Random Thoughts

Came across this piece of paper which recorded my thoughts in July this yr.It was incomplete and i think i shall complete it now.

For the past few days,memories of the past kept haunting me. Frankly speaking, I could not remember what we talked abt during last yr's band camp but the scenes of the times we shared were still rather vivid. The day when you gave me the 2 ugly dolls, the night when we had our cushion fight, the day when you attempted to comfort me but did not really succeed, the nights when we shared our past and future.

I tried, really,to understand what you had gone thru based on the information given. Tried to understand your fears,your insecurities,your needs. At first, I thought i really did understand you but as time passes, I realised i don't. I failed to see that our communication last yr was based on a feeling of "allies", against a so-called common "enemy". This yr, when you leashed out your fears and insecurities, I could not really handle it. it is a far cry from what i know. But all that you exhibited are part of your character. It is just that i did not see them from the start. my life was tossed into chaos because i could not manage the fact that my life was centered round your emotions. And all that unstable mood swings affected me greatly. While i was hoping you would support me throughout the journey, I realised that in the first place, you had not wanted to be part of the journey. You did not hold strong to your faith,be steadfast and allowed your negative thoughts to affect others.

In the end, I had more than what i could handle. i had tried my best to make you feel more at home, giving in to your requests for as much as I could. At the end of the day, I was deemed "unprofessional".

Even till this day,after i had left the college,i realised i am still fighting on my own on the battlefield. I finally come to the conclusion that,no matter how hard i try,i could not change the impossible.It takes two to clap.Many pple said cos i am too strong in my character,that's y sometimes it would make others feel inferior or incompetent. My question is then, if i dun try and be strong,who would do the fighting?dun so conveniently push the blame to me and said cos my character is too strong. I was forced to be like that, not that i want it this way. Who would not want to be the person who is protected by others? Unfortunately, this is just not my destiny.

Dear Lord,

Pls give me the strength and determination to forget him, to fade away the memories, to stand firm and not be softened by his gaze, free myself from these entanglements cos i know at the end of the day, I have to succumb to reality. Let us be back to what we were in the beginning, 2 parallel lines, never will we have the chance to meet again.

There are many many thoughts going thru my mind now. Many things which i dun understand. Every time i c u,you just have the ability to mess up all my thoughts and emotions. At first when i knew abt the rumours/heresay concerning u,i gave u the benefit of a doubt. Cos unless u tell me personally,i would never believe what anyone says.Maybe if i have believed the heresay,i would have been happier. and in the end,it turns out to be the untruth.

The memories we shared kept replaying themselves in my mind for the past few days. I know there are many moments when u had been superbly unkind/mean to me,with total disregard to my feelings. U knew that as well,when u said those words to me.But u never apologised,except once,maybe cos u feel that i would understand and forgive in the end. Which i did. When u went the extra mile and did what u did in june,i was really touched cos it is the greatest gift and the only thing which u had done for me. i truly treasured what happened on that day,that night when u told me u rehearsed the whole thing, n the parting hug.

But when the fateful incident happened 2 weeks later,suddenly i realised our friendship is so fragile cos we did not recover from that hurt. a barrier was suddenly built between us. everything we told abt was just formalities. maybe in the 1st place,we did not have any friendship to fall back on.we just mistook it for friendship cos we spent lots of time together due to work. If we take the work component away,there is nothing for us to talk abt. what u had told me in the past,can be just said to anyone who comes along.

but it is too late.emotions are put in.i know why u said i'm complicating ur life.if u believe that what is haunting u is going to be an issue for me,all i can say is,it is not.but u have never asked me if i can accept it.the method u chose is to push me away.n when there are times when u cannot push me away,u let ur feelings run free.but u did not realise this hot and cold treatment is more hurting.u cannot decide for me,u need to ask me.i so wanted to tell u that u can't push me away.cos i'm stubborn,as stubborn as u. No one can change my mind if i have decided on something.If u can ignore our age differences, y does the difference in our financial status/job positions bother u so much? Why do u,like the guys i know,put pride above love?can u stop comtradicting yourself and stop letting the trivial things bother u?

Do u have any idea how difficult it is for 2 persons to meet and even develop feelings?Do u know that happiness is something that is so fragile and can slip pass so easily?u can give me all the cold shoulder you want,ignore my sms,but ur eyes dun lie.Just when i thought u have really given up,ur eyes gave u away.no matter how strong a front u put up,i see the emotions in ur eyes last week,when they followed me wherever i go,thru every actions i did. can u pls,just listen to ur heart?

I cannot let go of my own happiness. U can tell me how wonderful other guys are,but u are not me.u are the only one i want to be with.Do u understand,seriously?If one day,my heart goes cold,my hopes are all dashed,my waiting becomes history,would u truly be happy?If this is the outcome u want to c,i can force myself to do it,all u need to do is just say it.I will do it if u say it,but i will NEVER forgive u. NEVER.

Band Journey (Part 2)
With every new batch comes new challenges. It is like starting all over again,learning and understanding the needs of the students. It has always been a norm to have SAS and SPS boys in the band.Somehow,the "dislike" the boys in these 2 schools had for each other is also part of the tradition. And one of the challenge is to try and neutralise this dislike.

This feeling was quite evident from 2004-2005 but being matured JC students, it did not escalate into a fight,although i still remembered there was one night,ard 9pm(i cannot remember why i'm in Potong Pasir at that time,though sajc was in Malan Rd,neither can i recall why i'm still in school at this ungodly hour!),i received a call from my JCians asking me to stop a fight between a SAS and SAJC boy. My God! I was like, i would most probably be tau pok by them cos both had fiery temper n when pple get into fights, they are not really the most rational pple on earth.

So i ran all the way to SAS and by the time i got there,thank god,things were rather under control.This is one of the excitement u get being a band teacher :P

Of cos,not forgetting the time when we had NO tuba players at all and we had to perform for the ASEAN Games Closing Ceremony. u can imagine how angry Pringles was. In the end,we had to borrow tuba players from SAS to tide us thru this crisis. This is one learning point tho.

And there was this cleaning up session,painting the walls and writing the motto on the walls.The christmas decoration,the snowflaky snowman on windows. The birthday celebrations as well.

Then there was SYF again. The practices at the central plaza in the evening to get Merry Widow right. The goosebumps. The standing ovation on Presentation Night.The beautiful photo given to teachers during band dinner, a photo taken before the 2 batches(2004-2005 and 2005-2005) leave SAS for Presentation Night,taken at SAS basketball court :) 2004 batch is the batch that started the band blog to strengthen the ties of the band family :)

we had a all guys team for 2005 leadership. the batch was very vocal n independent.They loved to play a lot.I always remember them requesting for bonding sessions and got turned down by the main tic then :P n i have a really whiny Percussion Section SL but everything he does it is for the good of his Section :) i remembered spending lots of time after school with them,on non-official band prac days cos within them,the sense of "band family" was strongly felt. their seniors had passed down the "family" concept well to them and they had took it up. We had potluck sessions at eugene's house and peace's house as well.It was really nice n fun!I missed those sessions :)

Of cos there was also an incident when our annual band concert fell on elections day.dun know y so "lucky" lah but the P then wanted us to change the date. So the band had a dialogue session with P just outside the General Office. P was upset by the level of immaturity n in the end we had to change the concert date. The leaders n the band were upset by this final decision but we had to abide by it,tho actually i dun really understand y we had to change it :P that's y i think sometimes when the main tic talk to me,he felt like vomitting blood :P

The band trip to Brisbane was fun and i swear,my band made me take the damn scary Scooby-Doo ride.it was so spooky and the roller coaster was indoors. It moved backwards!omg!and when it moved down the rail,the surrounding was pitch dark,u cannot even see your fingers in front of u and the BEST part was coaster would come to sudden stop at sharp bends!i SWEAR i lost 5yrs of my life span then and then there is this camera to take photo of ur terrified faces.All of us bought a photo(i was "forced" to buy for all) and it was framed in a keychain. I still have that keychain in my drawer :) so news of my "fright" spread and then suddenly everyone come asking to take the ride with them.But of cos, i did not :P

This was actually a combined band trip for all of pringles' school.So we had combined performances.It was really a fun trip. I shared a room with my girls and every night,i cooked supper for them,made them eat fruits and my boys played a prank on the ex-president who went with us. It was sooooo Funny!!!!

one of the funniest incident i remembered was the night when pringles invited all the teachers to dinner at ralph hulgren's house. I did not go cos i volunteered to stay n look after the students. the truth is i dun really like this type of socialising. so the main tic went. that's y we went crazy.reagan,eugene,junjie came to my room with one of the male teachers who went with us.we played heart attack in my room. the rules then was lights out is at 10pm.so we played and forgot the time.then suddenly,there was a knock on our door and OMG!the main tic was back with curry chicken made by pringles. knowing that they would be in trouble cos we broke 2 rules: we played beyond 10pm and we played card games, the boys went to hide in my bedroom. and the male teacher n i hid the cards behind our back. so the main tic came in and annouced there was curry chicken. the mouths of the greedy boys in my bedroom,upon hearing the words "curry chicken",started to water and they secretly told me they wanted to eat. So in a relaxed manner, i told the main tic that i had something to show him. I opened the bedroom door and we all burst out laughing cos he actually did not know there are pple hiding in my room(actually it is quite easy for him to know cos we forgot to hide the slippers at the main door)

After all the hiding,we realised that it was not even 10pm yet! But it was really hilarious and it is one of the memories that i would always cherish.we had lots of fun on this trip :) that's y i always love to bring my band on trips cos it is so fun to play with them and go crazy together,doing all the nonsensical stuff. Of cos,there are times when we need to be serious lah,which we did when the moment arise. Oh,i still remember the bazaar at Griffith University, the scenery by the river. it was sooo serene and calm :) How i wish i can go there again! A bit sad that i cannot bring my 2010 batch to HK this yr :( I'm sure it would be just as fun with all the shopping and disneyland stuff :)

Band Journey(Part 1)

The band is the 2nd CCA i joined after being in sa for one year. That was in 2003.Before i even become the tic,i had heard lots of stuff abt the conductor n his temper. N it gave me a bad impression of him. So when i was put in this cca,i was rather reluctant to work with someone like that.

I was not from band,so to me,i had to learn everything from scratch. The types of instruments, the accessories,the scores, the various sections and how they worked. I started off with the admin. That time, the band was preparing for their band concert at Toa Payoh HDB Hub Auditorium. I went along. That was the 1st encounter with Mr G. As i was not the main in charge,so i dun really need to talk to him but just greet him. Later,he told me he needed to extend the rehearsal hours. Ok,i dun really know how to do it, so i went to check with my school admin n did the paperwork.

The concert was fun and the piece i loved most was "Can't take my eyes off u". Cos the way it was performed was fun. The presentation of the entire concert was unique. After the concert,it was the usual photo taking n loading of instruments. My god! the percussion instruments were real heavy!

The next event was syf. I still remember the nights when the band was rehearsing in the hall with mr g. They were playing "tales of the sea". I was memserised by the music, the goosebumps effect. On that day,i fell in love with the band. It was also on that night, Mr G came to me with a list of instruments he wanted to buy for SYF. OMG! They were like totally foreign to me. No choice, had to check with school admin again and then i realised the necessary documents required for the purchase were not in place,so had to obtain them from ccab website and learn all the procedures. N i was racing agst time cos Mr G wanted the instruments to be in within 1 week. There were like abt 8 instruments to be purchased. To me, it was a real stressful process :P

And there was a night when ganesh made his percussion section moved all percussion from the hall to the bandroom which was on the 3rd floor in 5 mins. OMG!they were running like mad but they did it!hahaha!

On the SYF Presentation Night 2003, when the name of the band was announced to perform on stage, my heart swelled with pride. Cos i believe there is no other bands that deserve to perform on the stage of the esplanade other than sajc.It was music making. Though we did not get the top band award,but the music spoke for itself.

That batch gave me the 1st gift which was a precious moment figurine and i was very touched.BUT someone from my office broke my figurine 2 years ago and no matter how hard i search in singapore,hongkong and taiwan,i just cannot the same figurine again. the pple said it is no longer in production. I was really very upset cos it hold so much value. It is the 1st gift from my 1st batch of band members......

Next,we had band dinner. I could still remember how Mr G said he would love it if his students invite him to their wedding so that he can witness their growth. How the batch dedicated their love to batch mates who were retained. It was my 1st band dinner and i had fun attending it cos i could feel the bonds among the batch mates. Oh, it was held in Carlton Hotel at $45.

The final event that moved me to tears was the stepping down of the JC2s. It was in the bandroom. The JC2s played "Twins" for their juniors. While playing,many teared. I still remember Joshua was one of them. The teachers who were present also cried. The love, the emotions that were entwined in the music. No other batch that came along played Twins like them, and Twins is no longer the passing down piece for the band.

And the other one thing i like abt the band is the band courtesy. I think it is really a tradition that needs to be kept but unfortunately it is lost.As the years go by, as the band changes with the nature of the batch, our tradition has also left us, so did a portion of the legacy even tho each band has left their mark behind, forming a part of each other's memory.

Somtimes i wonder,is it you or is it me,that dun know what we want? Have we ever thought abt where we stand, in each other's lives? Or we are just comfortable to be where we are at? if this is the case,y do u throw your tantrum at me as n when u like, without giving any thoughts for how i feel? N the irony is, y do i allow u to do it n forgive you time n again?Y do u think i know and understand you as well as u want me to?

It's weird and there seems to be nothing i can do. Cos time and again, as i reflected,what i am doing is constant with what i had been doing.But now, i am confused by your inconsistencies.

Let's take a step back and go back to square one. Maybe it would be better for both of us.It is so painful to love the right person but at the wrong place and the wrong time.

Most Memorable Birthday EVER!

The day started with lots of birthday wishes from my students n alumni. Zachary was the 1st to send me the birthday wish :P In school, my Chinese class n band members wished me happy birthday whenever they saw me. It was really sweet of them. Zexun even went to tell his classmates whom i dun even know, that it was my birthday. It was quite embarrassing!

My chinese class, 10S12,gave me a sweet surprise by singing the birthday song(which was really quite loud!) n a sinful,fattening cheese cake. BUt it was really nice! the cake!yum yum!The next surprise came when Russell came me the trophy on behalf of the J2 band members. It was something really quite unexpected cos it has really been a long time since the band or rather a batch has given me a birthday gift. The last batch to do so was the 2006 batch :) But the well-wishes do make my day :)

Besides the trophy, Wansing designed a card with a batch photo taken on the day of the concert. It was such a memorable day :) My birthday ended on a happy note,a day when i felt showered with blessings and love. It was in fact the most memorable birthday i ever had in SAJC. N a surprise came when uncle sim msg me @ 8 plus to wish me happy birthday cos i had never expected him to remember my birthday :P

Then on 14th April,my JC1 band members gave me a real BIG surprise when they gave me a beautiful card,with their well-wishes.I heard that Zachary opened the bandroom every morning to let pple in to sign the card. OMG! it was really such sweet thoughts. Yongxiang lied to me,saying the medal was made of chocolate :o That horrible Brian go n post the video of the "unofficial" gift. So embarrassing!! i will just die!!!!

But the moments then would always be in my mind! To all the Band members and my dear students,thanks for making this last birthday so memorable!!