Parents

Parents think we have it easy in school. I swear they should create a documentary: A day in the life of the average Singapore student. If the documentary was done on my life it would be rather slack though, so it can't be done on me. xD

BUT if it were to be done on me, this is what one can expect to see:

During PE:

Me crawling on the tracks while everyone runs at the speed of light. Grunting, sighing and swearing during circuits. You know, the squats, pull-ups, sit-ups, long-jumps, push-ups etc.

During CHEM and PHYSICS practicals: 

Me: Shucks, I forgot to rinse the burette with the chemicals. OR SHIT I forgot to start the stopwatch, now I must carry out the experiment all over again. OR Darn it, I don't get a straight line, now I must manipulate the points. OR Why isn't FA1 turning brown like it should?

During lessons: 

Me: PLEASE don't let the teachers find out that I haven't done my work. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

Or me trying hard not to dream during boring math lectures.

During common tests:

Chem: I MEMORISED ALL THOSE 80 reactions but I can't remember! HOLY COW I AM SCREWED.

Math: Erm...say what?! These are so much harder than the questions I practiced, wtf.

Physics: Time to "tikam" for the MCQs.

Lit: How come the unseen poem is so much easier to analyse than the SEEN extract? Fml.
_________________________________________________________________________

And this, my friends, is why I insist that the documentary should never feature me.

The End. 

NUS Open House

Met up with Mazi at Buona Vista and took 95 to NUS U-Town! Just alighting at Buona Vista made me all nostalgic about the Adam Lambert concert :( Anyways, U-Town looked nice, hip and happening! Saw a few performances put up by the NUS students. Was particularly impressed by a guy who sang and the NUS cheerleaders! Their jumps, flips, etc were awesome! And they kept smiling throughout so it seemed effortless when I doubt it actually was!

Saw a lot of familiar people yesterday: Rebecca, Nasuha, Jiaxin, Charmaine, Gideon, Afifah, Priyanga, Yu Feng and on the way home we ran into Mr Wangyal and his family. Apparently they were going to go watch The Croods! LOL.

I accompanied Mazi and went for the Design and Environment talk at the Ngee Ann Kongsi Auditorium. Similar to the SMU Business talk, this talk also had a lecturer and some students giving us more personalised details about their courses and their experiences. The talk about going overseas never fails to excite me! =X

After that Mazi and I hung around and waited for the FASS talk to start. But when we got to the queue, we realised the queue had already been formed long ago and it was a very long one! :( So although we still queued up, there were no more seats for the talk :( I was very disappointed. Lesson learned: when I go for the NUS open day next year, I will have to queue up AT LEAST half an hour beforehand for the FASS talk.

After that I went for the campus tour with Mazi and we got to see the School of D&E. We also went for the talk on architecture and got to see the studios that the students worked in. Since archi is not my cup of tea, more than anything else, I was really overwhelmed by the stuff they do. Hope Mazi was inspired though :)

NUS is so huge that we had to take a bus from U-TOWN to the school of D &E and also the Cultural Centre. We were really tired after the studio tour so we just went home. After I came home I was so exhausted that I just slacked and then went to sleep early. I feel so bad for slacking though, since the common tests are coming up :( I'll try my best to make today productive! :)

All the best to everyone for their common tests! :) Don't slack like me! 

A LEVEL MOTHER TONGUE RESULTS RELEASE, GUITAR CIP CONCERT, SMU OPEN HOUSE

A Level Mother Tongue Results Release:

Friday morning was nerve-wrecking. How can you relax knowing that something is going to happen to you that may either make or break you? I know results aren't everything. Universities don't even consider mother tongue. Unless of course, you want to take that language in Uni. So "Why the fuss?" you may ask. Well, my mother tongue school is all the way at Redhill. If I failed, I would have to continue going there for the rest of the year. Lessons start at 9am and end at 1pm. Takes about 1 hour to return home. That's half of my Saturdays gone and in J2, every day counts. So I am sure that me failing would be very disruptive to my studies. 

It's as if an ominous bank of dark clouds were hanging above my head. I felt like I would pass (simply 'cause I've never failed any major MT exams like PSLE and O Levels) but I didn't know how well I would do. I was expecting maybe an E or D if I was lucky because I heard that the examiners mark strictly. At 2.30pm, we were all seated at LT5, watching our seniors getting their results via live streaming. 7 people got 4 distinctions and 57 of them got 3 distinctions. (If I recall correctly) It was a drop from last year though 

And then they flashed OUR MT statistics. For Bengali it said "50% pass". Immediately my heart plummeted to the ground. Only 2 of us had taken the examination so...one of us must have passed and the other one failed. Immediately I realized that I must have failed. I studied for the exam more than I studied for my O levels so how could I fail?! I was hyperventilating in my head already and preparing my speech to my mom about how sorry I am and how I will work harder and so on and so forth. 

And then we went to a classroom and Mr Kok gave out our certificates. I took mine and sat down without looking at it. I wondered why did Mr Kok smile at me when I failed. I deserve to be shouted at, slapped even. Feelings of self-doubt and misery were running through my veins. I had already told Xiao Tian, Shamira and Mazi that I probably failed. Oh and Hansel too. After a while I decided to peek at my certificate to see how badly I failed. And to my horror/delight...I was the one who passed. -.-

Hahahah. I shed a few tears though...tears of relief. I got a B. So my effort DID pay off. I had given up hope of improving my MT but my mom hadn't. She kept pestering me before the exam to study. "Maybe you can do well, you never know right?" she would say something along that line. Mom's are always right it seems. 

This was a major hurdle I never thought I'd survive. And to those people who got an A for their MT, they wouldn't understand why I am so overjoyed/relieved. I texted my MT teacher, thanking her for everything and she said she is really happy for me. :) Maybe I will go back after the As with a gift to show my appreciation. She really was the best MT teacher my batch ever had! And congratulations to Reetz, you obviously got an A. :D

Guitar CIP concert:

On the same day itself, I attended the guitar CIP concert with Mazi, Zhiqi, Shamira and Judy and her friend to support Jessica and Jasmine. And as an ex guitar ensemble member, of course I had to go. Although at first when Daphne asked me if I wanted to go I was hesitant but that's because I was unsure if I would be free on that day. 

The concert was awesome. I particularly liked the non-classical pieces because I am a non-classical sort of person xD I loved the performance of "Sunday morning" by Amalina, "Nobody" by the entire guitar ensem, "Pumped up Kicks" and " Airplanes" by the Fedoras. OH and Gideon and Diyanah's version of "Make you feel my love". Awesome stuff! Leaving the best for the last, I loved everything with Jessica in it. HAHHAA. 

SMU OPEN HOUSE:

Boy, do I have a lot to say about this! Woke up at 7am to travel to SMU, which is at the heart of Bras Besah. Didn't really know what to expect because I haven't been there before. Upon getting down from the MRT, I realised that the campus was directly connected to the MRT. For those of you who have been to SIngapore Poly, you know how you have to walk a certain distance from the MRT before you enter the poly? The distance from the MRT to SMU was even shorter. It's like...a few steps. Mind blown. Seriosuly mind blown! I was expecting to take a bus ride or something.

Mabel arrived and then we met up and walked to the Admin building. There were gold and blue balloons everywhere! It was quite the welcome! :) We started off by going for the campus tour. I only remember the guy Ambassador's name. Ashwin I think. Not being sexist ah. I think the girl Ambassador said her name too softly or something. I didn't catch it. I think both were business students and Ashwin's CCA was horse riding  Can you believe it?! HORSE RIDING?! COOL or what?

There was some Muay Thai competition going on at SMU. So I guess that's another unique CCA they have. We were given a tour of the business school, the library, the Campus Green, and even got to sit in the seminar room! :) I personally liked the seminar room a lot because it was shaped like a horse shoe, so everyone got a good view of the lecturer. The room was also really technologically savvy. 

After the campus tour, Mabel and I went for separate talks. She went for the talk on "Accountancy" while I went for the talk by the "Social Sciences" department. Personally, social sciences was not really my thing so I got bored during the talk. OOPS :X 

By the way, I forgot to say that Mabel's OGL actually ended up in our campus tour group! :D How cool is that? Her name was Crystal. Crystal and I went for the Social Sciences talk together. 

Next, Mabel and I went for the "School of business" talk together, which was more my cup of tea because "Corporate Communications" is under it. Very coincidentally, the lecturer chosen to represent the School of Business for the talk was the lecturer for Corporate Communications!! Good for me right? :D I was impressed by him. He seems like a really good lecturer. They also let an alumni and a soon-to-be alumni tell us about their experiences in the workforce and/or in SMU. One cool thing was that they promised that by 2015, 100% of SMU students would get the opportunity to go for an overseas Business Mission or CIP trip or both. The Alumni had been to Massachusetts and the Philippines. The soon-to-be alumni had been to Milan (omfg) and Shanghai. Sounds really good to me! 

After the talks, Mabel and I had a lot to think about. Despite the distance, I would say that the Open House has made me consider SMU rather strongly. Before that I was all about NUS. But I can't speak too soon...maybe the NTU or NUS open house will blow me away too? 

Came home at about 5pm and haven't done any work since...and now I am too tired to do so. Shall go to bed and wake up early tomorrow to do work. Nights world. :) 

Reason for my 3 days absence from school

Last Friday, my arm had started to hurt. It's probably the kind of muscle pain you get if you pick up something too heavy or you sleep on one hand for the whole night. But it was uncomfortable and I wanted it to go away asap. The weekend went great, I did a lot of homework and was even looking forward to school resuming. Alas, on Monday night, after I came back home from studying with Keith, I think i was stretching my left arm around to get rid of the tension and accidentally pulled a muscle or something. Immediately it swelled. And I started to panic. I even cried a little. LOL. I went to put some ice on the swollen area but it just hurt more.

Next, I asked Wendy and Shamira for advice on whether I should use this Ketotop plaster. It's similar to salonpas but this can be used for swelling too. So after getting the thumbs up from Wendy and Shamira, I put it on. Only at one place at first.

I thought I wouldn't be able to sleep at night for sure because every time I lie down facing the ceiling it hurts my arm. When I tried to sleep sideways on my right arm, i could still feel the pressure on my left arm. So I decided that I can't sleep the whole night and I went to watch movies on my computer to entertain myself. I also took some Panadol extra to help to reduce the pain. After some time I really began to feel very sleepy. So I went to my bed and sat down and tried to sleep sitting down. Pathetic eh? But after a while I dozed off and fell from my sitting position, curled up with my blanket and bolster pillow. 

The next morning when I woke up I was contemplating about whether I should go to the doctor or not. But I decided to try and heal myself. So I took up Wendy's suggestion and asked my dad to buy me Counterpain. My mom massaged it gently onto my aching parts. So I repeated this on Wednesday as well. But finally when Thursday came around and I wasn't fully healed yet, I decided to go see a doctor and get some medicine. I went to a private clinic. Pristine medical clinic.  I always go to that one. The doctor feels like a friend so I feel less scared xD Haha! His way of checking what happened scared the shit out of me. (he moved my arm around)

So yea, the doctor gave me an mc for today as well so I am going to stay at home and get well first. Damn it next week there is a physics test and I have to study for it. By the way, this post was typed with both my hands. In other words, my left arm is recovering. WOOHOO. If I had tried to type with my left arm two days ago I'd be swearing under my breath. Ok, my arm is beginning to hurt again :( Better go off. Toodles~

Guess who's coming to Singapore?

I mentioned in my previous post about a Singapore duo called Trick who just exploded onto the Singapore music scene this year with their song BPM! Well, I follow them on Twitter and they follow me back. Just last week they told their fans that they are interested in performing in schools for their fans! So OF COURSE I suggested to them that they come to JJC! And they replied me saying that as long as our teachers give the thumbs up, they will come! So needless to say I was uber excited!

The first teacher I approached was Miss June. She told me that Ms Choo is in charge of arts performances in school during assembly and coincidentally she is my PE teacher. So I approached her immediately with regards to this issue! I got Trick's email and gave it to Ms Choo and asked her to check them out on YouTube! :)

At first things looked hopeful but a few days later she told me that she had checked them out already and they were "very pop" and in schools they want to expose us to things not so mainstream =.=' AND it had to be approved by our VP too, and the chances are very low of the VP accepting a pop group! Gone case~ NEVER MIND.

Another thing I wanted to rant about is the fact that Adam Lambert, one of the singers I most look up to, is coming to Singapore in March and I might not have the money to buy the tickets. >< (NO heart to ask parents and I don't save) The only hope is that Darren offered a loan! LOL, future banker. :D And lifesaver! I promised I would return it back to him by Dec! Hope he helps me out or I'm gonna miss Adam Lambert's concert and who knows when he will come back! Chin is working now so probably Chin can use the money earned to go to the concert too! *fingers crossed*

Now about school! I probably failed every test that has been thrown towards me so far...physics, maths and even GP! @.@ I feel so bad. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE? Ok shall go off now! Time to sleep! Nights~

1st week of school + Open House

Okay, time to blog about how the first week of school went. I thought I'd die on the first day of school 'cause I hadn't completed my long list of homework but turned out the teacher's were quite understanding about it. During chemistry tutorial on the first day, we met our new tutor, Miss Xu, and she's actually quite good at explaining concepts. :) I like her!

We also met our new GP teacher on the first day. She's called Mdm Pathrose and she came from Pioneer JC. Nice name eh? She is good I guess, but a bit stern. I can see that the class already misses Mr Shermann.

On Monday, I also met up with my co-host for the Open House for the first time, Keith. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to talk to him but he turned out to be a really friendly guy. :) Plus, he watches X Factor too and is a Cece fan so bonus points for that :DD

PE on Thursday nearly killed me. Ran three rounds around the track after not running for nearly 1 month. Physics lesson on Thursday was good too because I finally feel like I am beginning to understand the concepts! So overall, the first week of school was good.

Open House: 

I went to school at 8.15am to meet up with Miss June Chng and Keith at the General Office and for the first time I went into the office store, where Keith and I took turns to make announcements over the PA system.

At 11am we went to the canteen to host the cultural performances by our JJ symphonic band, guitar ensemble, Chinese Orchestra, Indian, Malay and Modern dance. Personally I think the dances were really impressive. I could watch their performances again and again and not get bored. 

Shout out to Fuxuan for doing a great job with Modern Dance! Here's a photo of me and her: 

Love her outfit! 

Also, I really look up to Shamira for doing such a great job with the Indian dancers despite the fact that her body was aching like crazy after PE. My body was aching too and I can imagine the amount of strain her muscles were feeling. You go girl! :)

Saw many Fuhua juniors there, which totally made my day. Vanessa said that she went to the Open House just to see me. Awwww! 

I enjoyed my first emceeing "job". Hope to get more opportunities next time as well :D Thanks Miss June for choosing me! I have really learnt a lot from this experience! ^^ 

Also, please check out this song by Trick. They're a Singaporean duo but they sound as good as any American singer! Giving us Singaporeans something to be proud of! :) 

That's all for now! Toodles :)

Me and my Bengali Background

Something has been plaguing my mind recently. I've done a very good job of neglecting my Bengali background and whatever connection I have to it. But while doing so, I guess I shouldn't have ignored the Bengali friends I made at Bengali school while doing the blog post about my best friends a few weeks back. 

So here's a shoutout to Reetz! I've know her since primary school but we only got closer this year because our huge Bengali clique broke up since majority of them took the poly route. So since we were the only two left from the clique, I guess we got closer. :) We take the mrt home together after most lessons and chat about life and the stress in our various English schools. She's from RJC so you can only imagine. 

Hey Reetz! You're one of my besties too kay? And probably one of the few Bengali's', besides Ritarupa and Reshma, that I will keep in touch with after graduating from Bengali school. Which is this year unless I flunk my Bengali A Level. Bengali school would have been unbearable, and a mental torture, if I didn't have you there with me! :) All the best for your promos! I KNOW you'll do well, you're damn smart lah :D