Gift of Reading camp + Christmas Children's Party
Gift of Reading camp was really fun this year. Maybe cos I got to take part in it from a different perspective this year. Being the organizer of the camp this year, I had to put in more effort and time to prepare for this camp, but I guess that made me appreciate this camp more, and the numerous efforts made by everyone (yes that includes the participants) to make the camp a fun, enriching and memorable one.
Day 1 was mainly ice breakers and amazing race to let everyone know each other better and build some team spirit. I was heartened by everyone's enthusiasm during the activities and some how inspired by the fact that everyone had great team work in sabotaging me to be the whacker in whacko. Great job guys!! Also had a visit to Singapore Arts Museum in between, which felt like Language Arts Revision for me. Nonetheless, it was still rather eye-opening and interesting.
Day 2 was mainly training and a little reflections for this year. Training was very useful as I thought it was very applicable to what we were currently doing, which made me really excited about next year as we will be getting to use all our newly acquired skills to make gift sessions more interesting!! :) So lets all hope we can achieve a higher standard for gift sessions next year with these skills! :) Reflections were quite long, but also very meaningful. There were many insightful comments made and I think its great seeing how we all have progressed over the past year or two. Lets hope Gift can continue to progress and achieve greater heights over the next few years! :)
Day 3 was lots of planning and a little bit of activities. Doodle master was really fun and interesting, as it challenged us to think out of the box and see things of all sorts of perspectives.
It was also very funny seeing the stories everyone taught out of when they came out with one based on the doodles they did. Planning took quite a lot of time, but was rather productive as I thought everyone ensure that their lesson plans were top notch and acceptable by gifts standards. :) Really excited by some of the ideas next year and I look forward to seeing them executed next year!!
Christmas party today was quite a fun and memorable experience. Really grateful and touched to see so many Gift of Reading volunteers as well as YEC members coming over to help out and support us. Very heartened to see that everyone had a great time today and it has indeed been remarkable of Pei Woon and the others in the organizing commitee to be able to put together all their great ideas to organize this fun-packed event. Also, would like to express thanks to all volunteers who came to help out (that includes Jian Da, Yong Quan, Xue Ling, Sandy, Clement, Sharnie, Timothy, RV ppl, Ren Cheng, Reuben and many many others), as they did put a great show today and made today's success possible. Looking forward to organizing more fun packed and interesting activities for children during my term in YEC!! :)
Saturday, December 26, 2009 10:41 PM
Liverpool 1 Arsenal 2
Title says it all. Very upset that Liverpool was once again disappointed at home even when Torres and Gerrard started. I am lost for words as I have no idea why Liverpool could lose!! The starting players were good, sound tactics were used but some how, there was still something lacking which prevented Liverpool from scoring. Maybe it was the super bias referee whose decisions kept going against Liverpool, especially when he denied them a penalty. Maybe it was luck, which did not seem to be on Liverpool's side (and hasn't be for 19 years already!!), and clearly Glen Johnson's own goal showed that too. Which ever the case, the sorrow I have for Liverpool is immense. Even though they have the best players (e.g. Torres and Gerrard), the most loyal fans (hint hint) who have never given up on them till now, the best history, they still cant seem to pick up their form and win that league, for 19 years straight!!
While I stay loyal to Liverpool, there seems to be an undeniable fact that they are deteriorating by the year? What is that extra boost they need? What does it take to bring Liverpool to victory? Is it better players (especially for their subs)? Is it more money? Is it better luck? Is it a different manager? I am of no position to decide, but I shall hope that Liverpool will have what it takes to win soon, and get that title from United before its too late. Till then, I shall always believe that I never hope alone, and out there someone is wishing the same thing for Liverpool. :)
Monday, December 14, 2009 11:25 AM
Back from KL!!
Hurray!! Back from KL already. Had a great time yesterday meeting my relatives and going out with them for lunch and to visit a nearby park to play basketball. Lunch was good and very filling while basketball was also quite fun, as I did not have a height disadvantage this time!! Seeing that I was the second/third tallest among my cousins. However, I did not exactly put my height advantage to good use as my shooting and dribbling was still equally bad as before.
Took a 5 hour bus ride home after saying goodbye to my relatives. Watched the movie SlumDog Millionaire (alright!!) and Inkheart in the bus. I was very happy I finally managed to finish watching the entire Slumdog Millionaire, as I did not finish it while watching it on my flight back from India last year (the plane landed before I could!!). Though I did not fully understand the show, it was good to get to finish it anyway.
Went online till 2 after that. Was surprised I managed to stay awake until such a late hour. Well thats about all that happened yesterday. Shall not bore the readers out there anymore!
Sunday, December 13, 2009 10:55 AM
KL family trip
Sorry for not blogging so long again. Have been really busy with IPO planning and Gift of Reading December camp planning. Also, YDSP camp had also kept me occupied for one whole week as well, with me having to wake up early to go to Jurong for four days.
Well, currently at KL now. Really glad to get to take some time off hectic life and have a good and real break. Have been slacking a lot during my trip at KL, instead of going sightseeing and all that. Got to see one of my many aunts along with my cousin. Will get to see more tomorrow.
However, it is quite sad not getting to reply to everyone's msg and being MIA lots of times, as taking a break like this often requires you to "disconnect" from everyone for a while. Still checking my emails though so if any of you wants to contact me feel free to email me! :)
Not much else to say since I didnt do much either. Shall end off this short post then...
Friday, December 11, 2009 4:55 PM
PSLE release of results
Today was judgment day for the P6 students who were getting back to results for their seemingly important (though not accurate in my point of view) PSLE exam. Well so that included my sister who had taken her PSLE exam this year.
So as a result, I went to Tao Nan (YEAH!!) to see how my primary school did this year (after it did terribly during my year). Turns out Tao Nan did not do very well this year, as the highest in my junior junior junior class this year was more than 10 points lower than the highest in my class that year. My parents kinda thought it was because most of the good mainstream students went to this special programme set up by Tao Nan called the BICEP programme (some programme for pro mother tongue people, but the smart people always end up there).
Well, at least my sister's class did very well, as I think they got really good teachers this year. I figured out this was because my form teacher who taught my class and screwed it up happened to be teaching my sister's senior class. As a result, my sister's senior class did worse than the class below them (which is my junior junior class :D). So probably Tao Nan panicked and gave my sister's class good teachers this year, so my sis and her class did well!! Hurrah!
Would like to congratulate my sister for doing much much better than me (her T score is higher than me by more than 20 marks). Really happy that she outsmarted the system and test that outsmarted me. Hope she gets into a good school, even if its a school that starts with the letter R, I have to respect that decision.
Thursday, November 26, 2009 5:50 PM
PSL training
Haha I know I am blogging about this really late. Have been really busy lately so have not had the time to blog about this. However, really want to blog about this since I had a really great time during these 4 days of training for the PSLs.
Day 1
Quite a good start to the camp. Had a very interesting introduction session where we were throwing a string ball around to form a "network of friends". The outcome was quite cool and it was also quite fun pulling the strings of those around you.
Had a bomb defuse game which resulted in me "killing" my group many many times as I seemed to have a fascination for touching the wall (and we were not supposed to). Eventually, we kept shouting "dont touch the wall" and my name eventually became Mr Dont Touch The Wall.
Day 2
Went to Kranji War Memorial. It was a very meaningful and reflective visit as the place showed me how hard our ancestors fought for us to have our freedom today. Made me treasure where I was now and what I have.
Had lunch at Causeway Point. We were forced to talk to strangers as part of lunch which was really scary and intimidating. Lim Xi was very evil when he tricked Gaurav into giving him a free coke float after he made Gaurav think he got the number of a girl at the hawker center (it was a fake number actually).
Day 3 and Day 4
Spent these two days at a hostel located at Bartley area. We split into 5 groups and organized games for each other to play. The night games organized by two of the groups were definitely the most creepy and many of us got really scared when we had to go into the hostel rooms with all the lights off to look for items. The scary part came in when the organizers of the game were actually hid inside the house getting ready to scare us with their weird noises and jumping in front of us.
Also, we had a great time bonding with the rest of the PSLs through the games and through the camp and we got to know each other even better. Would like to thank all the PSLs and the organizers of the camp for letting me have such a great time last week and may PSLs 2010 have a great term ahead!!
3:27 PM
Matriculation and Symposium
Yesterday was Matriculation Day. It was a rather eventful event for me, as it was not just the first event I went for as a PSL, but also the first time I got to see the 2010 batch of VIP students!! I was very excited to see many of my VS juniors coming to VJC, and also excited to see some of my TAO NAN juniors come to VJC too!! Surprisingly, two of the three Tao Nan juniors I saw still remembered me, as they were my scout juniors in Tao Nan. Yan was also very excited to hear that there were Tao Nanites in the new VJ batch, as that meant we had someone to bully already!!
Here are some fun facts of my three Tao Nan juniors.
TJCC Balloon sculpturing course
Went for a balloon sculpturing course at Taman Jurong CC yesterday with Shaun. Not sure what made me agree to joining actually, but it was indeed a fun course to go off and it sure imparted to me some new skills on balloon sculpturing.
At the beginning, I was very worried that I would get into some accident (like I always do) or create trouble thanks to my clumsiness. Surprisingly, not only did I pick up some useful skills on how to make balloons of various shapes, like a sword and a dog, I also managed to avoid bursting a single balloon by accident! Shaun also enjoyed himself, especially when learning how to make impressive or cute shapes. I also kept teasing him about someone(better not say if not I get into trouble again) to jokingly motivate him to learn the steps in order to shape the balloon.
Well, hopefully I would be able to put my balloon sculpturing skills (if any) to good use (and not abuse it, hint hint). Already have to use them during CC open house and Children's Christmas party so I guess that should be a great opportunity for me to try out my new skills!!
Saturday, November 7, 2009 12:42 PM
Financial Literacy week
Financial literacy week was quite interesting. Was in group 19 with Azmi, Bing Qing, Marcus, Shilp and Vanessa. Our group, along with group 18 and 20, belonged to the "special" group which did not have to go for any lessons. Not sure if I should be relieved or sad that I did not get to go for the lessons. I was at first dreading that we had to do our research and reading up instead since we did not go for the lessons. However, many others told me that the lessons were quite boring, so I became happy that I got to use the lesson time to work on the project instead, which was rather thought-provoking and made all of us in the group think really hard.
To our surprise, our group managed to get second runner up. Despite the many conflicts some of us had amongst ourselves, we finally pulled through and did a great job for the project. Really happy that our hard work did pay off, after all Marcus was saying that we were indeed working much harder, longer and tirelessly compared to many others. Would like to say it has been fun working with my financial literacy group members and hopefully we get more opportunities in the future to work together once again.
I must say that this project was a rather challenging 0ne, and one that made me change my view over reality. It made me reflect upon myself, as I related the characters in the case study to myself. Well some of us are indeed really spoiled, and we all want to seize the day and enjoy every hour of it. Yet, we tend to fail to think about the consequences of our actions, the future it will bring upon us. And so, we let our materialistic attachments and emotions overcome our logic as we pursue instant gratification.
In the end, while I must admit that I will not remember everything I learned about financial literacy in this course, the problem solving skills and life skills I obtained from it will certainly leave an impact on me.
Friday, November 6, 2009 11:27 PM
Return of scripts (ROS) A.K.A Judgement week
Sorry for not blogging so long. Have been busy lamenting my results lately. Well its not that I did not do well this time, its just that there I felt I could have done so much better. Besides feeling I did not work hard enough, I felt that I was very careless when doing most of the papers, which resulted in me losing lots of marks.
Here is a brief summary of how I felt after each subject.
Chinese: Surprisingly, this was one of my best subjects this time. It is indeed surprising to see how my Chinese suddenly became my third subject (from the top, not the bottom) after it maintained its position as my WORST subject for an amazing 7 years. Well, this is probably the only subject I was amazed with and it was really a pleasant surprise getting A1 (on the dot) for it.
Biology: Definitely did not work hard enough for this one. Spotted wrong questions for this too. I did not expect lots of memorizing questions and questions on cell organelles and digestion to come out. Just because I forgot to study one page on mitochondria, I lost at least 4 more marks, which cost me my A1 grade :(.
LA: Neither good nor bad. Missed A2 by a mark. But I did not have any high expectations for LA anyway, as it happened to be my worst subject last term when I scored terribly for the essay. So at least I should be glad I improved for this subject, although not very significantly.
Chemistry: Probably the only consistent subject this time. Did well for it, though not extraordinarily well for it. I was quite satisfied for chemistry and also relieved I did not let Mr Teo down this time, even though I DID NOT DO A NEW QUESTION ON A FRESH SHEET OF PAPER.
Physics: Another pleasant surprise. While the usual scholars dominated for this subject, I was quite amazed that physics was my top subject this time, in terms of percentage. I am not sure if that is a good or bad sign though as physics was actually my worst subject in term 1 (and it also ended my Chinese's long run of being my worst subject). Guess I should be happy about this, since I don't have much to be happy about.
Integrated Math: A shocking result for me, and for many others too (except some Singaporean who claims she is lazy but got as high as the scholars [hint: check tagboard]). I was very surprised that my usually consistent maths has failed me this time, dropping to my second worst subject. My marks were terrible compared to the scholars and this pro Singaporean who sits on the same table as me. However, I still considered myself lucky as I actually did not finish the paper but yet did slightly above my class average (which was pulled up tremendously by the scholars).
Integrated Humanities: THE BIGGEST AND MOST SHOCKING DISAPPOINTMENT FOR ME!!! OF ALL SUBJECTS TO BE MY WORST, IT HAD TO BE THE ONLY ONE THAT IS COUNTED NEXT YEAR. REALLY REALLY DEPRESSED BY THIS RESULT. Probably the only subject I was so sad about. Lost marks at many spots, resulting in many marks being lost.
Well as a whole, I am still relieved by my results (and glad I do have to retake anything and get my December Hols ruined). Have to work harder next year and certainly be more careful and exam smart.
Friday, October 30, 2009 8:21 PM
Agape Week and Deepavali Weekend
Agape week has been quite fun, and quite relaxing too. Learnt quite a lot of life skills from it which I think I will never get to learn in normal school lessons. While some of the courses may have been quite low key, all of them were still enriching in the end and have definitely contributed to my personal development, and have hopefully made me a better person.
Soccer outing!!
I played soccer at Opera Estate today with a few VS people in VJ now. It has indeed been a very very very very long time since I last played soccer (in fact I have not been playing soccer much since coming to VIP and I have never gotten to play REAL soccer in VJ despite the nice field there). Sorry if you are offended VJ, but soccer is certainly NOT a hobby you can maintain here.
This soccer outing was similar to the previous one I had in the June holidays. It was fun, exhilarating, challenging and I really got to sweat it out as I tried to regain my long lost soccer days before VJC. I have definitely gotten rusty since my soccer hobby died down but I was glad I could still play at a satisfactory standard.
Played at all positions during the soccer game, including keeper. Preferred playing as left wing as I got to use my left leg more and do some crosses. Scored a nice goal playing as left wing and managed to gain possession of the ball at times.
Sadly, I felt like my ball control had deteriorated along with my shooting skills. Always shot the ball over and wasted lots of opportunities during the game. Well luckily the others were understanding as many of them also felt that their form had also deteriorated since entering VJ too.
Still glad that I got this chance to play soccer like old times. Not sure if its the nostalgia or the need of exercise but I sure had a fun time today. Hope to get to play soccer more often especially during this week of celebrations before reality kicks in and our results come back next week.
Monday, October 12, 2009 9:14 PM
Marking day hols
Wow. Seems like the long weekend is soon coming to an end. I was quite surprised how I managed to play away the 5 day holiday we had after our exams ended. Did not do much, yet time still flew by and here I am blogging on the last day of this holiday before I have to return to the daily routine of waking up early for school, returning home late and studying (maybe less of this, hee hee).
To look at the bright side of things, I was glad I managed to use the time to catch up with some stuff I had to settle for Gift of Reading and other commitments as well (that includes family). I had been shoving all these responsibilities aside during the exam week to do what I was supposed to do, STUDY. It sure feels relieving during this few days doing something else other than study, and that was mainly SLACKING!! While I settled all the other responsibilities, it felt great having the leisure of time to slack, something I have not been doing for a very long time already (probably since I entered IP, where our school holidays are usually robbed away).
I am certainly in a slack mood now so I am not sure whether I will be geared up for next week. Hope I don't get myself injured or get anyone injured while doing juggling or cardio sing for feeling fab, I know how accident prone I am. So yea, lets hope for a relaxing and safe (extremely important too) week ahead!
Sunday, October 11, 2009 1:26 PM
Last Few Exams plus class outing!!
Hooray, end of year exams are FINALLY over!!! Well Math and Physics were terrible though, as I did not finish both of them and I kinda lost quite a lot of marks. Guess I may have to be prepared to study for retests if necessary. :(
Well, went to Marina Square after last paper physics ended. Not sure if I should have gone because I felt really bad after physics paper. Decided to scare everyone by acting like I was going home, although I really thought of going home actually thanks to my heavy and bulky bag. :D Sorry everyone if you guys felt pissed about me being so emo and unreasonable.
Ate lunch at food court and watched the movie "Fame". Then took class photo for outing. My sister kept scolding me for coming home too late and watching "Fame" instead of "Surrogates". Well it sure was lots of peer pressure to get me to watch that, but I guess "Fame" was quite nice. Music was really good though there were too many characters so character development and story development was not as good. I guess the storyline would have been more suitable for a series instead of a movie.
I must say that I am not sure whether I should celebrate the end of exams. Do I even deserve to celebrate? Did I work hard enough for this moment of relief and happiness? I must admit that I don't think I was very hardworking for this EOY exams. Not sure why but I was not able to get myself to focus. But I guess it's too late to regret, and all I can do is move on with life. Probably celebrate less and start telling myself to work harder next time.
Would also like to say thanks to everyone who helped me through this exams, including the patient teachers, understanding friends and encouraging parents and seniors. Thanks for helping me pull through this!!
Labels: school
Superb finishing by Torres!
