Wasted day, T day celebration

Thanks for your essay tags Xi Ying. Hahaha :)

Today. Teachers' day celebration across schools in Singapore. Good for me, I walked into the hall at 7.29am without having to stand outside the hall and LT1 with other latecomers, all because the teachers weren't there to stop us and the student council wasn't around to shout "X more minutes!" :)

1aa3 sat right behind the teachers. O_O An honour, perhaps?

The whole celebration was so-so only.. I'm sure PL's would have been more entertaining! The band's performance got everyone lauhing and going "so cute!!!" because of David, my Chinese classmate, MEP student, student conductor for the AC band. It was really brave of him to do all those funny actions in front of the whole school! Those present today would know ;)
Then there was an appreciation thing for Mr Loo, our vice-principal who has been teaching and working in the college for 10 years. It was an emotional moment for all of us, the teachers and the students.. I could feel the whole we-weill-miss-you atmosphere. Well. We REALLY will, sir!

Didn't go back to PL cus' I thought by the time I reach, most of the teachers would already have left the school compound.

Omg then I spent the entire afternoon slacking at Claire's house - eating fried rice (thanks!), touching her Yamaha baby grand, sleeping on her bed, being pulled out of her bed by my legs (poor me), abusing her stuffed animals, messing up her room, looking at her sch mag, looking at photos of young-and-cute-Claire (what happend to her now?!), sleeping on her bed again, and FINALLY moving out of the house and to KAP. We were supposed to be at KAP for the entire afternoon, not at her house wts -.-

Funny... someone's getting braces and I'm removing mine.

我要把今天忘掉，把它丢到一个孤独的角落去。总是太难受了...

The killer math test, the human and physical geog tests, the bio mock spa, the humiliation suffered in between math and geog (not forgetting the unindended tears shed)...

今天，我在地铁上站着睡，其实这已经变成一个很正常的事了。我站在那里睡得好好的，但突然听到附近的一位女人说到一个令我气愤的句子 。


“信耶稣啊？没用的啦！”

那时刻，我心里的那座‘火山’默默无声地爆发了。我脸上的眉毛弯道中间去，冷漠地瞪着她。

信耶稣，真的那么“没用”吗？是吗？她这样做不但深深地把我的心拆伤（我好像感觉了耶稣会感到的 -- 失望），也使我对这种妇女的映像失落了好几步。那可是个公共地方，请你对周围的人敏感一点儿，而不要乱得罪别人的宗教！


总之，今天所发生的不同的事情--尤其是早上的那个不幸和尴尬的事--都不值得我的记忆。再见，我不想再看到你们！

You are my strength when I am weak

I'm talking about now.

last week

Zonal bonding was fun fun fun fun fun I think it would have been more fun if the other cell groups stayed over in church too. We played blind mice for hours, zonked out after 4am, ... but I'm not too sure of whether the bonding session met its objectives -- to bond the 17-yr-olds together as a zone. BFC did bond though, since ours was the only cell staying overnight. Cool right.

CP on Friday 22/8 was for us to observe the young adults as they go door-knocking. CP stands for community penetration. As the name suggests, it's for us church members to engage with the community.. my cell group got split up so each of us got assigned to a pair of young adults. When I told my parents that I followed Melvin and Wendy Gan, she went on to talk as if it was a privilege -.- Well, it is. They're elders (leh)! Wendy can really interact with the residents, given her personality and warmth that radiates outta her....

Busy, busy week ahead.
Busy Tuesday, so be exact. 4 consecutive tests.

my 17th birthday

180808


Nice number right! haha, just thought I should blog before the day ends...

If you read today's papers, you'd have seen the smiles of our table tennis women's team with their silver medals. While the nation celebrates this victory, my family and some of my beloved friends celebrated something much smaller, many times more insignificant.

My birthday. Lol.

I wanna acknowledge and thank the following for their verbal and non-verbal (direct and indirect) birthday greetings ..

ACJC - 1AA3: MdmRahimah Beetsma Victoria Claire Amelia Sheena Matthew Eugenia Marcus Adam

ACJC - ACCO: Pei Yan Sheena(again) Lay Cheng Serene Shuqiao Irvin Janet Amanda Nigel

LSBC: WanHui Daryl Joshua Sophia Jacelyn Smarties YeoMei LingJia KengLing

PLMGS class of 07: ManLing HuiLing Persie Joey EnMei Hillary JiaYan 

SRJC (PAE): Wayne Jerome

Others: Daniel Ryan Duncan

Today was kinda crazy. I found this in my bag after assembly and chapel 

I had Chinese consultation :(

I found Amelia stapling my photo (A4-sized some more) to my geog notes O_O

I had two POSses giving me the craziest things one could ever receive for, uhm, a birthday.. check it out. It's so retarded, it deserves to be photographed and put up here.

Liuyan(Claire), I understand... it's quite normal. But PEIYAN? MOE MEP SCHOLAR? ACCO VICE-PRES? My gosh! What has AC done to her!

I almost had a slice of cake smashed into my face by Beetsma and Sheena. 

I had cream on my face, fringe and uniform.

I had a hard time washing it off. I had to wet my shirt in an attempt to get rid of the brown stain...but it became a little too transparent.

I made sure the others got dirty too - Claire PeiYan Sheena Beetsma and even YenChai got creamed by my cake. WAHAHAH.

I had a Swensen's dinner with my family. 

I have not done any homework!! 

Passing of a busy week

The Olympic fever, ah... all the hustle and bustle in the local media, among its netizens and citizens alike.

Our 48-year medal drought has finally ended. This time, we've secured at least a silver medal. Not bronze, but silver. Our table tennis (women's) team will be playing in the finals against China. We all know what that means, don't we?

I was listening to the match on 89.3FM. For the lost souls out there, this station is 'audio mobile' - the audio version of TV mobile - though I could not watch the match, I could still listen to it... or so I thought. Until the train I was in went underground. zzzzz. No reception, just when the final set (Feng Tianwei's) was going on.

Today, Singapore rejoices with its athletes as they create for themselves an event most worthy of rememberance, in the nation's olympic history. God is good (:


The Games aims to unite the world in sports. It makes me wonder -- how? Is this still true in today's context? Why does it seem like this global sporting event is dividing the world instead of uniting it?

Look at China now, it's dominating almost every sector within its power.
Look at how it has surpassed the USA in gold medal counts as well as overall medal counts. Look at how it 'trains' its young in gruelling and harsh conditions. These kids share a common dream of winning gold medals in the Games when they grow up. Investment? At such a young age? Just to make sure it possesses every gold medal it can get its paws on? I can hear the US president calling for human rights already (kudos for his calling for religious freedom in a Chinese church).

I could go on, but I don't exactly want to write an essay at this time of the morning...
_____

Week has been tough, and it's going to get tougher. Claire (bong) did not sleep for three nights in a row, which is outrageous. There was the >3 hr-long Chinese mock exam paper (I forsee a U or S); the dreaded econs case study test which I did not study for having fell asleep early the night before; the submission of the 'final draft' of our written reports for PW (triggers nightmares and daymares, all the time); the Econnect II submission, causing every econs student (in AC) to frown; the physical geography mile-long tutorial which took up two whole nights for me to complete, in point form. The. List. Goes. On.

Team Singapore, Swimming

I just watched Bryan Tay swim in his heats (heat 5 i think) for 200m freestyle! He got FIRST! Woohooooooo :D :D And he's kinda cute, haha... There's hope for Singapore...? That's what I thought. Until I saw the summary of results. 41st overall. tsk.

Of course, all the limelight is going to Tao Li for breaking an Asian record. But hey let's not forget the rest man! Like the shooter guy and Tay and the more unknown Sg athletes!

National Day

Tell me this is a joke. Click to enlarge

WTH, Ken and Elliot. !!

(picture courtesy of Iris :P)

That's BFC during today's national day celebration in church. What I liked best about today was the service we offered. Serving dinner, being part of the aunties' da bao craze (thereby getting an insight of what aunties are really like), helping with the cleaning up with the MPH and the carpark when all the rest have gone off. At the end of the day, what truly puts a smile on my face is the knowledge that I (or we) made a difference in church today.(:

Happy Birthdays to the following

Kai Wei (2/8 - 17th),
Sherman (2/8 - 17th),
Syahir (4/8 - 18th),
Fu En (7/8 - 17th),
Shu En (8/8 - 17th),
SINGAPORE (9/8 - 43rd),
Aaron (bro, 9/8 - 9th),
Melody (10/8 - 17th),
Brandon (10/8 - 18th)


I admire our Minister Mentor LKY for his dedication in serving the nation all these years.. He was in China for yesterday's opening ceremony for the olympics, no doubt giving Team Singapore his support. It was announced in the news that he (at that time) would be leaving right after the ceremony so he can return to Singapore for the national day celebration. He does not seem to mind all that rushing, from Beijing to Singapore, despite his age. I mean, wow, he's really strong!

China made good use of its large population by getting thousands of them involved in putting up a spectacular performance for the Beijing Olympics' opening ceremony. I couldn't help but notice the gender inequality there -- how more than half the performers were males. Is it because of the past, where the preference for male children prevailed and the female got aborted? Is it because they still favour the males and think the females should take a back seat? I'm just wondering.

I watched the so-called march past of the different countries' athletes. Some countries had so many, it gave me the creeps. We all know who's gonna dominate the Games this year, don't we. But seriously, I was left speechless when I saw the 600-odd Chinese dressed in red and yellow, walking proudly and enthusiastically behind their flag bearer. I have faith in our Singapore team, never mind the others (: they'll bring back some medals I hope.

Piercing pain in my body

I was late for school this morning... yet again. As in, late but didn't get booked kind of late. Reason being I couldn't walk fast enough to catch the train at Kovan and I'm not sure how many trains I missed, 2? Couldn't take a cab with just $4 in my possession, could I?

BFC would have known by now, about this pain that's causing discomfort...
I realised it's the same pain experienced during the mission trip.

So this morning my CT and DM made me sit with the Muslim students in LT3 after I said I'm not feeling well. I had to miss chapel entirely. (The pain was excruciating, since I made myself bear with it and walked as fast as my legs could carry me from the station to school..) This may sound stupid, but tears welled up in my eyes after I read the prayer which Shepherd had sent via sms. Maybe I was touched, maybe I was just thankful that someone's there. I don't know.

It just didn't occur to me that my heart is at the left side of my body too.

At least I survived the rest of the day, even taking the place of Pei Yan (who wasnt in school) to attend the P and VP meeting after school at Irvin's request.. I must be crazy. I should have gone home to rest right? As if that wasn't enough, Claire and I went to have dinner after 6pm. Pure retardedness.

Well I know for sure that that signified something. I wasn't as weak as I had been earlier. God was working, He's always been (: See what faith does ehh.

Sorry if I made anyone worry! Thanks BFC for your prayers and words of concern, and to the clique for always asking if I'm alright (; Love you people

Reflections - FOP, ACCO handover, PL

CCA matters

Random pics from farewell

Colourful shirts, just that the Blue Guy's is hidden...

My section, with some missing

Seniors

I see red!

I'm glad the seniors included me in the farewell organising comm.. because then I wouldn't have known the rest of the 7 members as well as I do now. I'd never know that

Pei Yan was actually so 'good' with translating ("i have a crush on you" = "wo ya si ni/我压死你"),

Xuan Han, Shawn and Ken have this much on their minds (which makes me wanna roll my eyes or 滚我的眼睛 - boys will be boys. i think their thoughts run along the same line),

Amanda has a huge ego and she needs a wheelchair,

Brian spends his evenings with tuition teachers.

All in all, it wasn't exactly easy, working with the 6 of them.. we have not taken a single group photo together yet, neither have we had a meal together, all 7 of us. MSN discussions, if any, would end up stagnant cos' nobody would respond. Our meetings at the bleachers were mostly unproductive since the activities going on at the track and field were far more interesting than what we had to do. But we did it anyway (: Although the actual farewell didn't turn out as fun as we had intended it to be. The planning was *%$^&$# because the timing for combined prac and sectionals kept changing, only to be confirmed like, 2 or 3 days before the actual thing.

Our new committee is made up of of 17 people. That's more than half the J1 population in CO. Will the CO crumble under the hands of this comm, or more specifically, Irvin and Pei Yan (pres and vice-pres)? I believe so.... NOT. I believe that God works in ways we cannot see, and I'm not questioning why He picked these 17 to keep the CO alive and running. No doubt that it has caused some unhappiness. But on my part, I'll just be optimistic and trust the exco as they take over the leadership. We'll see ACCO bringing glory to the school's name in next year's SYF.

Even our conductor has confidence in our batch now. He praised our 6-strong xianyue yesterday (:

My first birthday 'celebration' this year was with the ACCO J1s. Awwwww.. how sweet.

_____

Class matters

I am the most hated member of the class.

Quote from Brandon, "WHAT, you just took $30 from me and now you ask me for $1?!?!"

Quote from other classmates, "How come so fast must pay $30 again!!!"

Quote from some, "You're seriously a loan shark man."

Matthew Tong is being extra! This was after PE.

_____



Alma mater(s)



I received an SMS in the middle of a bio lecture in LT5 on 25 July, here's what it read

Hi,this is ms joy yuen from pl... can u represent ur class to b the rep to help

pl alumni disseminate activities to ur class?i would need ur particulars like

house num, email n home address..pls reply..thanks..

I went O_O I'm not the class rep! And I told her I'm not the class rep. This was the reply.

I don't k now who r the class reps..i mistook ur number as wenqin's..but she

hasn't reply too..can u represent ur class?it's very simple..just let ur class

know e activities when they email u..

The graduation service for the class of 2007 was held in the Agape Concert Hall this year. For the first time, from what I observed, PL girls actually sang the school anthem so loudly and proudly. We're not ex-PLlites but rather, alumni PL lites (: as they emphasize so greatly on. You can take a girl out of PL, but you can never take a PL out of her.

(credits to Madeline)

The PL musical, My Father's Gift, had a cast of mostly lower sec girls. Went to watch it after CO and boy, they're good! The three lead actresses are only in sec one and their vocals are powerful. Loved this year's musical, it's good enough to make me want to buy the CD! An original production (:

(source: Xi Ying's blog)

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Religion matters

Festival of Praise. (FOP)

This event is no stranger to Christians in Singapore.. it's an annual praise and worship concert, held over a period of 3 days, usually at the Singapore Indoor Staduim. This year it's from 1-3 August, featuring the Parachute Band, Reuben Morgan and the Hillsong team (which came as a surprise), and Rev. Mark Conner.

I've always thought such events were more like rock concerts rather than worship. I was so wrong. Everyone around me had their hands lifted and were immersed into the atmosphere of worship. That sight was quite overwhelming. It made me feel proud to be part of the large Christian community in Singapore sharing the same passion - Jesus. Now I feel like going for Day of His Power. Haha.

The sermon was really good. Pastor was engaging. Maturity does not come with age, it comes with accepting responsibillities. Leadership over your mind, physical body, will, etc. There were a number of salvations(:

Count me in for next year's FOP! =)