This morning's assembly and worship was spent in the balcony of the hall for our class and a few others as the JC2s had a briefing afterwards, i.e. we swapped places with 2SA1. It was kinda hilarious to see our other classmates walk into the hall to find a sea of JC2s and wondering what happened. Otherwise it was a pretty good day. Two tests tomorrow: goodness.

Spent most of the day on the computer and also doing labels for my subject files.

There was a 4o1 reunion today organised by Veron: we were going to have steamboat at Marina Bay. I arrived at the MRT station a few minutes before the meeting time of 5.30pm. We probably waited until 6pm before we set off. Walking to the nearest bus stop, we found a shuttle service to a nearby steamboat restaurant which was having an offer: $10 per person. So we headed there, all 24 of us in one minivan.

Upon reaching the open-air restaurant we were allocated seats at a very long table for about 20. Once we've paid our money we got up to get the food and started cooking. Throughout the dinner I ate mostly meat and soup. Later I also drank 7-Up and ate a durian ice-cream stick (each person was entitled to 1 ice-cream stick).

After dinner which was about 8 plus, we went up to Victor's Superbowl upstairs where Kegan and Yan Chen, who both joined bowling as a CCA in their respective JCs, were 'training' the spin (or is it the hook? I don't know which is which). The rest of us sat down on a platform behind the lanes and played Truth or Truth separated into two groups.

We decided to go home at 10 plus. On the way back we shared more logic games (stuff like the leaf falling, the time, the 'coffee and tea', the telepathy...) and I had much fun laughing, especially when Juliet started to get a headache from not getting the telepathy game. I reached home at 11 plus.

Alas, I failed my first test in JC: 5/20. Only about 4 or 5 in our class passed, with Vishanth getting 18. Then, double PE today was quite slack. We learned the basics of throwing a discus, then took our height and weight. I was a bit shocked to find myself borderline overweight. Uh-oh.

After school today I stayed back to wait for my parents. They and other JC1 students' parents were coming this evening for the J1 Parents' Welcome Tea at LT4. But, basically, my mum came for the refreshments. I think only three 1SA1 students' parents came among others, which is not surprising since more than half the class are foreign scholars and their parents are back home. Wonder how much they miss their families and if they get to go back to see them.

1SA1 had the first class test in our JC life. It was a Physics test on physical quantities and units and measurement techniques. I have a wonderful feeling I'm going to fail the test. Otherwise, the day wasn't too bad.

Normal school day. For the dance practice in the evening today I heard Raj tore his ligament (bless him), so the session today was turned into a voice session with Mrs Creffield and Ms Wong. Mrs Creffield was really very professional, having earned a degree in theatre before. As I walked home the tongue twister 'red lollie, yellow lorry' still sounded in my head like a chant.

Dance rehearsal today for Camelot has been cancelled, so I reached home by 6.30pm.

Pretty normal school day.

Managed to finish some of my tutorials except for a few questions here and there which I didn't know how to do.

I'm back to secondary school habits, i.e. not doing homework. I'm going to tell myself I must change. Tomorrow I WILL do my tutorials. MUST.

Today is the SA1 Senior-Junior Interaction (SJI) outing to Sentosa. I arrived at the HarbourFront Centre at around 8.50am, 10 minutes to the meeting time. I found the rest at McDonald's and went to sit with them. By the time we left McDonald's at 9.30am there were around 10 seniors and 7 juniors (all guys and 1 female senior). I was the only Singaporean among the 7 juniors; the number was far short from the number of people who said they would be going.

We then headed to Tanjong Beach on the Yellow Line. If you have been reading my blog entries you would know that this was the first time I was going to Tanjong Beach. We headed to a pavilion near the western end of the beach where a few more seniors were playing ball. We put our stuff down and then went out onto the sand almost immediately to play. There were a rugby ball, soccer ball and a frisbee for playing and two guitars for guitar lovers to play with. I played a little of touch rugby and then frisbee throwing with two other guys.

Later most of us went to the sea which seemed to be at low tide (noon). Some of the guys swam across to the island on the other side (not a long distance, but not short either) while the most I went was sat in the water at the shoreline. Later most of us got out of the water and returned to the pavilion to dry ourselves. The OGLs for Orientation 2005 who's present went to BK to get lunch for us while we hung around the pavilion chatting and playing games like German Bridge and logic games (one about numbers and one about squares). Lunch came much later than expected and we sat together in the pavilion to eat.

After the meal I went to change into cleaner clothes and when I came back the guys were playing a card game which required players to perform any necessary operations required to have the values on the 4 cards shown face up equal to 21. After the game the seniors posted a question to the 5 juniors who remained: equate the numbers 8, 8, 3 and 3 using basic operations '+', '-', '×' and '÷' to 21. This '8833' question soon became the question of the day for the juniors as we began scratching our heads and writing in the sand trying to solve the question. After quite some time the number '8833' became a scary number and our brains were thinking of 8833, from 4D numbers to car plate numbers. We were also talking about making the solution of the question the code of SA1.

After quite some time (during which some people left leaving 10 people, 5 seniors and 5 juniors) I decided to put the question aside and went out to the sea again to watch the seniors play in the cold water (I can't go down since I've changed into a new set of clothes). They played till 6.30pm before getting out of the water. Together, all 10 of us walked to the shower facilities on the western end of Palawan Beach where the seniors bathed.

During our journey on buses from the bus stop outside the Dolphin Lagoon to the HarbourFront Bus Terminal, Yi Xiong became the first junior to solve the '8833' mystery and became 'Ying Xiong' (hero). During our walk from the bus terminal through the MRT station to the HarbourFront Centre on the other side of the road, I thought deeply once again about the 8833 mystery and upon reaching the 3rd level of the HarbourFront Centre and on our way to Food Junction, I jumped for joy: I had gotten the answer too!

By the end of dinner Terry had also solved the mystery. Jacob also gave us another question: use 6 matchsticks to form 4 equilateral triangles. When he finally showed us the answer with chopsticks, the juniors 'wowed' so loudly that the whole foodcourt probably heard us. By the end of the meal it was 9pm. The other 4 juniors went to withdraw money for their expenses for the coming week (since they are Malaysians and their parents are in Malaysia), the seniors went into Cold Storage (for whatever reason I do not know) and I headed home on bus service 963.

Note: If you found the solution to the '8833' mystery, do not post it out here. Others should get the chance to tear out their hair while thinking of this question. Come to think of it, the solution's not difficult at all.

It's Thursday, and I almost cheered when the day ended at 4pm (30 minutes earlier because of a bit of shuffle of lessons which saw our recess being used up). It had been a super busy week and I hadn't been able to do much of my tutorials, so I aim to complete as much as possible, if not all, over the weekend. But first, I must really enjoy myself tomorrow at Sentosa, where our senior class 2SA1 is having an interaction outing with us (tomorrow was picked as it was a holiday). Tonight, I'll relax too.

Last night's dance rehearsals resulted in parts of my body aching again (though lesser than last week's dance auditions). The bad news was today's single-period PE lesson, also the first PE lesson for 1SA1, added on to the pain. It was almost like torture at beginner's stage.

Later in the afternoon there was the voice auditions for speaking roles in Camelot. All of us were given an excerpt of a script and were divided into groups of 4 to 6 to read and rehearse among each other, after which we would go back into the drama studio and present our skit to the judges. I was in a group who had a girl who supposedly had to leave earlier, so I think our group was the first few to audition. After the audition I slacked till the dance rehearsals began and halfway through I chatted with Yen Nee and some other friends to reduce the boredom.

Today's dance rehearsal was probably a little more difficult than yesterday's, for Raj had to select the lead dancers (a.k.a. the knights) and background dancers (a.k.a. the horses). Eventually we went way past the dismissal time of 8pm and we were dismissed the moment the final group performed the dance routine we had to learn today.

Another normal school day. Had dance rehearsals for Camelot later in the night from 7.30pm to 10pm. Since the canteen stalls closed by 5pm, I went out to have dinner before coming back and waiting for the rehearsals to begin while watching rugby players play. Today there weren't much dance related to Camelot done, since Raj, our dance instructor, had not spoken to Ms Wong, our ACSian Theatre teacher-in-charge, about the Camelot script. We did our warm-up as usual and learned a dance routine: the audition dance for the J1s and J2s last year. Ms Wong also spoke to us J1s (the J2s probably already know) about some things we as ACSian Theatre members and especially Camelot dancers should have related to theatre, e.g. deodorant for bad smell, dance shoes to prevent feet from wearing out and black attire for rehearsals. We were dismissed at 10pm punctually.

Today the full timetable kicked in with lectures and tutorials. We also had our first MT and GP lessons and I was appointed Chinese Rep for 1SA1. There was suddenly like a steep jump in the amount of homework (mainly tutorials) and since I have dance rehearsals for Camelot tomorrow till 10pm, I seriously need to do as much homework as I can today and tomorrow during any free pockets of time (i.e. recess and lunch). I just finished the whole Chemistry tutorial for the mole concept and I felt like celebrating. Oh well, better get onto my Physics assignment!

It's Sunday. The second leg of the Tiger Cup Finals was held tonight at the National Stadium in Singapore. Singapore was already in the lead 3-1. The verdict at the end was a Singapore win (aggregate score of 5-2). Cheers!

A debrief for the student leaders followed at about 1am when most of the Sec 1s have gone to bed (or rather, sleeping bags and mats and what have you). After the debrief the student leaders went back to their sleeping quarters in the classrooms on Level 1. Since the ex-students (i.e. us) had volunteered to patrol with the NCC boys, we stayed awake in the canteen. The Exco11 and Bernice went out onto the parade square where we lied down on the floor and looked at the stars singing. Kegan and Edwin seemed to have really slept when Ms Wassan then came along to remind us of what we had to do. Walking on, Wei Loong, Xin Jie and Bernice sat down outside the General Office to chat while I walked alone around the classrooms. Most of the hardworking student leaders hadn't gone to bed yet; they sat at study benches donig their homework. Later Clovis passed the news around for the student leaders to go to bed by 2.30am. And so they did.

I hung out with Jane, Xin Jie, Wei Loong and Bernice for most of the morning. After they had walked across the classrooms on Level 1, they sat down at the table in front of the General Office and chatted a bit before Bernice and Jane dozed off. (Kegan and Edwin were nowhere to be found. Shao Ming was polishing boots in the canteen outside the SJAB room.) Later we moved to the canteen to cook cup noodles and talked a bit more, sitting at the tables nearest to the basketball courts. The wind was quite strong and we felt pretty cold. I finally lied down on the bench at 4 plus with my bag as a pillow.

I woke up like 30 minutes later. Since the student leaders were supposed to wake up at 5.55am, I decided to go and freshen up. Even before 6am came music started to play to wake the Sec 1s up. Morning assembly followed a la Leadership Camp 2004, i.e. flag raisers and pledge taker were non-Uniformed Group people. I helped out in preparing for breakfast while the Sec 1s had their morning exercise.

After breakfast, station games resumed from yesterday. Since Xin Jie and Wei Loong had gone home earlier, 4 of the remaining Exco11 members around (Kegan, I don't know where he went later except that we saw him at the Captain's Ball station) went around to the stations to check them out. Shao Ming's favourite station was undoubtedly the Captain's Ball station, so we hung out mainly at the parade square and even joined in at times.

Time seemed to drag pretty slowly. After the Sec 1s' tea break Kegan and Shao Ming took naps at opposite sides of the canteen while I helped out preparing for lunch again before sitting with Kegan and closing my eyes at times. After lunch spirits did perk up a bit because it was the Mass Games.

This year's Mass Games was the second held in the new school building and this year they used the field. Even if they had not used the field it easily beat last year's Mass Games to earn the title of 'Dirtiest Mass Games of NHSS'. There was mud, detergent, warm wet starch (the same I got in the JC orientation), newspaper pulp, mud balls and a big pool of vegetable stew, consisting of lots of vegetables, eggplant, sugar cane, lots of vegetables, banana skins, apples, dragonfruit skins, lots of vegetables, rose syrup and lots of vegetables. The best thing about the vegetable stew was that most of the stuff inside came from leftovers at markets, i.e. some of them were pretty rotten.

By the end of the mass games I had lots of mud water on my shirt, mud on my left arm and starch on my right arm. It was a little better than what I got for the JC orientation. Following the mass games was of course the mass cleaning up. This year there weren't huge groups of students crowding round the water hose waiting to be sprayed. Instead, the students were given one whole hour to wash themselves up (not to bathe) before heading to the hall for the mass dance. The situation with the boys was pretty good; the boys' toilets were clear by 3.30pm. Girls were still queuing up outside the girls' toilets. I went into the boys' toilet to wash myself up and came out with 15 minutes to spare.

Up in the hall, the students were seated in the hall by 4pm and some Dance Society members then taught the Sec 1s the mass dance (song was 98 Degrees' "True To Your Heart"). It took quite some time for the Sec 1s to get used to the dance, but I personally think the Dance members need a bit more practice in teaching people, especially non-Dance members, mass dances. After the mass dance there was another round of class cheering before the prize-presentation ceremony, which had to speed up as we were past 5pm, the dismissal time on the programme.

After the classes were dismissed there was a short break before debrief for the student leaders. The debrief was followed by the distribution of leftover food from today's lunch before we headed home.

Something was missing this year.

Normal school day in the morning. We also received our timetable for the rest of the 3 months at least, i.e. lectures, tutorials, practicals and PE lessons. Since I'm taking 4 subjects plus GP and Chinese, my timetable (or should I say, 1SA1's timetable) is fully packed till the dismissal time of 4.30pm (except for Wednesdays, when we're dismissed early for CCAs). For PE lessons, 1SA1 would be doing land games for the first 5 weeks, after which we'd be doing swimming I suppose.

I went home after school to give myself a little break before heading back to NHSS at around 5pm. This year the Sec 1s have the very first overnight Orientation Camp held in NHSS and most of the Exco11 are going back to stay overnight with them. I arrived at NHSS at about the same time as Wei Loong, Meisi and Li Xian (the latter two won't be staying overnight). When we stepped into the canteen, student leaders were preparing for dinner while the other students sounded like they were in the Hall. Out on the field some more people are getting ready for the campfire at 8pm tonight.

Later, as the Sec 1s streamed into the canteen for dinner Shao Ming and then Kegan came. Since I already had dinner at home I didn't sit in to eat with them. We just walked around the canteen until the Sec 1s finished dinner at around 7.45pm, after which they walked out onto the basketball court and then into the field. Shao Ming, Kegan and I were about to get very high for the campfire (having gone through the JC campfires in our respective JCs), but I personally felt the campfire was a little less energetic than the one in ACJC. Have to forgive them; they're still Sec 1s after all.

But later when the emcees invited class 1/1 to present their item for the campfire, I went back to the canteen. 5 Cavalon items during the ACJC campfire already almost became tasteless, and now there are gonna be 12 class items. I joined the seniors who graduated in 2003 in the canteen where they were chatting. Soon more 2004 graduated seniors joined the group when they started to play logic games and got my brain totally working like hell.

After the campfire came the night trail, organised by the ELDDS. Most of the ELDDS members showed up to lead the classes and occasionally scare them out. In the end it was mainly the girls who got creeped out. Unfortunately the item had to be canned halfway when there was a huge delay in the classes walking the night trail, causing the programme to stretch past 12 midnight and residents to complain about the noise made. After gathering in the canteen for a short debrief, the Sec 1s were sent off to bathe and go to bed, the girls in the hall and the guys in classrooms on Levels 2 and 3.

To be continued

Another normal day in school. The movement audition results for Camelot has been posted on the ACSian Theatre noticeboard and I seemed to have gotten in. I was in Group 1 and in the results sheet, the name was spelt "Shi Yong". I later remembered that I was probably the only one in Group 1 whose name sounded like "Shi Yong".

After a short break at home, I headed out to Kelly's house around Bishan/Ang Mo Kio/Serangoon/Lorong Chuan (eh...around there lah) for Lisa's farewell dinner. Lisa, one of Elekan's OGLs, would be going to Australia on Saturday, so Elekan had gathered to have a dinner with her at Kelly's house. I met Kelly and a number of guys at Serangoon Garden CC where the guys, which include Liquan and Boon Heng (both Elekan members), were playing basketball. After a while all of us walked back to Kelly's house, passing by some tennis courts.

Once the guys were well rested we went out again, some to play tennis at the courts and the rest to pick up some more people. A few metres away from the bus stop, we waited as Denise and then Ivan and Lisa (the VIP) arrived by bus. We then headed back to the tennis courts where the guys were still playing tennis. Sitting down beside the court, we were soon playing cards while waiting for the guys to finish the game.

It was 7 plus when we headed back to Kelly's house. Kelly ordered pizza while we sort of hung around the house and Kelly presented a card we had bought to Lisa. A long time later the pizza arrived and a moment of awkward followed as nobody wanted to be the first to eat. We finally started after an 'opening ceremony' by Lisa, i.e. picking up the first slice of pizza. There were 4 pans of pizza and chicken wings and buns courtesy of Kelly's mum. By the end of the night we all had our fill (me a lot), talked quite a bit and played Truth or Dare.

We finally left Kelly's house at around 10.30pm. I had a lift in Han Long's dad's car to Newton MRT and got off to take the MRT. It was almost 12 midnight by the time I got home.

Lessons as usual in the morning, though I was feeling a bit sick. Later, I saw Yen Nee in the canteen and walked with her to the library to meet her new found friends, also from Malaysia, two of whom are also intending to join ACSian Theatre.

At around 2.15pm we left the library for LT1 where the ACSian Theatre would be having their first club meeting for J1s. After a short briefing for the J2s so that they can go off to study, the J1s were introduced to the stuff ACSian Theatre did in the past 2 years. The meeting ended way ahead of the 4.30pm as was told to us, but we would have to come back at 5pm later for movement auditions if we want to be considered for Camelot, one of the ACSian Theatre's two major productions in the year 2005. During the wait we walked a short distance with Yen Nee's Malaysian friends to their hostel at ACS (I) before coming back and just hanging around.

5pm soon came and it was time for the auditions. We did a 20-minute warm-up sequence which almost tore all the muscles in my body (consequence of not being that active in the past months). After that the dance choreographer arrived and we wasted no time in learning the dance. What was difficult was that the dance was 10 times more difficult and vigorous than the orientation mass dances and we had to learn it in 2 hours, a few times shorter than the few days we were given for the orientation mass dance. I was in group 1 for the audition and I went first with the rest of group 1. My first round was okay; I didn't forget my dance steps. The second time (we had to do the dance routine two times) I forgot some of my steps. Hopefully that didn't affect my results.

Again, only lectures today. Went back to NHSS in the afternoon to collect my EAGLES award.

Today lessons officially begin for the J1s, and this week's lessons are all lectures. During contact time with Mr. Chan he gave us a Physics question about graphs and instructed us to answer it and hand it in tomorrow. The next lecture after recess was one on adapting to JC life. After that was Chemistry, a free period and then Physics. Most of the lectures were simple enough since they were mainly revision stuff.

At about 5.57pm today Singapore observed a minute of silence for the tsunami victims.

Went back to NHSS today on NHSS' CCA Extravanganza day to collect my EAGLES cheque and also to visit the ELDDS, or rather the EDC (English Drama Club) as someone informed me a few days ago. The ELDDS has split up into the drama and debate parts, and the EDC is now headed by Ms Ong and Ms J.

I went to the General Office the moment I entered the school compound and found nobody in it, so I headed up to the Drama Studio on Level 4. Sze Teng had told me last December that they had refurnished the Drama Studio to make it look less like a classroom, and as I entered the room and looked around, I must say it was a successful makeover. They have bought parquet floor print paper for the floor, white cushions (one for every EDC member) and clipboards (also one for every EDC member) pasted onto the walls of the room. The motto of the EDC, Passion @ Play, is also emblazoned clearly across the wall above the whiteboard.

I received quite a warm welcome from my 'children'. The presentation format was the same as last year's CCA Extravaganza, i.e. the EDC is split up into small groups of around 4 people and each group has a play promoting drama in general. After a while Yu Lim came, her main intention being to watch the mobile display, and Kegan also showed up in the HCI *edited from 'HCJC'* PE shirt (a cool T-shirt with jersey-like material).

During a long break between classes I suddenly got the urge to dance. I showed the other EDC members ACJC's mass dances and Kegan also briefly showed HCI's *edited from 'HCJC'* (they have a total of 5 college dances and another faculty dance). In between classes both of us also taught them one of our mass dances each and some of them gamely learned some of the dances. Since Yu Lim, another Terazul member, also turned up we could show them the Superstar dance.

After all the classes had passed through the Drama Studio the static display was officially over. I left the room and was about to go to the General Office again to see if the admin staff were around when I spotted some other 4o1ers sitting at the bench outside the staff room with Ms Ang: Yan Chen, Juliet, Tania and Yen Nee (the latter two shouted "AC!" when they saw me). We talked a bit before moving to watch the Dance Society's performance in the mobile display in the parade square.

After the performance we went into the HOD Room where Mr. Pandian's new table was and chatted. He also shared some photos of himself when he was in ACJC. After spending time in the HOD Room Yan Chen and Juliet went off while the remaining three of us saw Mr. Lam outside the General Office (the admin staff weren't around in the office) and chatted with him too. After that we went home, chatting about AC stuff while walking out to the bus stop.

Today is the last day of the ACJC Orientation 2005. Right after morning assembly all of us headed to different venues around the school for the first House meeting of 2005. Like most JCs around Singapore, ACJC adopts a house system with 8 houses (I think; or is it 5?). I'm in Cheong Koon Seng House (CKS), so I went to LT1 (behind hall) for the house meeting. Basically all we did was to nominate the new House Committee, which took more time than was given.

After the break was again the continuition of the storyline. Today the Prophet miraculously showed up in front of all the Cavalon leaders and reprimanded them for fighting and causing much bloodshed instead of joining forces to restore Tiripsca.

We all headed to the badminton hall for the last time after another round of mass rally that followed the storyline continuition. Today morning there weren't much activities in Elekan: most of them didn't want to dance and yet they didn't want to play cheesy or dirty games. Eventually most of us slacked all the way till the final mass rally of the orientation programme which took place at around noon.

After the mass rally it was time to report to our base classes and meet our class teachers. I walked with Zirui to the classroom A2.12 and Mr. Gary Chan, our class teacher, was in the classroom waiting for the others to show up. Once most of us were present he introduced himself and gave out some stuff, which included a sheet to fill in our particulars and a timetable of our lectures for the year (only lectures). After all those our senior counterparts, i.e. class 2SA1, came into the classroom to meet us. We were supposed to have lunch together after that, but I didn't know where they had it so I ended up eating in the canteen with Zirui.

Elekan was supposed to meet up at the ceremonial staircase at 1.50pm for OG time until 6.30pm, but thanks to some other businesses, we could only leave at 2.30pm. We planned to go to Bukit Timah Plaza to play pool, but when we got there the billard centre was fully booked. Eventually we managed to get tables at another billard centre in Beauty World Shopping Centre (near BTP) but as we wasted time in walking to Beauty World, we only played for an hour. After pool we had dinner at McDonald's and, after changing into our orientation T-shirts, left the place for school.

The students were still moving to the campfire location, the basketball courts, when we arrived in school, so we moved there and waited for the campfire to be declared open by Mrs. Chan. After lighting the campfire, the story of Tiripsca ended with the Prophet showing up in a video explaining that the Cavalon leaders have combined their elements and hence restored the Nexus of Tiripsca. Following that a more candid scene of Li Feng and most of the other Cavalon leaders (Viceroy was missing) showed up and each of them gave their comments about the whole event. I almost wanted to hit myself (but of course wowed) when Li Feng revealed that Tiripsca was actually "AC Spirit" spelt backwards.

After the video a series of performances came up. Every Cavalon had a special item, and between them were performances by groups like ACSian Dance, ACSian Theatre and the organisers of Orientation 2004 and games hosted by the three MCs. The whole campfire ended close to 11pm with a grand finale of the mass dances out on the tracks. We danced a few times on the tracks before returning to the basketball court and dancing even more.

The finale was indeed the climax. The AC Spirit is now in me, and I'm now less swayed to switch to NJC after three months if my scores can make it.

TERAZUL.Elekan.IAN.LISA.Boon Heng.Denise.Deo.Hui Ling.Ivan.John.Kai Hui.Kelly.Li Quan.Matthew.Shee Yong.Si Yuan.Xiao Xuan

It's Day 4 of the ACJC Orientation 2005. A long PCCG talk followed morning assembly, after which was break and the continuition of the storyline of the fate of Tiripsca. One of the Cavalon leaders had researched on the full prophecy and found out that a certain Acstonium is required to restore the Nexus of Tiripsca, and to get Acstonium, all the Cavalon leaders must combine their respective elements. Of course, it's still 'every Cavalon for itself'. And so the story goes on...

Elekan danced quite a bit today, and the whole Terazul also did the mass dances and the Terazul cheers in the badminton hall. Before the mass rally after lunch was about to start, there was suddenly a scramble for the lobby and Si Yuan hurriedly told me, "Class, class!" It took me a while to realise that the classes' name lists were out. I was in 1SA1 with Deo and Zirui and 23 other people. After that Elekan waited quite a long time to play two games which weren't as dirty as yesterday's (only water got onto us). Well...paint for some, thanks to some of their other friends who sabotaged them.

After the final mass rally for the day we Elekan had planned to meet up for dinner together, but the J1s would have to wait for Lisa and Ian who could only be free later on. We hung around the AC campus and tried to move things at an extra slow pace before Lisa told us to go to Holland V first and decide where to eat. Once in Holland V, we again walked at a very slow pace before stopping and entering The Coffee Bean. Since this was the first time I had ever stepped into TCB, I first bought something I was familiar with, Iced Black Tea. We sat down in a corner of the restaurant and chatted while waiting for Lisa to turn up.

Lisa turned up at around 7pm after her work with the Council over in AC was over. However all of us decided to wait for Ian to finish his rugby (I think) training and come to TCB before ordering some more stuff to eat. When he came much later the sun seemed to have set and Lisa and us have talked about lots of stuff. I ordered the spicy tuna linguine which wasn't quite bad, except I ended up a bit quite full. After the meal all of us talked as some people left early, with topics from hostels and school stuff to foreign scholars and gays. All of us eventually left TCB at around 10pm and headed home.

Day 3 of ACJC Orientation 2005 was the dirtiest day for me and the rest of Elekan (so far). I'll come to that in a bit. After Assembly today there was a bit of talk on the PE Programme of ACJC and the CCAs. I was delighted to see swimming as part of the PE programme since I enjoy swimming. ;) Maybe they should include some modern dance lessons. Dancing can really help you burn some fats, as I kind of noticed during the past few days. :P Part of the talk by the Sports Secretary of the school really got the J1s laughing. "In ACJC they say if you see me smile, something bad will happen" was one of the things he said.

After recess the story of Tiripsca continues. Today's mission was probably the most simply phrased, but also the most interesting since Day 1: Find Sherman Yang, one half of the brother-sister leader duo of Calshia. He had gone missing, and even worse, with the Calshia Ice (in reality an Ice Mountain bottle), the element of the Calshia cavalon. Whichever of the other 4 cavalons find him first with the Calshia Ice will be able to take over Calshia and be one step closer to ruling the world. So for the first half of the day, Elekan's main job, as like other Esprits, is to go around the school looking for councillors dressed in costumes and do a forfeit set by them in order to ask questions about Sherman's disappearance and ultimately come up with a hypothesis as to why Sherman disappeared. Elekan managed to ask the Prophet (played by Li Feng, President of 29th Student Council), the leader of Tyrallus (who formed an alliance with Viceroy Terazul today), the Viceroy Terazul himself who's supposed to hate Sherman a lot and an anonymous toll person working in a train who spotted someone who looked like Sherman on the train. The hypothesis we came up was something almost all 4 people pointed out: that Sherman had an argument with his sister and left. Eventually the hypothesis was correct, but not elaborate enough to get prizes for it. The truth was revealed: the sister had always dominated leadership in Calshia and as her brother and a leader of Calshia, Sherman didn't get along well with his sister, so he left to calm himself down.

After that followed lunch and Lisa brought some of the Elekan members on a tour around the school campus. After the tour we returned to the Sports Complex where we finished learning the dances to both songs. I must comment that Li Feng is really an all-rounded person. Not only did she acted her role as the Prophet well, she taught dances really well too. No wonder she's President of the SC.

We were so engrossed in the dances that we missed a mass rally at around 3 plus. Having finished the dances anyway, Ian and Lisa brought us out to the field for some really dirty games. By the end of the day (close to 6) I had mud on the back of my shirt and shorts, water on some parts of the body and starchy water (some dried up, some still wet) all over. I took quite a long time to clean myself up, after which we hurriedly went up to the badminton hall to find that most CCAs were beginning to clear up their booths set up for the CCA Exhibition. I did manage to find the ACSian Theatre and sign up with them; some others didn't have that much luck.

At the end of the day some other cavalon (forgot which) found Sherman and the Calshia Ice and sort of taken over Calshia, but I suppose that's a story to be continued tomorrow. We headed home at past 7.

Day 2 at ACJC and I had lots more fun today. There were only two talks today in the hall: the address of one of the Vice-Principals of the school about ACJC and all that and what the discipline teachers called 'The Talk' (during which both genders were given talks simultaneously at different places).

After the talks we continued with our time with our Esprits. We practised a bit of dance of the first song before heading down to the field to play some games which were considerably cleaner than yesterday (that is, if you didn't get the water-flour bomb). We did dances for the rest of the day in the badminton hall, getting familiar with Blame It On The Boogie and learning one half of the dance for Superstar (though Ian and Lisa, our Esprits' Mehvs, had some doubts about some of the dance moves). We ended the day the same as yesterday, i.e. mass rally and prayer.

Up till now, the impression improved a little (in my opinion, almost destroyed by the first teacher who spoke during The Talk). Probably that's why they have 5 days for JC orientation. ;)

Today is a fresh new start. Day 1 at ACJC.

I arrived at the school by 7.10am and saw Tania and Yen Nee waiting outside the school for Peiyu. Later the three of us saw Crystal just outside the school gate and Crystal and I saw Edwin at the bleachers beside the running track when we went in later. While everybody else were waiting for their friends, I walked alone up to the Hall where chairs were arranged both on stage and on the ground. I joined Abraham and some other 4o1ers at some seats at the front.

Once all were settled down it was time for the usual morning ritual: singing of the National Anthem, the school anthem and reciting the pledge. After the Principal's speech and a prayer, there were some more talks by the teachers of the school with a recess break in between.

Then the actual orientation began. The theme for the ACJC Orientation 2005 was "Mosaic: Pieces of the AC Passion" and the Orientation Group (OG) names were all derived from a fictional mythological story. OG clusters were referred to as Cavalons, OGs as Esprits, OG leaders as Mehvs and us J1s as Tiripscans. The Cavalon I was in was Terazul and the Esprit Elekan.

Our 'base' was the Badminton Hall, located at the sports complex. After collecting an orientation booklet, we moved out onto the stands beside the swimming pool (since they couldn't get the air-con in the badminton hall to work) where our Cavalon's leader taught us the Terazul cheer. After some ice-breaking games we went for lunch, a rally (i.e. cheering session where the 5 Cavalons compete to see who can cheer the best) and then to the all important subject registration. I registered for double Maths and double Sciences. The process was quick, but due to someone in Elekan wanting to appeal to take up Higher Chinese we had a very long delay where we rotted in The Hub (venue of the subject registration).

When we finally went back to our base we were taught one of the dances that we would be doing sometime during the one-week-long orientation. We rehearsed the dance with the song "Blame It On The Boogie" (the other song was "Superstar" by Jamelia), after which majority of the Esprit elected to go play some of the games on the field, i.e. dirty games. Surprisingly I was so lucky only my feet were dirty (since we walked onto the pitch barefooted). After a bit of wash-up the whole J1 cohort had another cheering competition before we were dismissed.

Verdict: Well, I think ACJC is all right for now. My impression of ACJC is not really 'up there' currently, but maybe it just takes time. I'm just eager to join ACSian Theatre (I only realised now that 'ACSian' is pronounced like 'action' and not 'A-C-Sian') and do my favourite theatre stuff again.

I spent the day clearing up my bedroom (finally). It's back to school tomorrow, except it's not NHSS I'm going back to, but ACJC. Wonder what's in stall for us. For me.

New Year's Day

The welcoming of 2005 was a quiet one.

The TV, switched to Channel 5, silently counted down to 2005. New Year greetings from MediaCorp artistes and Singapore Idol finalists then showed, following which they pleaded viewers to donate generously to tsunami victims. After that Taufik's debut single's music video I Dream aired exclusively. All in all, I can say some people entered 2005 in a bad mood.

New Year's Day morning. Rain again. Spent the day listening to 98.7FM online which was airing the repeat telecast of the Top 100 on 10 Countdown. Overall, the day wasn't very interesting for New Year's Day, and the mood wasn't exactly high up there. Probably the worst New Year's Day in years.