Okay, finally a test which I felt I didn't screw up. Today's maths CCT was much easier than I thought it would be, and I actually (finally) managed to complete all the questions properly and have time to check. I dunno what i'm going to get, but my expectations are 75% and above. Ok, special thanks goes to:
1) Christian, who helped me explain all the math questions that I don't know during history lessons when he sits beside me
2) Jian Xiong, who sits beside me and explains the maths question i don't know during maths period, when we cannot anyhow move about
3) Shang Xuan, who so suddenly enlightened me yesterday night over msn on quadratic functions
4) Deborah for her good luck message
5) Myself for my mugging

However, most of all, I must THANK Ms Peh (or Mrs Tan) our maths teacher. She's the BEST maths teacher in the world, and will certainly help you to understand all the concepts so effortlessly, SO effortlessly that I had to go to my fellow more trustworthy friends for help. I think Ms Peh's method of teaching is to encourge self learning, something that everyone does for maths in 3D, thats why half the class sleeps during maths. Let me give you an example seen in every single lesson.

Ok class, do question no. N, I give you 5 minutes.
20 seconds later, she shows us the answer.

What the hell, perhaps only 1 or 2 people have finished the question, and since I'm someone who is very slow at grasping concepts (but will pwn the moment I get enlightened) I will need the 5 minutes to do that question. Anyway, half the times her answer are wrong, and we'll have to correct it for her.

Let me show you a result of her teaching:
In the last Topical Assessment (set C), the one on Quadratic Functions. Guess how much I got. Full marks is 13.

13? Wrong (thanks for looking so highly of me)
10? Wrong (hint I screwed up big time)
5? Wrong (close but people like me definitely could score so much BETTER under such a good teacher like Ms Peh)
3? Ok. Actually I got 3.5 But those people that took set C will know that the last question is void and so everyone got 3 giveaway marks.

Therefore, I got 0.5 / 13 for the test.

So how well do you think Ms Peh teaches? On a scale of 0 to 13, 13 being the best, I give her a score of 0.5 / 13

In my last post, I wrote, "I must be the luckiest guy on Earth to break my cello 3 days before SYF."

Today morning, I thought otherwise. Zhao Kai is luckier than me to lose his concert attire on the day of SYF.

But he got spare shirt from Adriel, spare pants from Adi, and spare socks and shoes from Matthew. Case closed. So lucky, seriously. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting to be screwed by Mr. Sze.

Therefore, I am still the luckiest guy in the world to break my cello 3 days before SYF.

Ok.. Lets talk about SYF...

We've got bronze

Just kidding... Obviously we've got the HONOURS!!!! Poor band. Their judging was super strict. Out of the ~150 schools, only like 2-3 schools got honours. For string ensembles, out of the 12 schools, 5 got honours.

Here are the results:
1. Dunman Secondary -- Bronze
2. ACS(I) -- Gold with Honours (damn!!!)
3. Raffles Institution -- GOLD WITH HONOURS!!
4. Raffle Girls school -- Gold (poor thing* read below)
5. CHIJ St. Nicks -- Gold with Honours (damn)
6. Nanyang Girls High -- Gold with Honours
7. Methodist Girls School -- Gold
8. St. Margaret's -- Bronze
9. Tanjong Katong Girls School -- Silver
10. Nan Chiau High -- Gold(woah)
11. Dunman High -- Gold with Honours
12. Chinese High -- Gold

It is arranged in order of appearance, but I might be wrong. I don't really know the schedule for the later part. I would also like to add a note here: NEVER PLAY MOZART FOR SYF, ESPECIALLY THE BLOODY EINE KLEINE!

*I really sympathise with RGS. They are a good ensem, they didn't get the honours both time. Today, they are the only school to leave the hall right after they finish playing, and when they got back, they received a scolding from their teacher in charge, Sylvia Khoo, who said that their attitude sucks and they should have gotten a silver instead. They had to go for lessons when they went back to school too. Haiz...

The gold with honours award for strings is cheapened. ACS and Dunman shouldn't have gotten it. Dunman's playing is surprisingly boring, and ACS pieces are nice because it already has a nice melody in it. They played carmen fantasy. According to my seniors, their techniques sucks, and they rush. St Nicks played well, but crap... I was hoping my sister's school didn't get the honours so that i can suan her. Damn!! Last of all, Nanyang got honours, and they really deserved it. I think they were the best ensemble around today, cos we screwed up some parts. Most importantly, their conductor is the same as ours. Haha, Mr. Sze is the ownage. All his 3 schools got honours, the 3rd one being Victoria JC. Hat trick!!

Okay, now I should talk about negative stuff. They stage crew this year was like crap!! Yunfei left the conductor's baton on the stand, the next 2 schools can laugh at RI for their stupidity and Mr. Sze couldn't use it to rehearse with Nanyang. Secondly, the scores were all placed in the wrong place, even though they had numbers on them. Thirdly, the cello stoppers were placed in the smartest way ever --- Upside down. I mean, who doesn't have the common sense to put a stopper the right side up? Don't they know that the hole is for the cello spike and not for facing the ground? Lastly, Jon Yu, the guy who was supposed to be Mr. Sze's personal assistant was so ineffective that Mr. Sze has to do things himself.

We kinda screwed up our playing on stage. My hands were freezing and sweating at the same time. Our playing was certainly not our best, and were quite scared too while waiting for our results. But the point is we got it (guitar ensem got it too) and everyone's happy.

Hurray!

I must be the luckiest guy on Earth to break my cello 3 days before SYF.

Today is one of my favourite days: Wednesday!

Reason: Cause we have RE, which I actually 2 hours of slacking. Since ms goh our mentor was having lessons, we had an early lunch, which saved us the trouble of squeezing with the long queue during lunch time. Then, my RE group went to the computer lab in the design centre and I played Dota using Dennis' 2GB thumbdrive. Now tell me, how can Wednesdays not rock?!

Rehearsal was after that, in LT1. Mr. Sze left after an hour, and handed to our concert master Shawn. Remember in my last post I said that sectionals totally pwn rehearsals with Shawn? This one was not bad, cos people actually started respecting him more and cooperating. Anyway, at one point of time, he said that for the rehearsal to run smoothly, refrain from talking. Respect him more. If you got anything to point out, say it in 5 seconds. An alternative will be to tell the section leader, who can then say it in 10 seconds.

Thus, Matthew, our dear section head (different from section leader; that's Adriel) took out a foolscap paper and wrote:
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TO ADRIEL CHANG:Say this in 5 seconds.

Your idea of respect is that you already have earned it. -Matthew
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Then, he passed it down for people to write what they want to say. So here goes.

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Agreed. -Hong Rui-

Oo? -Kai Cheng

Get Jonathan Koh (standing up; viola section leader) to have sectionals with them (the violas, whom shawn is currently having "sectionals" with). And Matthew, lend me rosin. Should get him moving on at 5.30pm -Jon Shin-

You (Shawn) could also explain yourself more. 1) Why u think spending so much time is worth the importance on 1 section / 1 place 2)Please talk louder, room very small big, I very faw away, even if all shaddup very hard to hear -Matthew-

MATTHEW: WAR!!! -John Lee-

MATTHEW: WAR!!! -John Lee- --> Matthew said that!! :( -John Lee- (the real one. -->

MATTHEW: WAR!!! -John Lee- --> Matthew said that!! :( -John Lee- (the real one. --> My ass. -Matthew

The basses need some exercise -Zhao Kai-

I pass this paper around 15 minutes already. Still no nid to touch my instrument (Shawn is still having "sectionals") -Matthew-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then adriel drew references back to some parts in front. Here:
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TO ADRIEL CHANG:Say this in 5 seconds.

Your idea of respect is that you already have earned it. -Matthew-

I don' get it man. Explain yourself-Adriel-

U walk in front tell everyone they shaddup, where u "command" like u own the world. -Jon Shin-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The conversation continued:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adi finally looks rather normal -Yiyang-

Pass me this paper at the end. I wanna blog. Houyes, cellorocker.blogspot.com -Hong Rui (duh)-
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And so here it is, it's quite random. But when the concert master is having "sectionals" with other people, it is actually good to keep yourself occupied. The other sections are mostly playing handphone games, smsing, sleeping, dreaming, etc. Only the cello section pwns. Visit us at rise-cellos-.blogspot.com or simply click on the link on the right

Just had sectionals in school at the design centre till 7.30. I personally think that sectionals are better than rehearsals, or rather shawn neo's rehearsals. Half the time he will be like doing sectionals with the violins, then all the cellists will put down their instruments and jon shin will start organising all sorts of games. Anyway, adriel said that if we play like shit for the sectionals, he will give us a 1-hour break, if we are not bad, then he will give us a 1.5-hour break.

Of course he was just joking. We had a half an hour break, which we used to play soccer in the tennis court. It started raining (so timely) and so we need to stop. Thus, we moved over to right outside the design centre glass door and used the green benches as goal posts. After quite a while, Mr. Romi suddenly came out from the gym and stopped us playing. He asked what CCA we were from, and said that he will talk to Ms Hazel Shen. I dun think anything will happen anyway, cos Ms Shen never gets angry (SO FAR).

Mr Romi then look at the soccer prints on the walls, and asked if those were made by us. We denied and said that those were already there when we came, but he said the prints look quite fresh to him. We denied it again, and he walked away, saying that he will speak to Ms Shen tomorrow.

So immediately after that, we went to the toilet and got lots of tissue paper to clean up the walls. Haha, destroying evidence. :-) Sectionals went on as usual after that.

Ok. Finally, congratulations to RICO for getting a gold for their SYF. Great improvement from the silver they got last time. Ms Lim SH should be jumping with joy now. Hope she doesn't get stuck. Anyway, RISE will rise above the rest as usual and clinch the gold with honours award and pwn all the other schools. Houyes! See this?

That's what we'll get man.

Track N Field Finals

Houyes, Bayley pawned the rest of the houses at today's finals. I couldn't cheer loudly cos I had a sore throat, but my heart was with the house, and managed to clinch the top spot once again like we did in 2005. The Bayley EXCO of 2005 also came to support us...

UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE. Everyone was thinking of skipping this event to go home and play com, including me, INITIALLY. Those weaklings from Raffles Voices actually had their teacher to ask the school to exempt them from the finals, the reason: They can't cheer, cos they needa save their beautiful (*ahem) voices for SYF. Can't they just go and support without cheering? The school later turned down their excuse and said that they must go for the finals.

However, some people like DENNIS still decided to skip it. for what reason? Oh, I had a REALLY bad stomachache, or etc. etc. Man.. I'm so pissed.

Anyway, enough of flaming. RICO is having their SYF tomorrow. Good luck to them! Hoped that they can come back with at least a gold, to make up for that upset 2 years ago where they came back with a silver.