There was Camelot dance rehearsal today at 5.30pm. Before that I stayed at the library from 12 plus doing homework with Yan Bo, Liz, Hartono and a few other scholars. If you stayed for close to 5 hours in the library you would freeze to death, and that's almost what happened to me. On a happier note, we've finished learning the third dance.
After school today, Mrs Chan gave an address to the J1s in the hall, and one of the stuff she told us was that Mr. Tharman would be making an official announcement later this afternoon that JCs would be reverting back to the double-intake process for a few more years until MOE can shift the release of O Level results and hence have a single intake in January instead of March. After that, I sort of slacked until Camelot dance rehearsal began at 5.30pm.
Was in charge of the Camelot booth today afternoon with Krishmen and managed to give out some $30 Edusave forms to students who were interested in watching Camelot. Left school and went back in the evening for Camelot dance practice, where we continued with the third dance.
Today's the first day of the lecture-only week and it ended very early for me. ;)
I read a super funny joke in Chinese in the MediaCorp Forums today. If you wanna read it you can ask me through MSN and I'll send it to you. :p I was laughing like mad. Here's a short excerpt, taken from the start of the joke (it's pretty long...)
一天魔王抓走公主，公主一直叫。
魔王∶「你尽管叫破喉咙吧…没有人会来救你的…」
公主∶「破喉咙…破喉咙…」
没有人∶「公主，我来救你了…」
魔王∶「说曹操曹操就到…」
曹操∶「魔王…你叫我干嘛…」
魔王∶「哇咧…看到鬼」
鬼∶「靠！被发现了…」
靠∶「阿鬼，你看得到我噢…」
魔王∶「Oh my God!」
上帝∶「谁叫我?」
谁∶「没有人叫你啊…」
没有人∶「我哪有？装蒜啊！」
蒜∶「谁在装我？」
谁∶「又说我？你们找麻烦啊？」
麻烦∶「哪一个找我？」
哪一个∶「找你？我才没有...」
It's Good Friday and it's pretty good. I spent most of the day on Habbo Hotel where I not only learned quite a fair bit more about Good Friday and Easter, but also won quite a number of Wannabe Bunnies (ducks in bunny disguise). Parents went fishing from the afternoon onwards, so it was only my elder brother and I at home. Slept past midnight.
Today's a significant day in a sense. Three more students from 1SA1 would be spending their last day today (or nearing) as they would be dropping F. Maths (the two I mentioned yesterday and Shriyanka). The day went on pretty normally. Hopefully the new 1SA1 students coming in next week will be able to gel in quickly. Effectively, the 1SA1 '05 family will grow bigger because the blood of 1SA1 flows. ;)
Today's the official first day where the second intake of J1 students come to ACJC and some ACJC students for the first three months leave. Our class lost 4; Zirui to HCI, JC to PJC, Visanth to AJC and Kah Heng to JJC. We may be welcoming new students in the next couple of days. That is, if any geniuses decide to take F. Maths. ;)
Unfortunate for first intake students, we do not get a second orientation, so lessons resumed as normal. Our class went down to the Hub for subject registration at 9.10am and I got back the same combination as I did for the first three months. From what I've heard 1SA1 may lose two more who will drop F. Maths: Simeon and Deo.
The school day ended earlier for 1SA1 too for Mr. Chan decided to let us have the last period (PCCG/NE) free. After that I slacked a bit and slept a bit until Camelot dance rehearsal began at 5.30pm. We finished the finale dance and were released a little ahead of schedule, at 7 plus.
I can't wait for Friday...simply because it's a holiday and it's so close.
I checked my posting results in the morning and was relieved to see ACJC under my name. It was probably a completely different reaction from me as compared to 3 months ago. Guess ACJC did have an impact on me. Or rather, more specifically, ACSian Theatre. Some of my current classmates aren't that lucky. The two 13-pointers in our class (before bonus points) couldn't get into ACJC despite putting it as their first choices.
Later in the evening I returned to school for a show, "Swing Sisters in Singapore". Students from the Jeppe Girls' High School in South Africa were staying in ACJC for this week. Last year ACSian Theatre flew to South Africa to meet them, now it's their turn to come to Singapore. Their performances were excellent, both singing, dancing, drum beating and lots of laughter and clapping. Our own school students also put up performances, warmly received by the African girls who stood up and grooved to the music.
After the performance (definitely worth $2) we had Camelot dance rehearsal until 11.30pm, 30 minutes behind schedule. I got home past midnight.
It was a beautiful start to Term 2 for the J1s when Mrs Gwee announced that since the JAE posting results will be released tomorrow, there will be no lessons for us tomorrow. The day was pretty slack; we spent time during Physics practical in the library to take some class photos. ;) We also welcomed 4 PRC students who have taken exams in China equivalent to the A Levels. They, together with the rest of the PRC students, will be studying in NUS soon, and they will spend 1 term in ACJC to get used to the Singapore education system. There was also a free eye check exercise going on in The Hub and I found out that my eyes hadn't deteriorated much even from the heavy Internet surfing and Habbo-ing. ;)
Pretty much slacked. Watched Part 1 of Lord of the Rings (Fellowship of the Ring) on Channel 5. I saw the short trailer for The Ring TwO, though I was a bit surprised to see the name "Samara" instead. Anyway, will be waiting for April 7!
Some people went to bed while the rest sat round the dining table playing mahjong. The game went on for a very long time until we decided to stop and just chat. We then got into playing "Dare or Dare", where the persons who chose the biggest and smallest value cards from a pile of poker cards would do the dare. Veron came up with lots of crazy ideas for the victims, which involved hip-hop dancing to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, pretending that you're flying on a bird, playing with mahjong tiles like a baby and even caressing and kissing the wall.
I practically slacked through the whole early morning with no sleep. Some people got up, some more went to sleep, almost the same bunch of people played mahjong still and some of the guys played soccer on PS2. I stayed awake all the way. When the sky began to lighten up at about 7am, I still wasn't feeling that tired. Guess it's just me.
When the sky finally turned light blue, I switched on the TV while we wondered about what to do for the rest of the day. Wee Cheng (whose parents, I assume, booked the chalet) told us his family would be coming in in the late afternoon, so we have the chalet until they come (that is, if no one wants to stay through another night). Kegan, Quan Ming and I had wanted to go to WWW (and a few others brought their swimming costumes too), but since most weren't interested anymore, we scrapped the idea. So basically the whole day was spent playing mahjong and watching TV. Our breakfast was apple strudel which Ms Ang bought, and our lunch was spent at Burger King. I had a short break when I lied down (finally) on the bed for about an hour.
Wee Cheng's family arrived at about 4pm, and shortly after they arrived, the rest of us packed our bags and left, bidding Wee Cheng goodbye. I believe some of us were feeling quite sad when we were about to leave, especially since it will probably be a long time when we next meet. Hopefully (like Wee Cheng suggested) we have an outing, gathering or even chalet once every year to maintain our bonds and friendships. To all 4o1ers, you'll never walk alone.
Caution: It has been a VERY LONG day.
The day started off for me with ... waking up. Nah, kidding. I went back to NHSS by 9am in the old NHSS PE attire and jeans to help Mrs. Lim in some stuff, i.e. gathering and sorting out evidences for a confidential report, sorting out the class committee lists, phone relay lists and photosheets and picking out names of student leaders for interviews with a bunch of difficult interviewers for something. The scheduled time to end was 11.30am, but I worked all the way till 12nn before heading home to take a break. I had to wait 40 minutes for the bus home.
After lunch for me which ended at 3 plus and a quick shower, I headed to ACJC for Camelot dance rehearsal beginning at 5.30pm with the Camelot T-shirt and the same pair of jeans I wore that morning. Today's dance session was focussed on the finale dance, including the selection for the mass portion of the finale dance (which I got in).
Having changed from my dance pants back to my jeans after the session, which ended at around 9pm, I headed as quickly as possible via MRT and bus to Aranda Country Club, the venue of the 4o1o4 chalet from today till tomorrow. A long walk through the blocks later (lost) I spotted a bunch of 4o1ers who were not staying overnight and were heading home. With their help, I was able to find the chalet room, room 2222 on level 3, though it took a bit of time for the occupants of the chalet room to notice I had pressed the doorbell and was looking through the kitchen windows.
Seeing a number of familiar faces (some of whom were playing mahjong again) got me happy and relaxed, but I got a little hasty when I realised I missed the first 15 minutes of Survivor: Palau. While watching the show, Ms Ang showed up and brought with her expensive apple strudel which we put into the fridge. When Survivor was over, we switched off the lights of the living room and hid in the balcony, preparing to give Veronica, then bathing, a birthday surprise. It probably worked as one of the girls brought the cake into the room and all of us sang the Happy Birthday song. And thus we ate the birthday cake.
After the cake had been finished some people went out to walk and to buy instant noodles for the rest in the chalet. I simply waited in the chalet waiting and stoning, perhaps playing a few rounds of mahjong....
To be continued
Headed to NHSS today to sit in and observe one of the sessions of the leadership workshop, Nurture Leaders Programme, held in school. The programme started on Monday and stretches till today. All Sec 1 and 2 classes had to attend one session of the workshop. Today, Kegan and Yiqi (Sec 3 Councillor) were also present.
When we arrived outside the classrooms we were greeted by Vivian, somewhat the head of the external company which runs the programme. We were given a quick briefing by her before being split to join 3 different groups as facilitators. I was sent to the group made up of mainly 2/12 students and a few from other classes. The instructor was a guy by the name of Mr. Chen, and they were only beginning the programme when I went in. For the next 4 hours we went through the workshop with some talking and also 'hands-on' activity, Eggship, a typical bond-building and leadership skills cultivating activity. At the end of the session, Mr. Chen, who is ORDing from NS soon, also shared a few ghost stories he heard while serving NS, including the famous Third Door incident.
After the session Kegan and I followed Mrs. Lim to the General Office and we used her laptop to type out some documents. Kegan left earlier to oversee the table tennis practice, while I went home at about 3 plus.
Dance rehearsal for Camelot today. We finished the plotting for the opening dance and learned a new part of the finale dance, one which everybody must learn.
I went back to NHSS this afternoon to sit in the ELDDS' rehearsal for the SYF Central Judging this year. While the non-cast members headed to the linkway between the classroom block and the lift block to paint cubic blocks to be used in the play, the cast rehearsed with borrowed boxes in the AVA Room with Serena, their coach this year. Overall, I must say I was quite impressed with the performance of some of the cast members, especially those who are pretty emotional. With a few more touch-ups they should be capable of at least a silver again. That is, if we don't get retired school principals again...
Today's Camelot dance rehearsal was mainly plotting, i.e. positioning of dancers and removing some from the stage. I got into most of the sections, though that meant I had to relearn some of the sections I wasn't in before.
Had a good long sleep last night; woke up at 9 plus this morning. Slacked at home afterwards.
Today is ACJC's 119th Founder's Day. I arrived in school at the usual morning assembly time, but the whole event only began at 8.15am with the arrival of the Guest-of-Honour, Mr. Ong Kian Min, Member of Parliament, Tampines GRC. After that the order of service was similar to the Combined Founder's Day we had about a week ago. The event ended sharply at 10.30am with the usual announcements. I rushed off to the Drama Studio later and got changed into my blacks, but Jo informed me that we'd only be leaving at around 11.30am, so we can go around during the waiting time. So I returned to the hall to help arrange the chairs back to the original arrangement.
After everything was done the other people in 1SA1 set of for East Coast Park for a class outing while I hung around the Drama Studio and then went down to the canteen to have a short lunch with Chun Jia and Yu Lin. We returned to the Drama Studio at around 11.30am, where we were briefed by Jo before she sent us off to the ADSD Complex with our costumes and masks in a bag which we carried on our own.
We took a cab to the location, but by the time we got in we realised the whole story: today was only sort of a preview while tomorrow was the actual thing, so the children had all left by the time we got there. So we slacked at our ACSian Theatre booth, the table strewn with materials for making masks and bracelets and phamplets about the ACSian Theatre Children's Troupe. It was around 3pm when we decided to pack up and leave early, convinced that there won't be any more children coming along for the rest of the day.
Since 1SA1 was probably still at ECP at that time, I decided to head over to ECP to meet them. I (together with a few other Theatre members) took the MRT southwards. By the time I got off at City Hall MRT Station it was 4.20pm, but I still managed to catch a bus immediately outside the station and reached ECP at around 5pm. The bunch of them were at the pool centre with Mr. Chan, who according to Chiang came 10 minutes before me. I played about an hour of pool before we left at 6pm for dinner at Parkway Parade (again). There were lots of fun at the dining table as Yen Nee, who joined us at ECP, tried to steal ice kachang from Chiang, drawing many people's stares. I went home by MRT from City Hall while the others headed to Hera's house again.
Mr. Chan pulled our class out of a few lessons today to help him in the arranging of chairs and putting up of tags in the hall and LT1 for tomorrow's Founder's Day event. We altogether slacked a bit when our parts were done.
After school I stayed behind for a mime rehearsal for some children's troupe event that ACSian Theatre is involved in. The carnival, held at ADSD Complex, will be seeing a lot of children on Friday and Saturday. The mime group which I was in (consisting only of me, Yu Lin and Chun Jia) would be performing Hansel & Gretal tomorrow, while the other group (all Camelot cast members including Yi Jun, Viknesh and Krishmen) would be performing Aladdin on Saturday (since they have Camelot rehearsal tomorrow afternoon). My group rehearsed with Jolyn standing in for Sharm as the storyteller. The costume I had, a simple bright blue western suit which I would be putting over my blacks, was probably the best looking costume I had in my whole drama experience. We rehearsed until around 7pm, then we went home.
For Camelot dance practice today, we revised the opening dance and learnt the couples' portion of the finale dance. For me it wasn't too bad. ;)
Had a compulsory Theatre meeting for all Theatre members. Went home at 5.30pm.
Monday. Wish I could enjoy the last week of the term, but no, there's checking of our GP and Resource files on Thursday and I need 18 more articles for my Resource File.
The NHSS Exco11 was invited to a very late CNY Potluck celebration with the Student Council. This is a Council tradition every year. Unfortunately, only Kegan, Shao Ming and I showed up as the others have things on. We were probably a little low-key as we took our food and sat down to eat.
After clearing up, we headed to the HOD Room with some Sec 2 and 4 Councillors and Mrs. Lim. After Mrs Lim had talked to the Councillors about some video they were making, the topic about CIP came up again as Mrs. Lim talked to us. We haven't really decided what to do that will 'meet real needs' of the organisation.
After that we walked to West Bowl to bowl with Yan Chen meeting us a few minutes after we arrived at the strangely quiet alley. The 4 of us played 2 games each, and I did comparably okay, about the same as my games on Wednesday. In the last two games, each of us played 5 frames in a 2-vs-2 style, with Shao Ming and I on one team and Yan Chen and Kegan on another. I set a record for myself with spares in the first 4 frames I played and 29 pinfalls in the last frame for my team, i.e. 4 spares, a double strike and another throw which caused 9 pinfalls. The final score for our team was 141. The 29 pinfalls remains my closest score to a turkey.
Today's the release of the A Level results for the 2004 sitting. Our class and some other students were given a chance to sit in LT1 to watch the announcement of the results in the auditorium at 2.30pm. I think ACJC did pretty well for this A Level examination, and it was probably a form of motivation for us to work hard.
At 6pm some students from our class together with majority of the Arts Faculty (Arts Fac) showed up in LT4 for the annual Arts Night, consisting a series of performances and games. The theme this year was Retro, and students, especially from the Arts Fac, showed up gamely in retro fashion. Guys were sporting afros and girls huge earrings. There were performances from the newly-formed Guitar Ensemble, Dance Society, ACSian Theatre, the AC Idol winners for both soloist and band categories and other band performances. If I have to rate the performances for the night, the best was probably the dance by the J2 Dance members. But, perhaps the organisers shouldn't try Retro as a theme again.
Felt extremely sleepy today, probably since I stayed up till 12.30am this morning watching the premiere of The Amazing Race 7.
Today 1SA1 had our first real outing to East Coast Park. I arrived a bit late at the City Hall MRT Station, the meeting place, coming a few minutes past 10am. Present were Jonathan, Simeon and Andy. Davina, Elizabeth and June Teng arrived one by one later, and Yen Nee (psst: Andy's girlfriend!) showed up very late. After making a stopover at the nearest Breadtalk for some of us to get something to eat, we exited the station and walked to a bus stop behind Raffles City Shopping Centre to take a bus to ECP.
According to Davina, Hartono (thanks to dozing off) ended up at Buona Vista and would be meeting us at ECP's McDonald's. When we arrived Tony (Hartono) was nowhere in sight, so all of us sat down and ate ice-cream again. Halfway through it started to pour outside, so heavily that the corridor outside the restaurant was slowly being flooded. Very Titanic. Tony came in the middle of the rain, drenched (strangely, more on the front than the back). After a while someone decided to buy more fried, and in the end we ate a total of 8 packets of fries coupled with a variety of sauces.
By the time the rain reduced to nothing more than drops of water from leaves of trees, we left McDonald's and discussed our next activity. Eventually we picked bowling over pool and went over to the bowling alley across the carpark from McDonald's. All nine of us played two games each (except Andy, who played one game as he had to leave early). Simeon was the top scorer for the first round of games (expert using hook/spin), but maybe it was his teaching Tony how to spin the ball that caused him to sort of lose focus. I topped the second round with 90 points, 8 points ahead of JC (Jonathan) who almost beat me with a spare in the final frame.
When we left the bowling alley at 2 plus, the sun was shining bright and the roads were almost dry. We decided to cycle next, so we headed to the bicycle rental shop near 7-Eleven. Tony had to leave early, so we were left with 7 people. Thanks to a promotion which allowed us to get 1 hour free when we rent 1 hour, I only spent $5 to cycle for two hours. We cycled eastwards all the way to the end of the whole bicycle track, stopping over at Bedok Jetty for a breather. Elizabeth had to be 'escorted' by JC and Simeon as she wasn't too good on the bike. When the two hours were almost up June Teng was the first to return to the rental shop, followed by me and the rest.
We were done for the day at ECP. We headed to the bus stop but couldn't decide where to eat next, so we let fate decide by sending the next bus. Alas, we ended up deciding to go to Parkway Parade again. JC continued his ride on the bus as he was headed to Causeway Point for dinner with his parents, while we got off and walked around the Parkway Parade Shopping Centre, since it was still pretty early to eat. We finally went to Pastamania on Level 3 to have dinner at 5 plus. The Buddy Meals we ordered really filled us up; I had Al Funghi (with Shitake mushroom and cream), cream of corn, banana dessert pizza and 100-Plus. The Nutella chocolate spread which Simeon brought added 'highness' to the atmosphere, but of course we had to do it secretly. We went back once we finished our meals at 7 plus, with Simeon and Elizabeth stopping over in Giant Hypermarket to buy more Nutella and honey respectively.
Today is also a half day, this time for the whole college. March 1 is the ACS family's Founder's Day, and every 4 years all ACS schools come together to celebrate Combined Founder's Day (I think at Singapore Indoor Stadium all the time). School ended at 11.10am and we reported in the auditorium for attendance taking at 12.15pm. We were then separated into buses going to the Indoor Stadium. Originally 1SA1 was separated into two different buses, but all of us (excluding the canoers in our class) sneaked into the same, more luxurious-looking bus.
When we reached the Indoor Stadium it took a while before we realised that we had to enter the stadium instead of wait outside. 1SA1 got pretty good seats near the front, but for the rest of the event some of us ended up playing logic games (leaf falling, string, bang-bang, Black Magic, Follow Me). This was especially so during the Inter-House Games which came as the last event on the programme.
After we were dismissed from the stadium most people from 1SA1 and friends of people from 1SA1 got together to have dinner together somewhere. We walked around aimlessly for a while before finally deciding to have dinner at the foodcourt at Parkway Parade. I had fried rice and 100-Plus. After that we took 36 since some of them were going to Hera's house. I got off earlier and took the MRT home.
