Fun-O-Rama XVIII

Well, I started this blog on the previous Fun-O-Rama. So I think it's only fitting that I post something on the 'anniversary' huh?

Today was Fun-O-Rama. Like anyone who has passed through the portals of ACJC, I went down as usual. Actually, I had CS1101C test in the morning, so I sat for that (which was an easy paper - but it's dangerous if everyone finds it an easy paper :P ) and after that, I went for lunch with my group of RH friends at munchie monkey ($$$$ argh). enough of that... went down to AC later and took a look at the stalls, etc. Very much the same! met Alvin, Shu Hui and Tung ni who looked quite surprised to see me.

I helped out at the Parents Action Team stall... preparing tasty bratwurst sausages. was fun! heh... i think many people thought i was a student when i had actually graduated for 4 years.

the torch has passed...

and i can take my rest.

i just had a dream

i just had a dream that i spoke to THE BIG MAN personally yesterday.

what happened was that i attended service again, at a stadium like place. and at the end of it he said that there was this chap who lost his bag at an LRT station.. he wasn't a christian, just a visitor... so it somehow came upon me to help that guy find his bag. to cut a long story short, i befriended that guy (like a normal CHC-ian would) and found his bag.

then, it hit upon me to use this opportunity to get up close and personal with THE BIG MAN. so we went back to church, told him 'let me introduce you to our pastor'. i went down and questioned the security in a very 'dao' tone and he directed me down. (i never liked security to begin with, as if they're so high and mighty, pushing other ministries away for the sake of THE BIG MAN. come on, even police officers don't do that.)

after passing through two more levels of security, i found myself face to face with THE BIG MAN.

surprisingly the meeting room was in the midst of a carpark area which was not even cordoned off... then i introduced him to THE BIG MAN who replied knowingly. Anyway i somehow managed to talk to THE BIG MAN for about 5 minutes after that, and mentioned to him that Dr Casey was my father and he replied knowingly.

TRUTH: i don't think that he knows who Dr Casey is, other than that his emails always get caught in his junk folder... maybe?

OK GOT TO CLEAN UP MY ROOM IF NOT I AM GOING TO HAVE HERDS OF COKROACHES RAMPAGING IT. OUT.

memories of my JC days

having written an exposition of my secondary school days, now let me write on my JC days..

when the PAE posting results were released, I was posted to SAJC. Back then the second-choice JC for those who couldn't make it to NJC or HCJC. Well I appealed for ACJC, and got it.. so I wound up spending three days in SAJC.

It had a good location, but there were far too many RV people there to make my stay there enjoyable. I needed a break from the RV culture and SAJC simply would not give it to me.

So I transferred to ACJC. There were a few RV people there... initially due to some reasons, i doubted if i wanted to stay after the first 3 months. but anyway, i did. For a while i wanted to enter NJC.. glad i did not. i subsequently ran for council and got it..

My term in council really changed my life and my outlook on things. If my 6 months as a class chairperson had an impact, council really transformed my life. I continued returning to support AC related events until very recently. (i dunno if i will be going for Red Blue Gold and Fun-O-Rama this year though....)

memories of my secondary school days

so it seems that i have not updated my blog in quite a while. well, actually, i have, but they are all saved as drafts... my musings about issues close to my heart.. all never to be published, never to see the light of day.

this post is dedicated to my four years in River Valley High School...

back then in primary school, like everyone my calibre (i was among the top students back then), i wanted to go to RI. of course, when reality check stepped in in primary 6... i could have entered chinese high but guess mum was uncomfortable with the idea of me going to an all-boys school. so i chose RV, and got in quite comfortably.

i can still remember my first day in RV. i still remember how unfamiliar i felt, and on hindsight, having known the school building for a whopping 8 years (till it was torn down last year), how much of a greenhorn i must have been then. but well everyone goes through this stage i guess...

i can still remember that on the first day of school in 1997, my school uniform was not ready yet. so i wore my Pei Hwa uniform for the very last time... And i remember how i was very curious about the different levels of insignias worn by the student councillors... and how to put on the buttons for the uniform. (As they still are, the school uses metal buttons which are to be held in place by a small metal ring. Of course, now the school uniform has changed supplier (and hence quality.. which sadly meant that it looks less smart now.)

The school song was in chinese, just like my primary school song... and I had two of my primary school classmates who followed me up to my secondary 1 and 2 class.

Of course, the highlight of my secondary school life was joining St John Ambulance Brigade, a whole post of which shall be dedicated to that.

In sec 1 we were supposed to have swimming lessons at Pandan Swimming Complex (i think it's closed down by now, anyway)... and i couldn't forget the technical lessons in 1st semester and home econs lessons in the 2nd. (apparently now it has changed to technical in sec1 and home econs in sec2... well much better..) the art lessons also.. back then they were conducted by this guy who was rumored to be a certified artist. After school activities were fun too, and it was during that time that I really got into computer stuff, Internet, e-mailing and all that. I ever set up a homepage on Angelfire and another on Geocities... but obviously both are defunct by now...

My first two years were very enjoyable years of learning subjects across a large spectrum of disciplines, ranging from art to literature to maths and sciences. But i regret not spending enough time on my maths and sciences, because...

When the time came to opt for subject combination, i opted for triple science and geography, which i was assigned. Back then, the system in RV meant that it was compulsory for every upper sec pupil to do english, higher chinese, pure physics, pure chemistry, E and A maths, and two other subjects of his or her choice. Choices included English Lit, Chinese Lit, History, Geography and those good in the maths and sciences can take Biology... together with the criteria of average of A2 overall to do 9 subjects. Well i didn't get A2 overall, but I could still do 8 subjects which meant triple science and geography. My maths and science were just a few marks below A2.

I was supposed to be in 3D'99... then the fateful day came that Mdm Teo, the then HOD of Maths called me and said that due to my maths results, i am not qualified to do biology. after some negotiation, i was reassigned to English Lit and Geography (Sec 3K.) Later i was to realise that 3C was a class purely meant for PRC students, and everyone did triple science together with C Lit and something else. Of course, the maximum class size was 36, and that meant that some more had to spill over to 3D. I may have mentioned this in an earlier blog post - they took out some local students, and yours truly was one of them.

Now i regret playing too much during my secondary school days, spending too much time on SJAB and unhelpful activities, but anyway what's done is done... I will never know if i would have went into medicine or life sciences, or perhaps chem or bio engineering, if i had stayed with triple science.

In sec 3 i did the unthinkable, at least in a chinese school context. I volunteered to take on the role of class chairperson. Obviously, that was an unpopular decision as I was soon met with resistance from every quarter of the class. And I need not mention the vulgar references to myself on freevote.com, back then the avenue for venting frustations / opinions / etc. I survived long enough in the post, before i was finally removed halfway through my term... and that earned me a reputation in the whole school.. notwithstanding the fact that i was only one of two boys in SJAB. But I can boldly look back at those 6 months in my life. Uncomfortable and trying a period that was. But I am glad I went through it. It played a part in my personal development. Even my mother commented that before i took up the position, i was quiet, introverted and reserved. But i became more outspoken after i assumed the post.

And back then, I was nominated for the post of a student councillor, which i was really enthusiastic about. But in the end, I did not get it. I was devastated. But life still had to go on... and i went on to sec4.

perhaps i should note something interesting here... except for sec1, each year i ended the year as the class Pupil Service Head. A LOBO post. I wasn't surprised when i returned for relief teaching that it had been scrapped. Much better for one of the reps (IRP rep, Green rep, etc) to concurrently hold the head position. in sec2, i continued with my post of history/geography rep, which i wanted to step down from. and finally i managed to. sec3, i already mentioned that i was chairperson, and became pupil service head after that. well for sec4, i just assumed pupil service head. probably my classmates already felt it was a LOBO post, so they didn't really object to it. but i was aware anyway that i was the prima donna that they disliked. but it was because my outlook and way of doing things was really incompatible with the culture in RV. And i've learnt that people normally do not like others who are different from them. But that's been covered before anyway...

I remember that i was the only one that year to attain the National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) Silver. To this day I still wear the badge on my SJAB uniform. I've applied for Gold, and am working on it, but I do not know if I will complete it before I reach 25...

Might i add that in sec3, my class was taught by a slew of relief / contract teachers for physics. As a result, our grades were not so good. Then, after the end of year exams, to our horror back then Mrs Lee Lee Mui was deployed to teach us. She pushed us very hard, to our limits even, but I wound up getting an A1 for Physics, and i attribute this to her... So RV students reading this, yes you may hate her like anything but in the end, you will be grateful to her. Just adopt the right attitude...

booth setting at YJC

yesterday was quite a long day for me. in the morning had MA1506 lecture again, and the content is really beginning to pick up. oh man.... guess 2nd upper isn't as easy as it seems... maybe police force is not for me next time.

anyway, today was the highlight of all the planning that my team had been doing so far - a trip to YJC to publicise Raffles Hall to them. Well, the trip went well although the response was very poor as this is not the period of time that JC students would be interested in NUS and Hall life. We did give out a few prospectus, though.

I returned to an empty RH. Why is that so? because the whole hall was out for IHG Opening ceremony. Someone commented that this year's IHG T-shirt looked silly, and I replied that "well the whole point of wearing silly T shirts is that everyone wears it together :P" (I'm quite inclined to say the same thing about the HOBTC batch T-shirt, but doing so would denigrate the efforts that Thomas and Shihui had put in to get the T-shirt out. Anyway it's not too bad, although now I have three black polo T-shirts in my wardrobe, and wearing them with black trousers - which I do for my St John half-U - makes me look like a security guard or a bouncer.)

Well, as per previous years, we didn't do very well, finishing only in front of KE7. (In fact there were a couple of events where we even lost to KE7). Someone commented that 'even in the face of losing.. there is always KE7'..

I feel that the whole IHG thing is a vicious cycle. When KE7 and Raffles perform poorly in IHG, they are unable to attract the talented sportspeople (who get 'imported' by Eusoff, Temasek etc.) Therefore, they

Something must be done to break the cycle. I heard that PGP wanted to join in but couldn't due to some problems. Perhaps the Residences could come in and give the sports halls a run for their money. In fact, I was discussing with some friends over breakfast today that perhaps, those sportspeople who get kicked out of Eusoff, etc may end up playing for PGP and toppling Eusoff... possibilities are endless.

Perhaps the introduction of PGP into IHG could add a different dimension to IHG... Because frankly speaking, no one really gives a damn about how good a hall is in other areas like cultural or academic or whichever. IHG is still the most tanglible yardstick to measure how good (or how lacking) a hall is.

tyco today.. i nearly lost my phone

today i nearly lost my phone. basically i was going down to RV in a taxi, and i was wearing trackpants (the kind that has no zip.) well guess what, it slipped out of my pocket and i didn't notice it until after i came down to RV.

Good thing I asked the driver for a receipt, and I had the taxi number, a very important piece of information when a phone is lost in a taxi. I managed to get the driver's contact, and i got my phone back within half an hour.

I would like to thank Mr Wahab for taking the trouble to return me the phone. I would also like to thank the RV girl at the payphone who lent me her pencil to copy down the details that were being given to me over the phone... haha i didn't bring any pen along that time...

saw the jokers again. no mood to argue with them, but they again started harping on the same old issues. whatever...

and btw i successfully bidded MNO1001! Praise God! i realised that it only went for 50 points whereas i bidded 500. doesn't matter cos the surplus points would be refunded to me. i didn't get GEK1521, but anyway the exam is on the same day as MA1506 which is not good at all. I'll bid a non exam module instead.

Yesterday's training

Yesterday I took cab to NUS for nothing. Was supposed to have a brifing on the upcoming Berkelah trip at 11am, so i rushed down, but as ppl were late here and there the briefing started only at 11.30am. darnit, $8 down the drain when it could have been $2. Mistake number one. And mistake number two, was that i wore my St John half-uniform down for what was essentially an NPCC briefing. Not that bad actually, but quite paiseh.

Anyway that earned me the arrow as the first aider (ok lah, not exactly arrow lah, i kind of like it anyway...got to know a new friend yixian! hehe...)

after the whole thing ended, i went down to hall to do my bidding! turned out it's still round 1b, so couldn't bid for mno1001 and gek yet. but i really have to secure the module this sem, if i am to have any hope of doing the business master's next time.

after that i went back to rvhs to help out in the rehearsal for the 50th anniversary parade. it was good, just that got a few cock ups here and there.. but anyway everything turned out fine in the end. today there's another rehearsal, hope to iron out all the kinks by then...

after the parade, settled some admin stuff with the NCO committee including resolving a problem within the corps that took up quite a bit of time. but in the end it was okay, i had more understanding of the problem.

oh, my mum got a third cat. it's a six week old kitten and she has decided to name it Mog Mog, after her first pet which died many years ago.

Memories of 2005

If there was to be any turning point in my life, it would be this year. Start of this year, I was still languishing in NS pushing papers and whatnot. No doubt I was a 'lao cheow' by then, but I was still enslaved under the system of national slavery. All until the great day of 050505 when I finally regained my freedom which cam with my Pink IC...

2005 was also the year I (very briefly) got into MLM. As a result I lost money. Painful lesson learnt from that..

I also turned 21 this year and had a brief celebration, nothing much but just a brief celebration with my friends. A milestone in my life. At the same time, I got briefly more involved in the St John activities. One of them is the 45th Anniversary, pictures of which are found here.

I also had the privilege of going back to my alma mater to do relief teaching. It was an experience that confirmed my wish to enter the teaching service in future.

And who can forget, 2005 was also the year I joined NUS. And boy, it's a brand new experience for me. After a hiatus of 2 and a half years, it was back to studies. I didn't do too badly, but not too well either.

I also had a taste of hall life - staying in Raffles Hall for my first academic year gave me a chance to show independence from my parents and also to get to know more friends in a communual environment...

And of course, I passed my driving test - the same age at which my father passed his.
Near the end of the year, I joined NPCC... It was met with some resistance at first but after a while, it was okay. I thought of going back to my alma mater as well, but decided not to for two reasons: so as to minimise any conflict of interest between RV NPCC and RV SJAB and also because I would rather the former CIs/cadets go down as it will be fairer to them and to the unit itself.

However, the two weeks of Honorary Officers' Basic Training Course (HOBTC) were indeed the time of my life. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed the training and made many new friends there.. to name a few, michelle, shihui, jiefang, shiyun (all gals huh.. haha.. ok name some guys) - david, jordan, guo jun, kelvin (2 of them), tianming, collin, etc (ok ah, i am not chee hong by only naming the gals..haha...)

Actually, this time of my life naturally brings to mind a question of whether i have met the girl yet. I really dunno. There is someone now but i do not know whether she is the one. All i know is that she is unattached, so i won't be ruffling any feathers i hope.. but i don't wish for this relationship to bomb out like my previous (and only) one...

She has been called by different names. Start with A also got, start with C also got, start with H also got, start with I also got, start with K also got, start witk M also got... but at the end of the day, most of them are just fleeting emotions that are not likely to last. That was the mistake i made with my first relationship that i am not about to repeat. I want my next relationship to last. Preferably a lifetime.

I have decided that for CCA wise, I will exclusively be a uniformed groups person. NPCC, and St John will be what I will be doing for enrichment.

a day devoted to St John... after a long break

after about 3 months of not touching anything related to St John, i was finally back in action today.

i knew from Shiwei that there was going to be a parade for the 50th anniversary next year and that the whole programme would start early today. so i went down to just take a look at how things were going.

during the parade rehearsal, some of the teachers asked me if i know the flag drills, which i did. they promptly asked me to help train the flag party for the parade. it turned out that there would be a flag party comprising of the house flags and the flags of the individual uniformed groups. so i did my best. it helped that the HO course did refresh my skills on MOI and all that, and it seems that the flag party were able to catch what i was saying.

i had a chat with the new officers and am glad that we have de-conflicted our areas of responsibility within the corps. also met up with the sec4s who will be going on to JC. none of them are forthcoming about going to OTC next year, which is okay, but i hope at least one or two will take the plunge, as we need them to help stand in for the officers who will be taking their A levels next year.

i also got to know that quite a number of RV-ians will be going to ACJC next year, and this had been the trend since last year as the incumbent second-choice JC, SAJC will be shifting to an inconvenient location in Potong Pasir next year. Previously, the number of RV-ians who went to ACJC instead of SAJC could be counted on the fingers of one or two hands. Now I got to know that there are quite a lot of them, but they are those who could not make it to NJC...

later on mrs yeow asked me to help get the flag slings for the whole flag party. turned out that Mr Kam, the guy whom I bought from in 2000 had closed down. i was able to get them for half the price though, at another shop run by a couple whom i knew since my cadet days. the teachers were evidently pleased that we were able to get it for so cheap. however it seems that now, they are including a flag bearer from each cca, and a school flag. that would be tough as they probably don't know drills. but it can be done.. i am sure of that.


after going to lavendar to order the flag slings, i went down to clementi town for their SJAB 25th anniversary celebration. it was a simple affair - a barbeque, with neither the pomp and pageantry of a ceremonial parade nor the formality of invited guests. The barbeque was followed by a prize presentation and speeches by the OIC and TOIC of clementi town corps. after that, i went for a drink with some of my fellow officers before going home.

on the train, i bumped into Andrew who was in uniform for the last time! he ORDs tomorrow. congratulations, Andrew!