Collecting old newspapers and clothes. What a way to spend the first National Day celebrations in Secondary school. Luckily, there are rewards for hard work, aka CIP hours. I knew it would be tiring, but in the process of collecting those newspapers and old clothes, you get to know more about life in the HDB heartlands.
So there we were on August 7th, in school. Actually I was kind of thankful for this CIP opportunity. That way there wouldn’t be any classes. Anyway we had the usual flag-raising ceremony like always in the morning. However there was some sort of march past in which students from the four uniform groups in my school, namely scouts, national cadet call, Saint John’s ambulance brigade and national police cadet call, formed this massive formation which covered three-quarters of the field before marching to the side field.
After that, we had to take our temperature due to H1N1 and then after a ridiculously long wait under the sun because of some confusion, we boarded a chartered bus and left for our destination, a group of HDB flats in Taman Jurong (wherever that is).
When we arrived at the flats that we were supposed to collect newspapers and clothes from, we were split into 6 groups according to the ERS system (for those of you unfamiliar with this, it’s the way we split up who calls who during an emergency). Fortunately for me, the group I was in had another group to assist us in the job so we could get things done twice as fast.
We decided to have two people stay on the first floor to take care of our bags and our ‘loot’. Right from the start, there were problems. First, we couldn’t agree who should stay on the first floor to take care of our stuff. After much ‘persuasion’, we managed to get this guy to stay on the first floor. Although, we did compromise. We let another guy stay with him to keep him company and to make sure nothing happened to him because he was a bit, how should I put this, ‘accident-prone’ if you understand.
Secondly, we were arguing about how we should get the work done. The leader wanted to start form the first floor and slowly work our way up to the 11th floor but the rest of us wanted to start from the top floor and work down to the 1st floor. Seriously, I don’t get why our leader wanted to do it that way. It’s quite obvious that it is easier to work downwards as that way we wouldn’t have to fight against gravity so much but our leader didn’t quite get it. Maybe that’s because he’s so rich he never needed to climb stairs before (no offence).
That isn’t really the important part anyway. So after we got the little problems sorted out, the real work could begin. We ditched the two people on the first floor much to their irritation and took the lift to the 11th floor. The people the block we were doing were more of introverts. Most of the time no one answered the door even though I could hear footsteps coming from behind. Additionally, some of those that did answer refused not to give anything. That kind of set us back by a bit but we did not give up.
One hour later, we were done. We were done so much earlier than the other groups due to the larger amount of manpower. Our form teacher made us arrange the newspaper from all the groups into neat stacks before hurling the bundles onto the trucks that came to take it away (wasn’t that rather pointless???).
Tired but happy because of the harder-to-get out-of-school CIP hours, we made our way back to school to be dismissed. I felt it was a really enriching experience; reaching out to the community helped me see what their life was like in a HDB estate. I learned to be more appreciative of what I have and be more thankful for everything.
Alright, I have decided to take Jonah’s advice and write about something that happened in my CCA which is robotics. Yes I know that people think that a CCA which has to do with computers and robots and stuff like that sounds totally nerdy and geeky BUT you are definitely WRONG.
One more thing. My consortium director asked me to cut my hair which was ‘too long’ and I did BUT the hair-dresser cut it a little bit too short so if you see PLEASE do not laugh. You could damage my self-esteem and I really do not like that to happen. In case you do not get it, the last sentence was quite sarcastic. Hey don’t blame me, I’m learning from my English teacher who is quite sarcastic. If you’re that English teacher (you should know who you are), please do not get angry with me. That was just a joke (sarcasm strikes once more!).
I won’t bother to explain how fun robotics is because it is PURELY CONFIDENTIAL. If you want to know what other stuff besides programming and building robots we do in robotics, please feel free to approach me in school or whatever. However, I must see if you are truly fit to know the secret before I tell you or you could go around telling the whole world or something. That could be POTENTIALLY dangerous and harmful effect that could damage me and everyone else in robotics.
So now you know why my CCA is so NOT nerdy, geeky and boring (okay fine you don’t but I did explain to you why you can’t know that easily [FINE, FINE I didn’t explain to you at all but I did tell you how you can find out]). Now that I’ve explained to you, it’s time to get on with the post.
Oh, I forgot. This is going to sound really random but I have to tell you this in order for the story to take place. There is a shower in the robotics lab (The lab is in the SRC on the ground floor if you do not know. Now that you do know, feel free to drop by like NEVER unless you’re invited.). That felt totally random but it’s necessary.
Okay; this secondary 2 friend I have in robotics told me this REALLY funny story to me (I’m not being sarcastic this time). If you’re the no-sense-of-humour kind, you’d think that this is dumb. If you’re the weird kind, you would think this is weird (wasn’t that obvious? [NOT being sarcastic again]). If you’re the ME kind (the kind that likes to make jokes out of almost everything), you would definitely think that this is funny.
Here goes:
Once upon the time, there was a curious little boy called Tom (not his real name). As he was a curious little boy, he always wanted to find out more about things no matter how dangerous the situation was. This counts man-eating ten-legged sea monsters that have extremely sharp claws although Tom has never gotten a chance to search for them. That’s beside the point.
Anyway Tom went on his curious way about the lab, not knowing what dangers waited for him (oooooh; scary!!!). His sight set upon this door in the laboratory next to the main entrance. Despite the proximity to ‘civilization’, the area behind the Door had never been fully explored before.
Curious (duh?), Tom asked a senior what ‘treasures’ were hidden beyond the ‘secret’ Door. The only answer he received was a plain “You can go and explore but WHATEVER you do, do NOT pull the handle that is dangling in the air.” That line provoked Tom’s curiosity even more.
And what did he do? I bet you can guess by now. Well, if you can’t that means you are not as curious as Tom which is a good thing.
So Tom crept closer to the Door. The Door was acting as if it was so eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new person. It stood there in the lone corner of the lab, hardly touched and covered in a thin layer of dust. Tom could resist the Door no longer.
Elated, he dashed to the door and opened it. The door gave out a soft creak as it slid open. A laminated sign, most likely written by Neanderthals, was stuck to the wall. ‘Eye Shower’ it read. A simple metal sink stood in the middle of the tiny room and a long metal handle, attached to some pipes by a metal chain dangled in the musty air.
The handle seemed so inviting; as though it was crying out for somebody to pull it. Tom could withstand the urge no longer.
He gave the handle a definitive tug.
A few minutes later, a group of school workers were in the room mopping up a huge puddle of water. Tom stood stunned and drenched, still in the middle of the room as the cleaner auntie shouted with anger in Chinese for him to get out of the way.
Apparently the school had not cut off the water supply to the lab despite it’s conversion from a Science laboratory to the CCA’s headquarters.
As you might notice from the INTENSE posting drought, I have run out of ideas. If you have not, well, now you know. So i would really appreciate it if someone could help me think of several ideas... I really don't want this blog to go dead even though I think I have already maxed out my ACE... I put so much time and effort to build up and maintain this blog. By the way, this is my 50th post!
I should be celebrating but there isn't really much to celebrate when this post is just a cry for ideas... I was at the 49th post for almost a MONTH so I really think that I should write something even if it's totally nonsensical (hey, but that's my blog name anyway) in order to reach the GLORIOUS 50th post which is the crappy one your reading right now. This blog is really dying...... I wish that I could be as 'pro' as Jonah and come up with blog posts once or twice a week (but at least i don't make as many spelling/gramatical errors as him ;D ). I really wonder how he manages to post so much!
Alright, now i'm just sitting in front of the computer, staring into blank space and typing at the same time (wait; that didn't sound right...). Anyway, I'm in desparate need of inspiration or else i won't be able to write anymore posts and this blog will really go dead. So I'm begging you now, PLEASE HELP ME THINK OF IDEAS! Write your suggestion in the tagbox at the side or comment or DO SOMETHING just so this blog won't go dead! I'm being serious (wow that's harsh).
Oh yeah, and please tag. I think that the tagbox is dying too. Please help with that also. Hey, do whatever you want with the tagbox AS LONG AS it does not involve vulgarities and spam and other unwanted crap (this is NOT a dump even though the title says so). Go ahead flood it with junk but it must be USEFUL junk (OK what i'm writing is completely contradicting the title) (ooh big words; scary!).
