First day of Term 3. Mr. Pandian changed out class seating arrangement, and I was sent to the back of the class, close to the back door, because I always step into the classroom later. Another big change was our timetable. Nothing much for comment.
Newsflash: I ate a fried grasshopper! XL bought it in Thailand and brought it to school (hold on, I think it was his mother who bought it). Anyway, I almost puked, but I still got it down. Crunchy. It's at least a little bit better than those on Survivor who have to eat scorpions and spiders. And speaking of spiders, Quan Ming redid the front noticeboards with a big paper spider on one of them. I almost strangled him. At least it's not hairy and moving.
All right, end of the day. Turned out I didn't need the coffin I bought yesterday.
07.07.03
I've bought my own coffin and dug my own grave.
07.07.03
Homework, homework and more homework...
07.07.03
Homework, homework and more homework...
07.07.03
I have 4 days left to finish all my holiday homework (5 days for some, since their lessons start on Tuesday only).
07.07.03
Last day of the Chinese Remedial. In the afternoon there was ELDDS rehersal. Again, nothing much. And, oh yes, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night at 11 pm. Not that you might care...
07.07.03
Chinese remedial in the morning. Council meeting in the afternoon. Nothing much for that. I brought Harry Potter to school to read and I caused quite a stir...
07.07.03
For the next three mornings starting from today, we (the Secondary 3 HCL students) are having Chinese supplementary lessons to prepare ourselves for the O Level Chinese paper that we are taking at the end of the year. Today's lesson dealt with the first group of vocabulary of Secondary 3 Express Chinese (there are two groups, 3A and 3B). Our teacher, as usual, went over the scheduled time. We were dismissed 25 minutes later than scheduled.
In the afternoon, my parents and I took a ride on NEL. It's very much like a roller coaster ride if you look through the front window, except that the train doesn't go upside down. We took it to the Punggol Terminal Station and exited the station to see green in front of us. The wind then was quite strong, so we just stood there and chilled. After some time we went back.
07.07.03
Reading Harry Potter all day. Harry Potter definitely has the temper of a typical teenager...kinda like my elder brother. :P
07.07.03
In the afternoon, I went to Borders at Orchard Road to buy Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
I took the MRT from Clementi to Outram Park. I wanted to try out the North East Line, or NEL for short, which opened yesterday. I walked to the NEL platform at the interchange and explored the station a bit. Then I took the train from Outram Park to Dhoby Gauht. It was a much faster train ride than if you travelled from Outram Park to Dhoby Gauht via Raffles Place and City Hall. Then, I switched back to the train on the North-South line, and I took it to Orchard.
At Borders, there was a long queue, and most of the people in the queue had Harry Potter merchandise in their hands. I quickly grabbed one of the Order of the Phoenix books (there were three types of book covers; I didn't know if there were any difference) and joined the queue. At a discounted price it cost $32.95, but with my $20 Borders voucher I got from Speech Day, I only had to pay $12.95. I went home on the same route, using NEL.
07.07.03
Today is the day for our class outing to East Coast Park.
I travelled by bus to Clementi MRT Station where I immediately took a train to Bedok MRT Station. While leaving Clementi, I saw Delia and Yan Chen on the platform. No choice, I am already sandwiched in the MRT.
When I reached Bedok, I check the Control Station to see if any 3/1rian was there. Then I went to the Bedok Bus Interchange to check if anyone was there. That was where I found out that bus service 401 - the only SBS bus service that can reach ECP - runs on weekends and public holidays only. Dead, I thought. I went back to Bedok MRT Station to see if the group from Clementi had arrived. Nope, no familiar faces. I decided to take the underpass to the other side of the MRT station and take a taxi to ECP. The driver didn't know where the "East Coast Recreation Centre" was (it was what our chairman, Quan Ming told us), but he knew when I said it was near the Singapore Tennis Centre.
I paid $5.50 to the driver and got off the taxi. Immediately the McDonald's caught my eye. That must be where the "East Coast Recreation Centre" should be. I waited and paced around when I noticed Kang Ting sitting outside McDonald's. Hmm...didn't notice her. Both of us waited for the big group to arrive.
They did, at about 10.15 am. Relieved, we walked into McDonald's where some of us had a bite. Then, we walked out and decided to cycle for the morning. We rented bicycles for an hour (until 12 pm) for $5. At the start we were cycling in a group. Later, after a U-turn, it was me, Aileen and James in a race to overtake one another. After passing the rental shop where we rented our bicycles, it was only me and James. The latter cycled out of sight, but now I didn't care. I just rode and rode and rode and rode...
At 12 noon, we went back to McDonald's for lunch. I had the McSpicy Double meal which cost $5.95. After lunch, the group separated; some went to the Regent Bowl for bowling, while the others went out onto the beach. Both James and I decided to go with the girls to the beach, but not before heading back to McDonald's where James said he thought he dropped his ez-link card. He got it back eventually.
At the beach, we literally had a splashing good time. Fast forward past the splashing, we went to the toilets to clean up. I had sand on my feet and my pants. I'll let my pants dry; the sand should drop off if it's dry, won't it?
Then we went to the Regent Bowl where Kegan, Yan Chen and a few others were already bowling. I said I've got to try bowling, so here goes. Bought a bottle of Ice Mountain for $1.30 ('cause I ran out of drinking water) and rented size 8 bowling shoes for $1. I wasn't very good at it. At the start my balls went into the gutter. In the end, I think I got 24 or 29 points for my first ever game of bowling. $1.50 for that game.
After bowling, we went back to the park area, joined by some more 3/1rians who had Band practice in school this morning. Roller blading was the next activity. I didn't know roller blading too, but this was more difficult to handle than bowling. I fell two times (one on the front and one on the back). After two hours (one hour free after one hour of rental), I could get it a little bit, but very few people can learn roller blading properly in only 2 hours. One of these people is Kegan, who I think didn't know how to roller blade. In a few minutes he was doing it like he learned it long ago. That was $6 for renting the roller blades.
By then it was 6.35 pm. The next shuttle bus to Bedok should be leaving at 7 pm. (We found out about the shuttle bus service after playing at the beach.) So we just spent some more time at the beach enjoying the breeze. By 6.50 pm we were off.
James and I walked fairly briskly to the alley which leads to McDonald's and the shuttle bus. When we turned around the rest of the group was out of sight. Through his handphone, James found out that they were going to walk out of ECP and take a bus to Bedok, like how they came here. By then it was 6.59 pm. We ran to catch the shuttle bus. Fortunately it did not leave that early. We reached Bedok (hopefully before the bigger group) and took the MRT back towards the west. Back to home.
07.07.03
ELDDS rehersal on this morning. Usual stuff.
07.07.03
Day 2 of the Life Science Camp.
Today, the game played is going to be "Gene's Hunt". The groups were to collect genes from game stations, and the objective was to get the most genes. In order to get a chance of earning genes, a group must compete in a specific challenge with another group at one station. If the group wins, they get the clue to the next station. Then, a question will be asked, and if the group can get the answer correctly, they get to choose one of four genes available at each station. I was at the station at Hall 2 with a friend.
The first session was a bit more disorganized because of a group number fiasco. It's a rather complicated problem, but it was resolved anyway. The winning group found 5 genes.
During our break, the Game Marshals visited the "crime scene" in one of the classrooms in Campus 1. This "crime scene" was part of the students' laboratory work. The students had to gather evidence, like strands of hair or samples of blood. Then they had to bring it into the laboratory where they will test for the DNA. The story's fake; the main purpose was the laboratory work.
The scene was not very scary for me. It was a dark room with candles lit here and there. A few high heel shoes were found at the door. On the right the mark of one of the victims was visible (you know, like those white lines indicating the position of the victim in murder scenes), and on the left was a table with the words "YOU'LL PAY" written in "blood". Move further into the room, and you'll hit a "bed" with the other victim..."dead" and lying face down. The unfortunate victim was acted by a girl I do not know. The funny thing was, a Biology book was also found at the crime scene.
For the second session, I was alone because my friend went to help out at another station. I found that with me doing it, it felt smoother. But one of the groups was stuck at my station because of some problems with the group which left the previous station. Nevertheless, it was no doubt the more successful session; four groups found 6 genes each.
Strangely, it's always the second session which is the more successful one...
07.07.03
Day 1 of Life Science Camp.
I arrived at school at 7 am sharp. Being the emcee for the opening ceremony later, I had to go to the hall to prepare with Veronica. Unfortunately, it was only later that we realized that we had to move the tables and chairs in the hall away for the students. We moved all but 20 chairs (for teachers) and swept the floor.
The opening ceremony was a quick one, then both Veronica and I quickly went to our respective stations to get ready to welcome the first group of students. I was a Game Marshal in Station 1. When I went into the classroom, the other two Game Marshals were not ready yet. When the first group came, we hastily played the games, but it ended up a mess.
Between the first group and the second group (there were five stations, each station receives two groups for the day), we had 2 hours. 2 hours was enough time for us to tidy up, calm down and organize ourselves. When the second group came in, the games went through more smoothly. Finally, there was debriefing, but 1 pm came before the debrief ended, so I had to excuse myself and rush off for ELDDS rehersal.
Nothing much to say about ELDDS rehersals, because it's almost always the same things. But Tony said that we should treat every rehersal like a brand new rehersal, and not just a routine. Honestly, it is almost the same as normal rehersals, so I should not say much.
For the night, I accompanied my parents to the hello! shop at West Mall to sign up for a new SingNet Broadband account. I went because I was the person in the family who knew most about computers (and because my elder brother is not around). It was fairly quick. I went home first with the modem and an installation CD for an online game. Well, I don't do online gaming, so I don't know what I'm going to do with it.
If there's nothing else, sayonara!
07.07.03
Went for a swim with a friend this afternoon. After that, it's tearing up newspapers all night for tomorrow's game.
Morning: Life Science Camp meeting for Game Marshals. It's also the trying out day for the games to be carried out on the actual days. It's actually nothing much. I'm fine with anything.
Afternoon: Badminton with some classmates. We went to the Bukit Panjang Community Club this time (I can't tell the difference, if any, between a community centre and a community club). My friend who booked the courts could only book them for 1 hour or so. Another friend of mine wasn't too happy. She told him that she booked for 2 hours.
Night: Computer, followed by The Amazing Race 4.
There's a Life Science Camp meeting for the Game Marshals this afternoon. Half of the time we were in the Computer Lab. The main purpose was to watch the "Who Wants To Be A Scientist?" quiz interface. It's rather impressive, what with the background music. After that, a few girls helped to print out materials needed for the camp next week.
The next half of the time was spent in the Staff Lounge. We received our Camp T-shirt, which was now free thanks to Ms Wong's "pleading". Then discussion continued for some games to be played in the camp. We were dismissed at about 4.30 p.m.
If there were no homework during the holidays (or homework on the Internet), then I would be in Heaven. The reason why I prefer homework on the Internet is because I get to use my computer, and I feel more relaxed getting homework through the Internet.
Today's the day of our Student Council's BBQ cum Interaction Night. As a member of the planning committee, I arrived at school at 1 p.m., 4 hours before the start of the event. Originally, the early arrival was "in case of any last-minute changes", but in the end, it became an early Interaction Afternoon for those present, because there were other non-planning committee members who were early. I spent the early afternoon watching some of them play basketball before heading back to the Student's Lounge where I played Cluedo with a few others.
At 5 p.m., we headed to Canteen 1 as the Student's Lounge would be locked up for the night. There, we put our bags down, took our temperatures and headed to the Hall for about 1 hour of Captain's Ball (it was raining at that time, so we couldn't use the Parade Square). I'm not really that good in such type of ball games (in addition to soccer and basketball; I prefer solo or one-on-one sports like swimming, cycling and badminton). At 6.30 p.m. we ended our game and headed back to the canteen for the main programme of the day: the barbeque. It was held in the canteen itself as it rained outside. There were chicken wings, satay, stingray, corn and hotdogs, and other food available were fried rice, fruit punch and salad. (Actually the fruit punch is a mixture of lime cordial, lemon squash and fruit punch cordial. We mixed and matched to get the right flavour.) A few minutes later, smoke filled the canteen. I ate for the first half of the BBQ session and then helped out with the satay.
After the BBQ, we went out into the dark Basketball Court to celebrate the birthdays of quite a number of people (mainly those whose birthdays fell between April and June, I think). Following that was cleanup of the canteen. I was holding the garbage bags once again (I have a strange connection with cleaning up), and after clearing the garbage, we went on a Night Trail, a short walk around the school campus which we'll be leaving by the end of the year ('cause we're getting a new school campus). Finally, it was home sweet home, tired but definitely happy.
Phew...
For the morning, I attended a meeting regarding the preparation of the games for the Life Science Camp. For most of the time we discussed about the Gene's Hunt that was to be held on the second day of the event.
After that, I had my pathetic lunch (two hotdog buns and two kuehs) and spent about one and a half hour waiting for the Singapore Maths Olympiad (SMO) to be held later in the afternoon. The afternoon section was for the Senior Section (Upper Secondary).
The test was as difficult as those I have had when I took part in the previous years. The difficulty of the questions increases as the question number increases. In the end, I just scribbled some numbers for the last few questions which I had no idea how to go about doing it. I was lucky to have attended SMO training before; I knew things others didn't, like for example, 5! means 1×2×3×4×5. But there was something which I supposed was to be taught later in the year, and that was probability. Oh well, at least I've tried!
We had Geography remedial today with our new Geography teacher, Miss Cynthia Ang. She was a former student at NHSS, and now she's back to "torture the juniors", in her own words.
It was easy to spot her funny accent. It's not bad, actually. She sounded very Westernised.
Played computer all day. I'm going back to school tomorrow for Elective Geography remedial in the afternoon.
It's the last day of Term 2. Finally, the long-awaited holidays are going to be here again.
Today we attended two talks in the Hall. One was on e-Learning, which our school decided to adopt during the June holidays. The other was on crime prevention, something we have been hearing every year. Of course, it's important.
At the end of the day, we had a big cleanup of the classroom because next Monday, it will be used for O Level examinations. After that, we got back our report books. I was both surprised and belated to find out that I was 4th in class. Gosh, I had never been in the top 10 in my class previously, and now I am in top 5.
After school, a couple of 3/1rians headed to Clementi Community Centre to play badminton. Yan Chen had booked the badminton courts until 6 p.m. We walked there and immediately started setting up the nets when we reached the courts. We played and played, and I think I have improved my badminton skills a bit. Most of us left at 6 p.m.
Holidays are here!
It's Sports Day today. I said in my MSN nickname that I would be extra early today because I had the class banner. Although I'm not the earliest in the stadium, I was still among the first ones from my class at the stadium. 3/1 was allocated to the dark blue chairs sector. The whole column of chairs were for us.
The chairman and I tied the banner at the front of our sector. Then, I stood at the front to signal to any other 3/1rians to our sector.
For once I had wished that I did not have to do Councillor duty, but I had to. In the end, I just positioned myself at our class sector to do duty there.
There were not many finalists running today. We won none of them. But we still earned some points for taking part in the items. These points would ultimately determine the Class Champion for each division. (C Division consists of the Lower Secondary students, while the other students fall into the B Division.) We didn't win that either.
Before we left, we had a class photo. One of us went home first, so it wasn't a complete class photo. Sigh...
3/1 with the "Reclining Buddha"
It's a normal Wednesday, with ELDDS for me in the afternoon. Tony's back to coach us. In the end I seemed to be the only one who remembered the whole script (or rather, most of the script).
At night, I was busy helping a friend of mine type documents for her. She needed them for her CCA, Chinese Cultural Society (CCS), but she didn't have Hansvision (a Chinese typing software), so I volunteered to help her. It was not easy, but in the end I managed to finish them. I printed them out to let her check tomorrow.
It's not the end though, there's still more to type. Sigh...
In the morning, we had lots of fun in class because some teachers gave free periods. I missed out on quite a number of good things. For Biology lesson, we went to the Computer Lab for two free periods. Bad news for me is, the computer I was left with was spoilt. Then, for Geography and English periods, I did my A. Maths homework while the rest of the class played games. I was particularly interested in a game played by a big group, but it was too late when I discovered it.
For the afternoon's Sports Heats, I flew (almost) to Clementi Stadium and reached there 10 minutes before the reporting time. I was running for 8x50 m Mixed Relay (4 guys and 4 gals). I was the first in our team to reach the stadium; the rest, in fact most of the competitors, arrived late. But, really, nobody cared.
I had on running shoes that were a bit loose. I should have ran in my school shoes. It's my first time running in a Sports Day event, but I wasn't that nervous. I was only a little worried that I would be the slowest. Eventually, though, we didn't get into the finals.
As I was walking towards the bus stop, preparing to go home, I spotted the bus I was supposed to take. I made a final sprint for it. But it wouldn't be the last sprint I'm making; I will survive.
It's my former classmate Jackson's birthday today. A few other former classmates pooled some money to buy him a basketball. We signed our names on it and I gave it to him after school.
As for exam results, the most unsatisfactory result is Combined Humanities. It's a pass (58/100) but it's not good either. It pulled down my average marks.
In the afternoon, the Secondary 3 Councillors had a meeting where the President of the Student Council told us about the nomination of the PROTEM committee and a few events where we Councillors have to plan and organise. I volunteered for the June BBQ planning committee, because I want to try something different. Sure, Secondary 1 Councillor Election seems fun enough (because we can get to be Simon Cowell), but...hey, knowing the things needed for a BBQ is useful!
I went swimming today. Unlike previous trips to the swimming complex, I had to fill in a form with my name, I/C number, contact number and time of arrival, as a measure in case contact tracing is required.
Besides that, it's computer all day.
