Phenomenal Day at School!
The following took place on Tuesday, 26/01/10.
“Yong Kai wake up, the time is already 7:12 and you are going to be late!” Mum’s voice thundered through the corridor and invaded into my ears that morning. I literally jumped out of bed upon hearing, “You are going to be late!”The last thing I wanted to do was meet Mr. Chia at 7 o’clock the next morning for being late. I glanced at the clock with my intangible eyes, its read 6.30am. I was tricked by my mum!
6.55 am. I dragged my lethargic body out of my father’s car and began to stagger up the 4 flights of stair to my classroom. When the clock struck 7.15am, my classmates and I began to leave the classroom unwillingly and we moved off to the parade square in a sluggish and dilatory manner. We indubitably were the last class to arrival at the parade square, just as I envisioned. Yet again, we had to squeeze into a single row as the place was completely occupied by other selfish schoolmates.
After we returned to our respective classes, we were given a told off by Ms. Lim because our class was late for assembly for the seventh consecutive time! As a punishment, had to settle down at the parade square by 7.10 in the morning or the classroom keys would be confiscated and we would not be able to enter the class in the morning. What a transcendent way to start off the morning!
First two periods was History. As usual, the class was always rowdy and boisterous when it comes to History lessons. Mr. Thiru began his lesson by introducing us to our TFU project which conjures up 30% of our CA1. We had to conduct an interview with a working ex-Victorian. I paired with Stanley and we decided to approach my cousin who belongs to the Class of 2009 and is currently teaching in Victoria School.
Next came the highlight of our day (drumrolls please)… English! Mr. Hamilton got things rolling by first giving us a pile of words to be taken down into our Personal Dictionary. For the rest of the lesson, we just had to use our ears to listen to Mr. Hamilton. He found an original text of a comprehension passage and read to us in a hilarious Cantonese accent. With that, the whole class broke into laughter.
After recess, was Mother Tongue lesson. Today’s lesson was a replicate of Amazing Race as we had to race against time. We had to finish the last part of our TFU but unfortunately, most of the people did not manage to finish it (including me).
As our Literature teacher, Mr. Daniel Tan walked into the class, the atmosphere was nothing short of intense, as we expected to receive our essay back. However, Sir did not give them out today but commented that we did pretty well although the average class score is only 6 to 7 marks.
The last lesson of the day was Maths. The class was unlike its normal boisterous self. It was so silent, that one could hear his one breath. Everyone had separated their chairs and gotten ready for the test. It was about time we put our knowledge to test. The test was not as hard as we expected it to be, and it was great that the generally, all of us aced it. It was 7mins before the day ended and Ryan and his volleyball mates stormed into the class and announced, “Yes! We came just in time!” and Ms. Lim replied him saying, “Yes Ryan and gang, you four find me after school to seat for your Maths Test." Ryan’s face expression was ingenuously priceless. What a day it was!Labels: Love is blind
Road Marshal Duty!
The following took place on Monday, 25/01/10.
Yet another prodigious and gratifying day for us- the National Police Cadet Corps. Just as I envisaged the excursion to be scheduled on a Monday, which meant that we could we get to skip another one of Ms. Hashima’s Home Economics lesson, the verdict proved otherwise! We had to arrange make-up lessons with her after school!
As soon as the bell went off at 12:30pm, a mob of NPCC cadets rushed down to the canteen like birds being released from their cages. We had a hasty lunch and returned to class to change into our crisp set of uniform. Sing Chien’s uniform was not as attractive and endowed as the rest as he has not been awarded a rank. We had to fall in at the Foyer to count our total strength and the seniors warned us about fooling around at the Park (no one heeded their advise, leading to a tragic at the end of the day) “Gone with the wind!” one sentence from the senior came to our ears and we boarded the bus in an orderly manner.
During the laconic ride to the Road Safety Community Park, I used the chance to capture a few images of the journey as I wouldn’t be able to use my mobile phone to take pictures later in the day as I was to be on duty and it was against the rule. When the bus came to an abrupt stop, I knew we had reached our destination; the Park was located along East Coast Park. We were greeted by the picturesque and astronomical gate.
We were to attend a short briefing at the conference room (like the meeting venue used by the board of directors often shown in movies). The Station inspector reiterated that we were not supposed to bully, shout or scold the other primary school students. We were all assigned to a station and I was given the Neighborhood Police Center (NPC for short).
Our job was to simply let them answer a simple question about road safety at each station. We also had to summon them if they broke any of the rules. Most of them were rule-abiding and compliant, but there was a common mistake they made, the kerb drill which they duly did not to carry out.
The way the primary 5 students addressed all of us, was simply hilarious! Some of them called us, Uncle! While others gave us respectful titles such as, Marshal, Officer and Sir. We all had the same kind of reaction: Wow! I am a Sir/Officer? Also, at times there will be a horde of students congregating at my station asking for my autograph which made me feel like a SuperStar!
There was a particular girl who left a deep impression on me, her name is Elaine. She approached me and told me in a quivering voice that she was lost and I brought her back to her form teacher. After everything ended, we had to march by to the bus and our marching performance was terrible and humiliating! Yet, our ardent primary 5 students, clapped and cheered us on!
After returning to school, we were given a good dressing down by the senior for our poor behavior at the Park. We were simply lacked discipline and our performance was bad. Many of us did not bother to polish our boots; we were too playful during our duty and one of the cadets even spoke rudely to the Inspector-in-Charge. After we were dismissed, we talked bad mouthed the seniors while changing. They were described by us as “the evil ambassadors from hell” or “Satan reincarnates”.
From today’s trip, I had taken away 2 points. Firstly, I have learned the importance of discipline, the purpose of NPCC is to instill tough and solid discipline into us. Without discipline, goals will be impossible to achieve, we would be ‘souless human beings’ without any soul. Secondly, I have recapped the importance of road safety. We must be alert around the clock and never jaywalk and practice good habit of doing kerb drills at zebra crossings.
Labels: Love is blind
Happy Birthday Grandpa! ~!~
The following took place on Friday, 22/01/10.
After what seems like an eternity, Friday finally made a Grand entrance to the monotonous week! Isn’t that simply awesome? The lengthy and banal week has been brought to an end and with that we welcome the weekends, couldn’t wait to spend my weekend in style. After the NPCC training had called a day, I telephoned my father and requested for him to come fetch me as I was enervated. I was to change into a new set of clothes as we were going to attend my grandfather’s birthday dinner.
When the clock struck 7.20pm, we were ready to go. During our ride, I asked about the restaurant we were about to patronize, and the way my parents described it to me, seemed like I was heading to a ‘Paradise’. Well, actually, any hungry man would. The restaurant was located at the heart of Beach Road.
As we made our entrance into the gloomy and foreboding building; we found the restaurant sitting at the dark, isolated corner of the building. I frowned and thought to myself then, that my parents had ‘pulled a fast one on me’. The restaurant was not what they portrayed it to be. I gave my parents a disappointed look upon noticing how abominable the restaurant looked. We were greeted by a polite waitress and the cooling air caressed my hair. We were directed to our room and there we settled.
My grandfather, the ‘birthday boy’ had yet to arrive, so we took the opportunity to catch up with one another as paternal relatives seldom congregated. 10mins before the dinner began, I noticed a stalwart, skyscraping man, entering the room; he was none other than the Guest-of-Honor for that day, my Grandpa! We clapped and cheered as he was ushered to his seat by a lovely cheongsam-strutted oriental beauty.
‘Feeding time’ was officiated and all the hungry souls were activated. We devoured on delicacies and local favourites such as, Shark’s fin soup, Abalone, Roasted Pork, Goose Meat and Steamed fish. The best was saved for last; we were presented with scrumptious, mouth-watering chocolate coated pudding. The taste of the food tasted completely different from the picture I had formed earlier in my mind, after judging the restaurant from the exterior. It was Heavenly.
Well, dinner wasn’t the climax of the day, the cutting of the Birthday cake was. Birthday songs were sung the birthday song several times- each time in a different language as there were Thai waiters who contributed to the multi lingual songs and birthday wishes! After sinking our teeth into the last course, we marked the end of the day and I learnt not to judge a book by its cover.
Labels: Love is blind
Virtual BattleSpace 2
The following took place on Monday, 18/01/10.
Today staged the inaugural NE Gaming Championship. This effort was initiated by some schools to engage their students on issues of Defence and National Service. The NPCC cadets went to HIGH café 19 located beside Katong Shopping Center to play VBS2. We were supposed to go through three training sessions and compete in the championship with other schools. The prize- $3000 and individual medals for winning participants. This game requires intensive strategy and planning and team effort of the individual 19 cadets.
We were released at 1:05pm that day; we skipped two periods of Home Economics, Halleluyah! Not that I hate attending Home Econs, but isn’t it just great to skip lessons and be release much earlier than others? We were supposed to WALK to the location but, fortunately, we had a Free-Of-Charge tour guide, Sean Too. As we were about to enter the LAN shop, we saw a huge signboard at the entrance in bold spelling: Do not enter, only for members! The interior of the shop looked completely different from the exterior; the place was dark and gloomy, much like a pub. Zac had made some prior arrangements, thus, we were allocated seats and the friendly staff helped us to set the game up. We were supposed to go through three insipid tutorials to master the basic skills before having a friendly match against our rival, CCS. Unfortunately, the system was ‘laggy’, so we had to split into two groups and challenge amongst ourselves. Most of the kills in the game were due to Friendly Fire (people from the same team killing one another).
The game is actually very meaningful as I learned two important lessons which are deemed useful in the future. Firstly, teamwork- this life skill is extremely essential for survival in the modern-day society. After all, ‘No man is an island’. My parents have always drilled into my head that TEAM stood for Together Everyone Achieves More. Another paramount skill I took away from the game is, Communication. The ability to transmit ideas to one another and effectively communicate cuts back time and in turn allows us to achieve our aim.Labels: Love is blind
What an Inspirational Lesson!
The following took place on Monday, 18/01/10.
Usually I would find Mondays mundane however, never did I envisage that Monday to leave a great impact in my life. Lessons kicked off with CDE-TTT conducted by our suave and charismatic form teacher, Mr. Hamilton. The topic of the week is RESILIENCE. After checking my dictionary, I concluded that resilience means the ability to endure and bounce back up stronger than before. So I thought in my mind: Maybe it isn’t all that bad and I may be learning something today.
We were told to list down the strengths and weaknesses that best described ourselves best, following solutions to overcome our greatest weakness. Just before the bell rang, the climax began. Mr. Hamilton showed us a video of Nick Vujicic, a man without any limbs. He may be severely disabled but he is stronger than any of us. The ‘strong’ I am referring in the previous line refers to his strong will to live life to its fullest extent. 
Like any other disabled people, Nick had been through the darkest part of his life. When he was younger, he couldn’t understand why he was born disabled, he became depressed and felt there was no meaning to life, he felt so hopeless, alone, broken and everything in life was pointless for Nick.
There is such a saying: There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Nick began to slowly pick up the determination and courage to move on in life. Fortunately, he did not give in to fate but instead persevered. Now he goes around the world to give inspirational speeches and live a vibrant and meaningful life. He once said “There are always times when you fall down, but you have to get back up stronger than before even if you fail a hundred times. But if you give up after failing…, you will never get back up!” I agree with this, whole-heartedly, indeed, life is like a winding road, it is teemed with ups and downs and unfortunate things do happen but most importantly, we you must not give up hope because it does matter how we end.After the video clip ended, for the first time in my life I felt a sudden burst of energy flowing through my body and there no words could describe how touched I felt. Compared to Nick, my difficulties and problem is miniscule! Thus, if Nick can do it, I can overcome my weaknesses and mental boundaries too. Nick Vujicic is indeed a man I respect from the bottom of my heart. Labels: Love is blind
My Virgin Post
Bonjour, this is my very first blog and im a greenhorn in this area xD so please leave behind some
positive comments so that i can improve on it. Well, the reason behind cre8ing this blogsite is for my English Assessment, we're suppose to compose 5 blog entries from 16th January to 28th January 2010. For now sayonara and cya next time <3
Labels: Love is blind
“Yong Kai wake up, the time is already 7:12 and you are going to be late!” Mum’s voice thundered through the corridor and invaded into my ears that morning. I literally jumped out of bed upon hearing, “You are going to be late!”The last thing I wanted to do was meet Mr. Chia at 7 o’clock the next morning for being late. I glanced at the clock with my intangible eyes, its read 6.30am. I was tricked by my mum!
