Wednesday, July 30, 2008
I realise I haven't blogged in a long while. I suppose every time it occurs to me, I feel guilty about not doing something more productive, so I shove the thought away. Labels: school
Firstly, my family had a photoshoot on 19 July, if I haven't already said so. My sisters have posted some of the shots that we took. The general consensus is a dissatisfaction with the formal one, and satisfaction of the informal ones.
On 21st July, we were very kindly informed that we had exactly one week to upload all our CCA and CIP achievements onto the KM SPS system, which has purportedly been newly refurbished.Of course, this would be easy as pie - if perhaps the system had been properly working in the first place and previous events would have been uploaded long ago, if perchance it wouldn't take more than 3 days for an approved event to actually be available for selection, and if maybe all the teachers could endeavour to approve the students' submissions or correct them as promptly as possible. This is not to say, at all, that there aren't teachers who aren't quick about it. I think the teacher in charge for my KSA attachment was extremely efficient - she even told me in class what I did wrong. My civics tutor is also one of the first to approve my records. Unfortunately, obviously not all teachers have the time, and the last-minute nature of this exercise causes the system to be too busy at night. On 28th July, we began our new restructured timetable. I end on 5.20 on Mondays, 4.30 on Tuesdays, 4.30 on Wednesdays. Total no. of free periods: 6 Total no. of free periods on Tuesday: 5 Having 10 periods on Monday with the usual break and lunch is a bit more taxing on my brain than I had imagined. The 8 periods on Wednesday is slightly better. The 4 periods + 5 free periods on Tuesday is laughable. I am not complaining though, because I appreciate how difficult it must be to come up with some timetable squashing all lessons into 3 days, working around the timetables of the younger students. All in the wonderful month of July. Happy Birthdays to several July babies: Gerard, Daryl, Christopher, Michelle Tay, my brother, Yihui, Pei Cheng, Paul, Su Yee, Wu Si, Ling Chung, Liu Xuan (tomorrow) and anyone else I forgot!
Sunday, July 20, 2008
During Sunday School we talked about ourselves; it included many people being worked hard and stressed. The invited speaker at service was speaking about how only Jesus matters, and how not being successful in the world doesn't matter. I must say that God answers our problems jolly quickly! Labels: church
Today was the dreaded Sunday School Bible Quiz on the book of Acts.
My team [Actors] was supposed to be me, Michelle and Jane, but Jane was sick, so in the end Christopher became our 3rd member. I was kind of stressed about it, because I only sort of studied the night before and a bit of the day before, plus memorising most given verses.
So for the first group + individual round, we managed to get second, and Yue's group was first. One of the individual questions was a fill in the blank:
_________ is found in ___________, for there is no other ____ under heaven given to ___ by which we must be _____.
Obviously if you remember the verse, the answers are Salvation, no one else, name, men, saved.
Chris put something like: Paul, jail, way, us, here. It was SUPER FUNNY. Other funny answers include Louis putting 'Paul ?' in response to "Who wrote the book of Acts?"
Then came the station games. Charades was pretty disastrous, but in my defense, how DO you act out / guess 'Gamaliel the Pharisee', or worse, 'the Ethiopian eunuch'? The Lost Library one was pretty ok, the acting of Peter's vision was quite funny, especially Chris' rendition of being in a trance!
Our help-card was a great help for the Cartographer's Den, because we were able to increase the maximum number of points for naming events at certain places. The pictionary round was quite excellently done, because Chris and Michelle can draw comprehensibly, and I can guess quite well!
The buzzer round was very stressful, with Michelle holding the buzzer, ready to push at our slightest nudge. I got the first question, and I think we both were a bit nerve-wracked at the suddeness of my nudging her. We managed to answer the most questions in that round, probably because Yue was too slow to press :P
The final round was interesting: Easy questions give 3 points, no penalty; Tricky questions give 5 points, -2 for wrong answers, EVIL questions give 7 points, -4 for wrong answers. This applies to the chooser of the question, the rest get 2 points per correct answer. 3 categories: Geography, People, Significant Events.
Lukas' group started out with an EVIL question: Name 13 high-ranking people in Acts. We were the only group to actually write down 13 people, but only 11 were correct, so no points. Most of the others chose Tricky questions, though the groups actually choosing rarely got all the 5 points. Thank goodness we picked an easy Tricky question!
After each group chose one, they decided there wasn't enough time, and the top 3 groups: The Witnesses (108.5 pts), Actors (105.5 pts) and Riot Police (96 pts) were to choose one each. Hongyu's group had no choice but to choose an EVIL question (S): What did they throw overboard on the ship to Rome? No one got all 4 items, though we got the most - 3. What's a 'tackle' anyway?
Then we, with much reluctance and goading, chose EVIL question (P): Name 8 deaths in Acts. We got Herod, Ananias & Sapphira, Stephen, Eutychus and Dorcas at first. Panicking, we managed to remember Judas and James at the last moment, and scored the only 7 points!
Yue's group had no choice but to pick EVIL question (S): State 5 events where God talked to man, excluding angels. No one was able to get 5, so we won! Interestingly, no geography questions were picked. The last unpicked EVIL question (G): List 22 cities mentioned in Acts - infinitely easier than the actual question chosen.
We may have won, but I'm very proud of Yue for doing so well for her first Bible Quiz! Unfortunately she doesn't want to join me with Yan next year...
After that we were rushed off to eat dinner and go for Yan's concert at SCH, with string ensemble, guitar ensemble and handbell choir. Listening to the string ensemble is really like hearing the orchestra in Fantasia, and makes me wish I was in one!
Kudos to the guitar ensemble for playing with so few people! I like their costume. And the conductor-composed song was nice. The handbell choir was good too, a performance catered for this kind of audience.
I'm also very proud of Yan for her first official school string ensemble performance! I have amazing sisters!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
After listening to Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing in my father's car, I looked for a version on youtube, and found this wonderful performance of it with a large choir and orchestra! It's really powerful and majestic, and one chorister almost cried when singing it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq-Q22Pf1W8 Labels: church
Anyway, the Bible Quiz is this Sunday and I regret signing up for it. I have no time to study for it (but apparently have time to be searching for videos, eh?) and then I feel it becomes pointless to participate at all. I can only remember some of the memory verses. Plus, this year's quiz has some games and stuff, which I am terrible at.
I can't believe I let myself be conned into taking part!
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Yes, this is a dialogue that has run through my mind between me and myself. Labels: school
I'm in trouble!
Why?
Because we got back our progress report, and I have to get my parent's signature.
So why are you -me- in trouble?
Because when they see the grades, especially chem, bio and math, they're going to kill me.
Oh no! Are your parents that mean?
Well, I'm supposed to get 4 As for A levels. Such grades are unacceptable to them.
Why do they want you to get 4 As? So demanding!
Because you need 4 As at least to get into NUS medicine. Over 2000 people apply, and about 250 get in - it's hard to become a doctor!
So your parents want you to become a doctor and they're pushing you hard.
Er, no. I want to become a doctor. It's my own career ambition.
So it's YOU who wants you to be a doctor, not your parents.
Yes. I've wanted it for a long time, in fact.
So you need to get 4 As because that's necessary for entrance into medicine.
Yeah.
And your grades are horrible now, and you're afraid of what they'll say.
...Yeah.
So essentially, you don't want your parents to scold you for not achieving what's necessary for your own dream to come true, because you're just a lazy bum who hates studying?
... ... ... ...
Basically it's all your own fault. Hah. How pathetic of you.
......Bother it all.
No one asked you to become a doctor. You could just as easily have said you wanted to be a Primary School Math Teacher. Or an engineer.
Oh, shut up already.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Yesterday my father went to fetch Aunty Giselle and kids to the airport (migrating to Australia), so I had to take bus by myself to school. I met Jane Lua on the bus - she goes to HCI - and it was doubly surprising, because only recently I found out that my sister knows her sister in the string ensemble! Labels: choir, dbsg, ksa, school, suju
And then the Korean students from KSA for this year's exchange programme came to school! Plus, my homestay buddy Ji Jeong was the only previous buddy to have come - the other 9 guys were all new. I managed to meet her in the Sigma Lab after school, though I was initially afraid that she'd forgotten me! Considering that their school has so many students from other countries coming, and she was only my buddy for the first week as opposed to Ji Eun, it might not have been totally unfounded.
Anyway, I'm happy to say that I think I can claim credit for getting Xiaowen hooked onto Super Junior - simply by telling her about the EHB episode I watched. Pity she doesn't want to try DBSK, because she'll probably be ensnared by them too.
Yesterday after GP enhancement I wanted to find someone to mug with me, but all the Econs people had some test, so I smsed LC to ask him if he was mugging.
SX: Hey, are you mugging anywhere now?
LC: I'm in hospital
!!! Shocking, I tell you. Turns out his shoulder tendon thingummy was inflammed, so now if he can't pass his NAPFA he has to go for extra BMT!
Today during GP we discussed the essay question on marriage. [Marriage is neither desirable nor necessary. Discuss.] Surprisingly few arguments FOR marriage were brought up. More on how our society views marriage as important for life, and for having kids and stuff. I confess I said something lame about how marriage is about love and it's like expressing your love.
Oh yes. Now, I met Sheena earlier on during lunch, where she happily came up, patted my hair and commented on my shorter fringe. She wanted me to study until the library closed, then observe practice for a while, claiming YJ would do so.
Which he DIDN'T. After the chem extra lecture I went to the choir store, when my altos also commented on my fringe being bitten off. Then YJ merrily denies having any intention to stay, and goes home with Boss and JA. Humph. They've got this new English song about the Earth and music and something about pain and in vain and war. I think.
Qn: Is anyone going for the PSC career and scholarships fair on Saturday, or the MOE tea sessions?
Thanks to all the blogs i referred to (countless) for html code help :) (esp. cyn' and sixseven)
Adobe Photoshop Elements for supernatural abilities
