*Shakes my head and looks at the computer screen groggily*

Wooo! Sorry about the inactivity, I fell asleep in front of the computer since my last entry, and as Green Day's song goes, "Wake me up when September ends."

It's indeed time to wake up. Our Promotional Examinations (Promos) are starting next Monday and I have not done any revision (as usual). In school, Maths and F. Maths revision started last week, Physics a few days ago and Chemistry, just today. That despite the fact that next Monday's papers are GP and Chemistry. What great timing.

Already I'm looking forward to the December holidays and spending time out at chalets with my friends. *Looks into the future* Oh no, I predict a poor result for the Promos...better start working hard!

...But not tonight, The Amazing Race 8 is debutting tonight!

Went bowling today. The original picture was Joon Kiat, Ho Yuen and I meeting at 11am at Jurong East MRT Station to go bowling at Cathay Bowl @ The Chevrons. When Joon Kiat and I met, Ho Yuen told JK he could only make it at 1pm, so the both of us decided to shift it back to 1pm, and thanks to this change in time, Wern Jian could join us in bowling too.

However, it was 1.20pm already and Joon Kiat, Wern Jian and I were still waiting for an uncontactable Ho Yuen. Hence the new picture became the three of us going to the same place to bowl. When we got there, we settled for one game each first because the lady at the counter had told us that there was going to be a bowling camp held here later, and the lane which we were playing in may be booked. After this round, we went back to the counter to check if our lane was booked, and thankfully it was not, so we played two more games each, making a total of 3 rounds of game.

The children came into the bowling centre in the middle of our second round. They were here for the second day of their three-day "Learn-to-Bowl" camp, conducted by some Team Singapore bowlers (sorry, no Remy Ong or Andrew Fang). While watching the little kids get their position for the release of the ball, I felt like I've been doing it wrong for years. But who cares? I'm playing it for my own leisure, not represent Singapore in bowling competitions.

When our three rounds were over, Wern Jian played the highest score of 160 in the first round (he scored a turkey in his first three frames!), while I won the next two rounds with 150 (my personal best) and 111 respectively. After bowling, I was still itching for fun, so we headed down to the arcade. We played a little of Bishi Bashi, Wern Jian played Time Crisis II, I played Dance Dance Revolution with disastrous results, but in the end both Wern Jian and I played Para Para Paradise the most. :) I spent $1.50 playing Para Para, but it was okay; even Wern Jian said this arcade had the cheapest arcade games. We headed home at about 5 plus.

"morning at memory's border" Book Launch

Reporting time to school was 11am. It's the first time I'm coming to school on a Sunday, and the school was surprisingly teeming with activity. I could actually hear the noise coming from the swimming pool while standing near the main gate. I found out later that there's church here on Sunday. Of course, how could I have forgotten?

The clouds opened up a few minutes into our rehearsal and preparation and rain poured down. After a few run-through, we moved the platforms and frames down to the waiting truck at the foyer and settled down on the steps to have a quick McDonald's lunch before setting off for the Arts House (once again). I went in Callista's car with Raj, Audrey Low (aka Dree) and David.

Raj had betted that we would arrive later than Jared's bunch (Jared, Mrs Creffield, Ms Wong, Yi Jun and Tim) and he was right. Callista parked the car at the New Parliament House carpark and we walked to the Arts House with Raj sheltering the two gals and me sheltering David. When we entered the Arts House through the front doors, the others had already moved the frames from the truck at the loading bay behind into the building and were wiping them dry. With great care, we brought the frames and platforms up the stairs into the Chamber, our performance space. The Chamber was the actual Parliamentary Chamber where the ministers held their Parliament meetings. Most of the main fixtures remained intact; the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's seat was identified too, together with those of a few other pioneering ministers.

Aaron Maniam, the author of the book "Morning at Memory's Border", arrived while we were setting up our platforms. There were to be three schools performing during the book launch later: CHIJ (forgot which branch), RJC and us, ACJC. Of course, since we were the first to arrive there, we had quite some time to get acquainted with our performance space before the other groups came. After our rehearsal time on the space, we went into the dressing room behind the stage, changed into our costumes and did our make-up.

The crowd started to come in at about 4.15pm. Aaron started the reading at 4.35pm; he introduced each school as they came out for their performances. The two groups in front of us went back into the audience seats after their performance. When it was time for our performance, we did our stuff and went back into the dressing room. When Aaron invited the audience for a reception on the ground floor, we went out and quite a number of people from the audience had so much praises for our performances I was a bit overwhelmed. I changed back into my blacks before going down for the reception. The book was sold at the door for $12, but my parents only gave me $8...anyway, we met quite a number of ACSians downstairs too: Judith, Nalli, Hazri, just to name a few.

When the reception had ended, we swiftly moved the set back to the truck. Only the madams and Jared were going back to the school to help unload. I should have went back with them to help to; that was a little bit of regret for me. So, well, while the others went out to celebrate (I suppose), I headed home on the MRT.

Ah, I'd be looking out for the book in the bookstores.

Teacher's Day Celebrations @ ACJC

ACJC was one of the few schools in Singapore to celebrate Teacher's Day on September 2. Our day started with ACES (All Children Exercise Simultaneously), and for that, we had morning assembly out in the field facing the bleachers and following that, we returned to what we've been doing for half of Term 3: Body Combat. The two trainers were back to lead us in supposedly fun workouts. However, the sky decided to work against our favour (or to our favour, depending on whether one liked body combat). Dark clouds loomed, wind blew strongly and soon the rain decided to fall. We had to end the workout early at 8.15am, and we returned to the shelter just in time before the downpour came.

By 8.45am all of us (the students) were seated in the Hall ready for the concert. This year's Teacher's Day Celebrations theme was "ACWood" (named after Hollywood). Thanks to the Councillors, the route from the Staff Room to the Hall has been turned into a Walk of Fame similar to the one at Hollywood, with stars showing all the teachers' names lining the road. The hall is decked out with gold and silver stars hanging from the parapet on both sides of the hall and long blue cloth hung over the students. The stars end at the end of the aisle furthest from the stage with Kelvyna Chan, following which a long red carpet was rolled down the aisle to the front of the stage.

There were some hiccups during the concert (mainly technical), but otherwise it was a great success. After the main concert, some J1 Drama members (including me) put up a separate, private performance in LT4. Because we were dancing to some hot Michael Jackson stuff (with our Drama President, Suraj, as "Michael Jackson" himself), there were concerns about the mental well-being of the teachers should this item be put up during the main concert, so we decided to make it private. The performance was short, but there were lots of praises for the performance.

After that performance, I returned to NHSS with some other NHrians from ACJC. The Sec 4s were having their Biology Practical Papers (I assume for the NHSS Prelims); the Sec 3s are away from school having their Adventure Camp; the rest of the school was probably slacking away, since it is the last day of term. Peiyu, Yen Nee and I headed into the Staff Room, where we met Mdm Sia first. Then Ms Ang came along, and after that we went to look for Mrs Lip (former Ms Wong, Biology teacher) and Mdm Foo. Around the Staff Room I saw a few teachers I knew, but there were also quite a number of new teachers around.

We then went down to the canteen where we saw Mrs Wong already sitting down having lunch with Abraham. Supposedly her baby is due December (yep, she's got a big tummy now!), hopefully a Christmas baby. :) For lunch, I ordered from the Western food stall, but I did wish I had tried the Miso Chicken Ramen from the new Japanese Cuisine stall beside the Western food stall (replacing Italian Food). During lunch, we talked about quite a number of things with Mrs Wong, and by the time we ended, it was around 1pm. We bid goodbye to her and Peiyu, Yen Nee and I headed back to our respective homes.

Teacher's Day

Afternoon: A guy from VRnet came to help us install our new wireless modem for the computers in our house, having signed on a new SingNet 1500 kbps plan for 36 months. Within minutes he was done, and the result is the ability to have both my PC and my brother's laptop use the Internet at the same time and also allow people to call in even when we are online.

Night: Project Superstar Grand Final - the battle between visually handicapped Kelvin and hot lady Kelly. Stagewise, this was a better stage than the one for the Singapore Idol Grand Final. The difficulty was also there, for each finalist had to sing a total of 6 songs for competition tonight, one of the song being a duet between the two of them. At the end of the competition, it was Kelvin who beat Kelly. I wouldn't say I was totally satisfied with the results, but since both received contracts (Kelvin with Play Music; Kelly with Universal Music), did it matter?