The last week has been...rather ok, considering that there was only a maths TA on monday which I screwed up slightly at, class deco, and nothing else for school.

As for stuff out of curriculum, on Friday we did have a Home Creation meeting at Kallang Bahru with Viriya to basically confirm the basic stuff such as committees and get to know more about the project before we even start. Yep, so basically that was what it was for. 1o of us from the steering committee went there right after school, and didnt eat lunch cos we didnt have enough time. The nice viriya people then gave us some food and drinks! Haha, really thankful for that. I was getting hungry...lol. Quite a fruitful discussion, learnt quite a lot more about the project, and what I can expect. After the meeting, Teng Chuan and I rushed back to school for class deco, but somehow we got lost and the rest of the people who needed to go back but didnt run, reached faster than us. Haha, got jaacked. Anyway, when we reached class, all we saw was a nice plan done on the board and nothing done. Lols, ok. At least we have a plan now. So just went to do some maths homework while watching people play soccer. But I started to drift off...lol, so I decided to go for a jog instead. Haha, nothing compared to those people who were at the trials for the Hillary Challenge though. They all agreed it was tough...but good luck to everyone! =)

Yep so on Saturday morning, we got to school early, some for the Raffles Fest, but some like me just for our campfire preparation. We practised our stick dance one again, and Im still trying to get closer to prefection...need to improve more. Yep so we practised the dance from 8am to about 1pm. And also had a chance to take a sneak peek at the performances of the other groups of people, like the sec 1,2 and 3 dances. Thesec 1 dance was really cute I must say, haha. I can hum the song "I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony..." lols.

So after that we had lunch at J8,and Alvin Chua, Kenneth Lam and I decided to go bowling before campfire since we had some time, but going home, then going to the campfire would take up most of it anyway. So we decided to go to Serangoon Gardens country club. And we even invited Alvin Lum and Teng Chuan to go with us. But when we reached there...it was fully booked for the whole evening. So we hang around at a playground nearby instead, lol. We even had a 'ninja warrior' competition and set up an obstacle course for ourselves. haha. Forgot to take a photo with Alvin Lum and Teng Chuan.






Haha, so after that we took a bus to AMK, and took the MRT to Redhill, where we bought dinner, then took a cab to River Valley cos we thought we were late, and were too tired to take the bus, haha. But luckily the ride was rather short, so it was ok. And after we went in, I got changed into my scout uniform and in we went.


They were all smiles there, and even had a structure visitors could climb on to find out more about their scout group. It was quite fun to climb up and down haha.





After we got seated, we met our buddy(sort of), Shao Hao. Haha he was very friendly and helpful to us. That made questions easier, haha. Anyway, the first thing we noticed was their backdrop. I personally thought it was very well done. It looks like it was printed, but Shao Hao said that it was painted and repainted many times until it looked like this. They started planning for the campfire since January. Looks like a lot of effort has been put in!






As seen, their campfire theme was 40 through the ages. And so their campfire had many elements from the last 40 years, from the 1960s to the current times. I enjoyed singing the songs with them, lol: Mama Mia, Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Girlfriend, etc. And of course them dancing, haha. The buddies were also instrumental in getting us to be more involved. They were quite busy though, haha, getting on stage to dance, before rushing back to us, then going back again...
They had quite a good mixture of games and the show itself, but we found that it ended rather early, haha.




To me, I found the campfire really good. Haha, except maybe for the first part when the sound system failed a few times. But they did solve the problem and everything flowed smoothly after that. Haha, the guys behind (Francis, Amos, Bryan, Hiok Yang)were always singing songs, lol. From "Please dont stop the music, music..." when the sound system stopped, to "Its too late to apologise..." and "Jack and Jill went up the hill...and Jill threw him out of the window", lols. Haha, so fun. Heres a group photo with our buddy, Shao Hao, after the whole thing:


Haha, thanks a lot to the River Valley Eagle Scouts for the really fun campfire! Hope that we would be able to put on a good show as well in our very own 01 Campfire next week! =D

2 days ago at school, we the ventures were practicing our dance for our campfire coming up soon! I already wrote a post there, so please feel free to go read at http://01raffles2006.blogspot.com/ if you are interested!

Yep, so technically this blogpost should be titled yesterday at school, cos its one day late. Its 1.20am now. Haha, anyway, 'today' was a really bad day at school for our class, at least. All the teachers seemed to be pissed at our class for one reason or another. I mean, its not that bad if its just one teacher, but almost all in one day is just...bad.

First period was english. Basically, we had a change of english teachers, cos our last teacher had to leave school for a term or so, and now we have a new teacher. When I say new, I really mean new. Newly graduated and inexperienced. I dont mean to be offensive, but he really should improve on his engagement with students during lesson. He's like afriad of us or something, and just yabbers away, without making sure we are even following. (Mrs Ong is much better at this..."are you with me?", haha) Anyway, back to my point, so we started getting bored and when students get bored, they start looking for something else to do, and that is to talk. But he got unhappy towards the end of the lesson and slamed his hand on the table. (that must have hurt) And told us to pay attention in a really loud voice. Speaking truthfully, Im guessing that he has a really bad impression of our school students.

Chemistry. Also the same for CLE. Mr Koh was just pissed that quite a number of us didnt go for his chemistry lesson yesterday. I went obviously, but quite a number didnt. Let me explain. It was supposed to be RE period yesterday, but now that RE has sort of stopped, teachers were free to take the lesson for themselves. Mr Koh told our class that he has taken the lesson, and we were going to have a combined lesson with 4R. The only difference was the instructions given. For them it was: "compulsory", for us it was: "compulsory, but if you are not keen, I wont force you". Yep so some people though Mr Koh wasnt serious when he said that it was compulsory, and didnt go. And only about 1/3 of our class went. Im going to see it from 2 angles.

For those who didnt go, they misunderstood what Mr Koh meant. And some people thought that it was a remedial lesson. And some think that since the school wants us to be independent learners, they should be given a choice to not go if they think they are good enough.

For Mr Koh, he gave 4R a different instruction, and that shows that he actually meant it when he said he trusted us to be self-motivated learners and go for his lesson even when he said he wont force us. Also, he had said that it wasnt a remedial lesson but a lesson. So new topics will be taught and everyone will have to be there. Also, when Mr Koh told us that he could have actually just stopped at normal lessons and not take the RE period to teach, Im sure we all agree. We all know it. It is a fact that his timetable is almost full every time. And its all for us. We all know how dedicated he is. Its just, sometimes we fail to realise that teachers put in effort to prepare and conduct lessons too. And that we arent the only stakeholders.

I shall move on.

For Geog, Dr.C was just really angry. First, even before we did anything wrong, she scolded LinJin really badly when he came back to class late after recess because he was taking a test during recess. She didnt listen to he explanation at first, but even after he explained himself, she continued to scold him, like really badly. I was feeling so stunned cause I came back with LinJin after collecting some geog worksheets, and that was what I saw. I feel very sorry for LinJin, because in this case, I can only stand on his side. He was seriously put in a difficult situation. After he gave his explanation, she shouted that it was always her lesson being taken up for other subjects. But then what could be done about it? It was also a teacher who told him to take the test during recess. Dr.C even said that next time equal amount of time shouls be taken from the periods before and after recess. Yea, ok, but if that were to be done, shouldnt it be brought up to the school instead of telling us? And anyway the current system is not as such, so can a student be blamed for that? And to Lin Jin, I hope you dont feel too bad, we all saw your face just now...

Chinese lesson...nothing much, cos it was basically just a zuowen competition which I totally failed. Couldnt think of a story at all. and just crapped something up when I got too worried, lol. its bad.

After school was the museum trip, where we went to the ACM to view the KangXi emperor exhibit. Generally speaking, it was quite interesting, but small. The place is really small, like there are less than 100 artefects there. So although the stuff are good, you can be finished with it in a short time if you dont read everything. Which was the case for some of them who rushed me to finish and go, haha. Well, ok Im sorry for making you guys wait! But I did manage to learn quite a few stuff from there!

So we went to PS, Hiok Yang, Teng Chuan, Alvin Lum, Manfred, Ben Ng, Alvin Chua, Aloysius and me. And watched Fast and Furious 4. Initially felt like watching Knowing, but since some people didnt want to leave late, we watched Fast and Furious 4. I must say that it is indeed better than I had thought, haha. And it was really action-packed. But I cant seem to be able to pinpoint what I like about it the most...

After that, Teng Chuan, Hiok Yang, Alvin Lum and I said goodbye to the rest and stayed to have dinner together. It was quite fun la, having dinner together, talking about loads of random stuff, but for some reason, I felt really cold then...

After that we went to the MRT station where we nearly got into a 'waiting fight' to see which side, Hiok Yang, or us, waits the longest for the other group/person to leave first. Lols. But we decided that it was too lame, anyway, Hiok Yang left first, haha. Had a nice talk on the train too! Felt so long since our class have really gotten together for a fun outing or something. This is close. haha. At least it brightened up the day! =D

Today has been a tiring but eventful day... woke up at 6.10am in the morning to go to NUS for our final HSSRP symposium. So yea...thankfully my dad agreed to fetch Jim and me there...thanks a lot! or else, we would have had to take a bus there and wake up at like 4+am? So...once we got there, we met up with Shayne and tried to find our way around...using the faint idea of wat we remembered from before... And yep, after just a few circles, we reached the lt9! but yea we were still early, so we just sat around in the canteen talking lots of crap and practising our presentation too haha. Then we met Martin, who was taking part in the NUS Geog Challenge there, haha, dunno how they did, but hope they did well! After that, we got the book with our research paper! Its beautiful in bright blue this year! Haha. Now, I have like five consecutive years of the HSSRP research booklets! So if anyone needs it for anything, feel free to look for me! Haha.

The symposium started with the usual few opening speeches, then was the award presentation ceremony. And our group was so happy that we got a merit award! (except that it doesnt sound as good as it actually is, lol) Haha, lots of hard work were put into this, so obviously we were all so proud to be getting the award, haha.

(WARNING: if you do not wish to see my rather long comments on other group's presentations, skip the next paragraph!)
Ok yea so next was 3 presentations, the first one by an RGS team. They did pretty well, like their research was well thought of, and they presented well too, so since the took much things into consideration, their group was safe from the 'evil' audiences who just cant wait to put you down if you are up there. (and it can hurt especially if you cant do proper 'damage control') This was shown in the second presentation. By an RI team, Patrick and Zhuo Hao. Jia Xuan and Jun Yang werent there though becos of track stuff. Yea, so their presentation was alright, but the problem came when the QNA started. They really got 'thrashed'. It was quite sad, cos it really wasnt becos their project was bad, just the case where damage control is poor. Like someone actually asked them a question not even in their scope of research, but they didnt point it out, and tried to answer it...yea, so something for us to learn from! The third group was a NYGH group. Their presentation was one of the better ones, presenting on a movie called Dr Strangelove, very interesting indeed. But the main prob with theirs was the research and relevance part, when asked in the QNA. Their research consisted mainly of going on the net and watching the movies only, while the relevance wasnt answered well.

After the main presentations, everyone rushed out for the tea reception, and since it was so crowded, I didnt manage to get anything, except a small cup of 'chilled homemade barley', lol. Yea so Shayne, Jim and I just went around to find the room for our presentation later, and started preparing. Sherman and Wesley even came to support our presentation, haha, thanks guys. Anyway, somehow I was chosen to be emcee for this session, so yea, after everyone came in I just settled everyone down and started. First was a HCI student, then ours, then also from RI, Alasdair's, then a NYGH group. I think we did fairly ok...not too bad but not our best too...Spoke a bit too quickly i guess. But it was really our honour being able to present our project in front of an audience, and sharing our project with them! Hopefully it will also inspire some of them to take up HSSRP in the future, or even do something as meaningful as something environmental! Haha. As for my emceeing...this is my first time, and im pretty sure its the last time for some time to come, lol. But i think i did ok, except for being too soft. Ok, thats my usual mistake.

Haha thats about all for HSSRP...cos after that Jim and I just took a bus back home, with Jeson. Shayne left earlier for his badminton competition training. Good luck for the nationals! The bus ride home took about 1 and a half hours, as usual, and luckily I made good use of it by doing homework on the bus, lols. Cos there will be no time later... Some photos for the morning:





OK, so after Jim and I reached home, we had lunch, changed and everything, then hurriedly left for tuition, haha. And today was a boring lesson. Exam. Yea sp just wrote a zuowen and a yingyongwen in class. So boring. And so little time.

Then again, after the lesson, it was another rush for time. I got home quickly and bought my dinner on the way. And...gobbled everything down, changed into the cool scout u, haha. Then went to Maris Stella High School for their campfire! It was their first campfire opened to other scout groups in 10 years, cos this year is their 40th anniversary. Luckily i did manage to get there before the campfire started. After a while, Alvin, Amos, Joel, Hiok Yang, Roy, Wesley, Yan Wei, Wayne and I were there. And that pretty much made up the people who went there. The rest of them went to the St Andrew's campfire, held at the exact same time. Haha. Which explains the small group present.


It was the traditional form of a campfire, with people sitting around a fire, singing songs, lots of competitions, and having fun. We were sitting at the back of the circle, beside their alumni. Their campfire was pretty alright, except for one serious mistake: their sound system. It was far too soft. We couldnt even make out a word the people on stage were saying, and so we didnt get involved much, except when we knew what was happening like during the thousand-legged worm. So this is a lesson to be learnt, both for them and for us. This year for the 01 scouts campfire, it is going to be a more traditional kind too, as we will be inviting many of our alumni, to celebrate our 75th anniversary! Haha. So now we know what matters, and what size our props and stuff need to be. A good thing about the Maris Stella campfire will definitely have to be their food. Can see that quite a lot of effort has gone into it, as there was really a generous spread, quite a big variety, and the brownies were even made by the scouts themselves. (they tasted good too, haha) Took a nice photo before we left.






Yea so Joel and I had to go to the MRT station, so Alvin kindly agreed to bring us there. We did go to his house so that he could change out of the sweaty scout u though haha. We even said hi to his brother, Bryan! Haha. So basically we took a slow and long walk...it was really fun. Stopped briefly at the playground to try out the stuff, haha. We talked about lots of stuff...it was so relaxing. Was hoping that the walk would last longer... I was really happy I decided to walk instead of being driven home, who knows what I would have missed! It has been really cool chatting with you guys under the stars! Thank you for that! It was a really nice end to the long day I had, haha.

And...HAPPY BIRTHDAY WANJING!! Its your 16th birthday, so be happy! Lalala...happy birthday to you! =D

And I fell asleep writing this post. So it was only finished on sunday. Haha. I can sense some people wondering how I can fall asleep doing stuff. I can. As long as its not something work related. And trust me, even though I sleep on these stuff, I would prefer these stuff over work anytime. =)

On Wednesday it was a confusing day, with all the April Fools jokes around...you never know when you'll get tricked, so people were rather cautious...especially the teachers! Haha, I admit, we did play afew pranks on the teachers, but they werent harmful or too bad or anything, just pure fun and no one gets hurt. We didnt get scolded. Lol. There was a certain prank...involving twins...and 'mutual learning'...if you know what I mean...and btw that wasnt referring to Jim or me. Haha, it was really hillarious. Even some people in class were tricked! Fine, I did...but who would ever think that it could actually happen? like seriously? haha. Anyway, he was a nice guy, haha. (do I have to add just like his brother?)

Ok, today, another big thing happened. During PE, we were having our inventing games module, and it was my groups turn to present. So we explained the game rules, and how to play, etc. But then...an accident occured. Two of my classmates, Ben Chin and Mervyn actually crashed head-on onto each other...its really sad. They even got sent to the hospital...

Couldnt eat after that happened, and was just thinking about why what happened did happen. I was lost. Really. Like theres a sudden realisation that all our actions have consequences, and the vulnerability of humans...Thought quite a bit about that during recess and the lessons after that... We went as a class to visit Ben Chin after that, apparently he suffered from slight memory loss, like he couldnt remember what happened these few days and is kinda blur about things...which is really worrying for us. But of course we were also glad it wasnt worse... When I visited, he kept smiling away...and although I was really sorry about what happened, he did make me feel better. Although it should have been the other way round. Just hope that we did bring him some joy as well...

Best of luck, Ben Chin! Get well soon and come back to school ok! Same to you Mervyn! 4T will miss you guys. =)