SQUASH CAMP/CHALET!, Somebody's Me

Latest update: back from squash camp/chalet held in Costa Sands (Pasir Ris)

Day 1:
Met the rest of the squash family in school at 8.55a.m. We started out playing ice breakers in Court 1. Played "Dog and Bone", hahahaha was dang funny cos no matter what number, Jaron and I will rush towards Marcus/Marcute. Hahaha then there was one instant when Chris called out "All those previously from SJI", then I was the only one from my side going up against the 4 others in the other team. Hahahah totally what the bleh.
10-11: My group called "Group 2" started out with Group 1 playing squash. Did some drills under the tutelage of Chris and Mark.
11-12: Went for P.T. on the track under Zi Chao. Started out with 10 mins warm up run. After that had 400m intervals coupled with statics in between. Clocked 1.12, 1.25, 1.30 and 1.39. Hahaha had the invisible chair static after that, had to sing the "Green bottle" song. Hahaha I bet the others thought we were quite retarded...
12-1: Played Captain's ball. Hahaha Khairul(soccer) and Alvin (shooting) joined us midway. Had loads of fun with them. Never knew Yea Wen liked playing Captain's ball.
At 1, we reported back to the courts. We were given until 4pm to have lunch and make our way to the chalet itself. Combined with Group 1 called "Sui Bian". Hahaha went to KAP for lunch! Took pictures and made our way to the chalet.
Upon checking in at the chalet, we went for wet activity that basically involved bombing people and more people. Presented the group cheers and name. I think our group name was the most succint: Group 2, simply because we are group 2! Our group cheer was a rip-off of SJI's Michael house's cheer: "Rock on Michael". :D Hahaha some of the seniors saved up some cold water bombs for Zi Chao and bombed him. NICE. Hahahaha cleaned up the area and discussed the dinner the juniors are supposed to buy for the seniors. We decided to order Pizzas from Canadian 2-4-1. Discussed the number of pizzas inside the guys' hut and decided to order 16 14inches pizzas. Little did we know....
When the 2 delivery dudes came, (yeps, they required 2 guys to deliver that insane number of pizzas), we were intending to pay using Jia Sheng's NETS, but the guy was like "Oh you can only pay by cash or err..(pause) cash." So we had to run back to our rooms to get money to pay. Luckily Xiuhui, our lovely secretary :D, opened up the squash fund to help us. So yea, we paid $272.20 in total, luckily it's 2 pizzas for the price of 1.
Had a huge pizza buffet outside and ended up finishing only 12 boxes. I'm not sure what happened to the 4 other boxes.. maybe they disappeared for supper or maybe they were abducted by aliens. Hmmmm...
Played charades after dinner. Hahaha loads of fun once again, especially during the guessing of brands.
Went with Jia Sheng, Jaron and Aaron Lam to the front desk to go do our speeches, didn't accomplish much cos we were like almost dead. Reported the spoilt air-con to the front desk. Zhi Jing came and asked us to go back.
It was time for our night activity. Basically blindfolded walking around areas of Pasir Ris Park. Hahahah it's quite fun. My specs came apart by itself during the walk so yea, had to start getting used to seeing without specs for the next 2 days.
Went back after the evnt and some went to sleep. Went back out to the front desk to rest and the seniors told us to go back for something important.
Apparently it's the tsunami drill! :D Basically cos we were situated mere metres from the coast, we had to be prepared to run like mad to the bus stop situated all the way out to take a bus to safety in the event of a tsunami approaching. So yeps, we ran from our chalet all the way out into the night to the bus-stop. Then Zi Chao said, "Hey wait, how to take bus when you all don't have EZ link cards? So how? Go back take!" So we ran back to a checkpoint and kept running up and down from the checkpoint to the bus stop and back. Hahahah running at night is really nice cos it's real cooling. Pity the poor residents though, cos we were running on the drain covers.
Went to the carpark after the run where we were put through some exercise to test our bonds. Basically it's jumping jacks and yea we continued for quite a while. Got "pumped" each time we couldn't coordinate properly. Jaron put in good effort to help us coordinate. Chris debriefed us and we went back to sleep.
Went back out to the front desk once again cos it was soooo stuffy in the chalet. Went back to the chalet again and attempted to sleep on the table. Had interrupted sleep cycles.

Day 2:
Woke up at 9 plus to eat bread for breakfast before going off for treasure hunt. Hahahah had a lot of fun basically walking up and down Pasir Ris park. We combined with Carmen's group for the treasure hunt. Had a lot of help towards the end, thanks to Sherman! :D Hahahaha performed a group skit as part of the thing. Moral of our skit: "An apple a day, keeps the doctor away". Made use of Barney to help exemplify this. :D
After that was the elections speeches. Everyone crowded into the girls' chalet. Mr. Tan, Mr. Seow Teng and some seniors came down as well. Hahaha I guess my speech was the longest? I got cut off by Zi Chao 3/8 into the speech cos mine was the last and everyone was dang hungry and wanted to go for dinner. Hahahaha During the Q&A, when Gloria, the senior A div Girls' Capt asked me to elaborate on my answer, I was like "okay, so it's like this..." and she kinda realised about the elaboration part and quickly modified to answering it in one sentence. Hahahahah dang funny, cos everyone was groaning at the elaborate on your answer part. Hahahaha :D
*Fast forward to BBQ after the elections results was announced. Sherman, the pro scout venture got the fires started! I didn't eat much at the BBQ, was at the pantry preparing the raw stuff by poking satay sticks through them. Dang fun activity to do when at BBQ! :D
After the BBQ, went back in to do stuff and settle pizza money. Hahahah went Macs for supper after a while cos some of the guys needed more food. Went back to chalet to play "Truth or Dare" with Zi Chao joining us. Hahahahha totally the highlight of the camp. WOOOOHOOO Did a lot of crazy things and asked a lot of crazy questions. Hahahahha confidential though. :D
Went to watch t.v. in the girls; chalet after that and snacked on bee hoon. Slept on the table again. Woke up a lot of times to change song playing on Aaron Lam's iPod Touch. Hahahahaha Shaoyuan is amazing. He slept on the stairs. His body will conform to the contours of the steps and he dislayed astounding gymnastical ability by being able to constantly contort his body to orientate himself. I've no idea how he managed to do that continuously for like 6/7 hours that he slept. I hope his spine is still alright.

Day 3:
We were going out for breakfast when Chris called us back. We were checking out and going to have breakfast after that! Went to White Sands and ate at the foodcourt. Hahahha Jaron, Xavier, Adhitya, Kenneth and I went back to school to play squash, despite having just survived the camp! Hahahah

Overall, it was a really fun camp. I believe we grew closer together as a family and learnt a few lessons on bonding. Though we didn't have any presentation related to the Treasure Hunt in the end, if we look beyond the results and search within the process, we'd discover that it applies to our nationals as well. Though we may not be the best or among the best (for the guys' team), we are still one big family! :D


The 2 guys delivering our pizzas! :D


The 12 boxes that we finished. Hahahaha pizza high! :D


Sherman (Senior Quartermaster) and I. Hahahaha he's really amusing.

You, do you remember me?
Like I remember you?
Do you spend your life
Going back in your mind to that time?
Because I, I walk the streets alone
I hate being on my own
And everyone can see that I refell
And I'm going through hell
Thinking about you were somebody else

[CHORUS]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes someday you will see
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me

How, How could we go wrong
It was so good and now it's gone
And I pray at night taht our paths will soon cross
And what we had isn't lost
Cause you're always right here in my thoughts

[CHORUS]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes someday you will see
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me

You'll always be in my life
Even if I'm not in your life
Because you're in my memory
You, will you remember me
And before you set me free
Oh listen please

[CHORUS]
Somebody wants you
Somebody needs you
Somebody dreams about you every single night
Somebody can't breath without you, it's lonely
Somebody hopes someday you will see
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me
That Somebody's Me


guess you'll never...
Aaron

Eurhythmy, Lumos, Council Campaigning, Speech Day, Council Elects' Camp, Council

Hello, sorry for neglecting this blog. Very very busy with school stuff.

Eurhythmy: It's the SCGS dance concert which was very nice. Bryan, Zhaoming, Yicen and I went to watch Kelly dance; she had 2 solos in it. She can dance really really well! Hahaha something interesting happened. I was waiting for her after the dance to give her this huge mini garden of flowers. Saw a lady standing near us waiting too. I told Bryan that it'd be really cool if that lady was her mum. Bryan and I kinda agreed that such coincidences don't occur that often. In the end, that lady really was Kelly's mum! Was a little shocked and Bryan was trying to hold back his laughter. Hahahaha Life is so unpredictable. :D

Lumos: The Hwa Chong charity concert in aid of autism. It was really nice and funny as well. Hahaha due to the lack of time, they had to cut one band out who overshot the time. NJ Western dance had 2 items which were both great. Hahaha went home with Kelly after the show. She looks very different in her guyish attire, cos she was dancing as a guy. Hahahaha either way, she still dances very well. :D

Council Campaigning: The 2 weeks of campaigning was very very tiring but rewarding. I remember meeting in LT3 after the results of the interviews was released on Thursday. The student council unleashed a humongous pile of work to be completed within the week. They wanted posters, videos, proposals etc. I got sorted in campaigning group no. 4 and hence our name "FOuR THE WIN". Vanessa, Hsiangway, Song Ko and Zheyang were in my group. We came up with 4 proposals which got rejected one by one, making us scramble frantically to re-do them and we had to re-film a scene in our campaigning video due to an inappropriate theme. Our banner only came up at the last moment. We had to reach school almost every single day at an unearthly hour to gather and get shouted at by the campaigning disciplinary committee. We had to stay back till late almost every single day to wrap up all our tasks. We had to be punished for our mistakes by cleaning up the school. We had to wear the bright red tie and a name tag every single day for a fortnight. At the end of it all, we had to do a post project elections proposal and personal reflections. Looking back, I totally can't believe that I've managed to accomplish all that. Hahaha I have to thank my group members too for making this journey bearable and I hope we can continue to stay together even after we all get separated into our different committees. I feel blessed to have them as my group members after witnessing some other groups' dynamics. Hahahahha and throughout the 2 weeks, I can proudly say that I did not sleep in a single lecture! Hahahah cos the red tie on a grey shirt screams "Look at me to see if I'm sleeping". And there's dire consequences when we get caught sleeping while wearing a red tie. Hahaha so yea, I'm grateful for the tie too. :D

Group photo of all 59 of the candidates


Creative planning for video with even more creative handwriting. I SWEAR I only write like that under conditons of extreme stress, lack of sleep, 76cm Hg, 8.31J k^-1 mol^-1, backlog of tutorials and while wearing full grey.


3/5 of a Group photo. Hsiangway had training while Zheyang was somewhere else. :D We were all quite shagged after doing the banner.


Our HOT PINK banner. Why hot pink? Cos we're cool like that. HAHAHAHA Vanessa INSISTED on it. Hahhahah :D

Speech Day: NJ dedicated an entire day to speech day. Hahahha it was quite an experience. First venue was in LT5 and the second was in the hall and I was the first candidate. Managed to plow through my speech at both venues. Witnessed a lot of people getting shot and arrrowed during the Q&A round. Hahahha the hot seat round was fun. I had to dance and make some poor guy dance with me cos daryl and yijun ran away. Overall, I guess everyone had a lot of fun for speech day and yea totally an experience we will not be able to forget.

Council Elects' Camp: Received the results of voting on Wednesday and had a briefing for Elects' camp which spanned friday to sunday. Got posted to group 5, the BLUE group! Had Li Shang, Zi Kai, Nazira, Zhu Wei and Shamera for group mates. Elects' camp was totally an adventure. Hahahaha I was already quite used to the punishments a la NCC style so it wasn't too much of a culture shock.
Day 1: Reported slightly later than the rest due to a meeting with Mr. Ng about my PI. Had dinner that was catered from the Chinese cuisine stall. Went for an night hike briefing cum informal gathering with the seniors, including those all the way from the 35th batch. Got to know a bit about the 5 different committees. We had a night hike on the first day in Macritchie, in which Fiona got lost. She took the wrong rg as partoute, which I almost took as well. Fortunately she got out of it unscathed. Rushed back to NJC after the night hike, bathed and laid down to rest. Didn't really sleep as I was guarding the flag to prevent seniors from stealing it. Had to guard the black card they gave us too to prevent it from getting lost. Luckily no incursions happened. :D

Day 2: Woke the rest up at 5.40, about 2 hours from the time we slept. Assembled for breakfast, in which we played a game. Our hands were tied up and we had to feed each other bee hoon. Quite a dumb game and it wasn't filling at all. Zi Kai got the flag stolen. Only managed to get it back after we promised to sing two songs for Mr. Teo. Afterwards, we had a land expedition briefing. Within our groups, we were supposed to discuss and walk from NJC to Bukit Chandu. It was a very long walk and we enterred through the back of the park. So basically the entire morning was spent walking, walking, walking, walking and playing a few station games. Poor Li Shang had a sudden bout of diarrhea in the mdidle of the canopy walk, which meant he had no choice but to directly fertilise the trees. Hahaha, he was like 1000km away from the nearest toilet. Zi Kai got the flag stolen once again. Hahaha Edmund and I had to sing a cantonese song during lunch to get it back. Assembled for lunch before taking a bus to Kallang for our sea expedition (dragon boating) afterwards. Dragon boating was dang fun cos our instructor encouraged us to splash water at the other team. Hahahahha :D Went back to school in time for Payback session 1 aka punishments for our mistakes. Had to do a lot of bridges, push ups, sit ups, crunches, leg raises, running. Did payback session 2 later on in the night after dinner. Everyone was really shagged but through mutual encouragement, we managed to pull through! :D
Had to clean up the canteen after that and we discovered rotting pizza in one of the bags that tore. A few of us stayed back after everyone was dismissed to clean up the mess. Totally saikang to the max but it was quite fun! :D

Day 3: Woke up at 3.00am and assembled to play some blindfold game. Had to do a bit of running around before we started the game cos there were some people who were still asleep. After the game, it was finally breakfast and another dumb breakfast game. After breakfast was another round of payback, where we managed to finish all our stuff with help from our Seniors, the 41st Student Council. At the end of it all, everyone was happy that camp was going to be over and we went back for one last debrief. "Marched" in the flags for the last time and watched this very touching video made by Albert (kudos to him) which highlighted our elects camp. We all opened our black cards together, found a note inside from Letts encouraging us for our term. Looking back, I feel we have learnt a lot from the camp as well as bonded from 43 individuals to a more cohesive group of councillors. Though we are not yet 1 perfect council, I believe we will be able to reach it soon. After we were all dismissed, a few of us headed to Macdonald's for a much needed break from Khong Guan biscuits. I swear the salt on the fries have never tasted so good before. :D
I totally hate Khong Guan biscuits now cos there was a lack of food in the camp and the only thing available was Khong Guan biscuits, which I spammed throughout the camp. After the camp, there are 14 tins of Khong Guan biscuits left! Apparently the school overordered the biscuits. Well, I guess I have a love-hate relationship with Khong Guan biscuits though. I love it cos it saved my life. I hate it because it was too much to handle after eating it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. :D

Council: The next big thing after elects camp is on this wednesday (6th May); the exco-exco elections. The excos of the 42nd council will be delivering their speech and get elected in on the same day. I wish all candidates all the best for their campaign and hope that they will practise fair competition as far as possible. The politics have already started but I hope it doesn't get too ugly or overboard.

I've been getting a lot of calls/smses/lectures from the seniors to run for exco. I will like to apologise to the seniors for not running despite all their efforts of persuasion. I will like to thank them for seeing potential in me even though the only potential I see in me is the potential to have potential. Hahaha personally I've no wish to join in the tussle for power. I feel that some of the candidates do have potential and they require an opportunity to showcase this. I hope that this time round, they will be able to grasp this opportunity. Hopefully, the right people are elected to the right posts and they will be able to serve the college well. :)


The booklet in which my group leaders wrote very encouraging words! Hahahah I will really like to thank them for all their help and guidance during the camp. Thanks to Eugene Ke, Daniel, Rachel, Qingwei, Kuan Loong, Audrey, Venezia and Hui Shan! :D


Black card! Some senior almost tried to fish this out of my back pocket while I was blindfolded. Hmmm, of all places, why the back pocket?! Hahhahahha XD


Inspiring message stuck inside. Was expecting a jigsaw piece though. Hahahaha Idea for next year's camp, we give out fortune cookies and we attach such notes inside. :D


One of our tasks where Zhu Wei was supposed to describe to us what we were supposed to draw under a certain time limit while using simple shapes to describe, while Li Shang was elsewhere ensuring our plants grow well. Hahhahaha XD


The end result! Hahahah totally abstract art.

Hahaha yeps, so that's about all for this update. I shall update this blog soon! I'll be back! :D

Aaron

Road run, Squash, Clique, School life, Diploma (UPDATED)

Had the NJC 40th road run on Saturday. Had to run 5.2 km. Wasn't really much of a road run since majority of it was in the school compound. Yeps, after finishing the run together with Arjuna, went to the squash courts to play till it was time to go for prize presentation. Aqua did quite well, though Aerius won overall best. Kudos to them.
Went back to the squash court to meet up with my OG and the majority of the squashers to go for lunch and buy equipment. Lunched at Prince's cafe in Coronation Plaza. Was very very hungry till the food came. But yea it's cheap. Throughout lunch, played "Truth or Truth" with Daryl before playing "Truth or Dare" with the rest. Hahahha had to do 2 dares which happen to be on facebook. XD
Dare 1) Doing part of the mass dance with Daryl. Hahahaha this one was dang amusing. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=67545689621

Dare 2) Hug Ai Hua. Hahahah this one is quite cute.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=67543879621

After lunch, the squashers went to Queensway to buy equipment. Bryan, Jing Ying and Yicen tagged along. Walked around the whole of Queensway trying to look for racquets. Couldn't find many good ones. Probably because squash is a dying sport and it isn't really good business sense to stock up on the racquets. Ordered 3 Head racquets which are not available anytime soon since Head is doing stock taking now. The team bought the same Mizuno court shoes. It was supposed to be the red and white a la NJC, but they didn't have the size. Met Samantha and her dad, who was there to restring his racquet. So yeps, spent like 2 plus hours just walking around and buying stuff.
After that, it was like a mini-clique gathering at Macdonald's. Original plan was to grap a drink or sit then go somewhere else for dinner. As time dragged on, we decided to just dine there and talk. Had a nice sharing session to open up more to each other. Thought it was very meaningful and very good for bonding. Interesting how a group of people with different backgrounds, from different schools can just get somehow squashed together and stick. Hahaha :D Now we need to think of a cool name for it, other than Aaron of course. XD
So after spending 5 hours at Macdonald's, we finally decided to leave and head home. Along the way home, Jia Sheng and I decided to test whether yawning is truly contagious. So it started with me first, and it really works! It really is contagious. We even found ways to make yourself yawn more. Yeps, we were really bored on the way home. :D

Anyway school life is starting to settle down into a monotony. The worse part has yet to come; PW lessons in the afternoon. :( Everyday is like wake up half dead, drag body to school, trying to stay awake in lessons, awaiting the bell signalling the end of the period, going for lectures, sleeping during some lectures, going for CCA, going back home, trying to do tutorials, sleeping late, waking up next morning again and the entire cycle continues.

Once in a while, there's some interesting stuff that happens that help to disperse the monotony of school. We had SM2 scholars from China joining us this week. Siyuan or Tim is attached to our class. Hahaha he's a very nice guy and dang intelligent. In China, they can't use calculators in their math exams. Hence they have to work out the values of sine, cosine and tangent themselves. Tim demonstrated sin 75, which ended up in a complex surd form, but it is the exact value as shown in the calculator. I feel really lucky that we have calculators here to use. So much easier. Hahaha and I'm using him to practise my chinese. So he will practise his english on me while I try my chinese on him, though it usually lapses back into me speaking english to hasten the process of communication. Hahahaha poor him, having to endure my jarring pronunciations and adjectives. I remember one of the first things I asked him was "Ni chi guo wo men zhe li de ji fan ma?" or "Have you tried chicken rice?" Hahahaha random question.
I keep mixing him up with Yi Xin. Tim's from Hubei, Yi Xin's from Hunan. Through Tim, I've finally got my North, South, East, West directions in Chinese. It's very interesting to talk to Tim, cos he has a lot of random bits of information. I'm trying to learn the Hubei dialect, which sounds very much like the normal Beijing type.
Tim is very hilarious. Today we had a chem tutorial, which he could tag along if he wanted to. According to him, the leader of the SM2 scholars told him "Just go home, baby." Hahahaha the way he says it and the word "baby" is dang dang dang funny.
He's addicted to the Western food stall in our canteen. Probably cos he doesn't get to eat much of it back in his hometown.

NJC did very well for A levels last year. A lot of 'A's floating around. Kudos to the seniors, hopefully we get a day off! :D

Went to ERC on monday together with Arjuna and Tzeyang to collect my diploma. Found out that they have a direct honours degree programme that they are offering, which we are suitable for. Talked to Joey, the very friendly consultant attached to SJI. According to her, we can offer that programme part time alongside our A level studies. As we have already gotten the diploma, we can skip the first year and carry on to the Advanced Diploma in Businees Management. Then we have to go for NS before resuming our studies and receivning a Degree in Business Management (Honours)about 1.5 years after NS. It's issued by the University of Greenwich, which is apparently one of the top 5 in U.K. for their business courses. So yeps, this programme is very attractive. If I wasn't taking A levels, I think I will take up this programme. It is very attractive and a whole lot better compared to our mainstream education. Sigh, the fallacies of our system. Anyway, we all kinda agreed that it's tough to juggle school, CCA and the advanced diploma. Oh well, have to pass up this good chance. :/
But anyway, we're trying to get them to reprint our diplomas, cos they look very plain. Hahahaha hopefully, they will agree. :D

Now it has creases cos I accidentally sat on it. Dang :/

Yeps, that's about it for school now. I'll try to update here more often! :D
Aaron

NJC Orientation, Lectures, Valentine's Day

Finally an update for orientation week. The theme for this year's is E(nj)oy- Viva la Vida. Note the NJ in 'enjoy'. Hahaha anyway I'm in OG 6, definitely one of the best OGs around!! Hahaha I think everyone says this about their OG, but it's true! Our super awesome OGLs are Gabby, Yi Ping, Qinrui, Qingwei, Lennon and Glennville. The 4 male OGLs were all from SJI!! Woohoooo!

Day 1
Talks took up the first part of the day. NJ's formal colours are blue and white so most of the male teachers were dressed in a white shirt and blue tie. Hahaha spent a lot of time waiting for people to finish registering. BUT finally got it done. I chose PCME, very standard combination, hope I don't die doing it. Yeps then it was onwards to the oasis to sit around. Sat and read Newsweek and the student handbook. Went for the Student Needs Test at 3.30pm, quintessentially a survey about our development. Hahaha finally got dismissed at 4 plus. Went back with Meifeng and Fiona.

Day 2
Had the code of conduct talk in the hall, followed up by PE talk by Mr. Irwan, an ex-SJI pe teacher! Hahaha he joined 'Don't Forget The Lyrics' and I thought he looked quite familiar! I think he left for NJC when I was in sec 2. Hahaha funny guy.
Then we had the informal walk-in. The dances were very nice and I guess Titan's was the best! Hahahaha that's because I'm from Titan, BUT it's true! :D After lunch, we had our first ever Mass Dance session. Partnered with Mingxiu. Danced to the song "Please Don't Stop The Music" by Rihanna. The whole dance was way too fast. Hahhaha but yea, dancing is cool. :) We had a song and cheer session, where they attempted to teach us the school anthem. Hahahah My favourite is the YAHHH!!! cheer.

Day 3
Had mass dance session for the first part. Danced with Clara, one of the IP students. Hahaha still can't get the dance. The rest of the day was station games where everyone got really wet, especially Clara. Poor her. Cos it's her birthday so they kept dunking water on her. Hahaha hence never reveal your birthday! Yeps, then it was wash up and stuff before the CCA carnival stated. Just walked around and peeked at all the booths. Hahahaha Arjuna kept getting pestered by the Indian Dance people. Hahaha in the end, signed up for Aikido, Interact Club and I&E. Hahhaha the I&E thing was under the influence of Arjuna.

Day 4
External hunt was the order of the day. Went to Jurong East to start off. Played a lot of games along the way before making our way to Bishan for more games and lunch. Went back to school for a debrief.

Day 5
Watched the pre-showdown video and went for showdown. Hahhaha it's fun being the defender cos you get to smash water bombs and get very very very wet. Getting wet is the fun part. Hahaha Washed up after that and headed for the last mass dance session. They taught us another dance which is comparatively a lot easier than the first one. It's to the song "Summer Nights" by Grease, a very old song. It's a 'traditional' NJ dance, started like years back. Haha this dance is cute. Had a Titan house session where we learnt some cheers. Hahahah the best is the "Titan, titan, titan titan". Very unique cheer. It upstages "Rock On Michael". Hahaha
Had OG bonding time around the school while waiting for dinner. Dinner was pizza and KFC. Dance party was in the hall! It rocks!! We had a DJ helping us to spin the tracks. Dang cool. Never had one in SJI before. Hahaha Managed to find Clara to dance to 'Please Don't Stop The Music'. A lot of people didn't get to dance with their dance partners cos it was so dark and noisy inside the hall. So I was lucky in a way. Thanks to Clara for the dance! :) Hahahaha Had a lot fun at the dance party. I reckon Bryan definitely enjoyed himself; he was doing random actions like standing broad jumps etc. Hahahaha Adhitya and I requested for a Bhrangra song to be played so all the SJI guys could go up on stage to do what Mr. Arul taught us in Sec 2. Hahahaha Had a lot of fun with the SJI contigent. 37 in total. Hahahaha Once a Josephian, Always a Josephian. Hahahah XD Those were the good old days. Thanks to Mr. Arul, we've gained exposure into the colourful world of Bhrangra dance and music. Hahahaha I miss his "Fruity Friday" stories. :D

Yeps, Orientation was definitely the best week ever! Now it's back to lectures.. :(
Hahahha lectures are actually quite fun if you sit with the right people and your lecturer is funny. Hahahaha our lecturers so far are quite okay. The content is just overwhelming. Hahahaha it's quite fun to observe what people do in lectures. Ai Hua will do a lot of random stuff ranging from drawing pigs on my book to playing with Samantha's leg. Hahahaha I still think my lion looks nicer than hers. XD

Valentine's Day was quite fun. Hahahah received a lot of stuff and felt very bad about not giving on that day. Thanks everyone for all the stuff!! Some of the handmade stuff was very creative like the one from Clara. I never could have made a card like that. Hahaha :D I would like to thank the OGLs too. They gave us our photos in a CD with personalised captions. Hahahh mine's like "Have fun in chess club!" Hahahaha

Some cute chocolate from Qiao Wei. I can't bear to eat it cos it's so cute. Hahahha


OG 6!! :D

K time to sleep. Will update more later on. Cheers! :D

Aaron

3 6E Gatherings, Krav Seminar, NJC Orientation, Mass Dance

Wednesday 21/01/2008
Had a gathering at SAFRA Yishun for bowling. Dang, I got lost while trying to find my way there. Reached Yishun and followed Zhiheng's instructions to take bus no. 812 which will drop me off somewhere within walking distance of SAFRA Yishun. Did exactly so but instead I started out at the bus interchange and ended back again at the bus interchange after going around in a big loop. Not wanting to loop again, I decided to take a taxi, which is so much easier! Found out from Azizan later on that there are actually 2 places at which you can take 812, and the buses travel different routes. What's up with that?! Somehow I'm really starting to agree with those "Better By Train" ads that you see on buses. At least train routes are clearly stated. Bus routes nowadays are getting as confusing as Confucius' teachings.

Anyway finally reached Orchid Bowl and started bowling. The SJI bowlers arrived as well. Hahaha couldn't recognise them but it's still good to be able to see Josephians. Not long after, some Rafflesians came as well. I think they were there for the bowling selection tests that's held for sec 1s. Hahaha they were a dang funny and cute bunch. Some guy flung a ball backwards after running up to bowl. Now that's the first time I've ever seen anyone run and try to bowl at the same time. Hahaha the ball kinda flew out of his hand and bounced/rolled backwards.
Important life lesson: Never stand behind anyone who's bowling, especially if he runs.
Hahhahaha the coach looked kinda depressed at the performance of those attending the selection tests. Then again, there's always 2 sides to a coin, so they could become good in bowling one day! As long as they don't stand behind that guy when he bowls. Hahaha

Azizan, John, Aikhwee and I bowled 3 games, of which I scored terribly for all. Hahaha I swear it's the lane. It has a slight depression near the center line which cause the ball to move off its intended course. And this depression always appears when it's my turn to bowl. :( And I keep feeling a strong wind blowing each time I bowl. Seems like the strong winds across Singapore has started to take effect indoors as well. Hmmm, I think it's due to a combination of the El Nino and Coriolis effects. As to what those two are, I've no idea since my Geog Elect textbook doesn't cover it. Hahaha that brings back memories of Geog Elect classes, most of it spent talking to Dinesh. I think I'm like level 89 talking-while-teacher-teaches-without-getting-caught. I need to improve that by 10 levels. XD

Anyway after the bowling game, we headed off to take photos and back to Northpoint to go meet Seiyee. Hahaha
(K I stopped here the last time and am finally updating this now.. so I can't remember much..)
Went to Causeway Point to have dinner and meet some other people. Hahaha I only remember 1 scene from dinner. I was poking my teabag/stirring my tea and Cheryl suddenly exclaimed, "This pineapple is very juicy!" Hahahaha I find that very amusing and very very cute. Hahhahha :D Yea, and it's fun to poke your teabag when you're drinking tea cos it gives you something to do while stirring and waiting for the tea to brew. It feels nice to poke the teabag too! Hahahaha

2nd 6E Gathering:
K I can't remember what we did for this gathering but I guess it's the usual of meet-up, eat, sit around, walk a few steps and stop, walk a few more steps and then stop again, sit around, play bridge and then go home. I think we may have watched a movie. It's the "All's Well Ends Well". Say that 100 times. Hahahah don't think it will end well. Anyway yea, the show is downright hilarious. Hahhahaha love this kind of show. Haha yea.

3rd 6E Gathering:
Steamboat at Fel's house. Met Seiyee and walked around a little bit at the library and station. Finally bought a realistic looking toy gun to practise my gun disarms. Hahahah threw the bullets away cos we thought it was spoilt and couldn't shoot. Only found out later that the gun wasn't spoilt at all. Yeps, so had dinner at fel's house and basically loitered around Fel's house for a while before going home. Hahaha our gatherings are usually something like that.

Krav Maga Seminar:
Attended it on sunday(01/02/2009), conducted by Mr. Tommy Broom, Expert Level 4. He's from Sweden and he's very very big. Hahaha he brought along another female instructor, Graduate Level 1. Hahaha poor Jeremy. He got kneeed by her many times. Anyway we did stick work for the entire seminar.
First it was attacking with sticks, then defending against a stick attack with a stick-like object and finally defending against a stick attack with bare hands. Then it was pressure test where 2 people would come at you with sticks and continually attack you with them. Hahaha one thing I've learnt; it hurts to get hit at the kidneys. Hahahah
yea so basically for stick defence is rush in everytime. Never flinch away or avoid the stick cos the person is going to attack you again. Burst right in and try not to get hit while doing it. Hahahaha then again, do not make anyone swing a stick-like object at you. When in doubt, run.

So yea, reported to NJC on monday morning. Met the SJI guys outside, rather surprised to see Li Wei there since he scored 9A1s. But he doesn't have higher chinese so couldn't get posted to RI. But he seems to like NJC! Hahahha

I'm in OG 6, Titan theatre, currently Terra house. I'm still trying to get the steps for mass dance down! We're using "Please Don't Stop The Music" by Rihanna. The beat is dang fast and there's like too many moves for too little words. Hahahah still trying to get the hang of it. In SJI, all we did was Bhrangra dance, which seems a lot easier. Hahhaha learnt some cheers as well. NJ's cheers are very different and somewhat funny. Not much rhythm to them and a whole chunk of words BUT it still is quite nice. Hahahaha Oh and I'm trying to get the tune of the college anthem down. :)

K shall update more about orientation after the orientation week is over. :D Hahaha

Video of our Mass Dance

Hahaha it's a very cute dance. :D

Aaron

6E GATHERING, RESULTS AND KRAV!

Alright finally an update since the last post. Hahahaha for want of a better phrase.

Anyway yeps so on the 11/01/2009, we had a 6E gathering. Met at 6pm at Causeway Point to have dinner at Pasta Mania. Was supposed to go watch a movie after that but the girls didn't want to and so we proceeded to some playground to hang around. The rest were playing 23, which is a mathematical card game so it requires you to think. I don't think my brain could handle such a strenuous task after floating around in cerebrospinal fluid in my skull for the past month. Abraham and I didn't play it and just chilled somewhere else listening to music. Suddenly, an egg dropped from above and landed right in the middle of the rest who were sitting in a circle. It was thrown by some jerk who decided that egging people was fun. This is weird as the group wasn't even making any noise at all. The only time people make noise while doing math is in Mrs Tan Eng Hong's class! Hahahaha can't never forget those lessons. Luckily Abraham and I were standing somewhere else so we didn't get any egg splattered on us. Sadly, the rest had bits of egg splattered on them. Whoever who threw the egg should really be Krav-ed. Can't imagine why anyone would want to do such a thing, especially now when the economy is in recession.
So some went to Fel's house to clean up while the rest went to Civics centre. Fel's house is nice. There's like this big fish tank right at the door and it contains fish! Yeps, just in case you were wondering what's inside the fish tank. Hahaha
So after everyone cleaned up, Fel's house had this egg-roma. I never really liked the smell of raw eggs. Smells like raw eggs.
Of course, when eggs come to mind, a question pops up. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Hahahahaha in this context though, which splattered out first, the yolk or the white? Hmmmm, food for thought.
Yea so after all the eggcitement, we went to some shelter to play 23 again. As before, Abraham and I sat somewhere else and talked. Took some cards and attempted to predict my results. Hahaha i kept getting all the high cards. Yea so I basically got 10+ for every subject. Hahaha
At around 10 plus, we disbanded to go home. The guys went back to the scene, and tried figuring out who threw the egg. Of course, we couldn't find the person. Dang, what is wrong with some people?

The very next day, it was RESULTS DAY! 12/01/2009. Reached school at 1.45pm. Met JP on the bus. Chatted a bit about NCC and results. Anyway seeing everyone again makes me miss SJI like mad. Hahahah got to hug Bryan Lauw after such a long time! Hahaha :D So anyway, gathered in the hall. I tried to avoid making eye contact with Mr. Ho. Hahahha both Mr. Ho and Ms. Chia were just smiling away. So yea we started off with prayer. Then it was the principal's speech, which was interesting since he's the new principal and I have not heard him talk before. I think his name is Dr. Koh. His diction is much better and his content is a little more direct. Hahahaha Mr Lui, the principal who went through 4 years with us, did his speech too. Hahaha I miss his speeches. SO yea, went through the powerpoint slides showing the top scorers and how SJI did. Our MSG this year is 10.4, which is the lowest ever in SJI's history! So kudos to SJI and hopefully our juniors can do better than us and bring SJI to greater glory! Hahahaha
(If you are reading this, remember to send your son(s) to SJI!!! SJI is a good school. And no, they didn't pay me to say this. )
Congrats to Li Wei, who scored 9A1s; he totally deserved it! :D Hahaha will miss all his weird antics. XD

Anyway so at 2.45, which is like 45 minutes after the official time for release of results, we finally lined up according to index number to collect our result slips. Hahahaha when it was finally my turn and just when I was mentally prepared for any bad news, Ms. Chia told me that I had to pay for some lit seminar in order to collect my result slip. Hahaha apparently a lot of us owed the school money for the seminar in which Suzanne Choo was the speaker. This was a bit surprising as Mrs Beryl Ang said that she invited Suzanne Choo to the seminar. Apparently the school had to pay her! Hahahaha I thought she came because she wanted to give back to the community. But yea, so each of us had to pay $10. Opened up my Form A, and saw a whole lot of codes and stuff and couldn't really understand much.
Headed to the office to go pay for the seminar in order to collect my results slip, hahahaha waited like 1 hour just to pay $10. No idea what the people in front were doing. But yea it's fine cos I like the way the office smells. Hahahaha :D

Finally collected my result slip. Hahaha I got a huge shock when I saw my results! K here's a summary:
1) English: A1. A miracle considering my oral conversation. Hahaha I remember it's on hygiene and I actually said, "Actually I don't mind dust as long as I don't see it" to which the examiners gave me that o.O look. Hahahahaha I think Ms. Chia was also relieved that I actually got this. If not, it will make our class look bad.

2) Literature in English: A1. This one is the huge shocker! Hahaha I don't remember doing any work in class and Mrs. Beryl Ang was so worried that we might just flunk lit because of the work we do in class, or rather, the lack of. I was expecting a B3 or B4, since I wrote dang little. Hahaha I remember Hari telling me that he wrote 8 pages for the essay and I was like "WHAT?! 8 pages." That's like all my lit exam scripts combined together. So that's about 1 piece of paper for every question, which has 2 parts. That's dang little! Hahaha After collecting my result slip, I went to the staff room to look for Mrs. Ang and she almost died when she heard my result. Hahaha We concluded that it was her homemade pastry. It seemed like those who ate a lot of it didn't do well for lit, while those who ate a little or none at all, did well! Hahaha nay, but seriously Mrs. Ang is one of the best teachers ever. She would make all those pastries for us to try and buy all those snacks to accompany us during lit classes. Hahaha Her lessons are also very interactive, since we're mainly discussing about anything and everything, except the lit texts. That's why I've always enjoyed her lessons! Especially when Sudharshan, Zach, Raj and Hari start their own internal Indian quarrel. Hahaha Of course, that doesn't mean Mrs. Ang doesn't teach. She does! Except very few, mainly the left side of the class, listen. The right side is chaotic. Hahaha George will start touching me/I will start touching him and start crapping, while SiRong reads his Chuck Norris jokes, and Terry will just sit there. Then the 4 people behind us will start their quarrel. WeiJee, Timothy Chan and James will just start doing their own stuff. But that's Lit Class! Hahaha

3)Combined Humanities (SS and Geog elect): A2. I expected something lesser as I didn't have time to finish the papers! Hahaha I still remember at the end of the Geog exam, I was thinking "Dang no time to finish, because I spent too much time on drawing meanders. Never mind, next time just leave the meanders last". Then it dawned on me that I'm not taking Geog anymore! So there's no more next time! Hahaha I was dang lucky for SS, since I decided to study 1 out of 6 examinable topics and it came out! It's the Iraq and Kuwait conflict. :D I need to thank Mrs. Nevina Ho and Ms Cyndia Leow. Hahaha I knew on many occasions Mrs. Ho wanted to kill me for not paying attention in class. XD

4) E Math: A1. Thanks to Mrs. Tan Eng Hong and my math tuition teacher, Ms Tan, I managed to pass my math. Hahaha HEY! I just realised both of them have the same surname. Hahahaha

5) A Math: A2. Though I'm happy I didn't fail my A Math, I regret not practising more and for a longer period of time! If not, I might have gotten A1. Then my aggregate would be better. But yea, I'm still content with it :D

6) Physics: A1 Very happy about the result. Thankfully I didn't fail my Physics! Hahaha I think Mr. Ho was surprised and happy that I made the A1 grade for Physics. Hahaha I would like to thank Mr. Ho for his dedicated teaching, my cousin who taught me once and Mr. Sie for helping me out for this subject! :D

7) Chemistry: A2. I think only one guy in our class got A1, making Mr. Kwang very disappointed. :( That also means no Shrangri La Treat. :( But anyway, Mr. Kwang is still a very nice teacher who has a unique sense of humour, albeit leaning more towards the weird side. Hahaha I can't never forget the "Making Lessons Come Alive" part. Hahaha And he's a good RME teacher too! :D

8) Biology: A2. Quite happy with this since I only started studying like a few days before. Was still studying even on the morning of the exam. Hahaha I'm gonna miss Mrs Lim's lessons. They never fail to make me realise how long 50 minutes is. Hahaha and it gives plenty of time for Ben Chin and I to discuss rabbits. :D

9)Chinese : A2. This is from last year. Hahaha I've no idea how I even got an A in this subject. I think Mrs. Tay is glad that I didn't fail. Hahaha

10) Higher Chinese: C5. Another pleasant surprise! Thought I was going to fail since I couldn't understand the questions and passages. Hahaha I need to go tell Mrs. Tay soon. I think she might freak out at the thought that I even passed this subject! Hahaha :D

So yeps, L1R5 aggregate is 8. After bonus points, it's 4. All together 9A and 1 C. Hahaha I'm happy with it. Got really lucky for this exam. :D


Anyway quick Krav update. Did a lot of chokes and more chokes for this week. And played some weird games that supposedly trains you.

Accidental Injuries: Scratched on the face by Michael. Elbowed in the teeth by Alvin. Headbutted on the nose by Jeremy (this one is probably the worst, since my nose still hurts now.)

Accidentally Injured: Elbowed Simon on the chin. Punched Alvin in the face. Elbowed Gary's cheek. Fingered Jason's eye. Poor Jason. We were doing choke defenses. Everyone was to stand around in a circle while I stood in the centre. So I'm supposed to defend the chokes which came from every direction randomly. So when Colin did a back choke on me, I raised my arms up to pluck his hands. So while my arms were rising up, I accidentally fingered Jason's eye because he was standing too close. The worst part was that he wasn't even the assailant. Wooops, sorry Jason! Really didn't mean to. :/
And apologies to the rest whom I accidentally injured while practising. Really didn't mean to. :/

Yea, BUT I guess that's part and parcel of training. You get injured half the time time and the other half, you injure people. But at the end, everyone still comes back for more. :D

Aaron

FULL CONTACT SPARRING!, More Krav Maga (Edited edit)

Monday (29/12/08)
WOOOOHOOOO, just back from my first sparring session of Krav Maga. Its quite funny, since the other were just talking about it. Sparring sessions are extremely rare and only occur when the stars are in their right places. There must also not be any new people signing up. Woah but sparring is dang fun and dang addictive.

So everyone had to do a total of two rounds lasting 3mins. I was chosen to do an extra round so the fights were almost non-stop for me.

Initially it was a 1 on 1 fight. Edwin, my instructor, paired me up with Wei Sheng. He has just completed his BMT so he's done the BCCT (Basic Close Combat Training; if I'm not wrong). He has perfect 6/6 vision while I was as blind as 2 bats(cos both eyes are equally bad). So I was a little nervous at the prospect of fighting him. So we entered the cage and started. I think I made the first move by doing a low front kick, which left my shoe print on his thigh. Then I started doing flying kicks, which Edwin told me to refrain cos I guess it can be quite dangerous. So that kinda took a chunk out of my combative options. Then I started doing chain punches. And Edwin was like "Hey, no wing chun!" Hahaha
So the fight carried on and kinda passed by in a flash. Wasn't really injured by the end of it. It's tiring but it was a good fight. I hope I didn't injure him that much cos I jolted his brain a few times and slammed into his ears a couple of times. He suffered from a high pitch whining noise in his ear and dizziness. Got my brain jolted a few times as well. The dizziness that follows is pleasurable. *Cough

Then it was 2 versus 1. I was up against Damien and Elvin. Didn't hit Elvin much because he's quite old (40~50 years). Damien has very good reach due to his height and long limbs. So it's quite tough trying to hit him. He's like level 99 range. It was quite tough to concentrate on both at the same time. I think he punched me in the ear which is slightly red and tender now.

So like almost immediately after my last fight, it was my turn against Aaron and some guy whom I cannot seem to catch his name. Yeps, that guy is dang fast and powerful. And he keeps doing his jumping kicks. Dang, I had to hold back from doing mine. It's quite weird, cos I'll start chambering my leg, then remembering Edwin's instruction, pull it back. His right hook gave me a bruise just above my left eye, which I'm hoping will not worsen cos it might blind me temporally in the left eye. Took a direct roundhouse kick from him to my solar plexus, which knocked the air out of me. That feeling is really crappy. So I went berserk on him and both of us got into a clinch and I kinda caused his knee to somewhat pop out, which ended the fight for him then. Woops, hope he's fine.
So I had to fight Aaron and after a while the fight finally ended.

The worst part was that there was "Buddy P.T." after the sparring sessions. It's basically doing push-ups with your buddy on your back, carrying your buddy and doing squats and doing "Aaron's leg lifts". It's crazy stuff.

Anyway sparring is dang fun. The adrenaline rush, the feeling of getting hit and the sensation when you land a clean punch right in the middle of someone's face is dang cool. It's addictive. It really tests what you've learnt and makes you realise your mistakes. The pain acts as a reminder. Now I need to start working on my evasion. I realise I'm too static, allowing people to blast my head. Can't wait to spar again! :D

Tuesday (30/12/08)
Back from Krav again. Lesser people today, I think some died after yesterday's sparring. Hahahaha nay. So today was escapes. Hahaha new guy joined us; once again as the only member of the welcoming committee, I helped out with the introductions. Nice guy. Hahahaha hoped he wasn't too freaked out by the demonstrations by our lovely instructor, Suhermman. Hahaha I think he was too into the New Year countdown mood. He accidentally knee-ed the face of the guy he was demonstrating on and kicked the knee of the same guy. Poor guy. BUT this rarely happens.

Anyway had an exercise named after me today. It's that dang sadistic ab-xercise(abdominal exercise) which almost killed me on the first day. Hahaha I think Edwin was a little tired of demonstrating that same thing because no one knew what it's called. So he decided to call it "Aaron's leg lift". Hahahaha cos I'm usually the last one to finish the repetitions of that. I have a love-hate relationship with it; love it because I know it's good but hate it because it's bad in a good way. Hahahaha I know I'm not making much sense but you'll get it if you try. :D

Aaron