say are overwhelming.
There is a paragraph I like the most. Here it comes.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way
---- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

And,

“Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden,
Spear shall be shaken,
Shield be splintered,
A sword-day, a red day,
ere the sun rises!
Ride now! Ride now! Ride now!”

---- King Théoden, the King of Rohan,
the Lord of the Rings,
the Return of the King

Okay, they are totally not pertinent to what I am going to talk about in this entry. But I wrote it any way. Between the end of January and this very day I post my entry, many events happened. Road run is something I do not intend to mention too much. I was in front when it started. Got pushed from behind by the anxious runners. Tripped, landed flat on the track, and injured one leg badly. Other runners were 20 meters ahead. Cursing, spitting, gritting my teeth, I pushed on, ranked 88. The rank sucks, good number nevertheless.

JC1 is the year during which I want to participate as many events and activities as I can to fill up my portfolio. So I end up signing up for HC, Nanyang Research Programme, Titans, and Kids Reading Programme (which I quitted as my timetable is seriously full). I got into NRP and I did not even know how I do that. My choice was a sociology project even though I have a high possibility of going to physics faculty in the university. Strange right? Just like I am in Science Council but I go join Titans anyway. It is like – no link. The interviewer started asking me about food in my hometown, Tianjin. At first I thought she was just asking out of curiosity, but soon I realised that the interview had begun. I did not say anything impressive. But there is one thing I always remind myself to do. Shake hands firmly. That is that. Or to be more colloquial – That’s it.

Titans is something I always wish to go. I like to keep fit. Muscular? Erm, that one can wait. But hopefully lah. If I am too busy to go gym recently, Titans is definitely a good alternative, and I can work on the glory of Alpha House in that way. No, I am not just “saying” without action to be done. I really love my House. Maybe, no – that is the very passion that drives me to run for the post of Vice-House Captain (Sports). And I really hope I can get in. Here comes the thing. When I worked with other Alpha House Nominees and did the Group Proposal, or, okay, fine, GPP (for heaven’s sake, do not mention it, but by the way, I finally get my PI presentable), we made friends. And now, two of my friends wished to run the same post that I intended to run. It is hard to know what to do right? Somehow, I thought of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. You are all too familiar with the plot. But, okay, in the story, Neville Longbottom tried to stop Harry, Ron and Hermione from leaving the House at night, who were actually trying to stop Voldemort from laying his hand on the Philosopher’s Stone. Neville’s purpose was just to prevent more points from being minus from Gryffindor. Dumbledore had commented this way: “It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends.” For me, it is hard for me to compete with my friends. Hence I avoided mentioning this with them. I thought this may be the way. But my friend has phrased it this way: “Friends may be friends, but that’s only when work is not involved. When it comes to work, just perform to your best ability then let them judge who’s better and who suits the post most.”

It has not been long before the last time I heard something really classical and true. JP even quoted that for his speech at the end of OBM, which is “A leader has to be a good follower” by Clarence.

Got chemistry to revise. Do not know when will be the next time I could possibly blog. Hopefully soon. I will blog if I could get into HC. The HC post? See how it goes.

Adios amigos.

attachment

2008-01-25T22:10:00.000+08:00

Alright. I’m going to update my blog now.

I have been preparing for road run recently, not because I expect to get something out of it. It’s just that since I have signed up for it, I’d better try my best for it. Maybe this is one of the reasons why I joined (not officially) track and field, racing uphill again and again, exhausted, sweating, panting, cursing under my breath.

No PE lessons so far due to the attachment. So I decided to run on my own. Or not exactly for today. Pei Yi agreed to run with me. She ran 2km, I ran 4km. She ran alternate rounds and I ran continuously for 10 rounds. Soaked with sweat, I returned to the study area under TRC and tried to finish up some maths questions before civics.

I’m glad to have at least a timetable for every Friday. My attachment is quite manageable if you know what I mean. Kirk and I and all the rest could, and we preferred to do research at school instead of going all the way to NUS in an claustrophobic MRT for one hour and trying to go with the flow of the Rush Hour to fight my way into a crowded Bus No. 95. But sometimes we had to give up and flagged a taxi. So it means that I could have a lot of free time at school, chionging maths with Kirk. Yi Heng and Nat joined us occasionally. But most of the time was Kirk’s OGL, “LOL the Stalker”, and we would end up talking cock to kill the mundane, hypnotic afternoon.

No GP lesson today, which delighted me – wait, we were assigned tasks to do. But at least we wouldn’t be sitting in a confined classroom. Lunchtime. I’ve been hungry after the 4km run. Haiz, no fishball noodle today. The stall was closed. Changed to another stall. When Ernest and I returned, Glen was already munching rice at the table. I sat down and did the same, wolfing down my noodles. When both of us were concentrating on our food, a scrawny middle-aged woman, back hunched, came to us. Two plastic bags on each of her hand. A collector of cans and bottles. My glance slid across her and returned to my noodles. Glen was trying to gather the remaining vegetables in the plate together and did not take any notice of her. She started talking to Glen in high-pitched, improper Mandarin, waving the plastic bags. Both of us stared at her, confused. At least we could catch some words, “Don’t put cans and bottles on the table. On the ground. Tell other people not to put cans and bottles on the table. On the ground. Hor? Hor? Hor?” When she said the “hor, hor, hor” she used the dirty bags to brush Glen, who glared at her indignantly, and the next second, the lunatic’s gone, brushing other people. Xin Zhi, Sherman, Nicholas and Ernest who sat at another table rushed towards our table.

“She won’t come here to haunt this table for a second time.” They explained.

2007-11-06T19:04:00.000+08:00

Gao Xing: “I thought I have forgotten the sensation that is used to flow through my body during basketball matches. It is a sense of flying, and it transcends everything else.”
----MVP Valentine
Since it was a Chinese drama, here is the original version:

高兴：“我以为，我已经忘记了在球场上那种自由自在，超越一切飞翔的感觉。”

Hoop today.

Kirk and I reached Bedok CC first. The badminton player was coaching me basketball while waiting for the rest to come.

We played half-court. On the other half, an old man was playing basketball. Okay, I’ll come to that later. Anyway, we mainly practiced shooting and lay-up. Nat came at nine plus, producing a second ball from his bag, and followed by Jia Wei, who carried a third ball. Four of us played three balls, and then Nat and I versus Kirk and Jia Wei. Our MEP tried wind mill style lay-up; We played until we were tired and Yi Heng came.

A father and his son, okay, or a guy and his younger brother – I am not sure about their relationships, because the guy was quite young for a father and was fairly old for a student. Anyway, while Nat, Kirk, Jia Wei and I were sitting on our balls (oh, one of us got no basketball, so one should be sitting on the ground), the big guy, the small boy, the old man I just mentioned before and Yi Heng, were playing hoop on the other half of the court. Guessing we would not have much fun to play among four of us, we decided to join them.

I thought we could surely win them easily, but during the game, they showed their toughness. Although all of us were going all out, we still bear in mind that one of our opponent was a sixty-year-old, and one was a primary school pupil. However, the “father” was as powerful as a bull and we all had a bit difficulty to deal with him. Still, I discovered that when he got the ball that accidentally slipped away from my hands, I have already entirely forgotten about the bull thing, but to try everything possible to compensate for my mistake. And sometimes I did succeed. Nat, Kirk and Jia Wei tried all their best to catch up the score, since the old man has developed a habit of reminding us the scores whenever someone scored. Similarly, cursing was in favour with the “father” when the ball missed the basket, or the badminton player intercepted his ball – nice one, Kirk.

We soon played with four secondary school students who just came. Ten minutes after the start of the game, I have known that among these people, there was one fast-dribble-r. And all of them were really good at passing the ball. Energy was running out of us; the new comers were winning. Still, having a good three-point-line-shooter, a rebound-er and an all-round basketball-er, we were catching up with them. Facing the fast-dribble-r, all we could do was to rebound the ball after he laying-up. The badminton player did everything he could to acquire the ball so that Nat could be able to shoot from outside the crowd. We played until twelve thirty, when exhausted Dota player, MEP, badminton player, Chinese orchestral instrument player and I left for Macdonald’s.

hanging out

2007-11-01T23:52:00.001+08:00

Maybe today, for me, is the first totally relaxed day for the whole year as ‘O’ Level was finally over and nothing much to worry about, for the time being. And I had fun, or had “fear” today. I am referring to the horror movie we have watched.

…“Spooky, thirty-two: use one-oh-five shells. Bring the rain.”
…the AC-130 gunship unleashed a six-thousand-round-a-minute storm of sabot rounds at the metallic shape clearly visible on the ground below…

This was where I stopped for my Transformers novel. Glancing at the alarm clock, I was alarmed as I did not want to be late and be waited for by everyone else. An anxious I sent a message to one of my friends who organized it, the message read: ETA (estimate time of arrival), 5 minutes.

Some of the guys were gathering at Golden Village, discussing which movie to watch. Soon the rest of the people, who just finished playing the LAN at Katong Mall as the former did, joined us. Decision seemed to be made and we took the tickets of a horror movie. Ten minutes before the show, I bought some token at the arcade. Without much time to play, I was only able to spend one coin before heading into the hall.

There were not many people (if not because of our arrival, I would have called them “a couple of people”) in this particular hall. Most of the seats were empty. For a moment I had a feeling that there were full of people in those seats, but apart from us, the rest were all invisible. Anyway, after occupying and settling comfortably in the centre section of the second and third last rows of the velvet seats, we started consuming the hotdogs, coke or popcorns vigorously. Typical cinema foods.

The show began. At first, our staccato laughter echoed in the relatively empty hall and comments like “it’s like bak kua eh” were really funny. But our attitude towards the movie changed as scary scenes turned up, and half of us shut our eyes or plugged our ears. What I did was to duck, whenever necessary, behind the seat in front, as if the seat itself, together with my “half watching” friend in it, could shield me from whatever in the show. Some did something similar.

We went to arcade after the show. I spend the rest of the tokens on a Jurassic Park shooting game with Zhi Hao and watched some of my friends played a quite exciting reaction game. It was in Cantonese, with instructions on the screen in traditional Chinese. And immediately everybody started to imitate the digital voice of the machine, which was explaining a game about making hamburgers in a hamburger shop, in Cantonese. It came to me again and reminded me that I am living in a multi-cultural place now. I have never been exposed to all these dialects before.

Anyway, as a respond to Glen’s suggestion of eating some “really stupid stuff”, seven people, including me, went to food court across the third floor of Tampines Mall. Part of the time during dinner was spent to discuss about the movie. It was later defined by us as a psychological movie.

Chatting with one of my friends through msn when I finally got back to hostel. It was quite enlightening.

Now is late. I guess I’ve got to grab some shut-eyes. Cheerio.

post-promos

2007-10-13T13:35:00.000+08:00

It was an unusual day. Many teachers were absent for morning assembly. I was bewildered for one second when I noticed it and exchanged glaces with Jun Xiang. The next second I had the answer. A more important thing was gonna take place.

Maths lesson was cancelled. We were informed that Civics took its place. We were waiting. We were waiting. Waiting. Waiting. A familiar figure strode pass the window that faced the corridor. Around twenty pairs of eyes focused on our form teacher. My gaze slid away from her, falling onto the two sheets of paper lying on the table. Two words popped up in my mind: Overall Results. I sighed. It was not my results I was worried about.

Yes, I do hope there were NOT too many people being transferred. I DO care about their results. The night before, I received a call from one of my friends. Excited, he told me his teacher-in-charge informed him that he got a 2 something for his grade-point-average (GPA). But during PE, he told me his GPA actually missed the TA base line by 0.1. Hopefully his appeal would be approved. And there were more. Worried, I made several calls during lunchtime regarding the GPA affair; though my own results were there, I could not be cheered up at all.

I do not wish to describe the English Enrichment lesson in the afternoon. You've already known all about it. Today I'm having lunch outside with my relatives. So, cheerio.

exams are over

2007-10-07T17:36:00.000+08:00

Exams are finally over. Life is not so tensed any more and is getting back to normal. Spending more time hanging out with friends. Came back from the heartland with new garments and two books, Brave New World & Brave New World Revisited and BEC (a demon story). Being online more often, and game occasionally. Increase the amount of snack I eat everyday. Maybe I'm putting on weight, but I know I'll never be. Going to play hoop next week. Been a long time since the last time I touched the ball. Ball sense is losing, and I'm gonna get it back. Dribbling and shooting. Dribbling and shooting.

past two weeks

2007-09-08T18:46:00.000+08:00

Let me reminisce the past two weeks' events. But there is nothing notable except for the Language Art Night. Actually I would like to mark the one year anniversary of my blog by this post. The very first entry that I wrote for this blog is about last year's Language Art Night, and I wrote about how I appreciated the performance and presentation, which stimulated my interest of learning English further. And this year, I myself become one of the presenters. In fact, I caught this chance myself. For our EL lesson programme, two people were supposed to present something of their own. One was decided, and two of my English teachers were looking for the other one. I presented my writing to them, and that's it! What happened next, was editing, practicing, editing, practicing again and again. Until the very moment of my turn to present.

On that afternoon, I was still trying to pronounce words more clearly, at the same time, I had to take note of my intonation. During the presentation, I mentioned about "my lips were dry", but in fact my mouth was as dry as desert at the very moment. I had to admit that I couldn't have made it without the encouragement of so many people. ELLERY, Sidd, Jie Han, Kirk, JP, Zhi Yang, Elstan, Jun Xiang, Glen, JiaJin, Clarence, Chang Long, Nat, Yi Xian, Gwyneth, Zenia, Xiu Qing. There are more but I can't remember, but I thank you all.

dossier

2007-08-25T16:03:00.000+08:00

A short update.

Friday was a tiring day. We straight away set off for City Hall for elective lesson after swimming lesson. We visited most of the museums and interesting sites there and came back at three, with two more homework added up on to my list.

Yes, I'm sort of studying LA. Basically want to get some knowledge of the analysis of the literature. Clarence suggested me to read Brave New World. Good idea, I borrowed it from the library the next day and, again, went for my English remedial lesson.

The old man was not bad after all. He told me he has actually read the Brave New World by Aldous Huxley in his early years and told me its a book with quite hard language.

That's his opinion, I decided to read a bit first before I come up with my own judgment.

No time to write more, got to do SS. Adios.

internet back

2007-08-19T11:39:00.000+08:00

It's pretty cool, the Internet recovered.

Actually today I'm not quite free, there's an IS project and SS essay. But, alas, since 2 of my group members are all busy doing their LA project, which is due to tomorrow, I have nothing to complain. But finish two chemistry worksheets in one day is crazy, hopefully I can get reinforcement from Wanshi and Rimiko.

And here comes to our old enrichment teacher, who was late for 40 minutes on this Friday and when we pointed it out, he asked politely if we were bluffing him. >.<

broke down of connection

2007-08-14T18:55:00.000+08:00

The hostel's Internet was seriously broken down. No researching, no msn, no blogging, no friendstering. That's really not fun to have no Internet. Alas. So I've got to stay at school to enjoy some connection.

English enrichment? Oh, I've had it enough. We've been treated like students with primary school vocabulary by the old teacher. Oh, but he's a kind and patient teacher. So we have to sit there for two hours, just listening him explaining the meanings of "boring" and "punishment". I rather prefer the teacher last time who taught us about "circumscribe" and "prejudice".

Besides the school work that is piling up, I can't find any other things to say. It's been a miracle I got time to blog. xP

Harry Potter

2007-07-14T22:21:00.000+08:00

Finally I have time to blog. Yay. The week before was all routine. Hand out test papers, explain test papers and things like that. Because of my SS and IS, I have an uneasy feeling of being defeated. Well, forget about that – this month got many good movies.

First was Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Transformers, which I watched with friends last week. I never watched Transformer cartoons when I am small, and never know names like Megatron and Decepticons. The movie was just okay, yet I rather prefer Fantastic Four. And this Friday, here it comes, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix.

At first I planned to watch it on Saturday, but I did not want to delay any longer. So taking MRT, I went to Bishan Junction with two girls to watch the Order. It is completely fast-paced and action-packed. But I have to say, the last fight between Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort was disappointing. It’s a short fight. Dumbledore was supposed to be more powerful than Voldemort, but it seems that Voldemorts complicated magic was rather scary! He summoned all his powers and released them all, the power almost turned the Hall of Ministry of Magic into dust. Dumbledore did not make use of the golden statues, otherwise the movie will be much better. And finally, amid all there chaos, Cornelius Fudge had a conclusion: “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back.”

I pre-ordered the Final Book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I’m going to queue inside Popular next Saturday when the books hit the every bookstores in Singapore. “Either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.” I’m waiting for the answer.

before going back

2007-06-08T17:20:00.000+08:00

I'm packing up. Files, Notes, everything. The flight will take off at eight twenty tomorrow, and I will arrive at Beijing around four twenty. Will blog when I reach home.

2007-06-01T22:39:00.000+08:00

Yay, 1st June! When everybody else went to some amazing places and enjoyed their double holiday there, we had to stay in school for lesson. Oh, great, more comprehension, vocabulary and letter writing. The teacher praised two of my essays and claimed to give me a prize. Well, I didn’t feel like having any prize as I have known what it was going to be. Melted, sticky sweets. For the whole week, the teacher doesn’t even bother changing the brand of the sweets! She keeps drawing sweets from the same plastic bag.

Suddenly, I feel that school days might be better than holidays. On normal days, there wouldn’t be any enrichment lesson six hours a day with an over-excited, chatty and nagging teacher, who talks so much and so loudly than we can’t concentrate, and her surprising prizes. But at least she gives us vocabulary every day and we are supposed to give sentences using the words. Okay, I’ll try not to use this sentence structure because it reminds me something funny during elective weeks.

Last week I was excused for Sports Carnival because I had to help preparing the drama performance Midsummer Night Dream, or Dream of Midsummer Night? I can’t remember, but I don’t think Shakespeare liked to use such a seemingly redundant word “of” in his title. Anyway, our role was to fix flash lights on the rails and hang up the lanterns. We worked from Thursday to Saturday. Lighting up the lanterns before every performance. On Saturday I became the usher who tore up tickets. There were a couple of fires during rehearsal. I was not sure about the cause of it. But it seemed that the aluminium foil in the lanterns mixed with the carbon in the wax and caught fire. Well, facing the real fire – burning wax, aye, somehow it burned, keeping dripping on to the wood table – who cares about theory. Actions were taken, before it was too late – the oily string caught fire, for heaven’s sake! A crew of drama club advanced and he – No, don’t blow it! It’ll only provide air for it! Suffocate it! Fire was put off, teachers were alarmed. A group of crews became fire fighter. I was not sure how they planned it.

Our role is not crucial in the performance, but it was something memorable. After the event was a whole-week English extra lessons. Actually, there were some really fantastic teachers teaching us the remedial lessons before. We called one of them Mr. Soap, since his name has the similar pronunciation as a word in mandarin. He was really good at teaching us skills of doing comprehension and I’ve improved a lot in my composition writing. Another one was a teacher who taught us last term. I recently learnt that he was nicknamed as Mr. Dictionary. I reckon perhaps this is because he knows the exact meaning of lots of words, or probably is because he always encourages us to check dictionary, or both. But what he has to learn is to curl his lips upwards and to have a sense of humor.

Now, as my roommates playing online games for Children’s Day – and oh, one of them has a hobby of sticking every brand of the apples he buys on to the door – I was blogging for leisure. I planned to start packing up at the start of next week. Time to go back for a two-week-holiday. Thinking about the Chinese food – yummy. Hopefully, when I meet my old classmates, the Hong Kong girl can teach me some Cantonese. Some basic ones. I don’t know why I want to learn that. But I remember last time she taught me a lot of Cantonese vulgarities, which I forgot long time ago.

'd post soon. Adios.

elective

2007-05-19T19:49:00.000+08:00

The teacher was Italian, or Idalian as what he told us, with strong Idalian accent when he spoke. He taught us the film making elective, including how to shoot a short advertisement and how to use programme to edit it. He said “cli-ke” instead of “click” when he explained the techniques of using the programme and made it sound damn funny.

So the first day we were required to sit in our groups so ta1s quickly formed their own gangs and ta2s formed their cliques. Sophia, Faye, Zhihao, Samuel and I were in one group. So we had a professional photographer. But I was not sure if filming was the same as photographing. Sophia came out with a lame advertisement, but I reckon lame was the whole point of the campaign that we were supposed to shoot. It was about tomato sauce, or – ketchup. We used a pun here and decided to shoot something like: Sophia and Faye were racing. Faye was ahead of Sophia at first, but after she ate the tomato ketchup, Sophia caught up with Faye and won the race. It was damn retarded, but we used the idea.

We reviewed each group’s clips the next day and the Italian teacher gave us comments and asked if we have any ques-ti-ens. We started shooting a new advertisement the following day and all the teachers were impressed with our clips. To film the clips, we had to consider which posture was more emo, we had to go to the HDB opposite, and Sophia had to think how to make it realistic when she cried, and I just couldn’t help laughing. So if you happen to see our clips, you will see Sophia was pretending crying and I was chuckling. Zhihao stood behind me and pushed me from behind to remind me I was acting, and Samuel stood solemnly beside Sophia – Faye was the one who filmed.

Got Workshop in Wednesday afternoon. We sat around tables with hands supporting our heads. We had that kind of sian-look on our faces. The lesson was monotonous, but when the teacher asked us to exchange the notes that were crunched in balls, we caught this opportunity to throw the ball all around and managed to get some joy. Chang Long was very high that afternoon and managed to make Qi Long laugh. xP

There was a PE lesson on Friday. We played basketball during the first period. There were eight people I suppose and we screened energetically when our opponents were about to attack. That’s called screening effect, but the difference was that it had nothing to do with chem. I forgot to store some energy for the second period, which was PE. But I somehow ran four laps with the usual pace. I hurried for elective after that. We took most of the time practice editing on our raw clips and slacked afterwards.

Some people went thaipan to eat. Lance was amused when he heard about it. Unfortunately I had bought my lunch before I knew there was someone wanted to eat at thaipan and didn’t go along. Next time lah. And I’ll try to post again after Sports Carnival next week. Cheerio.

these days

2007-04-21T21:22:00.000+08:00

They finally abolished the rule of restricting us using basketball court. But I don't bother to go downstairs to play at all. I did indoor practicing to let my hands get used to the ball, with an intention to acquire the "ball sense".

no place to play basketball

2007-04-11T21:09:00.000+08:00

Whoa lau! Know what happened yesterday? The hostel banned us from using the basketball court! Only because there was someone damage the equipment in the basketball court and nobody else could play basketball unless the person was exposed! So from now on, if we are discovered playing basketball in the basketball court, the security guard will stop us. Alas, I just started pracising basketball, it seems that I have got to do that inside the hostel building. I don't care.

Nightrise has been released in Britain, I wonder when it can hit the bookstores in Singapore. The guy in MPH told me to try Kinokuniya. This will be the first thing I do after school on Friday.

And then here it came, the SC nomination. It was really scary. Despite the air-condition, the mood was totally cool and serious. The smell of gunpowder was wafting all over the auditorium. I don't want to talk too much now. Tomorrow got a maths test. Got to go back studying right now, adios.

basketball

2007-04-08T18:55:00.000+08:00

So busy these days that no time to take care of my blog until DJpsycho reminded me.

Besides doing work, nothing eventful happened, or maybe there were some, but it just that I could not every single thing that happened last month.

I sometimes really want to give up playing basketball because of the you-know-why reason. But during a ramdom talking, maybe about a TV show, Kirk encouraged me to start practising. I agreed and began some basic stuffs, and my fingers had started getting used to the basketball the next three days.

Who knows if I can succeed? Maybe persistence?

elective week

2007-03-12T20:26:00.000+08:00

I realise that I have not updated my blog for almost a month…

My life during elective weeks was kind of, well, it was hard to describe. Actually, I should have been more relaxed and enjoyed the elective weeks if I took the Mandarin speaking elective. I did not know there was such an elective until the elective allocating was out. But I might not choose that one even if I saw it in the forms as I reckoned that a non-English speaking elective was not challenging.

So, yeah, I made my life miserable myself. Movie Journal every day. Two projects. Plus a couple of science project. That’s enough to make myself “enjoy” the two weeks.

And yet, at least PE lesson could keep me happy. JP and I were chasing each other during jogging. And I joined a group of people – including Yi Heng, Nathaniel, Kirk, Sean, Bala, Girish, Siva, Jimmy, Dawn, Coco and some others I could not name – played Captain Ball. Somehow we turned this game into a mixture of basketball, soccer, and volleyball game as sometimes people used to slammed the ball, or high jumped and shot the ball, or yeah, accidentally kicked the ball. XD We enjoyed the game as we threw ourselves to defend the ball and some people even flew ^^. Anyway, I forgot whatever project while I was playing – and remember everything afterwards. Lol. But I managed to finish off some of the projects by today.

road run

2007-02-16T14:42:00.000+08:00

Today we had the 30th annual road run and Chinese New Year Celebration. I left the hostel very early, walking to school and had morning assembly as usual. I didn't eat the siao breakfast before running because I didn't want to throw up during running.

We gathered at sports complex and waiting for the start of road run. Girls ran first. Then staff came next. When I finished warm-up at the back of the complex with Zhi Yang and JiaJin, Road Run for Girls had come to an end. Slowly, we guys gathered at starting point. Most of the TA people were standing in the very front. The teacher talked something, but I was not paying attention at all. I was waiting for the signal to start running. There it was!

We started to slow down after running a full round. It was not difficult to catch up with someone now because people were not packed in a limited area any more. I quickened my pace. Runners started to run out of college.

We were running on the path around the college.

The narrow path behind college. So narrow that could only allow two people running neck-and-neck. Sherman caught up from behind. Hills. Running more slowly. Saw Myran. Carry on running. Rushing down the hills. Turning right. Lameshyt, another hill. This one was steeper. Somehow I found it was not as hard to climb as last time. Left, and - downhill. Running past Ellery. Running on the flat ground - finally. The big tree. Turning left. Catching up with some JC people. Some of them caught up with me again. I ran faster. They ran faster. I tried again. They caught up with me again. I was running faster and faster while I competed with them. Turning left. This was the last part of the running. I just needed to follow the path and I would run directly back to the college.

Sounds behind. Turning around. Running faster. But not as fast as before. Struggling, I ran back to the college.

Running on the 400m track. Last 100m. Audience shouted something. Shimon was running right behind me. I tried to run faster, but no good.

The deciding 5 seconds. The struggling 5 seconds. Time seemed to be slowed down. Five seconds seemed to be eternity to me. Then time flowed faster. The next thing I realized was that we were both running directly towards the TA track. I came after Shimon. We reported together to the students in charge and sat on the benches. The 10 top runners were supposed to sit there, (including Sherman, Chang Long, Ernest, Nicholas Goh, Clarence, Shimon and me) The running was over. We high-fived. Drinking juice at the stalls behind and waiting for the result to come out.

2007-02-13T18:14:00.001+08:00

Today was Tests Day. We got Maths tests and Chinese test. During the Chinese lesson, the girl complained that they got so many tests and presentations today that they did not want to do the Chinese test. The teacher said it was not a test, just an exercise. But the result had to be counted into records. They argued that then we were being “tested”. One girl pleaded the teacher not to let us do the paper because Chinese New Year was coming. The teacher then decided to explain the paper to us instead of testing us. But then he joked that we must sing songs to him. Uh-oh…

Looking forward to tomorrow. No reason.

Lameshyt, Friday got road run. Five thousand meters. Alas.

There was a song that reminded me of basketball and I like it.

bio project

2007-02-11T17:05:00.000+08:00

Overwhelming project. I can't even spell "rellaxx" correctly.
Trying to finish them one by one. Yesterday was bio video's turn. Went to rimiko's terrace doing bio until eight o' clock when all the streetlights of the alley were on. I couldn't tell whether the projects or the shadows were eerier. Eating at KFC at Bedok MRT Station with Ying Xuan and Xiao Wei, took a bus back to hostel and started to do the DNA worksheet which was due to midnight. As simple as that.

Newspaper collection on sunday. Quite sian when we had to wait for the truck to come. At least I got Scorpia as leisure. The trucks came at almost one thirty, on our way to school. Siao.

Actually next week will be quite eventful. Tests, Road Run, Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, and hostel was going to hold a party on the Valentine's Day. Looking forward to next week. But now got a list of school work. Got to go. Sayonala/Adios.

not eventful

2007-01-29T16:26:00.000+08:00

Not eventful these days, but not relaxed either. Sometimes I thought I'm gonna drown into the sea of the overwelming homework. If the dementors could suck dry the happiness of lives and left the despair, I had to say that somehow I felt that all the interesting events disappeared, what left was the boredness.

My brain couldnot relax the whole today, except having breakfast with Chang Long and Jun Xiang during breaktime, having a short chat with Faye, Ellery and Clarence during lunch time. That's it. And this evening was gonna be a busy one. Let's pray for the Chinese New Year coming quickly. At least I could rest a bit then.

yesterday, things didn't go directly to heaven, but went directly the other way

2007-01-20T11:29:00.000+08:00

;yesterday, things didn't go directly to heaven,
but went directly the other way

I'm not so sure if I should write this post at first. My original thought was to hide this deep in my heart, until I forgot it completely. Still, I changed my mind. Perhaps facing the problem and trying to solve it is must more positive than just simply forgot it.

First, I had to say, was what happened last year, as in the end of last year. You figured out? Yeah, that's why. People always said it was easy to reach a level, but it was too much difficult to maintain at that position. That's what I was feeling. Yeah, it was PAST that bothered me. Because after that, I felt that this years studying was more difficult. Why? Because this years’ stuff WERE difficult? Or there's something wrong with my studying, though I worked as hard as last year. Was I just simply stressed? Or there WAS something wrong? Alas, who knew?

During Oral English lesson, we were supposed to give a speech. And it became a complete disaster, or worse, it went directly the other way. The comments were given, a nightmare, and I DID accept this comment because it was true, so I had nothing to complain. Pronunciation not clear, stiff-faced, no enthusiasm nor expression, lack of description about feelings. That’s it. It might not be a problem for someone, but it was one for me. I tried to do well, but the result was no good.

Been trying to be positive. But what happened was still a pain for me. However, there were two things flashing into my mind. One was a line from a TV play, which was “Never gives up, once you give up, you will never forgive yourself.” The other was from a novel, “Things that meant to happen will happen anyway, we must learnt to face them whenever they happen.” And I started to realize what it mean.

orientated

2007-01-10T17:45:00.000+08:00

;orientated

Got used to the triple science class already, as in both of the classmates and subjects. Felt Chemistry is a little bit harder than last term, but I'm trying to overcome the obstacles. Started to know the people in the class already, it's not so difficult to memorise their names as in I have known almost half of the class before I'm in the new class.

Today got PDP exhibition, and we art club members were required to distribute flyers to people. Our club stuck the small flyers on to the crayons. Yeah, so our work was to distribute crayons to people. Luping, JiaJin and I were in the same group. We strolled around the school and tried to give out the crayons but didn't know how to say to them. At last, JiaJin suggested to say "Are you interested in art", so we did some attempt. But most people stared at us uncertainly or said no. When we finished one round around the school, Luping and JiaJin's crayons were hardly given out. I somehow gave out some. The strategies were to distribute them to someone I knew or exchange flyers. So I managed to find people to exchange flyers. After exchanging flyers with Izyan, Chang Long and Eran, all of us have very few crayons left. We manage to get rid of them quickly, and JiaJin did a good job of doing that. After chatting with some people in the canteen, we all went off.

Well, I have to do some research for the English lesson tomorrow. Will post later. Cheerio.

new class

2007-01-06T10:45:00.000+08:00

;new class

I could see or feel our class is kind of…erm special even before I sat in my new classroom. You will find out the reason if you check the name list of our class. So, only four guys, Jun Xiang, Qi Long, Chang Long and me. Another thing is that, well, let’s say, the lesson was over, and the teacher went out of the room, and I found that our class was so quiet, nobody moved and had their break but all sat where they were doing maths! Maybe triple science classes were all like this? I had no idea.

Seven were the number of people I knew before the teacher asked us to introduce ourselves. But I tried to get use to our new class and tried to memorize as more people as possible. That’s not enough, I had to get use to the lessons. Especially now we have Maths A and Maths B. And after the first Chemistry lesson, I realized I had to do something for Chem. That’s not the end of the story, because, erm, I’m saying PE. Although I DID did some exercises during the holiday to maintain my physical standard, but when I jogged for 1.2km, I was panting as if I was jogging for 2.7km. And the nightmare was the chin-up. Still no progress, and at last with Ellery's help I completed it. So the chin-up is the thing that bother me most now. Alas, who can tell me what to do?

;new year resolution

2007-01-01T19:51:00.000+08:00

;new year resolution

I took the flight back at 30th December, well, perhaps 31th December because the plane took off at 1 A.M. We arrived at the Airport at 8 A.M. and took a taxi to the Hostel. I went to Parkway before I unpacked my stuffs. Finished unpacking them in the afternoon and went down for dinner.

Went to Suntec City in the evening but returned with empty hands. I grabbed the shut-eyes shortly after I went back to my Hostel.

Waking up at eight thirty the next morning. Well, I think I spent the whole morning doing some English listening practice. Yeah, I think I need that practice really, especially after the one and a half months' Chinese-speaking-holiday. And I decided that I have to work harder on English this new year before I take the General Paper. Listening practice, literature books, vocabulary practice, magazines, classical books are what I need. Hopefully, I can see some kind of progress on my English in 2007.

;before going back

2006-12-23T19:36:00.000+08:00

;before going back

I've been have lots of fun having holidays here. Although the weather was cold enough to keep me at home more often, I still managed to find something to do. English homework was the thing that took me most of the time to do. Read some books in Chinese was another thing that enjoyed. I decided to switch the language of the books into English as soon as I go back, which was very soon. Just next Sunday. So fast, huh? It's been a quite long holiday for me. And somehow quite short also. But I'm going to enjoy the last week here. I have spent sometime in shopping malls or Mcdonald's with friends. I decided to go to my previous school again next week. Yeah, that's my plan. And I will come back two days before school reopens, and enjoy the last two days of the holiday. A short post. I have to grab some shut-eyes. I'll post as soon as I go back. Cheerio.

the long-time-no-sees

2006-12-09T19:39:00.000+08:00

;the long-time-no-sees

Met my long-time-no-see friends this noon. They still had lessons for a whole day today and it was not very easy for them to arrange a time to meet. But at last they manage to make it. Thanks to them! So, yeah, at last they told me to wait for them outside the school gate at noon when the school was over. I've almost forgot the way to the school because I haven't used that path for a whole year. But I got there, hoping not to be late. They did not finish their lessons then. But it would not be long before they went out. Yeah, here they were. Three of them. Two of them were my secondary school classmates. One of them was my primary school classmate. They were all my close friends and I was so delighted to see them!

We had lunch together. But the only problem was that there was no restaurant that had spare seats around. A lot of students from different schools went there to have lunch. There was almost no room for us inside the restaurant. But somehow we finally found one which sold take-away food. And it had spare seats! But we didn't have time to talk too much. Time was tight and they had to rush back to their classrooms to have afternoon lessons. Anyway, I was happy to see them.

school visit

2006-11-27T19:41:00.000+08:00

;school visit

Visited my previous school today, and got some unexpected experience. When I just arrived at the school, it was midday. I occationally saw my physics teacher at the gate and we had a short conversation. Then I proceeded and had some lunch. Due to the reason that I just had my breakfast before I set off for school, I didn't eat too much.

I visited teachers after that and occationally met the Master of Foreign Communication Department of our school. The Department is to arrange foreign teachers or foreign students exchange programmes. The master told me that the teachers in charge and my TA fellow was leaving the next morning and asked my if I wanted to bid goodbye to the teachers in charge.

I hurried to the Department and saw the teachers of the Department and the teachers in charge there. We talked for a while and the teachers in charge told me about the last activity they would have before they left. I learnt that after ten minutes, they would went to visit a place of interestes called the Courtyard of Shi Family. The teachers in charge asked if I wanted to join. I agreed and a few minutes later, I was on my way to the schoolyard where the bus parked. I met one of my friends and one of my previous teachers on my way. I got on the bus after a short conversation with them.

I saw Rimiko, Claudia, Peng Ho and Jia Wei on the bus. When everyone was there, the bus set out. The students who took part in the Exchange Programme seemed busy preparing the final presentation on their way to the Courtyard. They discussed with the Chinese teacher and kept writing something. I talked to them about something that I cannot remember now, and we reached the Courtyard of Shi Family.

The Courtyard which was built hundreds years ago belongs to Shi Family. Now it has become a cultural museum. It was a set of traditional Chinese building. The Courtyart was divided by walls into many parts. Guiding by the guide, who was told to speaks slower when she guided us throught the different rooms that were decorated traditionally and splendidly. We exchanged ideas about how they found the visit of Tianjin and talked about some other stuffs. At the end of the course, I talked about their lives at the school which they visited. Peng Ho and Jia Wei even showed us the martial arts they had learnt from the PE lessons.

It was not very warm today. There was a nip in the air. We hurried to the bus in which we travelled when we came. We were leaving. Peng Ho used poker to perform magic to us and we talked about stuffs in Tianjin, like the Tianjin dialect all the way to school for part of their research for the final presentation. The nights are long in Tianjin in winter. When we arrived at school at five o'clock, it was dark outside already. I bade goodbye to the teachers in charge and my fellows. It's dinner time now. I'll go and enjoy my dinner. Laters.

food,friends,study

2006-11-24T18:00:00.000+08:00

;food,study,friends,food,study,friends

Met a friend one day or two ago. He's a short,but strong and well-built guy. His parents invited me to have dinner outside. So I found myself in a well-decorated restaurant opposite a supermarket. We ate some noodles and some delicate dishes. He asked about my life overseas and told me his life there. Students just finished a very important examination, and they got loads of homework to do. I heard about my other friends from him. Some were very hardworking, and they were the top ones in their grades. Some were not like that. They were sleepy during lessons and eagering to play basketball after school, although the weather there was chilly. Anyway, I'm very eager to see them. I had called some of them and would meet them very soon. I chatted with him for two hours, and I realized if I lingered for a longer time, he would not be able to finish his homework before midnight. But he told me that he had no homework at all because usually no homework will be given after the examinations. Still, we went out of the restaurant and I told him that I would visit his school-my previous school very soon.

Studying every afternoon.English, of course. I have many English magazines and CDs so I can learn from listening and reading. I know I must work double hard to catch up and it will not be easy.

Tasting some Korean food this afternoon. Toast beef and pork, some special rice and vegitables and some delicate Korean dishes. I had never eatten such dishes with so strong taste before. They're so good! Well, eating so mush food and I could hardly be able to eat anything for dinner! Haha, gonna share something else next time. Laters, guys.

back home

2006-11-23T14:10:00.000+08:00

;back home

Sorry for the late update. Well, these days were eventful. Last week, we finished our English Enrichment lesson. In general, it did help. At least I have found my strength and weaknesses. The teacher pointed out that I'm not very good at descriptive writing and I always express my ideas so directly. Hence,on the last afternoon before I went home, I went to MPH and bought some local writers' work to read back at home.

I was bothered by packing my stuffs. We were supposed to put away all the stuffs we didn't need into cardboards and left them to the hostel to keep. After busy packing them for two night, I finished in the last evening before I set off and without catching my breath, I rushed directly to Bedok MRT station. It took almost one hour and a half to Bishan, in which my aunt and uncle lived. Talking with them for half an hour and bid goodbye to them.

It was not so late when I reached the hostel. Eleven. There were too many full cardboards in the room that I had got to tiptoe into the room. Actually, there was no room in the room. Haha, I'm not very good at any pun. Anyway, my juniors came and we chatted before I used trolley to carried all my cardboards downstairs and kept by the security guards. Juniors went back to there rooms soon. They were still having lessons next week. I felt sorry for them, especially they were taught by a not very experienced Eurasian woman who was from some other schools.

After grabbing some shut-eyes, I got up at four thirty. It didn't take long when I and one of my friends were downstairs with three taxi drivers, waiting for others to get down. The only mistake that we made was that we handed our luggages to the taxi drivers so early. Know what happened? Eighteen dollors from the hostel to the airport. Well, let's leave that alone.

What next? Bidding goodbye to our guardians, passing through the passport control and getting into the plane. I had to admit it was a long journey. seven hours. What's more, the climate in Tianjin was different. I had to change my T-shirt into jacket or coat. It was eight o'clock when I reached home. Ringing my relatives and friends was what I did then. Besides that, I had to catch up with my English language. Classical books were what I needed. But I still hadn't touched that yet. Honestly, I love horror stories better than classical stories.

I tried to contacted with my TA fellows who joined the Tianjin Exchange Programme through the teacher in charge. I learnt that they were going out most of the week. I thought it would be inconvenient if I went with them, so I had to wait until my previous school informed me that there were some activities that I could come. End of the story. Laters, people.

short post

2006-11-08T17:26:00.000+08:00

;just a short post

Only one more week’s English lesson then we can all go back. The teacher who taught us English enrichment lesson thought I am on the level to read literature book already. So I decided to read some during the holidays when I am in China. I really have several classical books but I do not know which one I should start first. WUTHERING HEIGHTS, the book that was written by Emily Bronte, perhaps? Or OLIVER TWIST? I am not so sure. Anyway, I will try to read both of them during the time I am in China.

Another exciting thing is that I am writing a journal about my experience during OBS. It is true that I had written about it on my blog, but I want to write a very detailed journal that I am not going to show to anybody. I am going to record down every events, every interesting things and every remarkable conversation that I can remember. It will really be exciting.

One more post will be blogged on next Friday night, the night before I left. I am outta here.

savoring the holiday ironically

2006-11-06T19:56:00.000+08:00

;savoring the holiday ironically

I have to say this will be the most difficult post I have ever write, because I still have nothing special to do but staying in the hostel from the day I blogged my last post till now. I am of no interest to hanging out, and what I am thinking was going home. Recently I counted the dates that left before I could take the flight and fly back, and I find that as the time of going back drew in, I miss home, my family and previous friends much more than ever.

It is such a complicated feeling that I do not know how to express. To simplify it, is that I feel as if I am living in two worlds. When I am here, Singapore is my real world, and home is deep in my mind. I miss my friends back in my country when I am in Singapore and when I am back, I miss the friends here as well. But what can I do? That is life, I always tell myself this way, several friends of mine with whom I am sure my path will never cross also study abroad. They will have the same feeling. But of course it has to take time to adjust.

Still got English lesson today. Nothing special. We only had to correct the sentences and did some presentation. Once again, I had a strong feeling that I could not relay barely on the English enrichment lesson to improve. I had to study by myself.

Besides having lesson these days, I started to put away my stuffs and prepare for setting off. I am going to post one more the night before I set off, and more when I am back home. Now what I need is to relax. Some fun, perhaps? Anyway, I am outta here.

say my piece

2006-11-04T00:36:00.000+08:00

;say my piece

I did not have much to talk about today. But I still decided to type something. I did not see how the holiday was fun. For me, the first several weeks of the holiday was and will be very boring. I could even copy what I had written in the previous post and paste them here. So, yeah, that is what I am trying to say now, the life these days were so routine.

Having lessons in the morning, resting in the afternoon, waiting for going back. Meanwhile, I still tried to study vocabulary, checking the meaning of several words and tried to use them in the sentences.

What else I could do? Surfing on the Internet, blogging, and reading. End of the story. Any movies? No thanks, I have even got tired of going to Orchard or Tempines. Any sports? Well, what can I say? The very sport that I am interested in is basketball. I love playing basketball, IF I can play it well. Yeah, that is the problem. I am being interested in a sort of sport that I am actually not very good at. I enjoy the feelings when my fingers touch the leather surface of the basketball, enjoy listening the sound when it bounces energetically on to the floor, enjoy the feeling of FLYING. I am sure you will understand that if you truly love basketball. BUT I cannot play it well. Of course I know that I should do enough practice to improve my skills of playing basketball. But the thing is it will need years to practice and I do not think I will have time everyday. So I barely touched basketball these days. Maybe I will when I am in China. Otherwise, I try to do some physical training, but not so much.

I have said too much about sports, so besides sports and watching movies, what I can do? Shopping? For heaven’s sake, I am not that type and I will never be interested in that. Buy whatever stuffs whenever I need them, that is my rule. Yeah, so I am enjoying the beginning of the holiday ironically.

Anyway, I believe I will find something exciting to do when I go back. Oh, it is very late already. Grabbing some shut-eye is what I need now, while my roommates are still playing. Later, people.

nightmare lesson

2006-11-02T21:01:00.000+08:00

;waiting with the ticket in my hand

It will take two more weeks before I went back to China. Cool right? Then I can reunion with my family and friends. Also, I can visit my previous school and my teachers. What else? Oh, yeah, traditional Chinese food and I do not forget the Tianjin Exchange Programme, which means some of the TA students will stay at MY previous school for two weeks. It will be a good opportunity to take them around and show them the school.

Alas, that will only happen two weeks later. Holding the flight ticket, I can do nothing but wait until we finish the three-week English lessons. We have almost finished one week’s lesson. Some teachers outside the school taught us, and I have to say, today’s lesson was almost a nightmare. A young substitute teacher outside the school came and taught us. For heaven’s sake, if it can be called TEACH!

We were supposed to learn debate and argue today, but the teacher had come late for an hour because she went to the wrong school. When we were debating, she just sat behind the table, using one arm to support her head and looks sleepy. I did not think she was listening to us. She did not give any comments according to the issue that we had debated, but moved on to the next session. Throughout the whole lesson, this substitute teacher from other school almost did not say a thing. Oh, she did say something! Thank you class and you can be dismissed was what she said!

I went to MPH straightly after lunch. I need to buy some book to widen my vocabulary. For the whole year I do read a lot of books to improve my English. But my vocabulary has only a little improvement. I never thought of widen my vocabulary and I barely checked dictionary when I was reading. Now it is time to do that.

But now I do not have any intent of studying. It is time to have some fun, and I also decide to grab some shut-eye earlier. Later, people.

new week starts

2006-10-31T15:27:00.000+08:00

;new week starts, and for
us, lessons have not finished yet

Still got English lessons on Monday. We started the lessons from nine A.M. to twelve. I had my lunch, some noodles and two pieces of Roti Prata, before I set off to Redhill to repair my laptop. My laptop has got some problem for almost the whole year, sometimes the fan did not work. But most of the time I tried to ignore it because I bought a pair of fan myself to prevent the laptop from overheating. Still, it was so inconvenient, so I decided to repair it recently.

I really hate taking bus, especially when I took bus all the way from Bedok to Redhill. I almost felt asleep on the bus, what worse, I waited at the service center for a long time before my turn. SUSPECT FAN FAULTY, SYSTEM GETS HEATED UP AND AUTO SHUTDOWN was how the person described the condition of my laptop. Then my laptop was sent to the office next door and I was told that I would get it back within three to five working days.

Taking the same bus went back, I felt a sense of relieve, maybe it was due to the fact that my bag was lighter. I took me almost one hour and a half to get to Bedok. I did not go to my hostel directly. Instead, I went to Parkway Parade for a hair cut. The stylist took one hour to style my hair and I went back right at the dinner time. The dinner ironically tasted very good as usual. But I did not mind, I could only have the chance to eat the traditional, delicious Chinese food at home.

The service center rang me in the evening. I was glad to know that my laptop had been mended. I was told to collect my laptop the next day, which is today. I did not have too much stuff to do in the evening without my laptop, but somehow I did not go to sleep so early.

After the dreamless night, I got up early. Well, not so early, but at least I could manage to reach the auditorium in time. Most of the people went back after that, but, yeah, we still have English lesson. We are going to mostly focus on oral during this session. After the lesson, when I am updating the blog, when I was typing rapidly, I suddenly think of something. I think of the moment I did my English composition a year ago when I just arrived in Singapore. And I think of what I am doing now. Well, besides my own effort, I think I have to thank all of you guys for helping me on my English, you guys always help me without complain, like JiaJin and Zhi Yang, who explain to me whatever I ask them, Sharon, who gave comments upon my English exercises and Johnny, who gave me suggestions on my pronunciation.

Thank you all again and see ya next year. I will update later.

the whole week before the holidays

2006-10-26T21:28:00.000+08:00

;The whole week before the holidays

Firstly, I decided to put an end of our OBS story. I have to remark that, well, kayaking is no fun but cool, as in nobody will think kayaking in the sun for hours, got sun burnt, taking a risk to become Bak Kua (got roasted), had a tough time in the muddy swamp is fun. But it is cool right? I mean kayaking is not what we can experience every day and when we finished kayaking and pull the kayak out of the water, I had a feeling of triumph. Anyway, I, and I believe you guys still miss OBS when we came back from Pulau Ubin.

I am going to stop talking about that now. OBS will be one of my unforgettable memories, and besides that I have something more to post. Got the rest of the promos results on Monday morning, and the PRCs had a barbecue at Bugis in the afternoon. The purpose of having barbecues is to indicate that we have been in Singapore for a whole year. Actually we should celebrate this moment on 17th October, but at that time we were in Pulau Ubin, so we delay the celebration and get together on that Monday. We found a café at Bugis Junction and settle down. The first thing was to fill our glasses with Coke, juice, ice lemon tea or whatever, and toasted (hopefully I am using the correct word). Cheers, for bonding together and helping each other for a whole year! Cheers!That was what we said, Bottoms up!

At least that was what I could remember what happened on Monday. I got up late on Tuesday and ate my brunch, some noodles, at Hawker Centre and came back to my hostel canteen right at noon to eat some fruit. I was lazy in that afternoon, so I did not go out, but carried on reading my vampire novel.

Got lessons the next day and Thursday, not too much stuff to do, but at least I would not be getting bored as in I did not need to stay in the hostel for a whole day. People started to hand in there subject combination form. A lot of them take humanities. But I did not take any of them. Aiya, I have considered about all the possibilities, but after due consideration, I decided to take triple science. I like geog really, especially volcano and weather and other stuffs. For history, I also like it, especially the period of World War Two, the period so called the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. Still, after thinking about the subjects I am going to take in TA3, I made up my decision, and that was the reason I take only triple science.

Today, 26th October, is also the last time that 1D get together. Sad right? We are going to be allocated into different classes the next year. We ate cakes, chatted with each other and took photos. That was really a quite happy afternoon. Although it was short, I was going to enjoy it. I miss 1D. Still, the thing that is supposed to happen will happen anyway, and we have to learn to accept it as it happens.

Overboard Boating Spur

2006-10-22T18:06:00.000+08:00

;Overboard Boating Spur

Erm, well, I think there is no need to describe what we did during the OBS session, but I want to share some of my feelings with you guys.

Well, firstly, I have to say this course gave me a chance to learn more about the history of Singapore. I am glad to learn more about the history and culture of Singapore, as I am going to live in Singapore for a long time and I try not to be an outsider.

I learnt about Singapore’s history from the watches, as in they are named after the people who made sacrifices for Singapore. For example, well, I was really perplexed when I heard about Bo Seng for the first time. I did not know who is he until one of my friends told me he was a Singapore national hero during World War Two.

Also, I made more friends during this course because some of the activities needed inter-watch communication, especially the 6-hour-kayaking. Although the tide rose and we did not need to carry the kayak in the muddy swamp, I have to say that it was still a tough time because we had to overcome some other difficulties like sunburns, waves, tree roots, tiredness and of course the leaking kayak. So, yeah, for the whole session, the emotions of my buddy and I went up and down, both figuratively and literally. After kayaking hours in the swamp we still could not see the sea, and we really went bobbing up and down, all thanks to the leaking kayak.

At last the water level in the kayak was the same as the sea level, but we capsized twice. Once was because we intended to avoid the branches of the trees and the kayak lost its balance, the other time was that we capsized purposely due to the reason that we got too much water inside the kayak and we could not handle the boat. So we kept talking about submarine and the Titanic for the whole session. Our kayak was going to sink when we were near the shore, but we decided not to capsize again. So we maintain the poor leaking Titanic and landed on the shore. End of the story was what I could say for kayaking then, and end of the post is what I can say now.

the arrival of juniors

2006-10-14T11:11:00.000+08:00

;the arrival of juniors,
post-promos activity,
and the one down two to go

11th October is one of the most thrilling days of this week. We are supposed to meet two teams (One team was from Tianjin and the other one was from Jiangxi) of our juniors at nine. However, when we arrived at Changi Airport, we found out that the two flights that took off from Tianjin and Jiangxi were delayed. And we had to wait for almost two and a half hours.

Well, what could we do? Hanging around the airport might help us to spend some time. My friend and I found a nice bookstore, and we spent most of the time there.
Actually I did not want to go to any bookstore. I had spent too much on books. Well, you know, sometimes I really hate buying books. Of course I would like to choose the best one to my, but the thing is, the best books always got series, which means I need to buy all of them, like my vampire novels, if I want to have the whole collection of them. No wonder it cost me a lot!

When we got bored, we went back to the entrance of Terminal One, where the Jiangxi teams would went out after they fetched their luggage at belt sixteen. The arrival timetable had shown that the plane had landed. We were more anxious, pacing up and down, back and forth. Finally, the glass door slipped open, they went out. Soon the Tianjin team joined us. We went back by a booked bus, and the juniors also got a lot stuff to do in the hostel. I went to sleep at three A.M.

I did not be able to attend most part of the post-proms activity on the next day and the following day, because I needed to hang out with my juniors. Actually, I did not attend the last post-promos activity at all on the day when the proms result came out because of this. I soon got my maths and English scripts. I did well in English paper. Then we went back to LT3 when the science scripts would be returned to us. I could see that most students had the same opinion, which is return bio scripts, the one they did well first, and return physics scripts last. But we got our chem promo scripts first, then bio. I looked so bad when I saw my bio paper, but when I realized some people started to cross their fingers, I knew the physics scripts were returning back. Still, bio is the only paper I did so badly.
Next week got OBS, still got stuff to buy. Will be busy these days. But I know I’ll have something more to write after the event.

post-promos

2006-10-09T20:49:00.000+08:00

;post-promos, and I mean POST-promos

Today was the last day of our promos. Actually I was not aware that all the promos had been finished at the end of the geog paper. I concentrated on the paper so much. Wrote fast and convert all my knowledge into ink and letters. Hence, I was really shocked, and I mean shocked when the teacher announced the paper was end and we could go and some girls cheered, screamed and swooned. I took a deep breath, took off my jacket and fetched my bag. Anyway, they were right. We have done it.

More things come out. Our juniors will come within two days. Some other peole and I am going to bring them around. But that also meaned that I will miss my post-promos activities. Actually I don't want to miss it, not even I haven't tried it yet. So sad, huh? But never mind, I knew that when a person loses something, he will gain something anyway. It will be fun with the seventeen new juniors.

I also prepare to buy stuffs for the OBS, which is coming soon. I even have to go to whatever shops in Lavender to buy whatever will be needed. I will update more frequently the following days. Now I have do have some fun! See you, guys!

my promos revision

2006-10-08T22:35:00.000+08:00

;revision of humanities

as what I have mentioned before, I am studying hard on humanities. But because I did not study them until this friday, when I finished the higher chinese promo, and for humanities really have a lot to revise, I have to study for two days without going anywhere. That really was not fun. Summarising, reading notes,looking through powerpoint made me so tired. I need to have some shut-eye for one hour or two before I proceed to the next part of the revision. But actually I could not sleep well when I had my naps, due to the fact that I had not finished my humanities. Anywhy, I felt asleep reluctantly and gained some more energy to study. I'll try my best tomorrow. Again- all the best, guys.

just an update

2006-10-06T19:02:00.000+08:00

;just an update

hmm...haven't updated since,well,anyway, a long time ago.What I am thinking is nothing more that the promos. Preparing for promos, having promos. Do questions,have problems, solve the problems, read through notes etc. I'll not stop until next Monday. Yeah, and I'll be busy again. Post-promos, hmm,should be fun lah, I don't know, at least I can have a break after these activity. Really tired.I don't see I get anything interesting to write. But I believe I'll have some later. Now all the best for the humanities promos!

release of stormbreaker and ordinary days

2006-09-18T15:59:00.000+08:00

;release of stormbreaker
and the following ordinary days

Sigh. I'm still waiting for the release of my favourite movie stormbreaker. Have read the book stormbreaker before, but I just wonder what the movie like. I really don't know the release date. What I only can do is just waiting, and watching the trailer again and again.
The days that after the first day of term four is ordinary. I'm sure you guys can imagine what are they like. I was relieved when our group finish presenting the last presentation of this year. At least we'll not be bothered by the projects, but revision pracitce questions are overwhelming, and I also make myself to do more questions. It rains. The bright lightning casts through the dull sky instantly. Rains pour down. But that make no difference. Still got subjects to revise, still got questions to do.
Got PE tomorrow. Have fun guys!

First day of term four

2006-09-12T17:31:00.000+08:00

;the first day of term four

Just as what I have expected, the first day of the new terms is busy. Perhaps it was because I didn't experience busy days during the holiday, but actually, 'busy' may not be an accurate word to describe it. Well, it just made me so busy that I thought it was meaningful.
Got PE after the first lesson. To my surprise, we were not asked to run around the school, but played games. And the game was, well, I really was no good in playing soccer, I barely kicked the soccer ball before. So, yeah, really don't know how to play it. The first round was with 1e, kicking the ball to everywhere, it seemed to me that no one cared about the scores. We lost. Then with 1b, which I knew the number of the 1b guys was greater than us without counting. Anyway, I don't know what was going on. Some guys from 1b was on our side, then we played. Quite fun right? Was that soccer games? Laughters were around the field. Kicking in front of the gate, and missed. Almost laughing his head off. Then we won, won thirty push-up.
I realized that I forgot to bring the advertisement for the bio presentation. My peers' mouths dropped open. I decided to go back and get it during the lunchtime, without noticing that my jacket was lost. Coming back contentedly with the advertisement, I had the lunch. But our group didn't present in the afternoon because that was no time.
Finally, got lots of homework. Preparing to start now...

regret

2006-09-05T17:40:00.000+08:00

People sometimes regret, when they are given a lesson or they benefit,because they are thinking about why they cannot realize it before they have been given a lesson or if they realize it, they could have benefited more.

So that's what I'm trying to say. I regreted before. When I was in my previous school, we got a lot of maths competetion. I thought I would never win the competetions, so I never tried. Yeah, so you guys know what's my feeling now. After the elective of term three, which was my first elective that having with local students, I knew a lot of new friends. I regret that I didn't choose to join such elective before. Because it would give me more chance to know more about the local students. Now,I'm trying my best to get to know the local students and make more friends.

routine

2006-09-04T17:13:00.000+08:00

Staring at the screen and I didn't know what to type. What a routine day. Just as what you guys can imagine. And I'm updating my blog as a routine.

Sort of busy and stressed because still have a lot of stuff to do. Going to the school library and had lunch at hawker center. Having English makeup lesson in the afternoon, and before dinner, I found myself here, updating the blog. Tonight will be busy. Tomorrow is the same.

Routine.

yesterday

2006-09-03T10:55:00.000+08:00

decided to talk about what I did yesterday, well, it'll be very short so u guys'll not think this is an essay.

Well, I had to get up early for English makeup lesson. Doing some comprehension and summary. Spent most of the morning to do this. Fortunately, the hour before lunch was spare, so I had a rest. I didn't go to the dining hall in time. Well, of course it's my fault. What I saw was that the delicious food were all gone, just had some lukewarm vegetables, that might be Luke forget to warm it up. hahas. Doing some study in the afternoon and came to the dinner time. I decided to go out to breathe some fresh night air after dinner. Yeah, so I found myself in the shopping mall, just for some night air. Coming back, although feeling refreshed, it's time for me to sleep!

Sharing some of my Past

2006-09-02T09:08:00.000+08:00

Hahas. Share some of my past with u guys. Here is the experience that I came to Singapore the first time.

We left the airport and went to the hostel directly. I saw the streets of Singapore the first time, as well as the tropic trees that standing on either side of the streets. The street lamps were a blur for me and I was quite happy to see the magnificent scene.

We stopped just in front of our hostel and we started to unload our luggage. I looked up and identified the tall building in the darkness. We came into the building and with one of our seniors help, we pulled our luggage into a lift and went into a lift and went to level ten.

I felt hot after I pulled my luggage into the room. It might be because of the fact that I had done a lot of work, or it might be because of the moist climate here. I glanced at the clock. Eleven. It was too late. I decided to go to bed. But for an hour I could not sleep.

It was not my bed, I thought, the bed was not as soft as mine. The pattern on the bedsheet was unfamiliar and the wall was empty. Tomorrow my old friends would not call me and I would not see them for months, and I could not buy my favorite magazine in the bookshop. What I should speak would be English but not Chinese.

There were so many things I had to be concerned with. But I was so tired now, and fell asleep soon.

Two months had passed. I could see the progress of my English. I could talk with teacher easier and I had used to the local cultures and lift styles. However, the new term had not begun yet. I had not met the local students and I did not know the method of teaching in Singapore. But anyway, I felt more confident to cope my surroundings well.

The first term began after the Chinese New Year. In China we could see shows at that time.

The school was full of local students. They talked to each other rapidly. They made jokes at each other as well, as if they had known each other for a long time. I stood rigidly and stared at them nervously. How could I communicate with them? Some of them were going to be my classmates. All of us were students of the school but it seemed that I did not belong to them. I was confused and disorientated.

The Orientation started. We sat in the auditorium. I stared at the chairman of the student council. Her lips moved rapidly but I had no idea what she was talking about. In contrast, the local students knew everything the chairman said. The nodded and laughed, filling the forms quickly. And I had my mouth dropped open, did not know what was going on. I was perplexed and almost stunned. Their faces were a blur and the voices that uttered from them were overwhelming, just liked flood.

I found that I could not accept what I saw. I could not cope with it, because everything that was unfamiliar to me happened very quickly at the same time. They were further beyond my estimation and limit. However, I had prepared for this. When I was on the plane, I had told myself that I was going to face challenge. I had known that Ii must go ahead. I must face a period which was hard. For the whole term, I tried my best to get to know the local students by communicating to them. We did projects together, we thought together, we discussed together, and we presented our group work together. And I found that we had knew each other much better and we could understand each other. I also found that it was easier to communicate with them and I had got used to the method of teaching and the local cultures.

I began to realize living and studying in Singapore was not difficult anymore. I was comfortable here. I was happy because I had friends and colourful life, I was not alone because I had got used to the surroundings. I was much more confident.

Te way is long, I have adjusted myself and I know that I will face some other problems. It just likes a twisting road which is bumpy. I should overcome the problems and carry on walking along the road which leads to my future with confidence.

the langart night

2006-09-01T19:24:00.001+08:00

The lights were turned on. People stood up and started moving to the entrance of the auditorium.

I went out of the auditorium thoughtfully.

Due to the overwhelming feelings after watching the Langart Night, I decided to write something down to help me remember this unforgettable night.

Well, I had watched this kind of drama during the Contact Time before. However, the Langart Night is different. During the Contact Time, we just watched one drama for one hour and what I felt was that the drama was quite interesting and a lot of students had put great effort in it. After watching the Langart Night, I had some more feelings that were not just commenting whether the stories were interesting or not. I love English, this language even more than before!

Firstly, the Langart Night lasted for two hours and a half. This was a long time indeed, and continuously what I heard was English, hence naturally I felt the effect of English the first time.

Secondly, the Langart Night gave me an opportunity to appreciate other people’s story. I really enjoyed their perspective and their thinking about human, love, life and death. And to my surprise, I found out that they could think very deeply and they were just like philosophers. Again, the thought about life and death were shown in the drama, which began with the legend of Adam and Eve.

Thirdly, I realized how important English is, and how convenient it will be if I can be able to use this language. Actually, when I was in primary school, I was taught that English is one of the most important languages. I knew this fact. But after the experience of tonight, I felt about this on my own the first time.

Furthermore, I have the intent to be a student sitting in the Langart classroom and have the opportunity to play a role in the dramas. Moreover, I realized how much effort I should put into if I want to use English more comfortably. I will learn even harder from now on and make my dream come true.

Design the Blog

2006-09-01T18:31:00.000+08:00

Oh...I took me the whole afternoon to design it!

So excited

2006-09-01T18:14:00.000+08:00

Wow, so excited. I got my blog today!