Went for that survey thing on tuesday and they gave us $60 for just sitting down there and talking and providing ideas and all. I thought the whole process was quite cool actually. There were surveillance cameras, and a voice recorder to tape down everything we do and say. There's even a one way glass where our interviewer's colleagues were observing us from. Hmmm, talk about a lack of privacy mann.
Today's PE was challenging, for me. We were made to sprint one round 4 times with only a minute or 2 of rest in between. At the end of it I really felt like dying le. But I think today's one was not as bad as monday's la. Hmmm maybe i've become more used to it?
Stayed back in school for a while to teach Sherf some maths. Some time into teaching her I just started laughing all of a sudden. Must have been hit by a laughing bug. As usual, it felt really REALLY good to just keep laughing away for no rhyme or reason. I think laughing just lightens my mood. I must keep in mind to laugh more:)
Off.
Our Promise (:
7:29 PM
Monday, January 28
I've been sleeping a lot lately, taking afternoon naps as well as trying to go to bed earlier all in a bid to make myself more energetic the next day so that I can concentrate concentrate concentrate in school. Sadly, its just not working. I feel more tired than ever! Damn. What went wrong in that plan of mine?
Yesterday's fundraising was tiring but rewarding. Our group which consisted of me, sheena and wei xiao went knocking on every door for 2 blocks of flats to ask for donations. Some were really generous in their donations giving as much as $10 at one go. It was really heartwarming to see that. Through this experience, I once again realised how difficult it is to get people to donate money to you. At the end of it, I made a mental resolution to donate whenever I see people asking for donations. It's really no easy job. There were many who were doubtful of us and they feared that we would be cheating them of their money. I think yesterday we got to know the people in TM3 better and Wan ling didnt seem to be as dao as I thought she would be.=)
Liyi was super enthu about her fac Apollo. Reminded me of how pro Ares I was last time. I had to leave early due to tuition and I almost dozed off a couple of times during the tuition. Too tired to concentrate after walking and talking so much. But I guess this is no where as tiring as the Make A Wish CIP thing. That was way worse. I think that time we knocked our way through at least 4 HDB flats.
Hmmm. PE today was horrid. I felt alright during the warm up rounds but once it came to sprinting, I found that my lungs were almost bursting from the lack of air just halfway into each round. Im amazed that I even managed to complete all those 3 sprinting rounds without just collapsing. The conditional stuffs were just as tough. We really worked our thigh and arm muscles to its limits.
Im dreading thursday's PE lesson mann.
Off.
Our Promise (:
7:51 PM
Saturday, January 26
Yessssss....Im so so so happy that my computer has been fixed at last. Cure of its illness by saviour Technician Steven!
Today's Chingay talk was more or less like last week's-boring but informative. Im not sure if i managed to retain any of the info given. RJ's LT 1 was horribly cold. Im glad I decided to bring my jacket even though I didnt feel cold at all last week. I sat next to the HC J1 girl and then I started asking her about her Os.
O levels is really a scary thing. Anything can happen. When I heard her say that she didnt do very well, my heart just sank. And then when the words: 8 points came out of her mouth I was overwhelmed with emotions. Suddenly I was back to the past again, reliving all that painful memories. Sigh. I didnt know what to say to her and I just kept reassuring her, like all the people had done for me, that she would definitely be successful in her appeal back to hc. Im not sure if she'd end up like me, but I definitely hope that she'll get back in and not suffer the same fate as me. What I've been through(although not as bad as some others), I wouldnt like anyone else to experience the same thing.
Mr Z recently told us about Bruce Lee. About how his favourite words were: Be like water...
Because water is formless. It can take any form. You add water to the kettle, the water takes the form of the kettle. So versatile and flexible. Sighs. I wish I could be like that. I wish I could adapt so well to anything new given to me. Perhaps this way I could be happier, a perfectly brainwashed pro-NJ student instead of longing to be on the grass over the other side all the time. (Of course, I've long come to terms about this, dun be mistaken)
I look forward to GC or contact every week. Mr Z's classes are always interesting in their own ways. There is always food for thought after these sessions. Something worthy for us to ponder over when we go home. I feel like we're just so lucky to get an ST who shares his true feelings with us and not just be so politically correct at all times, saying the right stuffs and doing the right things. Maybe this is god's way of teaching me through the experience of someone who has been through so much in life.
I just had a mini family outing to the lower pierce reservoir. I think its the first time I've walked there in the dark. My dad met some old friend of his and he stopped to chat. I guess my sister and I are both impatient people so we continued walking forward. I started to tell her some NJ ghost stories and I must admit that the atmosphere was quite nice for it. Then later my mom commented on how sad the place felt in the night. And i realised that its true. There is this pavilion that seemed to be floating in the middle of the reservoir, looking so lonely and miserable. It was practically the only thing with light over there, other then the lamp posts. Somehow the dimness of the pavilion's lighting just gives out this sad aura. And the first thing I imagined was this lady in flowing red dress standing in the pavilion, leaning against the railings and gazing sadly at the water. Oh, and this lady has long hair too. Of course. Long hair adds to the effects.
hmmmm. Oh shikes. Im forgetting my main reason for coming online! Research on cloning!
off
Our Promise (:
8:42 PM
Friday, January 25
Once again Im blogging irregularly, but this time its mainly because of my computer. Something is horribly wrong with it and it takes me about an hour or more to even get it switched on!
Im pissed with it.
O levels results was released yesterday. I heard that St nicks fared quite well. Just that none of the top scorers came from our school.
Tomorrow is the chingay training again. Im a little sian of going.
Right now im typing in quick short sentences. Im afraid my computer may hang anytime. So... no point typing too much in case I'll just lose everything I've typed.
Ah wells.
The person is going to fixed my comp later at night. Around 8 plus. Please please please make it well again.
Our Promise (:
6:10 PM
Monday, January 21
My junior keeps telling me to blog.
Haha. Okay here goes.
I went for the Chingay thing on Saturday and found out that me, yiwen and sheena got posted to Traffic Management instead of our preferred choice-Crowd Control. The three of us were placed in the same group. I cant help but feel relieved that there were at least them to keep me company, although as yiwen mentioned, I was quite stoned on that day. Couldnt help it though, I really could not get myself to be high. Of all those in my group, only 2 left an impression on me.
Coincidentally they are both girls. The first is Liying, if I remember correctly. She left quite an impression since her looks really reminded me of someone and also because of the fact that she seems really quite blur in the cute way. Oh yes, AND she is from hwa chong! LOL.
The second person is this girl called Wanlin. When we were playing wacko, i thought she seemed like a rather sweet and friendly person. You know those people-instincts that we have? I straight away decided that I like her and we could end up as friends or something. Then later I realised that hey, she isnt really as friendly as I thought. In fact, the way she speaks gives me the impression that she is guarded against strangers and unwilling to open up unless you know her really well. Hmmm, and she reminds me of someone too-Shu Xiang. I still remember in sec 1, she seemed to be rather cold and aloof at the very start too.
Anyway enough about Chingay. The training was boring and the games part was lame.
Wheeeeeeeeee.
Today Angel and Mortal game officially begins! I think my juniors seem to be quite enthu about playing, which is better than me last year. I took like a super long time to get started writing to my mortal. But this time i started to write damn early!
Yeay.
At first I thought my angel was a girl cos of the nice envelope and paper. Then when i read the contents i knew straight away its a guy. Quite expected since my junior class is a physics class and there are more guys than girls.
Chem test today was horrid. Its actually quite simple if you actually study for me. And obviously I didnt. Well, i tried to, but i have no determination:( Gave up after a while.
And my homework is starting to accumulate. Sighs. And Im just letting it accumulate because I don't know how to do....
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh
Off~
Our Promise (:
7:45 PM
Thursday, January 17
Today is thursday and as usual, Im one of the earliest to reach school, one hour before assembly starts. Spotted Huifang already there and she returned me my econs homework. I think the change in her after graduating from St Nicks is drastic. I don't think I have ever seen her so hardworking before in my four years in SN.
Her reason was that if she got something she didnt deserve, she should fight harder to deserve it. I feel so guilty after that. Its like to me, I take everything for granted. If I get it, I accept. If I don't, I whine and find something or somebody to find fault with and put the blame on. How utterly foolish. Even my not-so-excellent O level results didnt wake me up from this unrealistic daydream that even if I didnt work hard, eventually at the very last minute, I will still succeed.
I really ought to be reflecting on my current lifestyle. When I have nothing to do, I don;t immediately think of making use of my time wisely by revising or stuffs like that. Instead, I go online and just stone about. Munyee is probably right. We'll only learn to appreciate time when we are suffering from the lack of it. Me, on the other hand, have too much time on my hand, thus too little appreciation for it.
During GC today Mr Z was telling us about himself. How he overcame all odds to do damn well in the NUS. At first he used to be some pai kia who smoked and drank etc. Then after he graduated from poly he decided to turn over a new leaf and went to moe to apply for a scholarship. But due to his lack of an A level cert, he didnt get one. So in his first year he worked hard and scored all straight As. Oh my goodness. In uni leh! Thats like damn hard. I really admire him for that. And eventually he got the scholarship.
I nearly died running 5 rounds today. No, actually its more than that. We ran 2 rounds on lane 6 as warm up. Its crazy la. I think I really lack the stamina and determination to continue running.
Oh. And finally we get to play angel and mortal with our junior class. Its weird though, cos we havent even seen them before. Hmmm, I hope my mortal will reply. And I hope my angel is the kind who will actually write to me. Ah wells.
Our Promise (:
8:48 PM
Wednesday, January 16
I thought Bio tutorial today was rather interesting. All the questions Z lim gave us to ponder about.
Somehow Jurassic Park got twined up in our discussion and we began to consider the possibilities of cloning Dinosaurs. According to my classmate, the show started off with some scientist discovering a mosquito well preserved in some kind of a fossil and that mosquito was super old. Old enough to suck the blood of a dinosaur. From there, those scientists started to inject some DNA of the dino blood into birds and when these injected birds lay eggs, it turns out to become dinosaurs.
Mr Z said that who knows, maybe right now there are some scientists trying to revive or clone dinosaurs. Sigh. If that is indeed true...Haven they watched enough of all those science fiction movies to know what they are dealing with?? I don't see how dinosaurs are beneficial to us so there's really no point in getting them back. Seriously. Unless...maybe dinos can become part of the Death Penalty package to deter people from murdering or drug trafficking? That'd sure be a huge enough deterrence. I certainly don't think that anyone fancies being eaten up by some prehistoric creature with all those teeth. Imagine the pain!!
Okay anyway, Im going off my main point. Anyway, we drifted off that discussion to how animals of different species are unable to mate with each other due to i-dunno-what-insert-some-cheem-word differences. Then Kenneth pointed out, "Humans and horses can mate what...(Whole class looks at him appraisingly. Mr Z looks a little...out of sorts...)....They mate already become Centaurs!"
Ahahaha...My whole class laughed. This sparked off an entire whole list of different creatures mating with one another.
"Human and fish?"
MERMAID
hahahaha
"Lion and fish?"
MERLION!
hahahaa
"Human and cow?"
COWBOY!!
hahaha
"Sheep and human?"
shepherd...
....
Okay the last one was a bit lame but we had our fill of laughter. Then lesson proceeded as per normal again.
I ended up sitting next to Jessica because there were no seats left for her already and we had to share table. I realised that these few days I've been sitting beside her quite alot AND I noticed that she's a really really nice person. Her presence is somewhat comforting. (To me la...) She seems to be a person who is able to tolerate silences and there is no need for her to fill every silence with conversation and when you do talk to her, she's actually funny in her own way(I cant describe)
Alright my decrisption did her no justice. Im really no good at words. No wonder my GP tutor seemed to think Im dumb or something. He kept asking me if I was having any difficulties! Okay maybe I was having some, but thats not the point! The point is, he kept asking ME and no one else. Ah wells, maybe the rest of them really had no problems.
I was walking home today after school when I realised how free I was. Everyone has some kind of a permanent CCA they have some commitment to. Sigh. Off to watch The Golden Path.
Our Promise (:
8:11 PM
Wednesday, January 9
Went back to HC yesterday after taking my GP diagnostic test. The structure of the paper was kind of weird and the passage given hardly held my attention for long. Ironically, the passage itself was focused on a scarce commodity of life--Attention. Something which everyone craves but may not necessarily receive. Turns out that Economic terms may end up to be quite useful after all. It helped me to shorten my summary by simply using the two words "opportunity cost". I was quite amused when I found that Mayqi wrote the same thing too! Must be the fact that great minds think alike.
I met Munyee at her class bench and we both sat down and stoned for a moment before we started to prepare the stuffs we wanted to study. In actual fact, neither of us felt like studying at all. As expected, we ended up chatting at the expense of doing some constructive work, all under the pretense of waiting for JieHui to arrive. The class photo which I brought to show Munyee ended up being circulated around by her classmates, who seemed to have some great interest in seeing how Zhili looks like. Apparently, he used to be classmates with Eunice and Eugenia.
I met quite a lot of familiar people who looked surprisingly glad to see me. It was a great feeling, knowing so many people. Its really a refreshing change from my own school, where I only know a miserable handful of people outside of my class. I was rather bemused when Munyee commented that everyone we both knew only said: Hi to me and ignored her. I suppose the reason is quite obvious. Put a spot of grey amidst a sea of brown. Obviously the grey stands out.
Sadly, this "standing out" factor is probably the cause of my sudden mood swing later in the afternoon. Because of my grey uniform, Cheryl and Siew Eng spotted me from afar and walked towards us. I waved and smiled. Cheryl waved back and so did Siew eng, i think. But as they got nearer, i noticed that Siew Eng seemed to be frowning in my direction. In fact, she even looked perplexed. As they approached, the first thing she did was to ask me in this unfriendly tone,"What are you doing here?"
Maybe I was over-reading or over reacting but I thought I could detect a hard edge to her voice. It made me feel like I was so unwelcome in her precious school! Not wanting to mis-interpret her intentions, I smiled and asked as innocently as I could manage, "Why cant I be here?" Now she looked clearly uncomfortable, "Because you're not from here what...Its not your school..."
And I got pissed. Thank goodness for my good anger management or I would have immediately retorted back with some mean remark. Its not the first time already. The first time was just slightly after I got posted to NJ. At that time I was already depressed and miserable enough and yet she had to rub salt onto my wound. She asked me, " What're you doing here? You're still in HC meh...come here so extra..."
Girl, any idea how I felt after that? If anything, your actions are equivalent to telling a suicidal man to just give up and go and die since you're so useless anyway. ... ....Maybe I am wrong about you. Maybe you had good intentions but I totally cant tell. You were smiling for the first time so I thought you didnt mean it. But now i know you probably meant every word you said. You looked so serious when you said it this time. I really don't understand why you had to say those hurting words to me!
Before that I had always thought you were such a sweet and friendly girl. You tarnished that impression. Im not a particularly strong person and harsh words do hurt me a lot. Especially during the first time when I was so down but yet feeling slightly cheered up by the HC people around me, giving me encouragement and support. Yet, you pulled the smile right off my face with just a few sentences. Maybe you're so smart you havent experienced any set backs, but in any case that you do, surely you wouldnt want anyone to say those hurtful words that demoralizes you?
Im sorry if you are actually joking even though you look dead serious, but in this case, don't you think you owe me an apology?It was really insensitive of you.
To look on the bright side of things, I've certainly learnt a valuable lesson from her: Think before you speak. Don't say things that can hurt others since what you say cannot be taken back again. More importantly, learn from your mistakes and don't repeat the same error again.
The above-mentioned incident aside, my overall mood was uplifted and I really enjoyed spending time with my ex-classmates.
Our Promise (:
9:10 PM
Saturday, January 5
Time passes so horribly fast that before I even know it, Im already 5 days into the new year 2008.
Here's an over-view of 2007 before I continue with the new year's stuffs.
Things I've learnt:
1) A change may not have been a bad thing after all. Getting booted out of hc was a sort of a major set back for me and I had made myself so miserable for the first few months in NJ over it. However, I've come to realise that whatever is taken from you shall be returned in different ways. I got my compensation-my nice, supportive, helpful and encouraging friends in NJ.
Not to mention that at least, when I entered NJ, I was not totally alone. There was still Huifang to accompany me. Thank goodness for that. I simply cannot imagine going to NJ all by myself, knowing that I am all alone to fend for myself....
2) The side effects of procrastination: Too much to study within a short period of time. The one is something that I really MUST change this year or else I'd be seriously DEAD by the time A levels come. Im not sure if I can manage that but Im counting on everyone around me to help out in one way or another and force me to go and study or do homework....*Hint hint to those who read this*
3) Listening in class helps. This is something I've been telling myself ever since Sec 1 and up til now, I haven fully grasped its meaning. Maybe this is THE YEAR for me to learn this finally. I haven exactly slept in any class so far! (Other than the first econs lecture which doesnt count:P) Hurrah for me!
4) Liking/loving a subject helps you to improve. This one is SO true. At the start of the year I had absolutely no interest in Econs and medium interest in Maths. But after entering NJ, I started to develop more interest in those two subjects(no, its not because of NJ that I started becoming more interested...) and the results show! An A for maths promo and a B for econs promo. On the contrary, Bio and chem could hardly hold my attention for more than a few minutes. and results, once again, show... An S for bio and a U for chem. Extreme ends mann.
To sum things up, 2007 has been a relatively great year. I've made so many new friends and I actually began to enjoy going to school every morning and seeing those classmates of mine. But of course, there were a few parts of the year whereby everything seemed bleak and hopeless, but thanks to 07S24 and other supportive friends I overcame it. There were sweet moments, sad moments, happy moments, angry moments.....etc. In chinese, its probably called Suan, Tian, Ku, La. And in 2007, I've seriously experienced all.
Alrights, now to move on to 2008.
First Day of school had been horribly boring. Teachers enter and gave us prep talks. New teachers introduce themselves and start lessons. Last year's teachers came in, asked about our holiday, then proceeded to telling us what a tough year 2008 would be and how hard we would have to work. And then me, yiwen and qiao went for our admin duty at bukit batok. We had to do phone calls and I was having some sort of a cracky and hoarse voice. Its a wonder they actually heard what I was saying at all.
One malay woman I called actually thought that I was going to her house! Me: Good afternoon, Im calling on behalf of XXX, will you be able to come for this XXX event on XXX date? Her: Huh? wad? Me: Um, will you be coming for XXX? Her: What? You're coming to my house?!! Me(shocked cos I don't think anything I said sounded like that. Surely no matter how bad my voice sounded, it cant have been that much of a change in words right?): Uh, no...Im not coming to your house. Her: Then you said you coming to my house? Why're you coming to my house? Me: No no no, I mean, are you GOING to XXX? Her: Oh...i see..yes.....
Is it some problem with my grammar or something? Whats the difference between coming and going? Hmmm...
Thursday, on the other hand, was a super interesting and funny day. I perpetually laughed until my cheeks were aching. First amusing station was GP lesson. Our GP class had 6 of S24 people-Me, yiwen, yi ni, jessica, chewy, jason. And we all sat in one row. I was half dreading GP because I got myself so worried about whether our GP tutor would be some super fierce teacher that would make life hell for us. Thank goodness I was so very wrong.
When my gp tutor stepped in, my first impression of him was-TINY. He was relatively short and compactly built and his black specs coupled with a balding head made him look like a character out from a comic book. Example: Lao Fu Zi. This tutor came into the class and the first thing he did was to flash us a wide smile and then he wiped off some sweat of his brow. Then he proceeded to look at the clock. And then back to looking at us. His face had this blur expression as he stared at us almost quizzically.
"what are you all waiting for?"
And that was when we realised that he was waiting for us to greet him.
"Good morning Mr....." We trailed off.
"oh!" He hurriedly toddled to the board and scrawled his name.
After some brief introduction and all those administrative stuffs, he started telling us about J2 life, as usual.
"By the end of term 2, you guys are no longer going to be NJ students. You will be an organism absorbing information with no aim, no nothing except your A levels"
Sounds familiar doesnt it? Reminds me totally of Sec 4 O levels, although I have to admit that, no, I hadnt been absorbing much info then.
Urgh. Try as I might, i still cant put his funniness into words. But in short, yeah, he is a really funny GP tutor and Im really glad we got him. Although I heard from Jason that he gives terribly low marks for essays unless your essay is the really good kind. Hmmm, I guess life is all about giving and taking?
Econs was another interesting lesson. Interactive and amusing. I wish all lessons could be something like that.
After school I went over to HC to collect my 7C class T-shirt. Chatted with cheryl, peijin and jolene for a while before spotting munyee. I almost couldnt recognise her. Then I sat with her and talked for almost one hour before she had to go for her fencing.
Sigh. I have this bad feeling that life's gonna be really hectic and centred around homework from now on. Okay, its no feeling, its fact. Sad sad fact. But this year Im really gonna have to put in effort. Will NOT repeat the mistake of yesteryear. I don't want to cry again.
