Assiduous Magnesium Carbonate...

2004-11-14T23:02:00.000+05:30

Reflection for 2004 (part 2)

Hello, everyone. This is Part 2 of my reflection for 2004. In part 1, I had written my reflection on whether I had been successful in life this year. Here, I would like to carry on to the next part of my reflection: friends and teachers.

In terms of friendship, my life had revolved around my friends from 2D as well as CO. Many of my friends in class were those from 1A 2003, like Alvin Aw, Jian Ting, Chong Chen, Wei Lun, Yuan Chang, Kai Yao..., yet I had made some more friends like Alvin Kuk, Zhi Yi, Zheng Xiang, Hun Sheng, etc. These numerous friends had helped me weathered through this stormy 2004 and I really cherish their friendship. With so much hardship this year, I would not have been able to survive without them. Looking back at our shared experiences, I would really like to thank those who had lent me a helping hand in times of turbulent and difficulty. Here, even though I would not write about every single member of 2D like what Alvin Kuk did in his blog, I would like to adopt a similar approach and reflect upon a few friends whom have made the greatest impact on my life this year.

Alvin Aw

Nicknamed "Big-head Garoupa", I have to admit that this fish is indeed "big-headed" and brainy (meant to be a compliment), being outstanding in almost all subjects, including Chinese, English, Maths, Science, Geography and Literature, which are the subjects that he had managed to be the top few in class, with Maths and Geography being his "tian1 xia4". One particular point about him is his ability to balance extremely well between subjects that are literary in nature and subjects that are scientific in nature, unlike most people, who tend to be "slanted" to one side. Of course, being such a brillant person, he is thus good in Chinese Chess as well as numerous computer games. A really helpful and peaceful person.

Alvin Kuk

A good friend and fellow councillor who is pro in IH and English, thus a very peotic person. He is also very artistic, being an active AEP member. Even though we were in different classes last year, it had been my pleasure in knowing him as such a good friend. However, I admit that I had done several things that I feel were very dui4 bu4 qi3 ta1. Sorry! And by the way, all the best for his upcoming book!

Chong Chen

Indeed a friend who has helped me a lot this year. I had knwn him since last year, and since, I had known him to be and admirable friend who is reliable. Recalling the times in 1A, he was the class Geography Rep, who seems to be "bullied" by Mr Liaw a little. However, he was extremely jin4 ze2, helping the class a lot Geography class, unlike me (being year's Geography Rep).

Jian Ting

A very funny dragonfly who had helped me a lot in Maths this year. Even though many people tend to think that he is lame, he is actually a very reliable and forgiving person who definitely is fun-loving. Hope to be in the same class as him next year!

Kai Yao

The most deserving recipient of the "Friends of Singa Award". Kai Yao is definitely one of the most helpful person on earth, being willing to lend a helping hand no matter what happens even if he hsa to sacrifice a huge amount of time and energy. He is an extremely kind person who even helps Aphelion council in clearing up stuff after many events even though he is not a councillor. He is also a computer expert who had imparted a lot of computer knowledge to me in the past two years. Remembering the past, he had helped me a lot on the day before the semi-finals as well as the day before the finals of Project's Day, where he had stayed up late from 10.00p.m to 5.30a.m in the morning just to help me complete my work! For all that he had done for me as well as the class, or even Aphelion Council, I truly appreciate his tremendous help. Even though it is not possible to be in the same class as him next year, I sincerely wish him the best in year 2005.

Of course, there were others whom I did not have much chance to interact with, but I would like to wish them the best all the same. Together, we make up Class 2D, with an unbeaten record 23 1.00s and talents in all aspects, unrivaled, unparalleled and unsurpassed by any other Sec 2 class. Thus, I can say that it had been an honour to be part of this class.

Now, I will go on to the teachers that had taught me this year. Overall, all the teachers were really very good in their teaching whom I respects.

Ms Vivien Sim

Our form teacher. Even though she is not a very popular teacher in 2D, I feel that she still good teacher who had imparted her history knowledge to us. Being my mentor for MRP, I would like to thank her for her help and support for these part few gruelling months in the course of the MRP. Without her, I and Zhi Yi would not have been able to acheive what we had for our MRP.

Mdm Chiu Chen Choo (Chiu lao shi)

Chiu lao shi is indeed a very good Chinese teacher who had imparted a lot of precious knowledge on chun1 lian2, deng1 mi2, tian1 gan1 di4 zhi1, etc. I definitely respects her a lot. One memorable experience was when she called me to her table and told me that once she exempts me from exams, she would like me to practise on making my handwriting better, with the same going for Yuan Chang. But is my handwriting really too slanted?

Mrs Lily Chai

Being our English teacher, she is well known for the tremendous amount of notes and worksheets she prints for us. The amount is truly shocking, since it took two whole ring fiels to fit in all her worksheets. However, she is quite a nice English who occasionally flares up.

Mrs Teo Chin Chew

The best LSS teacher on Earth. I would definitely miss her teaching once I go on to Sec 3. if not for her, my Science would never be able to obntain A1 and exemption. I am eternally grateful for her superb way of teaching that is unmatched and supreme to any Science teacher in the world. Throughout her decades of teaching, she has really didicated her life to teaching.

Mrs Teng-Chia Fui Ling

A dedicated Maths teacher who had helped me tremendously in Maths. Given that my Maths is one of the lousiest in class this year, I am grateful for her help. Even though her method is a little unsuitable for me, she is indeed a nice teacher.

Ms Yap Hui Boon

A new Georaphy teacher in Chinese High, I think she had endured quite a lot of hardship since she entered CHS, given the complex system in CHS as well as the implemenatation of IP. Nevertheless, she is a good geography teacher and I would like to thank her for giving me the chance to be her Geography rep.

Mrs Cheryl Wong

Mrs Wong is qute a nice Literature teacher. Remembering the war poems, Animal Farm, Emily of Emerald Hill, Calling of Kindred, she had taught us quite a lot on the differnt literary styles.

So the above was the second part of my reflection for 2004. Perhaps the reflection on every single teacher was unneccessary and I may have been a little carried away in this part 2 reflection, nevetheless, this is the complete end-of-year reflection. Currently, my last challenge of the year is the Erhu Grade 6 and 7 Exams, which is just about 3 weeks away. Wish me good luck! Bye!

2004-10-31T23:35:00.000+05:30

Reflection for 2004 (part 1)

Hello, everyone. Finally, Term 4 has finally came to end, marking the end of normal school days of 2004. Looking back at all that had happened in the year, I have so much to say. It seems like all has been a dream. Every single test and exam, every single member of Class 2D, all that has happened in Chinese Orchestra and Aphelion Council, all the stress and hard work of MRP, Project's Day, the everyday challenges of school life under IP... all this had been an integral part of my life this year. This had been a intense year of turmoil and hardship, yet it has also been a year filled with laughter and happiness. Summing it up, I feel that "da4 feng1 da4 lang4" would be suitable in describing the year 2004.

Initially, I had planned to write a summary of this year only at the more "exact" end of the year, somewhere during mid-december, after my Erhu Grade 6 and 7 Exams. However, somehow, I feel that this is the time to pour out all my thoughts and feelings on this year. This blog has served as an online journal or diary that has served to record my most sincere feelings throughout 2004, and will continue to do so. Now, I would like to record down my reflections in a systematic order. Firstly, I will do an analysis of how successful this year had been.

The goals that I had set last year for 2004:

To get an MSG of 1.00
To get into the finals for Project's Day

The above had been my goals for this year. Have I achieved them? To a large extent, my answer is yes. For the end-of-year results, I had managed to achieve my dream of 1.00 along with 23 members of the class (23 out of 36 1.00s in a class is a truly remarkable record--23 people got 1st for 1.00, 7 people got 24th for 1.17, 4 pple got 31st for 1.33 and 2 pple got 35th for 1.8, so the class average MSG is 1.114). However. have I truly done it? Or have I managed to achieve that only with the help of ACE points? Actually, my estimation is that if my marks had been considered under the old system, I would have most likely gotten only an MSG of about 1.7. Actually, deep down, I know that my results have deteriorated, maybe even plunged this year, especially for History and Maths. Besides, I knew that for Geography, I had not put in enough effort, in other words, I did not study hard enough of Geography. So do I really have what it takes to get 1.00?

Finals for Project's Day. Indeed, I have achieved that. However, despite getting into the finals for Project's Day, my score was a B, and not an A, as the usual case of a "finals" project. So can I consider my project successful? Besides, I admit that I was forced into doing this project with Nicholas this year. I knew that my interest is not in fishes, yet I was indecisive enough. Worse still, I had lian2 lei3 Alvin Aw, Chong Chen and Jian Ting. Would things be different if I had made a firm decision in Term 1? Was my choice correct?

Besides the goals that I had made, there are still other aspects that I had to consider. Was I succesful in council and CO? Despite putting in much effort for Aphelion Council, it seems that what I have done is still not enough. As for the CO elections this year, I had also made a mistake of not preparing well for my speech. However, can I be considered successful if I had made so many blunders this year?

Of course, there are indeed areas that I have done relatively well in this year. For MRP, even though eventually, mine could not compare to Yuan Chang's, I think that my research paper was still fairly well done. However, I must note that this was also done with the help of my partner, Zhi Yi, so for this, I must really thank him.

So the above was my reflection on how successful I had been in life this year. Late liao, so I will have to continue my reflection of 2004 in the next blog entry. Bye.

2004-10-28T14:14:00.000+05:30

Hello, everyone. It has been quite a long time since I blogged. Sorry lar... too lazy to blog often liao. Sorry...

Actually, I have lots of things to talk about since much has happened since the last time I blogged. Firstly, I have gotten back my Maths Exam paper: 62/80 (77.5%) The results were quite okay, even though I would not consider it satisfactory. Initially, I thought that about 10 marks would be deducted, but in fact, it was 18 marks. Haiz, I'm really quite bai4 lei4 lor... how could I get such low marks even though the paper was not too difficult? But the good thing is that in overall, my Maths results should be A1 (78.675%, which rounds up to 79%). The calculations are as below:

Term tests [30%]: 19.8% + ACE [15%]: 155 with additional 5 marks + OP [10%]: 4% +Exam [45%]: 34.875% = 78.675%

However, this is just based on my calculations. If my calculations are wrong, I may not be able to get A1 for Maths...

Next, on Erhu matters, the most recent news is that I have finally managed to buy the last available Grade 9 Erhu (as my teacher called it). This new Erhu's quality is definitely superior as compared to my old one. It is made of red sandalwood (紫檀木) , and cost $1270. Actually, I had "snatched" it away from a nanyang erhu member who was also eyeing this particular erhu. According to my other teacher, this erhu would have been taken by her if I had ordered it one day later. *Phew* As this is really the very last Erhu of its batch, plus the new customs regulations in China limiting the number of Chinese musical instruments to be taken out of China at one time, I may have to wait till next year before I can obtain it if I had missed this rare chance.

Now, let me carry on to the more recent news, including Games Day, Graduation Night, HAT interview, EOYA, etc.

20th October (Wednesday) -Annual Cross-country
This was an unfortunate day for me. The whole school was supposed to go down to MacRitchie Reservior for the annual 4.8 km cross-country run. At first, the run went quite smoothly and I ran with Jian Ting and Alvin Kuk. However, when I was about 100m away from the "opening" of the forest trail leading to the path beside the road, I tripped over some big rocks on the ground and fell - right in front of the "St. John station", where three or four St. John's guys where stationed. This resulted in two big wounds on my left arm and left knee. Of course I was treated to first aid by the St. John's people. But surprisingly, they seem to be a little inexperienced in their work. Even though they were indeed commendable for their care and concern, I think that their actual "skills" have erm... room for improvement. (Sorry to any St. John guys out there... I don't mean to criticize...) Later, a teacher (forgot who liao) and two of the St. John guys took a bus back to the main waiting area. Since I did not bring my wallet while running, one of the St. John guy paid for my bus fare. Then, they escorted me to the ambulance hired by the school. The paramedics there then helped to further cleanse the wound.

After the whole episode, I went to Alvin Aw's house to play, even though I was not the one playing most of the time. Aw demostrated how to play many different games there, the "Teo CC style" (he explained the whole concept in depth and precision), so even though I did not play much, the whole expereince was quite enjoyable. We also watched the Jap Animation series "Prince of Tennis". It was quite exciting, so I asked him to copy for me. I went home at about 6 plus.

21th October (Thursday) -Unlucky
Thursday proved to be an extremely unlucky day for me. The first thing I heard from Alvin Kuk was that there is council appraisal (3.00p.m) and also the Hwa Chong Award for the Talented (HAT) interview (2.00p.m) on that day. After which, Chiu lao shi also informed that the talk (2.00p.m) by Singaporan's famous writer, song composer, etc, Mr Liang Wen Fu (is the actual name Leong Boon Hock?) was also on the same day. I badly wanted to goi for the talk, since I had always respected him, but since there was a clash in timing between the talk and the interview, I decided to approach Mrs Kee to see if the time for the interview could be postphoned to a later date or time. So I got scolded and niaoed badly by Mrs Kee for this. So I was already very bu4 shuang3 by that time. Then I decided to look for Chiu lao shi, who also niao me. Eventually, the decision was to go for the interview and not for the talk.

Besides this, there were some minor problems, like the need to look for people to compete in Games Day on Friday as well as a survey by Ms Chan Shu Hwee on the MRP that came at a wrong time. The only good thing that happened to me was the screening of a movie in Com Rm 5, "The Day After Tomorrow". Mainly, it revolved around the idea of how global warming can lead to a new ice age and the destruction of mankind. The whole phenomenon occured in the Northern Hemisphere but the movie actually focused on America. The most "shocking" part was the idea of anything freezing instantly. Overall, thsi movie was very intresting. The funny thing was that it was raining heavily when we were watching the movie, and the air-con in the room was extremely cold, making phenomenon in the movie seem to be real.

22th October (Friday) -Games Day
Friday was quite an enjoyable day. It was marked as Games Day by the PE Department, so there were no lessons on that day. There were four different competitions: Table-tennis, Soccer, Street Soccer and Basketball. Each consortium had to send representatives for each competition (for tow levels, Sec 2 and 3). For non-competitors (or the general student population), we were given a choice to play Squash or learn golf. Since there were too many people at the squash courts, Kai Yao and I decided to learn golf. So we went to the "putting green" behind the tennis courts. We learnt the different golf techniques there. It was quite a fun experience.

After which, both of us proceeded to the squash courts, wehere we met Hun Sheng and Zheng Xiang playing chapteh. So we joined in and taught Kai Yao hoiw to kick. So we played for about an hour before assembling at the basketball court for debriefing.

23th October (Saturday) -Graduation Night
On Saturday, I went to school for the Sec 4 Graduatiuon Night after my haircut. There was no CO practice due to the implementation of the five-day week. I was late for the ceremony by 15min cos Kai Yao told me that it would start at 4.00p.m, but in fact, it was 3.15p.m. So I was happily taking my time to go to school. I called Yuan Chang at 3.10p.m just before I went out to confirm the time, and it was only then that I realized the actual time. So I took a taxi to rush to school. Haiz... never expected to be late, I even though that I would arrive early by 5min... But then I cannot blame Kai Yao, since it was Jian ting who told him that.

Anyway, the ceremony was ok lah, but somehow it did not seem as sian as last year's. Alvin Kuk brought his "talking dictionary" to play word games. The dictionary seemed a bit old, but was nevertheless interactive. As ususal, the Sec 4 seniors were all dressed in black and white, with the Chinese High tie. The whole ceremony was grand, but the speeches by the ex-students were a bit irrelevant. The good thing about this year's ceremony was that we did not have to stack uyp the chairs before we leave. Here, I would like to wish all the Sec 4s all the best in their 'O' Levels.

26th October (Tuesday) -STRIKE!
Tuesday was the second day of the End-of-Year Activities (EOYA). However, the unfortunate thing was that I was sick that day, with cough, vomiting and fever. But I still trudged on and went to school. However, by the time I got to the Admin block, I was already seriously ill and unable to breathe or walk at all. But miraculously, I managed to talk part in the whole day's activities, including the movie screening at the Drama Centre as well as bowling.

After watching the movie, we took the bus to Jurong Bowl. (is the place correct?). However, thoughout the bus ride, I was feeling extremly nauseuous, so Chong Chen helped me to approach Ms Sim, who was sitting at the front of the bus with Mr Paul Ho. I followed Ms Sim's instructions to sit at the front to make me feel better.

At the bowling alley, I felt slightly better and decided to take part in the bowling. However, since I was sick, I decided not to put my name in a slot as I thought that I would not be able to bowl. So my initial plan was to ask Chong Chen, Alvin Aw, Alvin Kuk, Jian Ting, Huang Pei and Wei Lun for a few shots to try. Eventually, I ended up obtaining the few shots from Alvin Aw, Alvin Kuk and Jian Ting. But I never expected my first few shots to be so good. I helped Jian ting to get 21 points with four shots: 9, 8, 0 and 4. However, my best shot was when I used the first shot of one of Alvin Aw's frames to obtain a strike. This was definitely unexpected since I had never striked before. Furthermore, I was sick that day, which adds to the difficulty of hitting the pins. So I was quite shocked by it. However, my shots were quite inconsistant. Since all three shots that I took from Alvin Kuk went into the "drain". So this proved that my bowling skills are still not very good and needs improvement.

After the first round, I decided to continue for another round. However, my performance for the second round was terrible. The accumulated points shown on the screen were something like
8, 15, 18, 25, 25, 25, ... 32. So as you can see, for three consecutive shots, I did not manage to hit down a single pin. The highest of the game was Alvin Kuk, who got more than 50 points. actually, I could have been able to catch up with Alvin, who also got 25 at the forth frame of the game, but I missed the chance.

After the bowling session, the whole of 2D went back to school for a Servey conducted by MOE. The questions were about the school, so 90% of my answers were "politicallly correct" answers. After the survey, I went home to rest and see a doctor.

27th and 28th October (Wednesday and Thursday) -Rest
Since I was quite ill, I did not go to school these two days.

So basically, that's all for this entry. Sorry that this entry is a bit too long. Bye!

2004-10-14T13:37:00.000+05:30

Yay!!!!!! The exams are finally over. Even though I only have to work on Maths and the Oral Defence with exemption from the other subjects, my workload for the past few days was still quite taxing, given that my Maths is so poor... Hereby, I would like to thank Alvin Aw, Alvin Kuk, Chong Chen, Yuan Chang, Jian Ting and Zhi Yi for helping me with Maths in the days before the Maths Exam.

As for yesterday Oral Defence, it was relatively ok. My classroom was 1M, and I and Zhi Yi were the first to present, thus I had quite a lot of time after that. However, I kind of screwed up a bit cos the opponents don't seem to understand me since I talked too fast. So i did not present well at all lar. Haiz... Never mind lor... can't do anything now...

Today was the last day of the option for the Sec 3 Special Programmes. Eventually, I chose the Language Elective Programme + Science and Maths Research Programmes after 14 hours of gruelling decision-making. I made this decision after intensive analysis of statistics, weighing of the possible consequences of choosing BSP or LEP and discussion with people for 3 days. In fact, after the OD, I was in the library trying to reach a decision till 4.30p.m. Eventually, I made this decision at 1.30a.m (or you can say today morning) after discussing and quarrelling with my mother. come to think of it, why did I take so much time to decide? I think I'm the only one who would use so much time to choose. Haiz... never thought this would drain so much of my energy. People may feel that using so much time and energy is silly, but then I think its quite worthwhile. Just hope that my choice is correct.

I went to Jian Ting's house today, after going to school for the briefing on the open house tomorrow. The briefing was a bit of a waste of time, since I don't think it made things any clearer. Anyway, I reached JT's house at about 3.30p.m. The two Alvins and chong chen were already there, playing RA2. So I tried one game lar, but still don't know how to play. Then we left his house at about 5.45p.m. Even though nothing much was accomplished there, it was quite enjoyable.

Basically, that's all for today. Somehow, I don't feel like blogging much today, so thsi entry bis relatively short. Bye!

2004-09-22T20:09:00.000+05:30

DIE LIAO!!! I'm really dead. I have just came back from the National University of Singapore Cultural Centre where I attended the talk on the NUS Grade 6 Erhu Examinations. This talk was by my Erhu teacher (since the Grade Exams scores books for Erhu were also written by him). I never expected it to be so hard, the difficulty involved is really terribly scary. Initially, I had thought that it is just a little more difficult than the Grade 7 one by the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and China Central Conservatory of Music. However, it seems that the NUS one is really numerous times more difficult than the CCM one. And I'm really running out of time, since both exams are just two months away! Aargh, I will be contented if I'm just able to get a pass for the NUS one, I won't dare to think of getting Merit or Distinction. Even though I have no regrets on taking two exams, i don't think it is advisable to try this again next year. Talking about next year, it will definitely be an even more stressing year than this year, which already drained me of my energy. With the different special programmes, sperate sciences, A and E Maths, the usual MRP and Project's Day, plus harder Erhu pieces, as well as the SYF Central Judging for Chinese Orchestras, 2005 will be an extremely tiring year ahead. Now I'm not sure whether I should take triple sciences. Haiz. As for Zhi Guang's instrumental grade exams (who is taking NUS Zhongruan Grade 8 according to Ben Toh), it will be chicken feet for him since he is so pro. I'm confident that he will get Distinction. Jia you!

Ok, enough of Erhu matters, I will focus on that after the End-of-Year Examinations. I have just gotten back the MRP Content and Procedural Knowledge. The marks are satisfactory, nevertheless, I have to prepare intensively for the Oral Defence. Currently, my main concern for the Exams are Maths and Science, especially Maths. I really must pia a lot to get A1. As for Science, mainly the most important thing is to refresh my memory on what had been taught in Term 1, 2 and 3, as well as to improve specific details on the method of answering the questions.

I feel so tired today... Can't really revise anything now... Actually, I doubt that I can post another entry in the near future. Maybe I will try to find some time after the exams, after which i HAVE to focus all my energy on the Erhu Grade exams. Sorry... Bye for now. I wish everyone all the beest in the upcoming school exams. Bye!

2004-09-04T22:43:00.000+05:30

Hi all. Finally, after gruelling months of anxiety, Term 3 has finally ended. For past years, I would have looked forward to Term 3 since it is supposed to be a "golden period" for studying as much of the knowledge is already in the head. However, never did I expect Term 3 of this year to turn out like that... haiz, depressing... but I'm quite fine already, thanks to support from my friends, Jian Ting, Chong Chen, Kai Qing, Zhi Guang, Kai Yao, Yuan Chang and many more, whom I cannot remember at this moment. Even Ms Sim gave me support and encouragement on Friday (due to my disgraceful History marks) and said that she would support me and fight for it if I wanted to go to the Humanities class next year. So hereby, I would like to say a big "Thank you" to all.

Anyway, it has just been announced that starting from next year, we would have a choice in what "stream" we would like to go. In the four classes of Aphelion, one would be a Humanities class, one a Biculture class, another a Maths and Sciences class and the last a "Special Talents" class. For me, I would definitely go for the Biculture class. In this class, the emphasize would be on the integration of Chinese and western cultures, with a major emphasise on Chinese Culture. The attractions would be two 3-month trip to China as well as a 2-week trip to a western country. Since I have always had tremendous intrest in Chinese culture, plus the fact that my two languages are my better subjects, this would be a suitable choice for me.

As for today, I took the Maths re-test. The re-test started at 9.00a.m and ended at 10.00a.m. The test was ok, except for the last question, which I took quite some time to solve. if nothing goes wrong (like mistakes in calculation), I should be able to obtain A1, perhaps close to full marks. Actually, during my revision for the re-test, I realized that actually I was able to get A1 for the actual test, but somehow, my mind went blank on that day. Sad... but as I have said before, my only wish for Term 3 is to be able to get an A1 in the Maths re-test. So I should be grateful that there was no major problems encountered during the re-test. But no matter what, I must work harder next term. Even though an MSG of 1.00 is nearly impossible, since I have to get close to full marks for Maths in the final year examinations (which is almost impossible) to get A1 for Maths, I will aim for 1.33, which was my MSG for Term 2. But alas, its still quite difficult...

So after the Maths re-test, I went back to MPH. At that time, Sin Hwee, our CO Chairman, was still addressing the whole CO on MAF. For your information, MAF stands for Mid-Autumn Festival, but in CO context, we celebrate it annually with a girls school's CO, usually, Nanyang, St. Nicholas, or RGS somewhere ner the actual MAF period (But this year's is early). This year, we are inviting St. Nicholas for this celebration. MAF is quite fun, but I did not get to enjoy it fully last year since I left early for something else (the event lasts the whole day). Anyway, after the briefing by Sin Hwee, we cleaned up the MPH for this event. After which, me, Ben, Chen Yang, Yao Hui, Lim Yi, and Randy went to buy a teddy bear and a cake to celebrate a late teacher's Day for our Erhu teacher, Zhang lao shi. So we bought a huge teddy bear for $30 from Bukit Timah Plaza and went KAP to eat, where we also bought the cake. Eventually, we went back to school and celebrated for Zhang lao shi. The cake was quite nice, but somehow, I seem to have eaten it before somewhere. It was a miracle that the cake was not smashed, as Lim Yi hit the box numerous times on the way back to CHS. So after this, I went home. But I regreted not practising Erhu went I got home. Instead I slept all the way till 7.30p.m, wasting lots of precious time. Haiz. And tomorrow I have Erhu lessons at 4.00p.m...

So basically that's all for today. Bye!

2004-08-28T20:58:00.000+05:30

Hello. I think after today, I may not have much time to blog again. Even though the September holidays are coming, I would most likely be spending a lot of time on revising Maths and practising Erhu. Anyway, today was a really extremely enjoyable day. If seems that this is one of the only few happy days this year (or perhaps the only one this term). So let me talk about what happened to day before I go on to other stuff.

Today I woke up surprisingly at 12.45p.m, which is unbelievably late, maybe due to all my weariness these past few days. Actually, there was no dazu practice today since today was the grand finals for Project's Day 2004. I had arranged with Yuan Chang to buy Teacher's Day gifts on behalf of the whole class somewhere during noon, as he had to compete in the Project's Day. (Sadly, he did not win) The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the fine weather today, which helped in creating a good atmosphere. Then I met Yuan Chang at West Mall to buy the gifts. (Never knew that there were so many gift shops around in West Mall. Very shi bai leh.) The gifts we bought for each teacher were all less than $5. In fact all were $3.90 with the exception of one, which was $4.90. Many of these were photo frames that we intend to put a class photo into. We bought a nicer gift for Ms Yap, our Geography teacher since it was her first year in The Chinese High to provide some encouragement for her. Yuan Chang bought a computer game in a shop (that i did not know the existence of) and we left.

After which, both of us went to my house to do some designing effort for the presents. Later, we went to play badminton near my block. This reminded me of the times in primary school when many people in our class would gather together after exams to play badminton. Then we played street soccer with some primary school kids. (Huh? When on was the street soccer court built?) So anyway, I had a good time with all this activities. Haiz, I never knew that exercising can help to release stress and relieve fatigue. I really should exercise more, I'm really not fit. So on the whole, today's joy was simple, yet fruitful and fulfiling for the body and soul. But this also proves that I do not know how to relax myself and allow stress and fatigue to build up in my body.

Next, I will touch on the Sec 2 Annual Camp that was held a few days ago, from the 23-25 of August, at CDANS Adventure Centre (Bukit Batok) and Chinese Gardens. I was in Group 12, and thus spent the first day of the camp at CDANS, which just a few streets away from my house. So hre is what happened...

Day 1
I went to school at the normal time, but somehow there was a traffic jam due to a car accident further down Dunearn Rd, so the bus I was in could only inched on bit by bit for 30min. Mind you, 30min. So I in the bus feeling very pissed off. Of course, I was late for school, along with I think about 100-150 people. Luckily our vice-principal and discipline master were kind enough to let us of without taking down our names, but warned us sternly. Later, I found out that Kai Yao was also late. Why did this have to happen? I'm really sad and was brooding over it for some time, even when I was in the bus to CDANS. I really must make an effort to come early next time in case of unforeseen circumstances.

Ok, so enough of that unfortunate incident. When we arrived at CDANS, we had a welcome speech, followed by pitching of our tent, which I shared with Zheng Xiang and Nicholas Loh on the first day. We were introduced to our trainer, Siti. Before starting on the activities, we had to design a group flag, group cheers and a group name. Eventually, we decided on the name, "Triumph" for the group. The first activities were the high-rope elements. I tried one of them, called Jacob's Ladder. We had to climb up to a height of two or three metres and walk across to the other end. Surprisingly, i was not really scared and I managed to complete it with the help of the belayer. Then, we had the low-rope elements. At that time, we managed to complete many of the activities extremely quick, with one of them only taking 2+min. However, I got injured during one the activity. After dinner, we were blindfolded and taken on a walk around the campsite. Group 11 were scolded by Ms Sim for drawing on a table during the designing of the flag. She was really mad with not only group 11 but all the groups. However, Alvin Kuk, who was in Group 11 late claimed that it was not their fault. After this, the instructors taught us many fun camp songs like the banana song, etc. Later, we went back to our tents to sleep. In the tent, Nicholas Loh treated me and Zheng Xiang resins to eat before sleep. So basically, that is what happened on the first day.

Day 2
On the next day, we set off for Chinese Gardens on foot. The trek there was killing lor, the trip was 6-7km and took about 3h. Our bags were so heavy and the hot sun drained us of our energy. But the stupid thing was that instead of entering from the entrance facing the MRT, we trudged on all the way round the back to the back of Japanese Gardens and entered from there. The reason given was that the management of Chinese Gardens forbid us to enter from that entrance. This turned out to be killing since this was the worst part of the journey.

When we arrived at the campsite, we gathered for instructions and had outdoor cooking, which served as our lunch. The food turned out disastrous but edible. Next, there was this amazing race, where we had to complete many tasks, including dragonboating, kayaking, first aid, backwoodman's cooking, strings and lashes (building a raft), etc. Previously, before the race, each of us had to attend a short lesson on either one of the activities mentioned above, and i went for first aid. During the race, the most memorable activity was the building of the raft. Even though I could not help much in the building of the raft due to lack of knowledge in ropes and lashes, I was one of the four who went into the water sitting on the raft to test whether it would float. We named it Titanic, but it proved otherwise and floated well. When the four of us were on the raft, we had to row some distance into water to further prove the raft's buoyancy. Eventually, i came out soaking wet, but it proved to be fun.

After all this, we were supposed to have a campfire, but it was cancelled due to the heavy rain. So instead, we have to hide in our tents. When the rain stopped, it was already time to sleep, so we slept in the tents...

Day 3
Day 3 was mainly packing up. After the morning exercise, we helped to un-pitch the tents and clean up the whole place. However, when it was time to set off back to school, it began pouring again. But this time the rain was so heavy that it blurred our vision. When we got onto the bus, everyone was soaked to the skin. So I chatted with Jian Ting and Alvin Kuk on the bus. When we finally arrived at The Chinese High, it was still raining. But it was very comforting to be back at CHS. After prize presentation and debriefing, we were dismissed.

So that is roughly what happened during the 3-day camp. It was quite a fun and memorable one. That's all for now, and perhaps quite some time since I think I should be quite busy again. Bye!

2004-08-27T18:48:00.000+05:30

Hello, everyone. Sorry... I finally found some time to blog only now. It has really been a term full of turmoil and upheaval that really drained away almost all of my energy. This term is not supposed to be extremely busy but somehow it proved to be a very straining one. I realized that I have missed a talking about a lot of events in this term, like Project's Day Finals and the like. So today, I will briefly talk about certain stuff that I have strong feelings about.

Firstly, let me touch on the all the test results. To sum it all up, I can say that I have never ever got such bad results for almost all of the subjects in Term 3. I really feel extremely devastated now to the largest extent. My Maths results were the worst I had gotten in any tests: 22/40. If you have read my blog for a long time, you would have knew that my Maths results in the first term was also terrible (23/40) and how upset I was over that. But this time it was worse. I really thought that my Maths should be improving since I obtained A1 for Maths last term. How on earth could this happen again? Even though I'm had always been poor in Maths, such results is untolerable. And then Alvin Aw got full marks. Now I have to go for Maths retest again... *sniff*

As for the other subjects, they were also unacceptable. I obtained 23 and 1/2 over 30 for Geography. This may seem ok since it was A1, but the problem is that i think 80%-90% of the class got higher than me. But the fault lies with me, since I spent too much time on History that night and did not revise much for Geography (the tests were on the same day, on after the other directly). And I think my History also die liao... Besides, I also obtained the lowest marks for Literature this year, 19/25. But I can't seem to think what went wrong. The irony is that I got 23/25 (I think) for the mock test that Mrs Wong gave us before the actual one and yet I got worst for the one which I revised for. Again, almost everyone got higher than me... Very zi bei. As for Chinese, I only got 80/100 for the main component, which is likewise the lowest I have gotten. But I'm really jiu4 you2 zi4 qu3 lor, the paper was fairly easy yet I did not really revise much for it. My composition was 53/70. On the surface, this result may seem good, however it is not as good as the first 2 terms. As for English, I screwed up and obtained B3 for the main paper. I really feel like crying... how can I obtain an MSG of 1.00? I think i will get 2.33 this term, to think I got 1.33 in Term 2... What happened?

Ok, enough of matters on studies. Now I will go on to CO stuff. My Erhu teacher has decided that all the Sec 2s will take the China Central Conservatory of Music Grade 7 examinations as well as the new NUS Grade 6 (equivalent of the Grade 7 one) exams. Even though this will mean more stress wil the additional number of songs, this is a good move since getting double certificates will give you an advantage. The good news is that my teacher has decided to help me buy the Grade 9 Erhu (i.e. a better quality Erhu fit for Grade 9). Therefore, I may have a chance to take Grade 9. However, I must still work harder or else he may revoke his decision... As for da zu, the standard of xian yue is going down. I think our conductor is losing confidence in xian yue at an alarming speed. I'm really worried, if this continues, we will lose our stand in the orchestra.

I think that's all for now. I initially wanted to talk about the Sec 2 Annual Camp but currently, I too tired to continue blogging. If possible, I may continue what I have to say tomorrow. All I can say now is that I'm feeling very bitter about everything around me now. Nothing seems to go right, including both big and small matters. The only thing I can do to salvage the situation regarding studies is to work hader, especially for Maths. Haiz...

2004-07-24T22:24:00.000+05:30

Today, I went to the NYCO concert. It was definitely fabulous, and I would like to talk about a few of the songs my opinions on it.

The concert was entitled "si1 zhu2 qing2 yun4" and held at NYGH's Siew May Auditorium. We, the CHSCO members who went decided to meet at the Nanyang bus stop at 7.00p.m so that we can go into their auditorium at the same time. This waas the second time that I had been in NYGH, the first being the time when thier English drama put up the play, "Alice?". As expected, the atmosphere was filled with excitment and a big crowd was gathering outside the auditorium.

So at around 7.30p.m, the supposed time when the concert starts, we went into the auditorium. However, since many seats were already taken up (free seating), I sat somewhere in the second row, right at the corner. Even though it was not a very good seat, it was quite fine and did not really affect my view, even though I was unable to see any of the performers behind.

The first song was "yao2 zhu2 wu3 qu3". Even though this song is fairly simple, and I have heard if it numerous times, the melody still sounds attractive. The next was a song called "dong1 nan2 xi1 bei1 zhong1", followed by two tan2 bo1 qi2 zou4, "da4 li3 qing2 feng1" and "san1 liu4". Personally, I liked "da4 li3 qing2 feng1" quite much. After that, was the main attraction for the whole of our xianyue --"hong mei2 sui2 xiang2 qu3", by NYCO's Chairman and Xianyue Section Leader, Hui Ling. For me, I have long loved this song since the first time I heard it, and after hearing so many times, the melody stilled kept playing in my heart. According to Zhang lao shi last year, Hui Ling's skills in this song is superb that it can almost be comparable to his own. This alone can prove how good she is since Zhang lao shi would never praises anyone to this state. So when we heard her play this song with the orchestra as accompaniment, naturally many of us became very zi4 bei1. Of course, a few mistakes is unavoidable, and I spotted one or two inaccurate notes, but the effect was really extremely good.

After this was the interval of 15 min. During this period of time, many people, expecially us, the Sec 2 Erhu people were complaining about how zi4 bei1 we were. Personally, I was a little surprised at how good the standard of NYCO's are. (No offence!) I mean I knew they were very good all along, but today was really excellent performance. However, my Sec 3 senior Rui Hong was a little disappointed because he expected better. Well... Then, I finally saw Yue Yang, who is in Pipa. I was uanble to spot her because of erm, my seating...

When we finally reaturned back to the auditorium after the interval, the two songs were by their gu zheng group (or known as orchestra? since it was "gu3 zheng1 tuan2). It was just as marvelous, and the quality of the sound was good. It was followed by yet another attraction for us, xianyue -- "zhu2 ying3 yao2 hong2" and "jiang1 nan2 chun1 se4". This time, I got even more zi4 bei1 till it was unbearable. Since we were also practising "zhu2 ying3 yao2 hong2", where us, the Sec 2s were playing worse than shit, I was utterly upset. Not only their song quality and feelings within the song was present, their "unity" in playing together was excellent. As for "jiang1 nan2 chun1 se4", they played equally well, but since we did not practise it, the sense of zi4 bei1 was not as strong.

The next song was a zhongruan solo piece entitled "shan ge". This song was alos played during the HCJC CO concert held at Victoria Concert Hall. According to someone, this was the Grade 9 piece for zhongruan. This song was quit unique, but I shall not elarborate much since it is quite hard to describe. But someone commented that it sounded somewhat like an electric guitar during the HCJC CO concert. But even though I sort of agree, this peice nevertheless still contains zhongruan flavour. Then, a song called "huang2 he2 zhi1 shui3 tian1 shang4 lai2" was the next on the list. The title was taken from Li Bai's famous poem, "Jiang1 Jin1 Jiu3" (first line). This song was also magnificantly played. The characteristic of the song is its difference in loudness and feelings. Since this song aims to portray huang he, the song really shows the river as calm and violent at different times. Finally, the last song is served as a finale. This song is relatively a "normal" type of song unlike many of the others. Nevertheless, it was still played very well.

So after this, I went home. On the bus, I chatted with Rui Hong, who gave his comments on the NYCO performance. This performance is really an eye-opener, and I really zi4 tan4 bu4 ru2. Right now, without any major competitions or performances, the attitude of the majority of the CHSCO is slack. Thus, at this current moment, we cannot compare to NYCO. Even though I know this is "normal" as we as Chinese High students are famous for pia-ying at the last minute, and always achieving good results in this way, I'm really getting very worried especially for our xianyue. With such a lousy Sec 2 batch and with only 3 person in Erhu (2), xianyue is really in danger now. Now after watching this concert, I'm getting more worried...

Ok, I know this entry sounds very pro-NYCO. But I'm sincerely giving my comments. Their standard is getting higher and higher while we are getting lower and lower. Haiz. Erm, actually I have much more to talk about regarding other matters but due to time constrain yet again, I will talk about them in the next entry. Bye!

2004-07-20T20:57:00.000+05:30

Ah, finally found some time to blog again. Sorry... terribly sorry... I have not blogged for more than a month. This should not happen again, unless it is ... nearing exams period.

Haiz. Term 3 really proved to be very busy, extreme busy. Right from the start, there were already many major assignments to hand in. The workload everyday since Term 3 began is really enough to kill. Serious. Right now, at this current, exact moment, there is a little bit of time (thus I have time to blog), but the past few weeks and even yesterday was endless turmoil. To get a good idea of how bad the situation was, let me quote Kai Yao as an example. For the last 2 terms, he slept at 12.00a.m on the average, however he sleeps at 2.00a.m every day on the average now. On the night before the Semi-Finals of Project's Day, he slept at 5.00a.m. Even though his case may be a little extreme, it does reflect how much we have to do. Here, I would like to talk about a few major things we had to do as well as events that happened during this period when I did not blog. However, due to time constraint, I will only post a few today and continue the next time.

Firstly, let me talk about the Major Research Paper. For me, I was quite lucky to have Zhi Yi as my MRP partner (in a sense). During the June holidays, he forced me to do the MRP practically everyday. For the Literature Review component alone, we spent about 3 weeks editing and re-edting and re-re-editing until almost perfection (which is of course impossible). At that time, I can only suffer in silence (and I still do, actually) while I ren4 ren2 zai3 ge1, with Zhi Yi bossing me around. Even though it was hard work, the good point was that we do not have to rush the MRP as much as others. Therefore, I am quite grateful to Zhi Yi, since I would most likely drag the MRP if i did it by myself. Even though I personally feel that the standard is quite good, there is always room for further improvements in any piece of work.

As for Project's Day Semi-Finals, we had to pia on the eve due to the massive workload beforehand. Our Project's Day topic was on Marine Fishes (Category 5: Resource Development), and our aim was to create Asia's largest database on marine fishes (which includes almost every single specie of marine fish that can be bred in a tank, its temperament, special requirements, tank size, etc). Thus, as you can see, our topic is one that is large-scale and tedious. In all, there were 35 family of fishes to be done, and about 300+ fishes in all. That night (or morning), I did the project till 4.00a.m. Eventually, I only had less than 2 hours of sleep that night.

Finally came the big day--the semi-finals. For us, the judging was held at LT4. On that day, the judges were not fixed, but rather, within each category, the judges have rotated "shifts". Thus, the initial nicer judges eventually went away. Then, it progressed to a stage whereby Ms Kala and Mr Koh (our mentor) were the judges. Ms Kala was infamous for being a strict and undesirable teacher, and she started scolding the participants presenting till gou3 xue3 lin2 tou2. One by one, the groups were seemingly "striked down". Finally, it was our turn. However, just as we thought we were going to die, Mss Kala asked those with laptops to present first due to errors with the computer. That was just before recess, and with the ringing of the bell, we were saved.

Quickly, we dashed to the library, computer lab and finally to a classroom to edit our presentation. After recess, we went back to LT4. The judges were now Ms Teo Mui Hong (my Sec 1 Chinese teacher) and an unknown teacher. After one group presented, we quickly grabbed the opportunity and went down to present, since the judges were "nice". This proved to be a very heng move. Right after we presented, Miss Kala came back, and the other groups were "striked" again. Eventually, we passed and proceded into the Finals. However, as this was an extremly jiao3 xing4 chance, we will definitely prepare ourselves better the next time.

Due to time constraint, I will talk about the other things that happened these few days in the next entry. However, I may not post for quite a long time, since I'm currently still caught in the midst of heavy workload. Sorry! Before I go, below are some updates from previous entries for your information.

UPDATES

my thumbdrive is finally found! Yay!

(The school admin office phoned me to inform me of this some day in June. According to the office, I had broke a "school record" since I was the first person to be able to retrieve a lost thumbdrive in The Chinese High. )

My internet access as well as computer is up again!

(Obvious since I am blogging now.)

In reply to Yue Yang's message in the tagboard, yes I'm going to the NYCO concert (night) on the 24 July 2004 (Saturday).

Bye!

2004-06-13T20:52:00.000+05:30

I'm terribly sorry for not posting for so long. Let me see... it has been 12 days since I blogged. Within this 12 days, indeed many incidents (some very unfortunate) have happened and I have a lot to say. Actually the reason why I did not blog for so long is that my computer CRASHED. Yes, crashed. I will talk about that later. Right now, I want to take about something more important.

I have received news from Zhi Yi and the EMB that Mr Ho Chong Liang has passed away of nose cancer. He was an Aphelion Chinese teacher, one that I really respected a lot. I really liked him and his method of teaching, despite the fact that he did not teach me Chinese before. However, last year in Sec 1, he was my class' history and culture teacher, and thus, I will always remember him as the teacher who cleared my doubts about China's period of history after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty (i.e. more or less the "mordern history"). I was utterly shocked by this news, and I'm grieving over this. Seriously, even though I would like to attend his wake, I am unable to attend because of various reasons. Right now, I can't think of any proper phrases of condolences, but all I can say is that he really is a very good teacher and his death is really a great loss to everyone. I will always remember this teacher of great virtue.

Ok, now I will carry on to the very sui events that happened to me. I lost my THUMBDRIVE, my COMPUTER crashed, my TV BROKE DOWN, my HOME PHONE is starting to have problems and my FISH has died. Right now, I'm using my cousin's laptop. Yet the laptop keyboard keys also got problem. =>The "c" key got problem, so I need to copy and paste the letter from other sources!!! So please forgive me if you see any "c" missing from any word. But the most unforgivable thing is the lost of my thumbdrive. It cost over $100, and yet I was so careless to loss it in the school library! Now its unrecoverable. The librarian can't find it either. To think that I was preparing to create an icon for the thumbdrive with Kai Yao's help. *Sniff. Sniff* Actually that day (last Friday), I was at the school library printing important documents, when I forgot to take it out.I only found out at night. Since I was the last to leave the library, i initially thought that the librarian should have checked the computers before leaving, but it turned out that there were external courses going on upstairs that day, so the library was only closed at 5p.m. The librarian therefore thinks that someone must have seen it and stolen it. I had pasted my name on it a few months ago. So the person who stole it was really dishonest enough to keep it for himself. Now all my important documents are gone. Haiz. I'm very upset and angry with myself. The thumbdrive is gone, forever.

And two weeks ago was the councillor camp organized by the Student's Union for the Sec 2 councillors. It was a two days + one night camp. There were a lot of activites, but the most memorable still proved to be the solo night. That night, at about 1.30a.m, they woke us up. For those who haven't heard of solo night before, its a activity that the uniform groups especially like to carry out. It is well-known that Chinese High is has many ghosts stories. So solo night is to put you somewhere in the school for as long as the seniors like, maybe for hours, to scare you. However, this councillor camp's purpose was not to scare us, but rather to "train our team spirit", so it was made less scary. I was put in the canteen, near the food vending machine. The place I was in was special, in the sense that the place itself was very bright, yet all my surroundings was extremely dark, so you can actually peer into the eerie darkness. But luckily I was asked to sit down in a direction facing a short staircase. So half of my view of the darkness was blocked. Initially (for about 1 hour), it was scary. But suddenly the seniors that were slacking went to the vending machine in a large group to buy something. So following that, the fear slowly vanished. But right after solo night, we were punished through pumping and sit-ups for not rushing back to the clock tower immediately. Eventually, we went back to sleep at about 3 something, nearing 4a.m. Actually, I should talk about the team-building activities since the camp was to "cultivate our team spirits", but the solo night was indeed unforgettable.

On the second day of the camp, me, Zhi Guang and Jie Lun were granted permission to go to the Chinese Orchestra Elections. Eventually, I lost the position of Assistant Treasurer. According to Zhi Guang, I lost by a thin margin, but its okay with me. The person who won was a better candidate for this position than me. And by the way, Zhi Guang won the Assistant Seretary post by a big margin, winning 40 out of 70 votes. congratulations. As for the post of Student conductor, Zheng You from Xianyue Erhu won. Yeah! His speech can be said to be the "speech of the election". The whole speech was very aspiring, and he talked in a very emotional manner about his dream to be a conductor... But the most moving part was the end of the speech, when he concluded with "remember me, I'm Zheng You, your conductor." Perfect, lasting ending.

However, the most exciting part was when a re-voting was needed for the post of chairman and vice-chairman. Obviously, only two person, Shouhao and Sin Hwee could content for this post. Because the counting of votes was done right in front of everyone's eyes, everyone started counting the difference between the votes. (e.g. when the two have the same vote, difference is 0, when one of them get 2 more, than difference is 2. So the increase of votes for one person affects the difference) At first, Sin Hwee was leading by about 12. Then it the difference started to be "12,11,12,11...", then "10,11,10,11,10,...", next "10,9,10,9". By the time it became "4,3,4,3...", you can really see Sin Hwee's worried expression. The difference after "3" became 2 => 1 => 2 => 3. Thus eventually, Sin Hwee won by 3 votes to become the new chairman of The Chinese High School Chinese Orchestra. Erm, the above may be too long and dramatic, so forgive me for being so long-winded.

So after the elections, I went back for the councillor camp. I have some more to say, but i will carry on in the next entry when i have the time. Meanwhile, I may not post for some time as I'm still very busy, so please forgive me. Bye for now!

2004-06-01T19:31:00.000+05:30

Hello, everyone. By the way, thanks, Zhi Guang and Chong Chen for what you have posted on my tagboard, I really appreciate it. But now that I'm reflecting on it, maybe what I had posted in the last entry about the APMOPS is too harsh. However, what happened somehow did have quite a drastic effect, both mentally and physically, on me for the past few days since the APMOPS.

Since Saturday, I had been feeling quite ill. It seems that I'm was down with fever or something. I can't seem to remember about things and was unable to stnad properly. I think I am suffering from the aftereffects of APMOPS. But it is indeed a little ironic since I did not do much heavy work on that day. Actually, I'm still feeling a little sad about the event. I was unable to attend CO practice as well as a family event (some sort of Fiesta) at my primary school. I think many of my ex-classmates went for the event, yet I missed both CO practice and that event when I had nothing much to do at APMOPS! But, nevermind actually, since I sort of got over it already.

Ok, enough of APMOPS. I really regret doing nothing these few days. The only constructive thing I did was to go to Woodlands Regional Library with Zhi Yi to look for the same books that we had borrowed for the MRP on Monday. Why did I waste my time slacking! Grrr. I really must start doing and pia-ying my homework. The workload is sooo much.

Hmm, about today. Today, I was supposed to go to the International Book Fair with my family but do to unforseen circumstances, my father was angry and cancelled the whole trip. And I don't know what came over me. I just did nothing the whole day and only started practising Erhu somewhere in the evening. However, I did gain quite a lot from today's practice. So at least something was accomplished today.

And something interesting happened. Just while I was practising my Erhu, I remembered that I need to call my cousin to ask about something very important. So I checked my handphone for her number but as usual, my hp was out of battery. Of course, I charged it, but switched it on at the same time to get my cousin's number. But then, a whole lot of smses somehow came flooding all at the same time. At first, it was just one, then suddenly it was like so many, including from Kai Qing, Shu Peng (my Erhu senior), Zhang Lao shi (Ms Teo), who was my last year Chinese teacher cum Aphelion council teacher-mentor. But the worst thing was that my hp was out of space for new smses, so i was reading the smses deleting others, and replying at the same time, which somehow caused my hp to go crazy. Then Zhi Guang called. But the most absurd was that a stranger had msg me a few days ago (when my hp was still out of battery). I replied, but found out after quite a long conversation that the person (named Siying) do not know me at all. Ok, I know this i'm lame, but it indeed was weird and quite an interesting thing that today.

Just as I'm typing this blog entry, the news just reported about the death of Singapore's famous artist, Liu Kang. I think most of you should have heard of him. For the source-based question of last year's History exam, the first source was one of his painting on the Japanese Occupation. Sigh. Another one of Singapore's most talented people has left us. I think Mr Kuek, our art teacher, said before that Mr Liu Kang had once been an art teacher at Chinese High. A pity that we never had the chance to meet him.

Anyway, tomorrow is Vesek Day, and I'm going to the temple. If I'm not wrong, I will be going back to SAPS with Yong Lin. But he has not replied yet!!! So I don't know what to do. And right now, I have just received news that for the English homework on Travel Brochure, we have to summit by the second week of June, yet I haven't got a group!! AHHH. What should I do!

Ok. So basically, nothing much happened these few days. This week is quite packed up, but not as much as normal school days. So I really have to start doing homework and I plan to complete them but the second week. Then, try to do some ACE activities. And finally, revise my work + practice Erhu more. So that's all. Bye!

2004-05-29T21:24:00.000+05:30

Erm, I don't think I will talk too much today. Feel like sleeping early to do more things tomorrow. And anyone involved directly or indirectly in the APMOPS, please do not be offended by the following content because I wrote in with sarcasm to release my anger. Sorry.

Ok, basically today is APMOPS. APMOPS is quite successful. It was an extremely pleasant experience for most people but terrible for me. This I will explain later. I met Kai Yao in the bus when I arrived in school at 7.00a.m. Somehow, I think I was a little too late as most of the Organizing Team, CHS helpers and NYGH helpers were already in Kah Kee Hall by the time I arrived.

Finally, the registration started at about 7.30a.m (or earlier) and people started streaming in. Because I was taken off my post by Yuan Chang due to a very unpleasant unforseen circumstance, I did not have ANY department to work for. Thus, I did not have ANY official duties to carry out at all except being an EXTRA and also errand boy. And Therefore, I the most extra person in the WHOLE APMOPS. Even ushers have the PREVILEGE of being busy and have duties to CARRY OUT. So during registration, I could not do anything but congregrate with other OT members at the information counter to provide assistance to anyone. The only work that I was assigned to was to find out the number of boys and girls in each group by going to each classmate to ask the people in charge of each group to count. Honestly, this period of time up to about 8.30a.m was the most and ONLY eventful time that I get to do something.

The next few hours up to 1.00p.m, basically, me and Bao Chen (Bao Chen volunteerly helped out in the event) went around doing NOTHING USEFUL. I kept going back and forth to all other departments like usher and food to give help if needed. Finally, after a very long wait, I helped lead the participants to the HCJC auditorium, where the prize presentation is held. There, all councillors are supposed to usher the parents and teachers. As you can see, throughout the whole experience, I was unable to contribute at all thanks to some reasons that was partly my fault, since I was not proactive enough in clarifying what i have to do. So this event is indeed very memorable. Yes, very very memorable. If you want, you can view Chong Chen's blog to see his experience in comparision to mine. Clearly, I am useless today.

But nevermind lor. I can only blame myself actually. For the happy part: my primary school, St, Anthony's Pri (SAPS) bagged many awards this year! Yeah!! The awards include one platinium, two gold, one silver and two bronze. SAPS was one of the top schools in terms of team total score. Besides, the person who won platinium, Lim Kah Hong also obtained an Honourable Mention Award for the top 5 Non-SAP School pupil. Mrs Wong, my Pri 3 Maths teacher accompanied them. Sadly, she was unable to recognise me at all. To access the results of SMOPS (not APMOPS), you can go to the below web address:

http://www.chs.edu.sg/aphelion/results.xls

After APMOPS, I was supposed to go home, but I ended up at Jurong East Interchange when I slept on the bus service 66 again. This time, it was embarrassing as I was awoken by the bus driver himself. I was very blur when I woke up to find the bus empty. So I decided to take 66 back. That was about 6.30p.m. So I boarded the bus, and the next thing I knew... I found myself "somewhere in Singapore". The sky was pitch black, and the bus was full. After some time of looking at road signs, I realized I was somewhere nearing Tekka market, Serangoon area. I really should knock myself. Imagine me sleeping all the way from Jurong East to Serangoon. Eventually, I found my way to Little India MRT station and went home.

What a weird and unusual day. Haiz.

2004-05-28T22:36:00.000+05:30

Hi, everyone. Some rather exciting things happened today. So I hope today's content will not be so boring and monotonous.

Firstly, I will talk about what happened at the start of the day. During our RP session and at about 7.55a.m, Yuan Chang was hosting the discussion when suddenly, Ms Sim ran into the classroom and told us to go to the window to see an unusual and exotic bird. So everyone was crowding around that side of the classroom to catch a glimpse of it. The bird was about half the height of a human being, and the general structure looked somewhat like those vulture birds except that it did not seem to be a bird of prey. Expectedly, this stirred up an enormous commotion among the four Aphelion Sec 2 classes, 2A-2D, and everyone ran out of class to catch a close-up view of the bird. It was perched on the railings of the exterior wall of the building, and seemed to be slightly afraid of the large crowd of people. The funny thing was that when Law Chun Yin of 2A was coming up the stairs(beside the railing), he was like surprised to see everyone looking in the direction of him. Then he was totally stunned when he turned around to see that huge bird. After a few minutes, the bird hopped away from view (the distance between us and the bird was just mere metres) to another side and everyone went back since lesson has started. Interesting.

In Chinese lesson today, I waas hopping mad at Jian Ting. Just for today, I'll call him by his nickname, Dragonfly (or DF) to release my anger. Anyway, Chiu lao shi asked us to create a short story using words from the list of sheng1 zi4. This was supposed to be fun, but than DF messed it all up. Since he had a story in mind, the whole group asked him to write it down in point form quickly as time is extremely limited. But he purposely took his time to write a few words "you3 yi4 tian1,... ...", and said that he did not know what to write. What kind of attitude is that? He took the whole thing as a joke. The worst thing is that he dragged on time right till the time when we had to send a representative to tell the whole class our story. The time given to do was really short, yet he still took his time to do nothing. So when it was our group's turn to present, we had no story at all, but naturally Chiu lao shi would not allow us to discuss anymore. Eventually, I had to resort to on-the-spot speaking (worse than ji2 xi2 yan2 jiang3 when you had a minute or two to at least organize your thoughts). So I spoke of a very wu liao, extremely fei4 story on the spot, making a fool of myself ALL BECAUSE OF HIM. Feel like murdering him then. Luckily it somehow worked out and I don't think anyone else knew of the situation. Frustrating!

And we received our Term Progress Report today. As expected, my IH was 69 (after calculation yesterday), a mark away from A2. Thus my overall MSG became 1.33, and lost to Yuan Chang (1.00) and Alvin Kuk (1.28 because of additional subject AEP). Despite being quite pleased with this unexpected result, I will still work harder to obtain even better results in Term 3. But Hun Sheng was somehow upset with his relatively excellent result of 1.6 and keeps harping on how "so many" people won him.

Today was the Preparation Day of the APMOPS. I was initially supposed to be the Prize Presentation I/C in the HCJC Auditorium. However, there was a breakdown in communication between Yuan Chang and Mrs Chai. So instead, Kangjie replaced me in giving out the prize on stage. Thus, eventually, I'm only the I/C in name, but I do not know anything going on in the prize department at all. Grrr. Nevermind, its ok with me, and Yuan Chang has assigned a new job for me. But I still feel very extra. Anyway, everyone involved in this event ran about for a few hours to settle many things. Ran back and forth from CHS and HCJC and also constantly around CHS. Eventually, I returned home at about 8.00p.m, exhausted but contented. So tomorrow will be the actual day of APMOPS and I'm looking forward to it. So that's all, bye!

2004-05-22T19:23:00.000+05:30

Hi, everyone. Even though all tests for this term are over, this week was meaningful, so I have quite a lot to talk about. Bear with it...

So firstly, I will talk about the tests results released. Honestly, I was quite surprised with the results as I thought I did not do very well for most of the tests. For English compo, I got 25/30. Actually this was the only test this term that I was confident in, but still I did not expect such marks. Our Chinese teacher gave back the class test and the common test (compo). If you can recall, I was very upset about the class test a few weeks ago, and said that it was a disgraceful incident in that blog entry. But actually the result was not as bad as I expected. I obtained 86/100. Even though this result was not extremely good as compared to a few others, I am already very satisfied given what happened during the test. As for the Chinese compo test, my marks were 54/70. Naturally, I'm very happy given that the day before the test was the day of the Esplanade concert, and the day before the concert was the rehearsal. So for two consecutive days, I was throughly exhausted and was unable to revise for the compo test at all. However, despite this good result for Chinese, I must remember to revise well for next term's tests and not have de2 guo4 qie3 guo4 mentality again since this result was partly jiao3 xing4.

Besides Chinese and English, we recieved the Literature test paper. Er... currently I connot seem to remember the marks, but it was A1. But for this test, Jian Ting had helped me in sending me some points about Animal Farm. Without his help, I may have gotton lower marks. And speaking about Literature, we will be studying on Emily of Emerald Hill next term when Animal Farm is finished. Overall, I have briefly calculated my MSG score. Right now, we have not recieved our History Test paper yet since Ms Sim, our History teacher is away, so I do not know my grade for Integrated Humanitites (IH). Even though I got A1 for the other five subjects, I don't think straight A1s is possible as I did terribly for History, plus I got B4 for Geography. So if my IH was B3, my overall MSG will then be 1.33333... Now I will aim to get 1.00 MSG for next term, so of course I have to work even harder. (Do i sound like Boxer in Animal Farm?)

Ok, so enough about studies matters. I will go on to talk about the CO elections. Zhi Guang was nominated for Assistant Secretary, Assistant Treasurer and Assistant Scores Quartermaster (I think, correct me if i'm wrong). And I was nominated for assistant treasurer. So we have to prepare some kind of campaign speech. Actually a bit wu2 liao2 for small posts like A. treasurer. But according to Sin Hwee, the actually Election Day (during the first week of June) clashes with the training camp for councillors, so I think I may have to give up the election thingy. But nevermind, since I'm not very keen on being A. Treasurer. Personally, I feel that I not good in money matters.

And oh yes, next week is APMOPS. Hope that it will not be hot on that day, because I am one of the only two councillors who have to bring council u on that day. Recently, as Kai Yao puts it, the weather is getting mad. According to him, the temperature at night hovers around 29-32 degrees C. I think because of this heat, I was sick on-and-off during the past week.

So that is about all now. Bye.

2004-05-14T18:20:00.000+05:30

I have quite a lot of things to talk about in this entry. So bear with my long, monotonous way of writing... Hmm, actually i think the reason for so is because i'm a boring person, not really because i have to write formally, because it is possible to write very interesting things even when it is formal. Anyway...

About Wednesday. This was the most successful day of rocketry. Being already the third day of the Sabbaticals, we were already much more succesful than before. Out of our six tries, we had five successful tries when our parachute opened beautifully. (The first time was due to an error in setting up, not in launching) The last try was the most successful ever, with the rocket landing exactly at 8 seconds and also 4 metres away from the target. Erm sorry, I forgot to explain the scoring system. In the system, the rocket must land between 7-9 seconds to obtain 25 points. if it was between 5-6s or 10-?s, 10 points will be obtained. And below 5s, 2 points. As for the distance, 25 points will be obtained if the rocket landed within a 5m radius. Actually, on that day, all our shots were between 7-9s, so that was truly successful. However, we were not satisfied, and I stayed back with Kai Yao (who helped me even though he was in a different sabbatical programme) to modify the rocket. We tested the parachute with Zhi Guang at the Science Block. It was very enjoyable. Somehow I was euphoric when I got home. There was this 'high' feeling.

On the next day, we only fired 3 shots, all which the parachute opened, despite being slightly worser than Wednesday. We also did a test on what we have learnt in LT4. Me, Ben and William went to the poolside cafe after that at the Hwa Chong Alumni Association/Swimming Complex. Saw Mrs Teng, my Maths teacher there. (I think she spoted me even though she was in the air-con area.) When I got home that day, I went outside to take some pictures of trees using my counsin's digital camera in a spur of the moment. Despite the hot weather these few days, the sunlight was really beautiful when it shone on the trees, so I somehow got tempted to take pictures of trees. I know i'm very wu2 liao2.

As for today, it was the competition day of the Rocketry Sabbaticals, when we had to compete at a team level and a group level. We were given 2 chances to launch, and the average score of the two tries would be taken. Competition would be fierce since there were about 36 teams in the whole programme. Here, our strongest competitors were supposed to be Yuan Chang's team as well as Zhi Guang's team, both of which did more succesful than us previously. As we were Team 1 of Group 1, the four of us, me, Ben, Lim Yi and William had to fire the rocket first. However, the first shot was disastrous. Our fuel (water) and the air pressure was insufficient to sent the rocket high up into the air, so it only stayed for 4.4s (2 points). Despite this, our second shot was successful, and we obtained 25 points with our 8.9s shot. The total was 27 points. At first, we thought that our hopes were dashed, and that other teams like Yuan Chang and Zhi Guang's would win. However, it turned out that Yuan Chang's second shot backfired, so they got 25 points in total (first shot: 25, second shot: 0). Zhi Guang's total was 35 points (I think).

However, this temporary success proved to be short-lived. In the group level competition, where we competed as a group and the total score of each group would be added up, we screwed up and only got 2 points for the whole group of four of five teams! This disastrous result was due to many factors like the angle and wind direction. Sadly, my rocket's head even broke off when it crashed straight down into the ground. (even though I fixed it later). Therefore, eventually, we did not win anything even though we were the best group with the highest total points in the team round of competition if you add up all our scores. (We had three teams of more 25 or more points). So this was the sad ending of the Rocketry Sabbaticals. Haiz. Never mind, it was extremely fun anyway.

So, that is all for now. Bye!

2004-05-11T11:59:00.000+05:30

Hi. I'm currently in the school library tying this blog entry. Here, I will talk about what happened in today's Sabbatical programme.

Hmm, the Sabbaticals are really fun. Today being the second day of the Sabbaticals, we experimented with attaching a parachute system for the rocket. However, the process was not as smooth as yesterday, when we were guided step-by-step in making the body of the rocket. In the beginning, the four of us, me, Ben Toh, Lim Yi and William (from Lim Yi's class) faced quite a lot of difficulties. Firstly, our plastic bag (for the canopy of the parachute) was too small and we also had no strings. This problem was solved when Ben took a big black plastic bag (generally used during collection of rubbish) and divided it into two for our two rockets.

However, the actual process of making the parachute was not easy and we took quite some time to make it. Lim yi and William's parachute was cut into four pieces by mistake, so they had to piece them together. Then, the fixing of the strings also took time as we had limited tape and eventually needed to borrow some. After everyone's rocket was supposedly ready, we went to ther field to launch the rocket.

During the launching, almost everyone's parachute did not open up initially. Some people's dummy stage of the rocket did not open up at all, while some was due to problems of the prarchute itself. Likewise, ours were quite problematic at first, and during the first two tries, our rocket went high up... and crashed nose-dive into the ground. So, it seemed quite pathetic, but after analysing our problems, we made some adjustments to the parachute. Finally, during our third time, the parachute successfully opened in mid-air, and landed beautifully on the ground. At this point of time, it seemed that everyone else's problems had already been rectified, and thus their's were also successful. Jian Ting and Chong Chen's rocket was special in a way as their parachute opened up suddenly only after crashing for a few metres, thus landing safely for two consecutive tries. Despite this, I consider their's more successful than mine. As for mine, after that successful attempt, the rocket somehow "disintegrated" and is currently broken. This was due to the roughness of the person who helped us picked it up. *Sigh* So now I have to fix the whole rocket at home...

Nevermind. Despite this, today was really exciting. Bye!

2004-05-10T19:50:00.000+05:30

Hello, everyone. Just realized that the blogger interface has changed. I feel that its much nicer now. So let me talk about yesterday before I go now to today.

Yesterday was Mother's Day. I went for the CO performance by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) which was specially for mothers. So the name for the performance is xian4 gei3 ma1 ma1 (for mother). However, the irony was that my mother did not go with me but I went together with two other Xian Yue Section seniors. This was because my mother had to help my brother with his revision. The conductor was Quek Ling Kiong. I think he is our TCHSCO's percussion instructor. (is it?) The highlight of the performance is supposed to be my Erhu teacher, Xu Wen Jing soloing one song.

Because this performance is for Mother's Day, it was special and innovative, unlike the usual performance style. In the first half, seven of the songs were joined together, with children from the Young People's Performing Arts Ensemble reciting poems (obviously in a very sheng1 qing2 manner) while the SCO performed, at the same time following the beat. The most interesting part was when the SCO played ma1 ma1 hao3 (the song: shi4 shang4 zhi3 you3 ma1 ma1 hao3...) Even though this song is already quite droning to many of us, it turned out rather interesting because it was rearranged. The song was played in a very jazz (so-called mordern type) style that created a very refreshing effect. At one point of time, the conductor was acting cute (but he really turned out cute lar) and make hand gestures of twinkling stars.

Then in the second half, the first song was by my teacher. The song was liang2 zhu4 (The Butterfly Lovers) based on the tale of liang2 shan2 bo2 yu3 zhu4 ying1 tai2. Then followed my fan2 hua2 ru2 meng4 (Luxurious as Dreams), which was a combination of tian1 ya2 ge1 nv3, ye4 lai2 xiang1 and bu4 liao3 qing2. The next three songs and the first encore song was sung by veteran singer Poon Sow Keng (accompanied by the orchestra). Lastly, the final encore piece was again the ma1 ma1 hao3 song, which after the rearangement, indeed brought the atmosphere to a climax.

That night, I saw Andrew and his family, so we went for dinner together. Honestly, if I had the choice, I would rather not since I feel so out of place there. And his father was firece-looking... Anyway, Andrew kept talking non-stop about his RICO. He is really very enthusiastic. He even plans to go for the SCO concert that was organized for 4-8 years old children to get the experience of feeling the instruments. And by the way, yesterday was Andrew's birthday.

Enough about yesterday. Today was the start of the second Hwa Chong Sabbaticals. I signed up for rocketry. Somehow, our class seems to like rocketry very much. I think more than 20 signed up for this course as compared to some classes with only 2. The course is really interesting. We formed groups of two which were later combined to be groups of four and constructed the rockets. After which, we went to the field area beside the track to fire our rockets. Jie Yu's flew the furthest. From the bottom the of concourse, it flew to an altitude of about six storeys (exaggerating?) and almost flew out of the school compound.

After the flight, we were taught on the principles of flying. So for tomorrow, we are supposed to devise a parachute system for the rocket.

Next, after the Sabbaticals, we had Science lesson. Mrs Teo gave back our Science Term test paper. This time my marks were 41.5/50 (83%). I'm already very happy and contented with this result since i was the lowest in Science last term (80%) despite being average.
Of course, I will work harder to obtain better results.

Looking forward to tomorrow's Sabbaticals. Bye!

2004-05-08T21:45:00.000+05:30

Hmm, today is the Combined Sports Meet. It was quite okay, not very fun but still quite enjoyable.

I arrived in school at about 7.00a.m. Actually I was not very sure of what time I need to be in school, but I guessed it was the usual time. It was quite unusual to see the Chinese High campus flocked with so many people from the three schools: CHS, NYGH and HCJC. The first thing I caught sight of was the banner put up at the far end of the terraces, which read: yi4 gan1 zhuang4 zhi4 ling2 xiao1 han4, san1 xiao4 hao2 qing2 guan4 ti3 tan2.

The opening of CSM was marked by the mass display Nan Zhong Quan by NYGH. It was quite well aligned despite so many people, but I did see one nanyang girl lan4 yu2 chong1 shu4, which shows that she is not familiar with it. The CHS guys were very unenthusiastic at the start, which was a sharp contrast to NYGH. This "unenthu" atmosphere continued for some time. Yuan Chang competed in the 'C' boys 100m and got first, clocking a timing of 11.9-something. I think his personal best was 11.5-something, and his only regret was not being able to break the record since he was so close to. But his start was not very good, so we cannot blame him.

After some time, I went down with the other councillors to help out in leading the cheer. But since our students are seperated in two groups due to the sitting arrragement, we had to move them to where the Sec 4s are. The cheering only lasted successfully with our ex-president leading the councillors leading it, but the cheer did not carry on after the first round of prize-giving, so it was not much of a success. However, it did get the crowd of the three schools more excited and enthusiastic.

There was a special race, in which each team comprises four CHS guys, four NYGH girls, and four HCJC students. But the most special part was that the first team overtook the last by a whole 1 and a 1/2 lap! This was really a tremendous feat. By then, the crowd was madly cheering for the last team. Besides that, the teacher's race was also quite fun. But Chinese High lost the first teacher's race. Then in the 8x50m teacher's race, we were second.

So after the whole event ended (+ cleaning up the area), I went home directly and slept for four hours due to exhaustion. I was not very tired, but somehow, for some reason, I just slept...

So finally, a big event has ended.

2004-05-07T20:27:00.000+05:30

Hello. Finally, today is the last day of the week and all the tests had ended yesterday. But I did terribly in the three tests: History, Literature and Science spanning the two days, Wednesday and Thurday. So I'm really depressed and worried, especially about IH.

Today I got sick in school. I was okay in the early morning, but around 8.20a.m during Mrs Chai's English lesson, somehow I started sneezing. This evolved into flu that caused me to be sickly the whole day. I think this is due to the heavy rain today as well as my lack of sleep for the past week. During recess, I drank some hot tea but it was of no use. Nicholas kept asking me to go to the sick bay or get permission to go home. At first I thought he was just concerned about me, but it turned out that he is mainly considering his own selfish gains because he was irritated by my sneezing sounds. Grrr, what a practical person. So because of this, I was unable to go for CO practise and went home directly after school. I slept from 3.30p.m all the way till 8.00p.m but my limbs are still weak.

Anyway, we got back the Geography paper today. The result is really terrible. 19/30-->B4. I am really at my wits end now. To think even Geography is so bad. Alvin Aw and Yuan Chang are the top scorer for Geog. And our Geography teacher for this term, Miss Tay is going back to NIE, since she is currently a trainee teacher and today is her last day of training at CHS. So the class gave her a piece of paper with our signature and took a class photo with her.

In the literature test yesterday, the question was about Boxer in Animal Farm. Something about "ceaseless hard work" making Boxer duller and asking to what extent do you agree with this statement. So I am beginning to think that this statement applies to me. I am really getting duller and more stupid since I started staying up late to revise for tests lor. For the past week, I have been sleeping at about 2.00a.m everyday, (which is really scary) yet ironically unable to absorb much. So in contrary, i will do badly in the test. This is becoming a vicious cycle. Even Yuan Chang says I am like xing2 shi1 zou2 rou4. So i need to revise my sleeping time and readjust it.

Tomorrow is the CHS-NYGH Combined sports meet and we have to go to school early in the morning. I have a feeling that the cheering on Chinese High's part is going to be a flop. Yuan Chang suggests creating a Hua Zhong Quan for next year and enlists the help of Mrs Tan Xiu Qin. Quite a good idea, but this will be copying. Anyway, I heard that there will be no cheering competition this year. Don't know why. CSM is supposed to be enjoyable, but since i am so bothered by everything happening around me now, nothing seems fun.

Bye for now.

2004-05-02T20:31:00.000+05:30

Hi. I haven't been around since the last time I posted (i.e 24 April), so I'm quite clueless about what really happened since. As there is more space here than in the tagboard, I think I will approach the messy situation of my tagboard.

Sorry to everyone for not replying at all since I was quite busy for the past week. Firstly, about the Esplanade performance, I have to apologize for certain misleading facts. To the zhongruan guy, pls give me your name since i have no idea who you are. I must admit that the mu4 gui4 ying1 was very luan4, but I think the previous songs are okay lor, not really very crappy. And I was not listening to the HCJC part from the speaker since I was doing homework in the dressing room. And one more thing, why do you want to find me on that day?

And for the "chioestbu around", matter, I don't care about it. Let him continue for all he want, and if i got time, just go and delete his message. This kind of people bu4 zhi2 de2 yi4 ti2. Wonder who on earth is this person?

Maybe I attracted so much trouble because of the crappy things I post on my blog. But I have to maintain a formal tone because my English teacher will assess this blog. So sorry...

Okay, enough of all these. The past week was quite difficult to pass. My geography test is ...*sigh*. Don't know whether can pass or not. *sniff* But my Maths finally improved, from last term's C5 to this term's A1. But the problem is that 30 out of the 36 in class got A1, so may low A1 score of 31/40 is nothing. But I was really happy when I received the results since I was not expecting an A1. To think I even got exempted from Maths last year. Gone are those days when...

English was not bad, even though the marks seem very strange. Last year, my English paper 2 would be above 80 most of the time, and my compo would be 19/30 (B3) and the results somehow average out to be A1. But this term, my paper term was A2, and my compo 23/30 (A1). But no matter what, even English dropped...

Computer Studies was okay: 80 marks.

I am a nobody in class now. It will be almost impossible to get an msg of 1.14 anymore. I am really quite helpless.

Next week, there are three tests: History, Science and Literature, which are the three subjects that needs the most revision. I particularly concerned about history and Science. Therefore, I may not be posting much for a whole week. I should be able to find more time after the tests. Hope that the tagboard won't give me so much trouble. And I almost forgot to thank Kai Qing for putting in a word for me.

Got chided by my Erhu teacher for no playing well in class today. Then my other Erhu teacher Zhang Yu Ming wanted me to buy a new Erhu that is extremely expensive after I have passed my Erhu Grade 7 Exam this year. My father will kill me if he knew that, since he has already spent so much money on my Erhu fees.

The good news is that our Chinese Orchestra is considering to go to Genting Highlands for the International Chinese Orchestra Festival during the June Holidays where the world's top few will appear. This will be fun, but the travel fees will amount to over $300. Urgh, my father will not be pleased. Hopefully, the appeal to use our Edusave funds will be accepted.

So that's all for now.

2004-04-24T21:48:00.000+05:30

HaHa, I'm back! Hmm, so now I'll continue with what happened on the actual day of the performance, 21th April.

That day, we were rushing the whole day. I carried a lot of things to school then, including my normal school bag (which is already extemely heavy) + CO uniform + PE t-shirt +files + school blazer... Besides, I was also a bit late, so I decided to take taxi to school. $7.00 of taxi fare. Quite expensive but no choice.

Then at 12.00p.m, all CO members were released from class early. But because of certain matters, I only arrived at the MPH at about 12.30p.m. After arriving there, someone (forgot is Jie Rong or Wenxi) asked me to help to carry food from the admin office together with 5 other people. But there were only 2 big trays of bread that were very light, so naturally only 2 people carried them. So I wasted time doing nothing. Eventually, I reached the MPH at about 12.50p.m. But Mr Tan Guan Chye (just refer to him as TGC now) was starting his briefing already, so I forgo my lunch. As usual, his briefing was not brief with a lot of useful info but also some crap mixed together inside.

But the flurry and frustration started when we were supposed to change into CO uniform. It was then that I realized I had forgotten to bring my black leather shoes. Die loh. I knew if I didn't bring, TGC would definitely kick me out of the concert. So I tried to contact Yuan Chang who lived nearby to see if he can lend me his for the time being. But he was uncontactable, so my seniors and also Kai Xiang asked me to call my parents to bring it for me. I called, and luckily they agreed, if not I really don't know what to do at that time.

So after the changing of clothes and transporting of intruments of the lorry and buses, we set off for Esplanade. Once again, we left our things at the underground resting rooms. Luckily for the first time in weeks, nothing wrong happened to my Erhu since I had used 2 hours to repair, refurbish, change the strings, fix the wei tiao... etc. Remember my lost wei tiao? I used my old one which is spoiled liao but still can roughly, very mian3 qiang2 be fixed onto my Erhu. After seeking permission from TGC, I rushed to the main entrance of the Esplanade to meet my parents. They arrived ten minutes later, and I was really relieved when I finally recieved the shoes. Sighx. Must remember to bring everything next time. Then the final rehearsal at 2.30p.m started. That time I feel a little dishearted lor, there were flops here and there by the different sections in our CO, but basically still okay.

After the rehearsal, we had a short break, followed a session where our conductor was supposed to tell us about our errors and mistakes. But many people did not meet at the destinated time, so we were scolded badly by TGC. Then, with a tense atmosphere lingering in the air because of TGC's anger, we were led to the artist's lounge. We were lectured by TGC, but his anger subsided after some time, so we continued solving the errors.

At 7.00p.m, we went to the concert stage for a short final, final rehearsal. (Imagine that the audience were supposed to come be let in the concert hall at 7.10p.m. So a bit of lin2 shi2 bao4 fo2 jiao3.) Then slowly, the concert hall started filling up, and I really start getting very nervous. So when the ten minutes rehearsal ended, we sat in our seats on the stage waiting, waiting... Finally, at 7.30p.m, the moment we had all been waiting for came. The conductor came in, and we rose. That was a tense moment, and everything started with the first falling stroke of the condutor stick...

The first song: Qing4 Dian3 Xu4 Qu3. I think that was the best song I played among the three songs i am involved in. Because I was so nervous, it seemed to have a very good effect. Therefore, I was somehow able to follow the beat a little better than usual, but I still made one single mistake for this particular song. The funny thing was that when I was supposed to "shake" the bow (chan4 gong1), I was doing it half from shaking (or shivering) with nervousness. As for the second song, Tai4 Yang2 Ji4 Jie2, It went quite smoothly, but for the man4 ban3 part, I made a slight error for an instant with the gong1 fa3.

Then, there was the Dizi solo piece, which the whole of Erhu (2), including me, was not involved in. But just then, I started sneezing for some reason. Thus, when the most important song, Mu4 Gui4 Ying1 Gua4 Shuai4 started, I was not able to be totally immersed in the song. And Mu4 Gui4 Ying1 was the piece that had the most problems, partly because it is a 22 min long song. Naturally, I made about 4 or 5 errors which I hope were unnoticeable. After this piece, the interval came. This marked the end of me and my fellow Erhu (2) members' performance since we were not invloved in the other songs. So we went back to the resting room.

Comments about the songs. i think overall, it was quite successful and the "feeling" was there. There were lesser problems than in the rehearsals and we had already tried our best. But a bit ke3 xi1 for Shou Hao of Pipa. His string broke halfway through the peformance in full view of the audience. Even my parents asked, "Who was the guy whose string broke?". Regarding the other songs, I'm not very sure since I could not listen to them after my part in the peformance. But I heard that the two encore songs, Gan3 Wen4 Lu4 Zai4 He2 Fang1 (better known as the Xi1 You2 Ji4 song) and Hao3 Han4 Ge1 were well-received by the audience.

Finally, after that, we moved instruments into the lorry and went back to school for debriefing at MPH. Mr Tan Guan Chye's first reaction was, "No comments! It's too good!". I feel that it was quite excellent, but maybe not to the extent of "too good". Anyway, my parents fetched me home from school and I arrived home at 12.15a.m late at night. Eventually, I slept at 12.45p.m.

After months and months of slogging and hard wok, the concert is finally over. So now I'm looking forward to more time...

2004-04-22T20:46:00.000+05:30

Finally, all our efforts for our Chinese Orchestra concert, "Beyond Boundaries" (or Xin1 Yuan 2 Chuang4 Shi3) have paid off! And thus, this concert had finally came to an end yesterday on the 21st of April 2004 at the Esplanade Concert Hall. It was fairly sucessful, despite a few small mistakes that we made as well as certain setbacks we faced on that day itself. Yea!! =)

But before I talk about yesterday's performance, I think I will start with what happened on Tuesday, 20th April (in chronological order), which was the day of our rehearsal. However, due to time contraints, I will talk about the actual performance in the next blog entry. I know this is a weird way of writing, but I only have time to give a recount of Tuesday right now.

On that day, after a short briefing, we prepared to go to the Esplanade. So we moved the bigger instruments on to a small lorry (as well as smaller instruments on to the two buses that were hired). This was when the first significant incident happened. At that time, many CO members were crowding around the lorry and helping out in the moving of instruments. I was standing on the ground and holding onto a Sheng that was already on the lorry (but it was not properly secured, so I had to secure it temporarily), when suddenly the lorry started rolling down the slope in front of the clock tower. This came as a shock to many, who chased after the lorry. Naturally, the sheng was jerked out of my hands. A that very moment, Mr Chen Guan Chye suddenly appeared, opened the lorry door and stepped on the brakes just in time before it hit the road curb. This was quite a heroic act. Without Mr Tan, I think the results would have been disastrous. But the driver only appeared about 10 seconds later.

And when we finally arrived at the Esplanade loading/unloading bay, we waited for a long time before we were allowed to enter due to the security measures that I feel were inefficient. The staff who gave each of us passes to enter were uncoordinated, as this created tension between us and the staff when Mr Tan tried to solve the problem.

Next, we were led to underground rooms for us to place our belongings. This was fantastic and the rooms were comparable to hostel standards. The design was even similar to hotel ones! So after unpacking our belongings, we were supposed to be rehearsing immediately, but unfortunately, all the strings, qin2 ma3 and qin3 dian4 of my Erhu had came out. At that time, I really panicked because all these Erhu accessaries will usually take some time to be put into place. Luckily, our Erhu Principal (I think this is the formal term), Ning Fei helped me in doing so. But still, i lost one of my wei tiao (used for fine tuning) in the process.

The rehearsal then was quite okay, but there were still some problems that surfaced. After that, we went for dinner, which was catered to us by one of our school canteen vendor. Later, during the period when HCJC CO was rehearsing, we were allowed to go back to our rooms and I finished my homework there. It was then that I heard about the collapse of Nicoll Highway which was just beside the Esplanade! At 9.00p.m, we were released and I reached home at about 10.00p.m.

So that was roughly was happened for the rehearsal day. Sorry that I cannot talk about the actual performance in this entry!

2004-04-19T21:41:00.000+05:30

Hmm, I haven't been blogging for quite a while. Sorry for this as I had been quite busy with CO practice this two weeks. So I think I will talk about many small, "scattered" issues.

The last entry I talked a lot on the Chinese test. During the next day, I felt slighter better during Chiu lao shi's lesson when she talked about early Chinese history, partly because she was able to narrate in a very interesting manner, but mainly because I wanted to know more about the early history of China, which I was a little unclear about. Actually, the two main periods that I was unsure of was before Zhou Dynasty and during the period of Nan Bei "dynansty". (Sorry! I side tracked a little.) And the CO practice that day also helped a lot, as music can really calm the heart. So anyway, till now, I am still a little geng3 geng3 yu2 huai2 but I am currently much better.

The CO practice these few days had been rather fun. Despite the fact that we will have practice every day till the performance on Wednesday, it was quite enjoyable. Now, I can finally say that we should be able to shake everyone's hearts on that day. However, on a personal level, I still have certain errors that need to be rectified immediately. As for tomorrow, the eve of the concert, we will be going down to the Esplanade for a rehearsal that will end at 10.00p.m! Now that the performance is only 2 days away, I seem to be getting more excited, rather than frightened. This event will be one of the most memorable events this year, or maybe even my whole life.

This will be a short entry for today, due to the lack of time. Maybe I will post the next entry only after the the performance. Bye!

2004-04-15T20:02:00.000+05:30

Let me vent all my frustration and sadness in this blog today. Today, I suffered the biggest humiliation, disgrace and agony of my life so far (in my opinion).

Let me explain. Today was this term's Chinese Test. And this was the first time ever that I had did so badly in any Chinese Test. Since primary school, Chinese has always been my best subject and I will usually get above 90% for most of the time in Sec 1. (Please do not misunderstand, I'm not trying to boast. Really.) However, when I received the paper today, somehow I suddenly blanked out and my hand was shaking so much that I could not hold the pen properly. (imagine the extent to which I blanked out). I was really shocked at this phenomenon as I had never ever experienced this before. When I glanced through the questions, it seemed okay and usually, I would be quite confident for Chinese tests. Therefore, this had an extreme drastic effect on how I answered the questions. My mind was in a whirl and I could not think straight at all. At that point of time, I was freaked out by the fact that I blanked out, which made the matter worse. So eventually, I was unable to do the paper properly and resulted in wrong answers for numerous questions.

So you might feel puzzled as to why this happened. After careful consideration, I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I was overly confident for this particular test. During this week, I thought that as long as I revised the night before the test, it would be alright. However, this was wrong. Terribly wrong. Never did I realize that there were so many things to revise for, causing my to be unable to revise everything I was supposed to. As a result, I was very anxious and afraid I would do badly. This mentality thus eventually caused me to be so flurried that I lost confidence in myself. This was the irony: Overconfidence led to lost of confidence.

Clearly, I was too confident of myself at the start, thinking that I would be able to manage it. Maybe as it is my best subject, I became too complacent. At the beginning of this year, my Chinese teacher had said that she does not want us to be too smooth-sailing, rather she said that coming across unsuccessful situations once in a while is good for us. So, clearly what she said had came true for me today, and I have learnt a valuable lesson.

Nevertheless, I was still so sad that I even felt numb in my heart. I wanted to cry out, or at least show signs of sadness. But somehow, it seemed like there is a thick wall surrounding me, not allowing me to pour out my emotions. I had thought that i was able to accept defeat if it comes my way. Now I know that is not true, at least for now. Seriously, I regard this incident as a humiliation to myself. Other people might find my behavior to be childish, and say things like you cannot be always successful in your life. But i need a revenue to let loose my feelings.

Sorry that I am posting some very sad stuff here. I am very tired and broken-hearted now, so maybe what I have posted is too serious. Now I must continue to do my homework.

2004-04-12T21:08:00.000+05:30

Finally, today I'm getting better from my illness. Actually since Friday, I had a persistent inflamming of the throat, but I only saw the doctor on Sunday. And yesterday night, after coming back from Erhu lessons at 10.30p.m, I was down with a slight fever. So I was exhausted but had to complete one homework that did not had time to do till about 1.00a.m in the morning, which seriously almost "killed" me (since I was sick).

Today was the Maths Quiz on Linear Graph, and I did really badly for it. Somehow I'm not very good in this aspect of Maths, or rather my Maths is not very good. Mainly, I'm still confused about relating the linear graph to the linear equation. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, I plan to seek help from someone as soon as possible. And today there was da zu, but due to the Student's Union Investiture rehearsal today, I was unable to go for it. Honestly, I would rather go for da zu, where at least I can practice the songs for the Esplanade concert. Somehow, I seem to have grown tired of this kind of investiture stuff that do not have much practical use except to foster better relationships with other schools who will be sending representatives to watch our investiture tomorrow. Actually, I seem to be very weary of everything around me, which is a bad sign. Or maybe I should get more rest, to conserve energy...

As there are really too much to do this week, I cannot really talk much today. Maybe there will be even lesser posts this week, sorry. Depending on the situation, I will still try to blog often.

2004-04-10T22:38:00.000+05:30

Hi. Today and yestesday was supposed to be a time to rest my mind, but I seem to be running around these two days.

Yesterday was Good Friday, which was supposedly a public holiday. And due to the large amount of homework (really a lot! I'm still fretting as to how to complete them on time), I was planning to sleep till 9.00a.m so as to have enough energy to complete them but...

(At 7.10a.m): Ring! Ring!
Me: Hello?
Ben (Sec 2 Erhu Leader): Hello? Is it Gim Thia?
Me: Erm...
Ben: Gim Thia har, you know today got Erhu or not?
Me: Har!!! What time???
Ben: 8.00a.m.
Me: ...

So as you can see, I had to rush to school and I was late for 10 min...

Okay, so that basically is the shock I got the moment I woke up. Later I found out that it is not entirely Ben's fault. He had called up everyone the day before at 5.00p.m+ but I was at Chong Chen's house doing a History Presentation and also did not bring my handphone. As a result, he forgot about me only until the next day.

As for today, there was again the normal da zu. But due to the fact that one of our songs is a combined item with HCJC CO, they picked the best of both the 2 COs for this particular song to practise it after "normal" da zu that ends at 10.00a.m. So after 10.00a.m, the whole of Sec 2 Erhu went for xiao zu lesson with our teacher. But doing lunch time, we found that the canteen stalls were all closed, so our teacher allowed us to go out somewhere to eat. We went to Prince's restaurant at Coronation Plaza. This marked the start of a weird day of meeting people I know everywhere. The moment I stepped in Prince's, I saw Li Tang (or rather she saw me). Then, I turned around and saw Liang Xun and Yu Guang. After I started eating, me and Yao Hui saw Nicholas Lim, one of the presidential candidates for this year's elections. We went back to school to continue practising till 2.45p.m.

After the tiring practice, I went to Woodlands Regional Library to look for a particular book that is not for loan but only for reference. Previously, a librarian had said that the books in the repository used book collection was available for borrowing but I have to reserve it beforehand and have to pay a fee for it. However, it turned out that reserving the book and paying the fee was only for reading the book, and not for borrwoing. Fortunately, there was a copy of that book that was not in the repository book collection and available for general referencing. So, I wasted quite a lot of time there even after finding the book as I needed to photocopy selected pages. And then I saw Ben and his whole family while going down the escalator, but they did not see me until an hour later, while I was doing homework in a corner of the library. When I decided to go home, I saw Ben's brother again, and while passing through Causeway Point, Yao Lei and Carlos saw me. I know this may not seem very interesting, but it did seem a little weird meeting so many people I know on the same day coincidentally at different places.

So this sums up what happened. Now I have to face the mountains of homework. Sigh. Don't know why suddenly got so many things to do.

2004-04-07T21:54:00.000+05:30

Today did not go very well. The worst is the NAPFA test, which I really did terribly in.

Out of the five items tested today (ie. excluding 2.4km run), I did not pass one of them: shuttle run. The passing speed for my age is 11.6s (I think) and I ran 11.9s, a difference of 0.3 seconds. Actually I feel very yuan1 wang3 because I was the first one to run, and the thing was that I forget the whole procedure. The correct procedure is to run to the line opposite the starting line, take the wooden block, run back, then take the second wooden block and rush back to the starting line without putting the wooden block on the floor. But instead, for the last step, I stupidly put the second block on the floor, which caused me to slow down tremendously at the last crucial moment. But I only have myself to blame for forgetting the procedure.

As for the other four items, my standards have dropped. Let me give the stats:
Sit-ups: 30 (Last year: 40)
Inclined pull-up: 13 (Pri 5: 24, Pri 6: 21, Sec 1: 16)
Sit & reach: 42cm (last year: 46cm)
standing board jump: 189cm (I think the passing mark is 186cm)

So I was quite dejected after the NAPFA. Luckily, there is a re-test, which I think I can do better in. But still... quite worried about shuttle run & standing board jump.

Okay, enough of the NAPFA test. Today, there is da zu practice which was quite sudden as we were informed of it only yesterday. Actually I was not informed at all by Ben, our Sec 2 Erhu leader, but since I heard someone asking, "is there da zu tomorrow?" yesterday during the xiao zu practice, I brought my Erhu just in case... So somehow there was a breakdown in communication within Sec 2 Erhu as many were not informed of da zu. And on today itself, Ben told me that da zu will start at 2.00p.m, when it actually starts only at 3.30p.m, causing me to miss the Project's Day talk at the Auditorium at 2.00p.m. But da zu was not very effective today as our conductor, Mr Ng Boon Chai did not come and instead the Suo Na teacher came to conduct. He spent 1 hour trying to perfect a single page of musical scores but the result was not good. So I was also quite anxious as the performance is only exactly two weeks away.

So that should be all for today. And one more thing, I have decided that my schedule for posting blogs will be on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and if there is time, also on other days. I know this may seem quite lame, but I am trying to be more organized. Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

2004-04-04T21:30:00.000+05:30

This is the longest time that I neither post nor did I view my blog at all. During this few days, I also did not check the EMB, iVLE, all my emails, etc. So this caused me to be seperated from "the world". Anyway, before I start, I want to say a few words to the spammer: Even though I did not check my blog for a long time so I do not know what else you posted, from what I see today is already very guo4 fen4. I warn you to stop doing those things immediately. And this will be the last time I say please.

Okay, this few days were quite interesting. On Wednesday, I went to the Woodlands Regional Library with Zhi Yi to search for books on my MRP topic. We took 961 from the school bus stop there. Even though this was our first time there, the library was quite easy to find. When we entered, it was so shockingly good with all the facilities and wide range of books. So I was like: "Wow", "wow", ... (*sua gu*) Anyway, we found the book that we were eyeing for and many other good and comprehensive books on the topic. Besides, the condusive environment is good for studying. I personally feel that this is the best library after the National Library (which closed down on that same day according to the newspaper. Sniff, sniff.) So I will recommend this library to everyone who want to source for good information.

I totally forgot what happened on Thurday and Friday, so I will skip to Saturday. Saturday was so fun! After CO practice, the whole xian2 yue4 of CO (except those that did not want to go) went for the "Erhu Festival - A Trilogy of the Erhu", which in Chinese is named "Er4 Hu2 Qing2 Jie2. It was held at the Singapore Conference Hall (SCH), home to the Singapore Chinese Orchestra (SCO) and consists of three part, one on Friday and two on Saturday. The first one on Saturday is a concert by famous young Erhu musicians in Singapore, which include Cheong Wang Long from my school. Wang Long is actually the youngest 9th grade guy for any instrument in Singapore. He started learning Erhu from my teacher in Pri 1 and got his certificate in Pri 4. His standard now is comparable to my Gaohu Section Leader, James, who got his 9th grade cert last year, when he was Sec 3.

However, we did not get a chance to witness his performance as we did not see that concert but went for the later one. Rather, we went to a session held in accordance with the Erhu Festival conducted by Mr Zhang Jian Ping, where we learnt about the art of Erhu-making and how to take care of an Erhu. He is a famous Erhu maker from Shanghai. In this talk, he even took a whole stretch of snake-skin about 5 metres long that is used for covering the qin2 tong3 of the Erhu for vibration purposes and demonstrated how to cover the qin2 tong3 itself. Then half-way though, a guy in the audience suddenly jumped up and grabbed the cameraman (since Channel 5 and 8 newes were covering this event) and scolded and almost beat him for blocking his friend's view while shooting. He was clearly an English-speaking guy, that kind of proud Singaporean that people always talked about. This really disgraced Singapore in front of the Ehu-making specialist from China. Actually, I never really thought that there were such people in Singapore until now. Haiz. But Mr Zhang said something like "...like the fact that there are good and bad people in every country, there are snakes with good and bad quality snake skins..." sometime later when that same guy asked him two questions. So maybe he is refering to that guy?

Anyway, after the talk which ended at 4.00p.m, we decided to go somewhere for dinner and to do something since the night performance by the SCO would start at 8.00p.m. At that time, Hong Fei had a stomachache, so Zheng You wanted to "play" with him. He led the other Sec 2s and Sec 3s to Tanjong Pagar MRT station, while telephoning Hong Fei that we were going to Lao3 Ba1 Sha1 nearby to eat. So he was tricked and went there alone, while we were already at Raffles Place MRT. There, Zheng You tricked him again, and said that he was isolated at City Hall MRT whiel the rest of us were at Lao3 Ba1 Sha1 and asked Hong Fei to look for him. So the tricking continued, and continued... Eventually, we went to Takashimaya to eat KFC (travelled so far just to eat that???) while Hong Fei was left searching for us all over the place. Obviously, Hong Fei was hopping mad when we finally returned, and even then, Zheng You was tricking him again. This became a very complicated matter, where the rest of us can only follow him around and almost turned into a fight between the two of them. So I regretted becoming Zheng You's "accomplice" but seriously speaking, this seemed like the rest us were at fault but in fact, we could do little and the mastermind was Zheng You. But luckily, nothing much happened.

Then, of course, we returned to the SCH for performance by the SCO. Needless to say, it was fabulous. However, this was special as two of the six songs were performed while the conductor spoke on the microphone and introduced us to the song. The last song was even specially arranged such that the conductor was facing us while conducting and there were six SCO musicians stationed beside the audience all around the concert hall, thus creating a stereo effect that was simply undescrible. Eventually, I arrived home at 12.00a.m at midnight.

2004-03-30T21:49:00.000+05:30

Haiz. My life is becoming so messy in the beginning of this term again. Example: Unfinished homework, , lack of practice for Erhu, being almost late for school these few weeks. For the last issue, I don't know why this happens, I always arrive in school at about 6.50a.m last year, bu now it is *gulp* 7.15a.m, making me seem the only person in class who is "almost late but not late".

All that I know is that I'm tired, really tired.

MRP, project's day, CO, homework, family life, school life is making me go crazy. And now there is even people who post inappropriate comments in my tagboard to add on to my woes. I am very frustrated with myself these few days. And I seem to be becoming less and less sympathetic and emotional to anything, thus my life is like that of robot. EG. Usually, when I read a touching book or watch a touching play, movie, etc, I will be so overwhelmed by emotions, which contributes to writing essays, but this is not the case since a few weeks ago.

I know I must manage my time well, which is an issue I have talked about many times in this blog, but it's ironic that I don't have time to plan my time properly, so I need to find time to plan in the first place. This, I am planning to start planning tomorrow. Or maybe the issue is not that serious, but because i am so tired and dejected today. And today there is an English test, which I did not do well in. My Erhu teacher did not come today. *disorganized thoughts*

Sorry everyone, my mind is not working today, so as you can see this entry is very disorganized. Please forgive me if I do not post on a regular basis these few days. After working our my time and straightening out my thoughts, I will try to post regularly once again. And yes, regarding the fact tht I had promised to talk about the Lee Kong Chian play, I think I will gave my thoughts about it when i have the time, since I cannot possibly talk about it today with such a disorganized mind.

I am pouring out my thoughts today, so hope everyone won't criticize me on today's entry. Feel much better now.

2004-03-29T22:26:00.000+05:30

After days of non-stop working, I finally have the time to go to my blog and of course, to post this new entry. First things first. Since my "return", I have noticed something going on in my tagboard with "two" people posting as the name "chiobu" and "chioestbu around". Please stop doing these things that will defame me. My reason for clarifying things is that I hope my tagboard won't be misused. Thank you.

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Let me talk about Saturday. Saturday was one of days so far this year. As usual, I had xiao zu practice, so I went to school at 7.00a.m. However, due to my Maths re-test at 9.00a.m, I did not go for da zu but instead for the re-test. The re-test was okay, and the level was about the same as the first test. I got back my re-test result today (Monday). It was 31/40 or 77.5%. I am quite happy with the results but I still made endless careless mistakes. grhh. So I must still improve as it is still quite poor.

After that, I went for lunch and of course, met my Sec 2 Erhu group members (those that did not went for re-test) who told me about the da zu on that day. Due to our performance at the Singapore Indian Association (I think it is SINGA) which all the Sec 2s in Erhu did not participate in, the whole da zu was literally empty. There were about 4 Erhus, no Zhonghus no Gaohus, no Yangqin, no Cello, no Percussion and only a few other instruments left. Imagine how *pathetic* (in a funny way) the sight would have been.

But the interesting thing happened during xiao zu practice after lunch. Since it is xiao zu, the practice will consists of only Xian Yue instruments (i.e Erhu , Gaohu & Zhonghu). But somehow, it turned into a "zhong zu practice" (of course there is no such thing) as Suo Na, Dizi and zhong ruan suddenly joined us. So this mini da zu even attracted teachers to watch, including Ms Seng of the Student's Union and my last year Chinese teacher Ms Teo. So it turned out fun and enjoyable.

After CO, I went to bathe to come to school again for the Student's Union meeting at 2.00p.m, which was proceeded by our own Aphelion Council General Meeting (AGM), which was supposed to start at 5.30p.m and end the next day morning. It started off with the normal intro stuff. Then there was the ice-breakers for the Sec 2 and Sec 3 Aphelion councillors to know ech other better. But the most memorable thing was that they invited our seniors of the 2nd Aphelion Council (now we are the 5th) in JC who were described by Mr Foo as "the best batch of councillors ever". They talked to us mainly about time management, putting studies as the first priority and how to create a working spirit. It was really an inspiring speech where almost everyone, including me, were really touched. However, the different teachers gave us a scolding and praising later due to some reasons. So we really experienced an upheaval of emotions: inspiration, dejection, being praised, having fun, etc.

This ended at about 12.00a.m. Then we went for the modified version of solo night. The Sec 2s were blindfolded and 2 were "given" to a Sec 3. We were then supposed to be brought around the school, and left there for 1/2 an hour right in the middle of the night. I was partnered with Alvin Kuk and my Sec 3 was Yun Song. Before, setting off, the Sec 3s told a lot of ghost stories about Chinese High and even Ms Teo also told one. They scared us with saying things like how this could be your last night as a TCHS student and as a Aphelion councillor. Due to the tense atmosphere at that time, many of us were freaked out.

When we set off initially, i clinged on to Alvin (or rather we clinged on to each other) for fear that the seniors might break us apart as we feel more safe in pairs. At tirst, the atmosphere was really frightening and we were blindfolded. Of course, the Sec 3s made a lot off ghostly noises to frighten us. But after about 1 hour, it was not scary anymore and Alvin and I even kicked and punched the seniors as some of them had tried to attack us. Even Ms Pek joined in making fun of us. The whole journey started off from Aphelion room and ended at the clock tower. The whole thing ended at about 3.00a.m in the morning and after playing Chinese chess with Alvin, I slept in the former 1C classroom.

In the morning on Sunday, nothing much happened and there was mainly a debrief by Ms Pek. I went to KAP with Bao Chen to eat breakfast and went home to sleep. Later, I went to see the Lee Kong Chian play at the Drama Centre. Personally, I feel that this play is really meaningful but due to time constraints, I will give a detailed review of the play in tomorrow's blog entry. Bye!

2004-03-25T19:21:00.000+05:30

Hi. Sorry that I had no time to post these few days. I think the next time I will be able to post will be on Monday as I will be busy till the end of this week.

Let me talk a bit about Wednesday. My Erhu xiao zu practice was supposed to be scheduled on Tuesday, but it was postphoned to Wednesday. However, there are 40 primary school principals from Malaysia coming to visit Chinese High for some interaction programme, so a few selected councillors from Aphelion, including me, were selected to bring them on a tour around the school campus. Due to this, I had to go for my Erhu practice at about 5.30p.m after the tour.

So we waited for the principals at the boarding school, where they are putting up. The plan all along was to go together as a large group with two leading and the rest mingling inside the group to introduce the various facilities. However, it was changed instantly when we arrived inside the boarding school and 2 person were to lead a "small" group of 10 principals, so there were supposed to be 4 groups. As seperate groups, we led them around the school to places like the library, auditorium, gymnasium, heritage centre, clock tower block and track. However, this proved to be quite unsuccessful even though the tour itself was completed successfully as, towards the end, the principals did not follow the correct group and my group was left with I think 4 principals. Eventually, the whole group was mingled together.

The principals themselves were mostly friendly and some talked to us. But they are a bit too "daring" in that sense as they even barged into our principal's room and took pictures of it like an exhibit while inside the admin block. After this "event", I rushed back to the canteen, where my Erhu practice is held. But it ended before I could even play a single note, so it was wasted.

That night, I rushed through the Englsih Portfolio entry on the Caring Package, which consists of four articles from Reader's Digest. I thought that we need to complete it by today (Thursday) and typed till 2.00a.m, only to find out that it should be handed in only next week! And then, I asked Mrs Chai and she said that we only have to do a review on one single article. But luckily, she said that I can seperate them into four protfolio entries so my effort is not wasted.

As for today, it started off badly. I was almost late when I got out of my home to go to school. However, on the way, the zip of my bag burst, and all the contents spilled out in the middle of the road!!! I rushed to pick them up when a car was travelling towards me! Luckily, the driver stopped and waited just for me. At that moment, a passer-by stopped to help me pick up all my belongings and I stuffed (yes, really stuffed) them into the bag in a hurry. I was running late so after thanking that kind lady, I rushed to the bus stop. However, before I could run for 10 seconds, the handle of the plastic bag I was carrying broke, and the contents almost dropped out.

Okay, enough of the unfortunate incidents. The day itself was fine, and I asked my friends Kai Yao and Jian Ting to explain to me about Maths as I will be taking the maths re-test due to my poor grade in Maths (C5). I am really very grateful to their help and I aim for A1 in this re-test even though the capped marks will be at B4 no matter how high your marks are. But on my way home, I slept on the double-decker bus 174 again and arrived at the interchange...

So this sums up all that happened for yesterday and today.

2004-03-22T21:36:00.000+05:30

Maybe I will try to talk more on the main points of every day instead of talking so much, but today's entry will be very long. Maybe it will be the longest so far. Anyway, these two days, Sunday and today (i.e. Monday) are what I consider bad days, so I am quite pessimistic and upset today.

Firstly, let me talk Sunday, which is my school's founder's day. We are supposed to arrive at school at 8.45a.m, but because of the CO performance that night, I had to go early to leave my bag and CO uniform at the MPH. As my father wanted to go out for photography, he conveniently brought me to school by car. This is the third time he did so.

So after going to MPH, I went to Kah Kee Hall for the prize ceremony. Yuan Chang, the chairman of our class 2D, won 2 awards. One is for being the third in standard (Sec 1) and one for the model student award, because he obtained an msg of 1.00 (straight A1s) and even contested for the Aphelion Council Chairman position. He is currently in the EXCO of Aphelion Council. The morning celebrations ended at abt 12.00p.m or a little earlier. So I went to KAP with Chong Chen, Alvin (Aw not Kuk) and Jian Ting. Jian Ting and CHong Chen kept on teasing Alvin by calling him by his nickname Big-Head Garoupa. I think I agitated him by ordering a filet-o-fish meal. We ended up going back to school at about 1.00p.m. Alvin, Jian Ting and I went to the study area in the staff room to do homework and revision as the library is not open. Luckily no teacher chased us away.

Next, I went back to the MPH at 2.45p.m. At 2.15p.m, the whole CO moved the musical instuments to the field, under the tent that was behind the temporary stage. We conducted the final rehearsal for the performance that didn't go very well and went to collect our dinner at the canteen. We thought that there might be some nice food free-of-charge provided for us. But they gave us food that I consider slightly worse than canteen food. So I bought a packet of drink to wash down the food but found out that there are free drinks later. This is when everything went wrong, wrong, wrong. It started when I was too greedy and kept on drinking the free drinks. At first I thought I would be able to handle it, but I gradually became so full that I was bloated up to the chest and had difficulty breathing. There is the feeling of wanting to vomit yet being unable to vomit at all. I ignored it and went back to the MPH to change into CO uniform.

When everyone is ready, we went to the clock tower for checking by the police since PM Goh is gracing the event. At that point of time, it was raining very heavily such that it is almost impossible to see what is in front. I shared an umbrella with someone and rushed down the terraces down to the big tent pitched beside the field. Eventually, when i reached, the whole umbrella was twisted and my pants was soaked. But this was nothing compared to other CO members whose whole uniform was wet. The rain was so heavy that all the pots of flowers along the walkway sown the terraces had overturned and the walkway to the stage had totally toppled over. But what was worrying was that our musical instruments at the back of the temporary stage might be soaked despite being under a shelter. My Erhu was placed in the case, so only the case was wet. Fortunately, the rain stopped gradually before the anniversary dinner started.

The first performance was by the HCJC CO (whose instuments were also soaked, and needed our help in wiping them dry). Then throughout the whole dinner, our CO was at the back of the stage. From 7.00p.m to 10.00p.m, we waited, talked, gossiped, played, etc. The whole time, I was feeling bloated and in bad shape. So I decided to sleep on the chairs and using my Erhu case as a headrest to relieve my agony. But after 1 min, I woke up and... saw the conductor staring down at me. I was... huh??? When did he arrive? What shall I do? The first and only thing he asked me, "So you are sleeping." I just awkwardly nodded. I think this might had left a bad impression on him. (sigh)

After some time, we finally performed. It was acceptable but not too good. But not many of the guest were listening to any of the performance, so the applause we received was terribly little. After bringing back our instuments to the MPH and packing up, I went to the bus stop to wait for my father who will be fetching me. As I waited, the police suddenly blocked all the vehicles PM Goh was escorted out...

I returned home at 11.30p.m, and slept at 12.00a.m.

Regarding today, it was worse than yesterday, which was only because of my bloated stomach and the rain. Today was supposed to be a school holiday but somehow, I had respiratory problems for the whole day and could not do any homework. I went to see a doctor at 8.00p.m after my Maths class. He said that I was too stressed or agitated so it is not really a problem. Finally, I remembered that I had a huge quarrel with my brother today at about noon. Perhaps this is the root cause. Currently, I'm still experiencing it, but it's better than before. I finally completed the homework at night.

So now I must prepare myself for school tomorrow.

2004-03-20T21:07:00.000+05:30

I'm very sorry for not posting any blog entries for 2 days. I'm really very busy these few days so I really could not find any extra time, hope everyone does not mind. I will also not be posting tomorrow as I will go to school at 8.00a.m and come back at about 11.00p.m due to the 85th Anniversary Concert. I will explain what will happen in Monday's entry.

Okay, so I will start with Thursday. I had xiao zu practice at 7.30a.m which ended up in 5 hours of scolding from my Erhu teacher because the whole Sec 2 Erhu group played mu4 gui4 ying1 very badly. So he went through every single part of the song and scolded us as we went along. He said that our standard are world's apart from our seniors when they were Sec 2. So the atmosphere was bad but I did learn something from that day's practice.

And I took the same bus to school and back: Service No. 66, SBS2714L. I know this is a very minor issue so I'm talking crap again but somehow I remembered this very clearly. After arriving home, I made a fatal mistake by taking an afternoon nap and wasted precious hours. But the night was more meaningful. My counsin who is currently studying in NIE, NTU gave me some very good advice about how I should plan my time. I have to admit that my time management is extremely poor so I'm really grateful for the wonderful advice given.

Friday. Finally, we had the chance to rehearse for the school's 85 Anniversary Concert on this Sunday as the stage is now ready. But as we wasted a lot of time moving the instruments and chairs (especially the big instruments for da3 ji1 yue4), so the vice-principal was not very happy. Nevertheless, the rehearsal was quite okay.

After returning to the MPH, Mr Tan Guan Chye brought up the issue of changing the CO uniform again. This time, they brought in a issue of whether not only should the uniform itself be changed, but wheter the tie should also be changed. They were suggestions to chagne to blue, purple, pink, yellow, etc ties which seemed quite disgusting. After 1 and a 1/2 hour of intense discussion, we held a referendum to decide. Of course I supported keeping the present CO uniform. The results were very close: 33:31 votes, my side won.
(Yaeeeee!!!) So we kept the present one. Eventually, da zu and xiao zu practice ended at 6.30p.m and I went home.

As for today, there was da zu at 8.00a.m (again). I foolishly thought that there will be xiao zu at 7.00a.m, so I woke up and went to school early. After da zu, there is xiao zu as usual, where Zheng Ming and Brandon went through qing4 dian3 and mu4 gui4 ying1 with us. I also got the mu4 gui4 ying1 mp3 that I mentioned in the previous entry from Zheng Ming, who was kind enough to burn the CD for me and Yao Hui. I said that I tried to download the mp3 from the internet but actually I had heard wrongly. Rather, it is Zheng Ming who provides the mp3 for everyone. Arghh. So I spent time searching for the mp3 for nothing!

At 9.00p.m, I have private Erhu lessons which was originally scheduled at 8.45p.m very Sunday but I changed it just for today due to the performance tomorrow. So now I have to sleep early to get ready for tomorrow, which is also the last day of the March Holidays. Time really flies. (sigh)

2004-03-17T21:26:00.000+05:30

Went to school today for CO and saw Yong Lin on the bus 174. We chatted about the price of a bus pass, and whether it is cheaper for him to buy one.

What the whole CO is supposed to do is to rehearse for the Founder's Day Dinner Concert scheduled on this Sunday, 21th March. But it turned out that the stage is not ready yet due to the heavy rain the past few days. So we settled on xiao zu practice, where we repeatedly praticed one 'paragraph' which the whole xian2 yue4 was not very familiar with. I learnt quite a lot from today's practice. Then we returned to MPH for da zu but it was cancelled. So we were released after the debrief.

After that, I played soccer with some CO members. Sec 2s (+ 3 Sec 3s and 1 Sec 1) V.S Sec 3s and Sec 4s. So of course we lost, 6:2. Not that I like soccer v. much (or rather I don't know how to kick properly), but since everyone wants to play, play loh... until 2.00p.m!!! What a waste of precious time! But (sigh), "shi2 guang1 yi4 shi4 yong3 bu4 hui2" (anyone knows this song??), time and tide waits for no man...

Then I took 66 back home, and saw Yao Lei getting up the bus at the first bus stop when the bus turns into Jln Jurong Kechil from Upp. Bukit Timah Rd. Yao Lei says he lives at Jurong West, yet 66 only goes to Jurong East... Never mind about him.

I seem to be talking a bit of err..."crap" today. Hope everyone don't mind. Right now I'm trying to downloading the mu4 gui4 ying1 gua4 shuai4 mp3, which is one of the songs for the Esplanade concert. And tomorrow got xiao zu at 7.30a.m, so I have to wake up early. That's about all for today.

2004-03-16T20:04:00.000+05:30

I will give a simple book review today instead of the usual narrative style. (Unfortunately, I think this is even more boring than the usual style. But I'm giving a try.)

Today, I spent a few hours reading finish a Chinese novel at one go which is entitled "huan4 mie4 de4 tian1 cai2 meng4", which literally translates into "the gifted dream that burst". The plot almost got me tearful.

It mainly talks about a gifted girl of 19 named Yu Hui Ying who, from young, was forced by her mother, Xue Qing to be the best. So she has to do logical IQ questions and etc. She was thus able to get in the gifted class through the gifted streaming test in Pri 3 and came out as the "top of the top" in the gifted class and even topped the school in the PSLE, 'O' levels and the 'A' levels. Because of Xue Qing's determination to breed Hui Ying, her husband, Yu Le Gang could not stand Xue Qing whose heart was as cold as stone (Xue Qing had neglected her husband for years) and they got divorced.

(Years Later)
Hui Ying was studying in an American university and fell in love with an Arts student, Cui Zhe Hao there, who brought her into the world of Arts (Since Hui Ying's life only revolved around Science and Maths, she knew nothing about Arts). For half a year, she thought that Zhe Hao loved her, but in the end he loved someone else (Sophie) whom he had only known for less than a week. As Hui Ying was always looked after by her mother, she was unable to accept it and killed Zhe Hao and Sophie. Out of desperation, she commited suicide. However, her death brought together her father and mother once again.

This story is one full of love and hatred and has highlighted certain issues about Singapore's education system and its effects on parents who tend to force their child to be the best. At the age of 19, Hui Ying has a bright future. But she was unable to accept the outcome of her relationship with Zhe Hao since she always experienced success in whatever she did. Thus this story led me thinking on the loopholes in the education system, which may be corrected with time with the tremendous changes in the system this few years.

Even though, the plot is relatively simple, the language usued in the story is so rich that the strong emotions of each character expressed makes the story very touching.

2004-03-15T19:36:00.000+05:30

Today is the start of the March one-week holidays, but work is just as much as usual.

I reached school at 7.30a.m for CO practice, which actually starts at 1.00p.m! I know, I'm kind of stupid to arrive at school 5 and a 1/2 hrs (!!!) before practice starts. But actually I don't know why I did that. I just remembered going out and bringing my holiday homework to school to do. It seemed so automatic that I don't know what happened.

Anyway, I completed my homework at 9.00a.m and then slept on the bench at the Lit. Corner (beside the 2 table tennis courts above the canteen) for 1 and a 1/2 hr. Afterwards, I ate lunch and practised my Erhu songs till 12.15p.m. Honestly, I know that this is a very stupid thing to do. Somehow, i was so tired that I even slept on my Erhu case! Within this few hours, I was like in a dreamy state and not knowing what I am doing. A very funny start to this day.

Then what happened was that almost everyone in Sec 2 Erhu arrived at 12.30p.m at the MPH (Music Practice Hall/Multi-Purpose Hall) when dazu starts at 1.00p.m. Usually about half will arrive 5 min late. Somehow everyone's bus was so fast. And da zu rawks! Mr Tan Guan Chye even praised the xian2 yue4 section until the whole orchestra was in an uproar. Actually its true that we indeed played qing4 dian3 xu4 qu3 quite well and up to standard. No wonder playing that song seemed to have that shiok feeling (Ha Ha!) Of course there is always a need to improve.

After CO, Mr Tan announced that we will have to change the CO uniform for the Esplanade concert. Said that our current uniform has a history of 10 years so we need to change with the times. What is worse is that he suggested changing to black shirt with HCJC pants (khaki colour). Urgh!! Seem quite disgusting. I don't see what's wrong with the current U of white shirt and HCJC pants with a dark brown blazer. I think it is the best combination and much better than the traditional black-and-white suit. Furthermore, I already bought the CO uniform (the same as the councillor uniform) which will go to waste. Many people are disgusted by this decision. But at least for the founder's day concert, we still get to use the current one. And of course I hope this change will not be implemented.

Because CO ended at about 5.15p.m, and I have class at 6.00p.m, I rushed back to Bt. Batok but was still late for the class. This mad rush for today is finally coming to a close. Luckily there is no practice tomorrow, so I can try to pia finish the holiday homework.

2004-03-13T22:31:00.000+05:30

I met one of my teacher-in-charge for CO, Ms Ho Yun Wei, today in the bus 157 while going to school in the morning. As I have said before, she also taught me for the Chinese Sabbatical I chose. I don't know why she was so surprised that I that I'm in the Chinese Orchestra when she met me yesterday in the staff room carrying my Erhu. I thought she already saw me carrying it on Tuesday during her lesson? But she's a nice teacher.

I think I wasted the whole day. For CO practice, I did not exactly learn much in the morning Sec 2 xiao zu. Then later in da zu, zhi3 hui1 focused more on Dizi, so again, I did not practise much. The only thing I learnt is the more precise zhi3 fa3 for B flat diao4 which Kai Xiang taught me. Then, when I thought that I will learn more in xiao zu later in the afternoon, James said that xiao zu is cancelled! So I wasted another 1 and a 1/2 hour playing soccer with my Sec 2 Erhu members and two Sec 2 Pipa guys after lunch. And while going home, once again I slept in the bus 157 and got to the interchange. So... wasted another 1 and a 1/2 hour.

Then, I kept on wasting my time the whole day. I slept for 3 hrs at home, when I was preparing to use that time to practise Erhu. Afte waking up, I watched the wu2 tou2 dong1 gong1 dram serial on Channel U and wasted even more time. I regretted slaking for today, and I haven't started on my holiday homework!

A day wasted.

2004-03-12T20:52:00.000+05:30

We got back the Term Progress Report today. My MSG is 2.17, which as expected, is above 2. Out of the six subjects (six and not eight because Hist, Geog and Lit are combined into IH), three of them, Maths, Science, and IH are below class average, while English is exactly on the class average. This leaves only Chinese and Com Studies that is above average. This is a tremendous drop from last year wich I must try to stop before my results slip further. I think I'm losing confidence in myself. So the only way to improve is to get to the root of the problem and solve it. And the HATS awards which I had aimed for is now gone. This award requires my MSG to be less than 2 for last year's EOY Exam as well as this year's first term results. So ... (Sigh).

Besides that, as today is the last day of the Hwa Chong Sabbaticals, we are required to do two Powerpoint presentations and write a Tang Dynasty poem, and of course, present them. I did not really enjoy this last bit of fun today due to the workload but it ended quite well. We did a mini test on Dr Sun Yat-Sen at the end of the Sabbatical whch I obtained 46/50.

After school, I went to collect the clock tower model from Mr Jeffery Lim, costing $85. The model is that of the clock tower before the renovations, so there are some differences between what we see today (actual clock tower) and the model. Despite the small size, it still looks quite grand and even majestic. Later, I went for the normal CO practice. There will be a performance on the 21st March for the 85th Anniversary Celebrations, which I just knew about today. Five of us from Sec 2 Erhu are selected to participate. What seems rediculous is that we will perform in the field at night!! I really don't know how are we going to do that.

2004-03-10T22:01:00.000+05:30

Today, for the Hwa Chong Sabbaticals, we continued what we had learnt in the last two lessons.

In the section for Chinese Literature, we continued on to the singing of Song Dynasty "Ci". It is only now that I know that many songs of the late Teresa Teng (Deng4 Li4 Jun1) had lyrics of Song "Ci"s, when I had known all these songs since young! Examples of these songs are "Yu2 Mei3 Ren2", "Xiang1 Jian4 Huan1" and "Yan1 Zhi1 Lei4". Next, we were divided into groups of five and had to present them through singing. But the song we picked through drawing lots was much harder to sing than those of the other groups. So of course, we sang off tune despite trying very hard to remember how the tune went.

Later, we finished watching the movie, ying1 xiong2. This movie is very difficult to understand due to its technique of manipulating the plots. Most people will need to watch the movie at least two to three times in order to understand fully what is going on. But as the teacher, Ms Wang Wanyi had already prepared us by telling us how to watch it even before screening, we were able to comprehend it at the first (and only) screening. This was followed by in depth discussion of the true meaning of the movie, its marvelous plot and artistic features. We were introduced to the different viewpoints of different people and how the movie was also criticized by people. Nevertheless, I regard it as a brillant masterpiece.

I was again reminded of my sorrow of the Term 1 results. (sigh) After school, I stayed back with Zhaoxiang and Jian Ting to do the presentation on Sun Yat-Sen's family members. I read the EMB in the Com Lab and there's a message on the Maths Re-Test for those who got less than B4 (24/40). As I got C5 (23/40), I decided to take the re-test. But then, the max. marks to be given in the re-test is 24/40, so even if I get A1, they will only give me a B4. As you can see, I was reminded of my results again. I will surely be miserable when the term progress report for this term are given out someday this week. "Term progress"? Seems to be the other way for me this term...

Actually, I feel it is a bit unfair to include only one test per subject per term. Two or more will be better. At least even if one test was badly done, there is another chance of pulling the marks up in the same term. And for English, this term's test was on compo, which is my weak component in English. It is always my main component that pulled my marks up to be A1 (last year). So, because of my compo, I will get B4 if assignments are not included in the marks. Maybe I complain too much. The main problem lies with me. I need to improve my vocabulary for English, and not blame the new test structure. But let me express my sadness for now to make me feel better. Sniff, Sniff.

2004-03-09T21:01:00.000+05:30

Erm, I will still try to make it even less narrative.

Firstly, I want to address an issue regarding my tagboard. I have noticed someone/some people by the name of "*absolutelypretty", "*pretty" and "hello" have posted some comments. Since I don't know who is the person/people, I now offer two replies to the possibly two groups of people.

If you are really a stranger who don't know me personally, I really appreciate your remarks but I hope you can try not to post too many times as it is actually tantamount to spamming me. Thanks for your kind comments. I have already corrected the error. However, if you are someone whom I know and is playing a fool on me, pls stop posting so many times!! I know that my language may be a little too harsh but I feel that I have to address this issue seriously. Sorry if anyone is offended. ^_^
Sorry!

--------------

I will go on to today's happenings. Today is quite okay, but nothing much happened.

For the Hwa Chong Sabbaticals, I learnt to yin3 (sing to your own tune without taking away the sheng1 diao4) and chang4 (sing) Tang dynasty poems as well as Song dynasty "ci2" during the section of Chinese Literature. Very fun and enjoyable. Then there is also the reflection on the movie wo4 hu3 cang2 long2 under the Movie Screening section. We also watched the first one hour of another masterpiece, ying1 xiong2, which also needs to be scrutinized carefully in order to understand it's essence.

After that, I got Erhu practice until 6.00p.m. I learnt quite a lot today with my Erhu teacher going through the whole song with us. Hope that I will learn more in the next practice!

2004-03-08T21:50:00.000+05:30

What a wonderful day... at least for the morning and afternoon.

Well, today marks the start of the Hwa Chong Sabbaticals Week. The Sabbatical that I chose is on Chinese Literature, the mordern history of China (i.e somewhere during the waning years of the Qing Dynasty to present) and Chinese movie screening.

Actually I was almost late for school today. After flag raising, I proceeded to Com Rm 6 for the Sabbaticals, together with Jian Ting who is the only one other than me from 2D going for this particular Sabbatical. Zhao xiang and Bangky (Kah Yik) from 2A also went for this one. This Sabbatical is divided into the three sections that I have introduced just now which are taught by three different teachers.

The first section is taught by Ms Ho Yun Wei (I think so, not very sure of her English name. I translated directly from Chinese). Actually she's one of my teacher-in-charge for CO. She did a brief intro on the history of China as well as the type of literature that were popular during each period. Very fun, we even sang the flow of dynasty verse using the "twinkle, twinkle, little star" tune. Mainly, I think we gained more knowledge abt the different types of literature in each period, since most of us are quite familiar with the brief chronology of each dynasty. Then, we went for the first recess.

After that, another teacher (I suddenly forgot who she is) taught us about the mordern history of China, mainly focusing on Dr Sun Yat-Sen. We will be also going for a field trip to the Sun Yat-Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall (Wan Qing Yuan) some day this week.

Next is the movie screening by Ms Wang Wanyi. We watched the wo4 hu3 cang2 long2 (the movie that obtained a nominee for the Oscar Awards) and did a worksheet about the movie. An excellent masterpiece, but somehow I don't know how to answer the question on the director's intention of this film even though I know it has a great intention behind it.

After going home, somehow I overslept at home and was late for class (about ten min!) Then when I went home, the rain became so heavy that I shivered a lot and was like being frozen. Now as I type this blog at 11.50p.m, the rain is still very heavy. But never mind, a least the day is cooler...

(just as brief description of yesterday, Sunday)
As for yesterday, I was sick and had slight fever. I also got scolded by my Erhu teacher.

2004-03-06T20:49:00.000+05:30

Today is definitely a memorable day, the type of day that started off badly but ended very well.

Actually, I have CO today and I need to be in school at 7.00a.m for practice. However, what happened was that I slept on the bus 157 on the way to school and ended up at Toa Payoh-Potong Pasir area. So I decided to call my Sec 2 leader, Ben to ask him to tell my Erhu teacher what happened, but my handphone's battery was flat. That was about 7.40a.m. Of course, I rushed back and arrived at school at about 7.55p.m. Fortunately my teacher did not blame me for being late for an hour.

After CO ended at about 1.00p.m, I went home to continue practising, after which I slept at 3.30p.m. Despite asking my mother to wake me up at 4.30p.m, I continued sleeping till 5.30p.m, which is the time I agreed to meet my Pri sch classmate, Kai Qing, to go to NYGH to watch the play put up by their theatre club. Being late for the second time today, I become more devastated and rushed off to catch the bus to go to KAP, which was the place that was later agreed upon because I overslept. Somehow, I had to wait a much longer time then usual for my bus. Finally, when I reached KAP, it was about 6.50p.m.

After eating, the six of us took 151 to NYGH. On the way, Guan Wen kept complaining about the price of the ticket, which cost $10 and also complained about his school SJI. We went straight into Siew May Auditorium upon arrival. The play is entitled "Alice?". The plot was interesting because there was in-depth content of a particular objective, but at the same time confusing. Honestly, at the end of the play, I find that I don't seem to understand what the play is trying to express, or rather, I think the six of us were quite confused. Self identity? Objective of life? I'm not really sure. Again, Guan Wen complained that $10 for a play that lasted one hour was not worth it after we walked out of the auditorium. We explored the school campus and chatted till about 10.00p.m. The group dispersed when it was time to leave, but as Kai Qing and I accompanied Guan Wen to the bus stop at sixth avenue, the conversation carried on for some time.

Tonight's atmosphere was good, as well as the cool night breeze.

2004-03-05T19:55:00.000+05:30

Sorry, everyone. I promised to post yesterday after two days of AAD (Aphelion Activities Day) but I did not do so. Actually its not that I forgot, but I was so tired after what happened yesterday that I slept from 4.00p.m (when I came home) till 10.00p.m. Then I ate dinner (at 10!) , bathe and slept again. So today's blog entry will be looooong.

Okay, enough intro, I will start with Wednesday. After school, I rushed home to bathe and get changed into the councillor U, and then rushed to school again. I was a bit late for the final rehearsal of the council induction but still got there in time at 4.50p.m. We practised the song that was to be sung and of course the proper procedure for going up on stage. A very nice song that is soothing but not very easy to memorise. After everything is ready, there was the waiting for the rest of Aphelion consortium to arrive at the Auditorium for Aphelion nite, a nite filled with fun and laughter for my fellow Aphelions of Sec 1s-4s.

After the head of consortium, Mr Jason Wong, started the ball rolling for Aphelion nite, we watched a short video clip on Aphelion council and finally there was the actual induction, which is memorable. After all this, the main event proceeded. There were performances by each class in all the levels as well as fun items. Honestly, I have to admit that I feel the standard of the performances was not as high as us year. My class sent Huang Pei (William 'Hung' Pei) and Ming Wei to perform the William Hung song of "she bangs". Actually this is quite creative of them.

After the whole Aphelion nite, we slept at Kah Kee Hall.

Below is a picture of the induction. (Sorry Shi Wei for 'kopping' (copying) it from ur blog) You can't see me in this pic, I'm behind. (And if you can't see the photo, click on this address "http://www.freewebs.com/nggimthia/miscellaneous/aphelioninduction.jpg"

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As for Thursday, iit started off quite disastrous to me. After waking up in KKH, I found out out that I did not bring my school uniform shirt as well as also white socks and shoes which are needed for morning flag raising ceremony. So I had to borrow the shirt from Kai Yao, when I was the one who told him to bring an extra set of clothing for the event in case we needed an extra set! Instead of going for dragonboating, I went to help out in the Bukit Timah Hill hike meant for the Sec 1s later. Even though I had to admit that it was not very fun, I was quite okay with this arangement. However, this drained all my energy and yet, we had to attend the talk on the IH major Research Paper. As I said just now, I slept and slept and slept after arriving home...

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Today is the last day of normal school, as we have the Hwa Chong Sabbaticals next week. Because I did not complete the homework yesterday, I had to rush to complete them during recess. How forgetful of me. Anyway, nothing much really happened today. My only significant "thought-of-the-day" is that my senior, Guo Jun had taught me how to play one part of one of the song that The Chiense High CO will be performing at the Esplanade performance. I really appreciate his help which enlightened me on that part.

2004-03-02T20:56:00.000+05:30

I seem to feel that my blog is becoming more and more narrative. Maybe that is why some of you says it is too serious. I think I will try to make it moe interesting.

Anyway, we received the results of the Chinese Test today. I got 88/100 for the so-called main paper, and 55/70 for the compo. Actually I'm quite satisfied with my results even though the "main paper" component has dipped slightly. But Douglas got 98/100 for the main component. It seems that I have to improve on all the subjects. My grades and position in class has been dropping tremendously this year. I must definitely do something abt it.

Before Chinese period, Ms Sim, my History teacher and form teacher, let us watch a movie that was "never shown on the big screen" (as what she said). It's about the discrimination of blacks by the whites in America during WWII. Quite an interesting movie which portrays the suffering and hardship the black pilots who wanted to join the air force had to endure. One single mistake, and they are "out of the game". One person was even forced to commit sucide by crashing the plane he was flying.

One by one, the black pilots were gone, and those that managed to become lieutenants were still continued to be bullied. Finally, through their determination and numerous credential achievements (many credits went unrecognized), they finally prove themselves to be as or more capable than the whites. This is certainly a theme worth thinking about. Most likely I will write a movie review on this.

Well, tomorrow is the end-of-term activites for Aphelion consortium, which also involves the council induction. Since I will be staying over in school for tomorrow, there will be no posting on Wednesday. I will give my feedback on the dragon boating activity that we will be doing. Ms Sim said that she will be rowing alongside with us, wonder if all the teachers are rowing. Catch the next blog entry on Thursday!

2004-03-01T18:29:00.000+05:30

Firstly, regarding the blog, I have decided to add in music to spice things up. This song might be familiar to you, see if anyone can identify it.

Well, today, Mr Hon, the principal announced that in view of the 'O' Levels results celebrations for teachers, we (the students) are released at 10.40a.m. I had actually promised Alvin Aw to stay back to do the war montage with him. But I found out that I have to go with the other councillors to go to Beauty World to buy the Council uniform: Long-sleeved shirt, HCJC long pants and black leather shoes. So told Alvin to do it himself first and wait for me.

But I never expected the buying of uniform to take so long. The rest wanted to go to KAP, so we ate there, and wasted 1 hour ++. Then, we finally got to the destination. We take turns to be measured and try out the shirt and long pants, while some of us went to buy the shoes. After I bought the uniform (borrowed $6), I had no money to buy shoes, so I waited for the others. Finally, we left the place at about 1.00p.m. Zhi Guang, Chia Jon, Alvin Kuk and me wanted to take bus back to Dunearn Road direction but found that there is no bus stop in that direction near Beauty World!! So we had to walk and walk... to the nearest bus stop at Jalan Anak Bukit.

After this exhaustive walk, we took bus no. 66. I reached school at 1.30p.m and tried to find Alvin at the Com Lab. Surprisingly, Alvin, chong Chen, Jian Ting and Kai Yao were all there, and I found out that Avin and Chong Chen had paired up, leaving me with Jian Ting. Actually I felt quite betrayed, but then also never mind loh, since this is Alvin's first time in doing this to me. I refused to pair up with Jian Ting, rather, I joined Kai Yao. Felt bad in leaving Jian ting all alone, but I did a lot of mini-projects with him already, very sian (bored with him). Sorry, Jian Ting.

Then, something interesting (interesting to me) happened while taking bus home. I boarded Bus. No. 188 after changing buses. Because I brought my Erhu with me, the bus driver suddenly called out to me, "Can play Sai4 Ma3 for me or not. Maybe next time when no people around lah!". His tone was joking, so I replied no problem. This is surprising, as he not only knows what instrument I was carrying, but actually knows about this Grade 3 Erhu song. Hmm, interesting person...

Tomorrow is the rehearsal for the Aphelion Council Induction, so I have to bring the things I bought today, and also bring shoes, belt and buy Hua Zhong tie. Looks like a busy day tomorrow.

2004-02-28T20:43:00.000+05:30

Finally the end of a week. Today, I helped out in the Sec 2 Parent-Teacher Gathering after my EP3 ended at 12.00p.m. For this PTG, Mr Lee Kheng Seng is in charge and the students helping out comprises of people from the four consortiums. Alvin Kuk, Seng Yeow, Liangxun and Guo Yean also went for this event, and Yuan Chang also helped out a bit even though he is not involved.

For Aphelion, Xuan Yi is in charge and I was assigned to be stationed at the entrance of LT4, where the Chinese Session is held. Of course, we had to be polite to the parents and guide them. But at 2.00p.m when the PTG is supposed to officially start, we had to direct the parents who are late to the back door of LT4, and the same for the Auditorium (English Session). After that, basically there was nothing much to do except to wait for the sessions to end and carry on the the next part of the programme: meeting the class teachers.

Finally, that time arrived where we had to guide lost parents to find their respective consortium teachers, since teachers from the same consortium are stationed at different locations, as well as telling the parents where the specific subject teachers teaching their son are. I finally saw my mother at the concourse where she was meeting Ms Sim. We continued searching for lost parents we might need our help and we rendered our services to them. The whole event finally ended when all the parents went home. Mr Lee.K.S was happy with our performance and commented that the principal and dean was also pleased with the sucess of the event. After packing up, we went home.

Well, actually it seems that this is the first event that I have experienced where there are no glitches, not even minor ones (unless they happened to other helpers).

Besides the PTG, I would like to say that my last year's class mural is finally hanging on the walls beside the two table tennis courts above the canteen! This mural was done by a few of us from last year's 1A. However, the finally touchup was done by Kai Yao and me. Altogether, the mural took more than 5 days to complete, with each day working about 3 hours. There is inevitably a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction seeing the fruit of our labour being put up, and I will like to thank all who had contributed to the mural, no matter how small the effort. Of course, Kai Yao must be praised for helping out as both of us worked on completing it the day before the Maths Test.

Mainly, this are the major issues etched in my head for today, which is fun-filled and joyful. By the way, I will most probably not post anything tomorrow as I had said earlier, I had to come home at about 10.30p.m every Sunday. I hope Mrs Chai and the rest of you won't mind.

2004-02-27T19:12:00.000+05:30

Still troubling over my results. And now it seems that the best I can get this term is 2.0 for msg. How disappointing.

And the 'O' Level results are out! As what the principal said, it is remarkable to achieve better results while the teachers had to deal with IP and the new changes in school system and at the same time helping year 2003's Sec 4s prepare for the 'O' Levels. Once again, we have produced two top scholars of 11 A1s! And the number of 10 A1s had also increased. The most remarkable subject was Maths, where year 2002's msg was already an impressive 1.15, the batch of 2003 managed to achieve 1.09!!! And out of the students who achieved 11 or 10 A1s, about 40% are from the Chinese Orchestra, including the two top scholars. Maybe i'm sounding like spreading propoganda... but I'm speaking the truth!

Okay, the results are really too exciting, even though it does not concern me directly. I hope the last batch of Sec 4s who are taking the 'O' Levels, which is this years batch will obtain even more commendable results to bring glory to Chinese High. Three Cheers for CHS!

2004-02-26T21:11:00.000+05:30

This may be the one of the most memorable days of my life.

Well, I got back my Science and Maths Tests papers today. My Maths marks were the worse marks I had ever gotten so far. 23/40, or 57.5%. C5. This came as a tremendous blow to me. Needless to say, I was totally devastated. But this was not over, I came in last in class for the Sicence Test, even though it was still an A1, or rather, it was 40/50. And the class average was about 45 (I think). I really felt like dying. It seems the only thing to do was to drown myself in sorrow. Honestly, I was quite confident of getting 47/50 for the Sicence Test at first, but I threw away marks for plain CARELESSNESS. What did I do! Maths was worse, I threw away 7 marks out of the 40, for CARELESSNESS!

CARELESSNESS
CARELESSNESS

Even though my Science and Maths are always my worse subjects, I really made stupid mistakes that are totally unforgivable. I almost had a breakdown when I got home.

However, my cousin made a big difference in how I felt. This cousin is currently in NTU studying to be a teacher. I told her about this disastrous day, and she really gave me good advice. After hearing my woes, she gave an analysis as to why I did not do well in both tests, or rather, any tests this year (even though the other tests results are not out, I don't think I did well). It was extremely accurate and precise. Hit the problem with me which I had been trying to figure out since the beginning of this year. i will not elaborate, but it has something to do my change in attitude towards tests and exams as compared to last year, which put too much stress on me. It is pratically draining my life of energy. She then gave good solutions to the problem.

I will like to thank my cousin for all the help, I am definitely feeling better and more peaceful now.

2004-02-25T23:57:00.000+05:30

Very sleepy today again due to staying up late yesterday to complete my MRP as well as Chinese Presentation.

Anyway, I forgot to bring my PE shirt and shorts today, so have to buy 1 more set. We played "beginnner's" volleyball during this period. It was quite fun, but actually the only good players in my team were Chen Feng, Han Lin and someone else, which I cannot recall right now at all. Hmm, I think I must go around to ask who he is.

After PE, the next memorable event was the writing of Chinese Composition for hua2 gang3 wen2 xue2, which I had no time to complete. It has really been a long time since I had the chance to write this type of creative writing. Very enjoyable, except that someone beside me was talking.

Besides that nothing much happened really.

2004-02-24T21:35:00.000+05:30

Today is my birthday! But as I have said earlier, my family and I had already celebrated on Saturday.

Well, today was quite a good day, but due to the Science Test, the morning was quite stressful. I had slept at 1.30a.m the night before which resluted in a lack of concentration in assembly. After the test, I was actually in a good mood.

However...

I forgot that I had EP3 at 3.00p.m! My Erhu teacher was quite angry with me for not bringing my instrument. So I had to rush back home to take it and come back to school again, wasting about 1.25 hours. Futhermore, this is the first time the new Sec Ones are meeting us, the Sec 2s, 3s & 4s. So I think I left a bad impression on them. (Sigh), what will happen to my reputation?

Anyway, I had loads of things to complete after I came back from school at about 6.30p.m. Like MRP, Chinese PPT Presentation, Literature Assignment...

Well, actually this is actually quite a usual workload but I will have to stay up late to complete them.

2004-02-23T16:03:00.000+05:30

I apologize for not posting yesterday. Perhaps I will not be posting every Sunday because I will return home at about 10.30p.m due to some lessons. However, I will try to post on Sundays if possible.

Hmm, tomorrow is our Science term test. Quite a lot of things to do today, of course including revising for the Science Test. Nothing much happened today as well, only that I lost the name card that Mrs teo asked the class to do. I better create another one before the next Science lesson.

Also, someone asked about the name for my blog. Its just that Mg (Magnesium) is similar to my surname Ng, and that CO3 (carbonate) sort of represents my EP3, Chinese Orchestra (CO). If you check the dictionary, assiduous will mean "diligent". Maybe you will find this name awkward, but this is wat I can think of.

Well, this is enough for today, I will continue to revise for the Science Test now.

2004-02-21T22:13:00.000+05:30

As usual, I went for Chinese Orchestra today. But because i stayed up late last night to create tiz blog, I almost dozed off during the practice (luckily it was "almost")! But I did learnt more during today's practise, definitely a good thing.

After EP3, I slept on the bus 157 (double-decker) while on the way home, but only woke up at the bus interchange. So, I took the same bus service no. back, but... slept again, two bus stops after where I'm supposed to alight. This time, I finally took 66 back. This caused me to waste about 1 hour.

Well, at night, my family celebrated my birthday and we ate at a coffeeshop. Actually, today is not my birthday, mine is on 24th February, but its better to celebrate on a weekend as there is no time on weekdays. The food is nice and the atmosphere good. Even the night breeze blew gently. Quite an enjoyable day.

2004-02-20T19:22:00.000+05:30

Hmm, first time posting a blog, also not very sure of how it works actually. I think I will tend to post shorter blogs unless there are lots of things happening...

Well, today is Friday, end of school week but not of stress. Today, we voted for Aphelion Council's Chairman. Ms Pek wanted me to ensure that voting is smoothly carried out in my own class during the first fifteen min of first recess but (sigh), it did not go very smoothly. About 5 people went for dental checkup at that time, causing disruptions in the voting session. I thought they ran off for recess, told Ms pek that they are uncooperative. Nevertheless, I managed to find them in time. (Phew.)

After school, Had EP3 practice (CO) till 6.30p.m. Honesetly, quite disappointed with my performance today. Maybe because I'm too sleepy.

Anyway, the council chairman results are out! But the candidates from my Class 2D, did not win. Chern Wei of Sec 3 did. Yuan Chang and Zhi Guang had put up a "good fight" despite losing. We should be proud of them.