GPA
3.53, 3.60, 3.23, 3.56.
These are the noobish GPAs which I have acquired over the past 4 years, and as you can see its some sort of a curve with a maximum stationary point at sec 2 and a minimum point at sec three. Honestly I must say that I am quite disappointed, particularly in my last 2 years, not just because I got owned by Dennis, but also because I failed to reach my go beyond my sec two 3.6 grade. Sigh, I only have myself to blame.
Recreation
This is actually closely linked with my GPA. In sec 1 and 2, I was exposed to DotA, but lower sec work is quite chicken-feet and I wasn’t particularly addicted so I had no problems there. In secondary 3, I started to play DotA a lot more, and even wasted lots of time online reading guides and waking up at night at 2am just to play DotA. Thus, it was in sec 3 when I started to not do homework at home because I spend all the time reading online DotA guides -.- I was honestly quite addicted already.
2 things cropped subsequently, which are 武侠小说 and Rubik’s cube. During the sec 3 June hols, I started having some craze about Chinese Swordsman fiction, and was averaging a book a day. It took me away from DotA, which is actually a good thing, but it made me continue reading when school reopens, this time under my table.
Coupled with this newfound technique of doing things under my table, I was introduced to yet another item – Rubik’s cube. This craze was even worse than the previous 2, and I really spent literally all my free time on it >.< It took me away from my武侠小说 craze, but also plunged my GPA to an unprecedented low.
Sec 4. I started reading武侠小说 during the Dec hols and it continued until the start of term 2, where I started getting hooked on a new item – Facebook. The “My Heroes Ability” application really kept me hooked all the way, and I was playing until my Hero was among the top 200 in the world and top in RI already -.- By the time I got a hold on myself and quitted the stupid application, it was already end of term 3. Much as I tried, I only managed to pull my GPA from 3.33 up to a 3.56, falling a little short of my already-revised target of 3.60.
Sighs.
In 15 days time, we are all going into JC. I really hope Sudoku doesn’t keep my addicted like every else once more >.<
SCRABBLE
I first joined the competition in sec 2, with Dennis, David, Sean and Lennard. On the competition day, Sean and Lennard forgot to come, leaving Dennis, David and I to try our luck at the competition with at least 2 walkovers to our opponents for every match.
We played North Vista sec in the first round and won 3-2. In the second round, we repeated the score, and in the final preliminary round, we played Yishun town sec and got trashed horribly 0-5.
In sec 3, Dennis and I joined Kenneth’s team, together with Thomas and Junlin. Breezed through the first 2 rounds, but lost to St. Nicks 1-4 in the third, halting our progress at the preliminaries again.
Finally in sec 4, my team, with Kenneth, Thomas, Xuewen and Haiwei were put in a noob team and so we finally made it into the finals for once, where we happily trounced everyone 24-1 to become Champions.
Perfect Cadence ending. But since there isn’t a JC category, I guess Scrabble stops here.
RE
Sec 1 was just a nice trial.
Sec 2’s music RE project on Mozart was quite a flop because I was the main guy doing everything.
Sec 3’s RE project on MozART was quite good, but we ended our run at the RE semi-finals.
Sec 4’s music RE project with Jon Shin on National Day Songs appeared to be quite good at the start, but looked set to be a flop towards the end. Then we were all going to give up, but Ms Shen stubbornly wanted us to get everything done and put up the stupid performance where the AV guys pangsei-ed us and forgot to put the lyrics down. But thanks to her stubbornness, coupled with Ben Low’s help, (Jon Shin’s timely overseas trip during the hectic RE submission week, Bryan’s blurness and laziness) and me staying over at ArtSpace to rush the orchestration for like over 10 hours straight, the project was quite a success and we got a silver award.
=D
CSCO
I’m a “regular guest player” who goes back and play for them whenever their annual concert is coming. In sec 2, I went there with my sis, and stuck together all the way because we didn’t know anyone else there.
In sec 3, Wanchien approached me because she saw me playing the cube, and I made more friends there and played bridge with them. 2007 concert was possibly the best experience among the 3 years with CSCO. That concert was really just unforgettable.
By 2008, I’m already sort of a “familiar face” there, so it wasn’t as bad as my sec 2 year. But still, other than my sis, there wasn’t a lot of people I knew and interacted with, so the experience wasn’t that enjoyable.
But overall, I really enjoyed playing all the CO pieces, and the 2007 experience particularly has been really really great
RISE
Alas, my dear CCA.
Sec 1 was rather fun. The seniors had SYF and Mr. Sze asked Timothy to lead us in being stagehands. Then, like Mao Zedong, he gave us some super inspirational speech and empowered us, saying that we are a really really really important and integral part of RISE, and RISE needs us to make SYF a success. That really blew us over, especially Jianyang (aka Lumpy), and so he started becoming super enthu in every single RISE thing, taking Mr. Sze’s wish as his command. But SYF was a success and everyone was happy.
After SYF, as early as May we sec 1s were involved in our first concert where we just played a funny Elgar serenade and faked at the last row. Then we had another concert at the end of the year which featured imba Jinghui’s imba-er brother, Shanghui. That concert was essentially Mendelssohn, and I kept practicing the Hebrides piece because I really loved it <3 But I did not get to play it in the end, because I was assigned to play only in the first half, reason being that I failed Mr. Sze's assessments.
It was really quite unfair lor T.T Four of us together in the LT, Jon Shin was first, and asked to play C major scale. Then Zhaokai and Kaicheng were asked to play G major and D major, all of which I could play. Then I was last and was asked to play Eb major, which I stumbled and forgot. After that Mr. Sze tested Jon Shin chromatic scales and he managed to do it using some weird fingering, and Mr. Sze thought that Jon Shin was damn pro and never tested anyone else chromatic scales, when actually I knew how to play using the correct fingering -.- Yeah so I was like the worst cellist lah blech ><
Sec 2 was still quite fun. We had 3 new sec 1s which were totally ugh, and Matthew particularly favoured the geeky looking Jon yu. There was another concert, Prokofiev Symphony no. 1 “classical”, but as usual I did not get to play that favourite piece because once again I was assigned to play in the first half.
And then there was another concert, featuring Pucinella suite and Jupiter symphony. Jupiter symphony by Mozart is the really cool piece, and finally for once I was playing in the second half of the concert, except that this time everyone else was playing in the first half too except for me. Can you imagine how saddening it is? Really.
There was one more concert after that, featuring many cool cello pieces, including Tchaikovsky’s Roccoco variations and Villa-Lobos cello octet piece. I thought maybe I wasn’t that bad as I was playing at cello #7, until I found out the #7’s part is actually easier than #8, which Jon Shin was taking… Sighs, I’m still the worse guy here.
Sec 3. The new exco dominated by cellists was great. 3 seniors, each one with their own unique personality which blends together to give the cello section that disciplined, rigid, pro, and yet fun character. Cellists were dominating in every sphere, from rehearsals, to sectionals, to soccer. In a masterful 5v5 cellos versus 2nd violins (led by Jinghui) soccer match, Jon and I scored 5 goals apiece to trash the violins 12-5 and showed them who was boss.
Camp was fun, because I was part of the organizing committee, even though out of the 2 games I planned, 1 was an amazing flop. Thereafter, elections were held and the new exco was selected. It was quite disappointing though
Always, and I mean always, after elections, the sec 4 batch will split into 2 groups, and 1 group will start being anti-RISE, and they are mainly made up of people who ran for posts during elections and did not get voted in. Haiz, I still continued being in RISE as the happy enthu person with a 400% attendance record.
mesmeRISE concert wasn’t really anything much, but it was probably the most memorable concert I had in my 4 years because I played as a solo, combated stage fright, and was involved as a “sub-solo” in Vivaldi’s Double cello concerto 2nd movement as the third cellist =D Basically I was section leader for that minute piece, but it was my only chance as a SL in my 4 years.
Sec 4 was really sucky. Rehearsal felt boring, and I realized I was constantly looking at the time on my handphone. Our batch was quite divided, and people ponned so much and Mr. Sze instilled “enforced absence” on some people -.- Sec 4 is the year where boys grow into teenagers and realize the true meaning of Mr. Sze’s Mao-Zedong-like empowering speeches, and start to doubt the credibility of it. In the mid-year camp, we were sorta hinted as the worst batch in RISE history, and as part of the batch, it was definitely quite disappointing and saddening.
The final Renaissance concert concluded at NAFA to a nice success, but something felt missing there. It didn’t feel that… good.
4 years in RISE, I’ve completed my grade 8 cello exam, and its time to move on. Really, I’ve never regretted being in this CCA, if I had the chance to go 4 years back in time, I would continue putting RISE as my first option, just that this time I would go practise my Eb major scale, and draft and rehearse my election speech better.
MEP
Sec 1 MEP was totally phail. I remembered the Arts @ Atrium performance, where in my makeshift team of 4 members, I was the only guy who passed with 26/50 marks. Thereafter, RIMEP stopped sec 1s from having Atrium performances anymore T.T
Sec 2 and sec 3 was gradually getting more fun, like crescendo haha. Through soccer, we MEPpers bonded better and had better Chemistry to crack jokes and make MEP lessons fun and lively. A common one would be Ms Shen’s “sontata”, which she probably prepared the previous night.
Only towards the end of sec 4 did I realize that I actually treasure RIMEP a lot. Its like a separate class you had together with for 4 years, and the times you been through together is really quite memorable. The finale for the final high scorer’s concert was quite phail though haha.
Shan’t talk about ’07 high scorer’s concert. Pretend it never happened.
FRIENDS
Made many friends in my 4 years, and forged closer bonds with existing ones. I’m sure you had too =D Okay I thank all of you for being there with me and I shall just list like 20 people even though I know there are really a lot a lot more out there. Thanks guys.
Dennis (2J, 4D, MEP, NBG)
Jon Shin (RISE, MEP)
Jinghui (Rosyth, RISE, MEP)
Jian Xiong (2J, 4D, Rosyth)
Xuewen (Rosyth)
Samuel (4D, MEP)
Joshua Foong (4D, The non-Bio gang ha)
Bryan Kum (4D, NBG)
Vince (4D, NBG)
Zhixuan (RISE)
Kaicheng (RISE)
Kenneth (Rosyth)
Andrew (4D)
Ernest (4D, MEP?)
Adriel (RISE)
Matthew (RISE)
Yiyang (RISE)
Bryan Choong (Rosyth, RE)
Ben Low (RE)
Haiwei (Rosyth)
And there are many many more, including those from other schools as well.
Thanks guys, Happy New Year!
PS: I need to get used to writing my dates xx/xx/09 ><
PPS: I typed this post from last year to this year lol =P
