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It's my first day of announcements! Well I just got myself some rubbish belt to make up for the stolen one, and in the end the I generously got my tie back. Haha and plus there weren't really many announcements today so it was rather fine.
French EOY is tomorrow and I'm um. Unprepared. C'est perdu c'est tres perdu. Sigh this is probably the last french test I'll ever have (yes I'm not taking it next year) so I'll live for it, I'll try my best in this night of french preparation.
Well probably the last few times I'll hit the french books ever again. Maybe I'll take DELF B1 at the end of the year. Maybe I won't. But I just want to get things right now.
One's for the speed, the strength.
Two shows the tenacity, the drive.
Three is a tradition that lasts forever.
With Four lies freedom, choice and open minds.
In Five churns the spirit so hard, so fast.
Merge them into one,
You'll know why Raffles is more than forever.
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This day is some weird day. When you know your tie is stolen and your belt is missing (probably stolen too) and you're gonna make morning announcements for the very first time in your life in school the next day, somehow you know you're in some big fix.
Never mind. Haha oh well and it takes a while to finally realise and let things sink into myself. It's the challenge in it all. Development and discipline. Things will flow I'll let some go and some in and keep it steady all year long. Well somehow I'm not leaving the school yet so quick but I'm missing it already. There's one year left. One measly year before we take 2 years hard on ourselves.
Oh anyway, today's training was rather nice (despite the miserable attendance) and at the end of it all, Mr Quek had a plaque for Coach! It's a really nice golden shiny one for his 2 years of great coaching which eventually led to Raffles' victory. Kamarul especially. Haha and between us roughly ten people who were there we were celebrating for everything that was worth.
Thank you Mr Yeo!
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And so concluded Prometheum Day.
Well while I went onstage somehow I just went blank and stared at everyone all dressed in white, with a black dot of prefects staining the blankness all in blazers. I know Will was snapping away on a camera or something. But other than that I didn't think much and just let my heart beat fast and froze there. But soon everything was over.
And oh no I guess we did the Unite cheer too early. Which resulted in more than half of the school stoning on the astroturf and not doing anything but I'm quite proud of the CCALs for joining in furiously as well. It went well I guess and now it's our turn to carry on the race.
I'm in a let's-sit-down-and-think mood. But I can't keep to that. At least for this week I can't. Got too much to study to think about anything. Well we know for sure that this October we're all moving as one whole to the new block. And it's quite nice, viewing it from the junior block.
There are so many new things coming our way. And there are so many chances that we can work on. The only thing is that we grasp these chances, and not let them slip through. the choice is ours really, for what we want and what we live for will eventually decide what we will take the opportunity of and what we won't.
The prefect elections are ending and well yeah soon on Thursday everyone will be voting and soon enough we will see new prefects in the board. I wonder how we will actually work next year. There's just so much unity missing in between a lot of parts, school, the board, our friends. We have to fill these voids up, we have to pick up real fast. All in the space of less than a year and soon we'll all be gone altogether.
Somehow,
seeing these same slogans, promises, visions
every single year
makes me bored, irritated, tired.
But I do know that
next year it won't be the same.
I will want to see
these posters, these banners
every single year of my life.
I don't want to leave this place.
I have one more year to go, no.
I want to stay on forever.
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Today's the very first day of Prometheum Day! However the rain cut it off short and now tomorrow we'll rush on with nearly two days' worth of CCAL handover.
It's really quite exciting, to know that these two days are OUR days! And back then we were only sec ones and gawping at the CCALs taking over every year. Now's our turn and it's up to us to keep the spirit going and to take this baton of responsibility on for one whole year before we pass it on, eventually. We've all grown, we've all grown. Some nice post for a 300th post too!
It feels great to realize, tomorrow's rightfully our day. May the year ahead soar bright. May Raffles take us far, may we take Raffles far.
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I've not posted for days on end sigh but things have been eventful!
Alright things start on friday when I was on my way home and on the expressway. We were going from CTE into PIE when suddenly the car got knocked from the back real hard and we all got thrown forward horribly. Haha we all got out of the car and turns out it's an accident. 5 vehicles all in one line.
Being the nut I was, I scooted around taking photos while the rest were taking down notes, insurance numbers, handphone numbers and the like. And I tell you, surprisingly our car had ZERO DAMAGE! Well probably because we were the ones at the very front of the line and by the time the impact got to us it was too little to damage anything. Well I think the bumper was slightly dented or something but it's negligible. I couldn't see much.
The rest of the vehicles got damaged quite badly I think. Especially the fourth one in the line, a taxi who unfortunately, got sandwiched in between the third and fourth vehicle. Haha photos photos galore.
Well I was in the grey car and opened the door to snap a shot. Haha behind us is a taxi which didn't sustain much damage, only a little big dent in the bumper. The third car is a Mitsubishi Lancer which was quite beaten up especially from behind. The fourth car, another taxi, was the worst I guess. And the probable culprit was the van, the fifth one, at the back.
The Lancer wasn't that bad, I think the worst damage done was to the tail lights. Haha and now we take a look at the poor taxi. Well the hood in front was really warped and bent but I forgot to snap a photo. The back, however, was tremendously shattered and beaten.
And the tail lights were SHATTERED.
Plus the van at the very back suffered a warped front.
Haha oh well in the end we didn't sustain any damage so we were more or less free to go after a while. Reached home pretty late. And I guess it was a shock factor to the day haha. My brother said we have four sets of 4D numbers to buy.
And on to yesterday! Early in the morning we had meetings meetings and all the way from morning to afternoon haha. At night I was, well, dining by the sea again.
Okay I wasn't eating just like that on the beach lah. The coast at the sailing club was horrible. I was eating comfortably! Like this (haha I just took a step back)
Yeah we we dined talked laughed chatted played at the arcade ran about all over the place until it was ten plus when we finally decided to go home. Haha yay oh well.
It's a nice Sunday morning again! But still, I've yet to break free from the hit-snooze-and-sleep-till-ten thing. Irritating.
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Today's been a horribly fatigue-laden day haha. I remember yesterday at 8pm I was already very tired and worn out. And someone called me at 11pm and he started off with a sentence, in which I caught the first few words but was unconscious for the second half. And I was just in that mode, unfit for human contact until I slept at 1 plus ready for the physics test.
My mom was telling me at some point yesterday "Remember to brush your teeth" and I immediately replied "Brush what?" which made me feel really dumb today. Haha oh whatever.
In a few months' time the entire admin block will be renovated and refurbished. The senior block's gonna be the teachers' staff rooms! And as for the new block we're moving in due October. Plus we sec3s are going to have lots of fun climbing 7 storeys to reach our classrooms. Haha exciting, exciting prospect.
Well it's been long since I dug out my spikes for use. Observe the weird shoe in the centre of my new tagboard drawing and it might seem like a pretty weird shoe but here it is in its full (and weirder) glory!
It's all seared with scratch and tear marks. Looks old but still trusty and runnable. I don't know the next time I'll get new spikes will probably be in jc. In the meantime I use a pair of these Nikes and a pair of Asics for 800m. Haha things seem really random but haha fun.
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These three days on average aren't that all sore but anyway yesterday pulled some fun trick on me. I was rushing from the admin block to the library so I tried to cut across the grass patch rather than go a long round using the road but guess it was a really bad choice, for I went plodding into a big puddle of mud by accident and got my white pants all brown-stained and my shoes caked up with a nice layer.
Today was okay, except for the math sigh but never mind just have to work harder.
And I've finished another blackwhite random drawing for my tagboard page if you manage to notice it's a little more spread out now and I've been running dry of ideas so basically it's a little more focussed. I don't know. Haha.
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Ever experienced at some point of your life you're on your way home and your eyes are open but barely. And all you allow into your mind is a thin slit of light from the outside. Focus that thin slit of light onto a seemingly never-ending line of expressway lights and suddenly you see vertical pillars of light in all colours, yellow mainly with red and white. When you head tilts they tilt too. And when you widen your eyes to marvel at them, they disappear. Then you reduce your visual spectrum to that thin line again to witness it all.
I don't know what I really want to say here but I guess I'm feeling really really random. And feeling weird and out of sorts. Perhaps it's the wicked 2-hour sleep last night that left me all hyper in the morning but so drained now heh.
But nvm today's another new day, a nice morning!
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Haha it's eleven and deep into the night. In a few minutes it'll be a new day.
Today, unfortunately, is yet another hit-snooze-and-sleep-till-ten day. I deeply regret keeping to this routine heh. But I guess I had the sleep and the energy.
Well today's main highlight was a huge four-hour math class throughout the afternoon which left me rather tired and the fact that I was tired by the end of it means I probably didn't take in everything that was taught. Which is bad and not helping but I'll catch up by wednesday.
Haha and after that I spaced out for one hour (which left me feeling incredibly useless) before I left home for dinner and returned home at around 9. Been doing work till now and I guess I really need to stop hitting the snooze and just get my back off the bed next sunday.
Hahaha. Tomorrow RE presentation! YLC invite delegations! TRAINING! Boy things seem to be picking up with my mentality. Sumo proves to be a really useful read.
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Yay we finished all the YLC invitations today haha!
We started early in the morning at 8am and immediately rushed away on the printing and the box-folding. So on one side I was printing each and every single layer and most importantly, the info sheet which will be lying hidden in the centre of the invitation! It's all folded neatly into one stack and I find that they look somehow like air ticket booklets or something haha.
Then on the other side while I was printing and folding the info sheets they were folding the boxes! 45 boxes eventually were folded and placed into a pile.
Oh and Jia Hao was being fun. The common subject of our 4-hour talk that we had while doing the invitations until lunch. Haha especially the times when the school counsellor happened to walk past, we'd talk louder about jiahao so she would pick up some signal that he should be counselled or something. Haha sheesh it was fun.
Then after the box-folding we started on the rolling up of the info sheets and tying them with gold string and stuff. It was fun but the tedious and crazy part came when we started on the 4 layers. We had to wrap the boxes with each and every layer until we came to the final one.
It was tough. Folding and folding and wrapping and wrapping 27 boxes over and over again (phew actually it was 40 boxes) and we kept folding along. I think somewhere around my 5th - 6th box I snapped this halfway and wondered how long it would take to finish the whole thing haha.
But eventually WE FINISHED THE INVITES! All 27 invitations done nicely and ready to be delivered with a personal touch (: Inspire, Aspire, Perspire. Be ready to take the new wave of things coming your way.
Which reminds me (somehow) that I went for buffet dinner today at the Novotel and crazily ate like mad. Like from everything western to everything oriental and to everything japanese and dessert after dessert. Hahaha. But the best part was when I went outside and gazed down at the nice lit-up clarke quay (or boat quay? sheesh) below:
And that's about it today haha! Tomorrow comes the rush of work.
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Everything crashed into a big flu and feverish morning today but I'm fine now.
Slept from like 4pm to 8pm (which is even longer than a night's sleep haha) and now I'm super refreshed but still going to sleep quite soon. I must take things further and work harder yay.
Tomorrow YLC INVITES!
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I've finished reading SUMO! It's really good and now I have much more areas to explore, re-explore, and to explore further. Thanks so much RE guys!
Well today started off rather amazingly cos the school bus didn't come as a school bus but as a little van. Haha and it's so small, I can have the entire external surroundings filling almost all of my visual spectrum when I look in any direction.
Probably cos the bus broke down or something but because of that, I couldn't enjoy my possibly-refreshing sleep I always used to have before reaching school. Haha was jerked around, surrounded by metal bars and people. I was staring at Readon sitting opposite me and I realised he was trying to sleep too. In the end I just buried my face into my arms throughout the journey while he stoned with eyes wide open listening to music.
But unique start to the day. Haha it's been the third day in a row since I've been exploring rather inhuman sleeping hours but I guess it's alright and I should get used to it. Just that I really shouldn't screw my body up with things to sustain myself. I shall pledge to work towards a healthy mode of handling things haha this week's just been too rotten full of caffeine and late hours.
What counts as well-being to you?
We can all say we feel fine and we feel stable now and everything feels great. But we do have to acknowledge that the moment something problematic or major enters our life at any instant in this point of life it's going to rock us off our boat and make us die all over again. Then again, to break out of what you feel comfortable about is something we can always work towards. The moment we are prepared to hit the hard times head-on, we're poised to fly. At least somewhere.
If life ain't giving you the right answers, ask different questions!
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These days been hard on the high and running through things a lot.
I don't know what's been interesting or whatsoever, sorry. Been closed in my mind and not being open and rushing through the heat of these days. But they've been okay I guess. Today at some point it was rather funny. An announcement was made on the PA system saying:
"There will be a fire alarm test going on in the new study block for 3 minutes, please do not be alarmed."
Haha it sent many classes into fits of laughter. And then somehow today for the rushed hype of it all I felt that maths lesson today was the best time I had for the entire day. It was, considerably, the only time which we had at good news to cheer over and that maths lesson itself refreshed me on so many concepts, I felt I took away the most from today's lesson haha. Apart from that the day's been overall busy but fine in every way yay.
Today's training was really great too. After going through sprints warmup and drills I hopped over to cross country training to do fartlek and it was quite tedious in comparison to the usual ones we do in sprints. I did about 3-4 rounds in 10 mins overall and was drained lah but it felt great. Then followed a little 2-round run around the rjc campus. Which after that I hopped back to sprints training and did 5 x 60m progressive sprint and did a hell lot of running and tiring strengthening. IT was really really good. Brought out the release, let my soul out and let everything else flow away to accompany the gloom of the day.
And now I'm pushing, pushing ever so clear, we have to move fast and nicely. The SUMO book has been a really good read! I'm about three fifths into the book and so far it's really been useful. Now here's some food for thought perhaps:
- In life, don't listen to your inner critic, listen to your inner coach instead.
- Don't play life by being a self-confessed martyr. Erase these excuses, give yourself time and move on to thinking about what you can do to solve the problem.
- There is no right or wrong emotion, it's just the way we handle them. Likewise we may not be responsible for whatever that might happen to us, but we are responsible for how we respond to these events.
- Turn off your auto-pilot and think about how you do the simplest things you do in everyday life. Then think about how you can make changes to make your life better.
Explore, define, re-shine.
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Today was SOME day, well we're all finally back to studying and having our normal lessons after 4 whole weeks of special lessons and stuff. I really feel DMPs were really great; Alot of us felt that it was the only period of time in the entire year where they actually learn alot within a short amount of time, and learn nicely too. It was a time of calmness I guess and we had that secure feel to what we were handling within school and in our lives. It is a really great method of teaching I don't see why we shouldn't adopt such a style.
But then again I guess these comments of mine and many other people will go nowhere in the end. They won't really get heard through the surveys and neither will blogging on minor blogs like this will work anyway but yeah my two cents worth.
Things are really pushing up hard and fast but we'll all handle it and stride it through, yes we will we know we can! I wasn't with the class during the last few days of school because we had to run around handling teachers' day stuff so I didn't get my copy of RInspire. Then today I happened to find one on the floor (yes on the floor, sadly) and flipped it through nicely. I guess they saved the biggest laugh for the last HAHA.
Youth week memories. Flawless flawless hahaha.
Oh and the great stunning event of the day: Marcus JonHo and Fu Zhihao bought me a present! This personal development book called SUMO (Shut Up, Move On) by Paul McGee.
Thanks so much guys! Haha I guess the title just so fits about the way I should tackle things perhaps the best way would be to just let go and kickstart whatever I'm freezing over. Yes simply I guess the best way would just be to shut up quit whining and get over stuff. Will prove to be an interesting read once again thank you!
And marcus lent me his Jay Chou CD too THANKS!
It's all shiny glossy and stuff it's really appealing. I can say the album really is nice but yet again only a few Jay Chou songs per album really appeal to me while the rest just don't. Haha anyway thanks so much. The DVD somehow doesn't work on my computer.
Anyway today's training ended in a mad 3x3x200m run and we all ran ourselves flat and into pure fatigue but it felt really great. Then returned home to find that somehow seriously all our internet connections are screwed and most of our MSNs aren't working. I called Singnet and managed to get mine back into working order but that was after like a thousand plus times i tried to call in. Guess everyone's been spamming them since long haha.
Oh well yay the world's turning to dust let's sweep it away. Haha.
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Yesterday after physics lesson I was helping Matthias and his friend do their banner and halfway through it looked quite the classic thing. Haha we'd probably have to do this all over again in rjc for council. Just much harder and tougher.
These days haven't been really well. Returned from overseas, and so many events throw themselves in my face and it takes real long and hard for acceptance and acknowledgment. With people suddenly gone, somehow it just feels emptier. Much emptier. And then again the next wave is coming again and we have to brace and charge through and make the best of what we can do.
Ran about 5km in the morning for training and at 4km I was at 20:10. The first 2km started in a jog and we waited about two minutes at the turnback point in macritchie so yay alot of rest in between but eventually couldn't push as fast. The last km was a little walk-a-jog away from start point and back to start point haha. And after that was simply exhausted.
Oh well the faster things get thrown at you for acceptance the faster we have to react and decide. Sometimes slowing things down to feel through them makes it all the more worse. Maybe we all should pick up something less of a life. Maybe we should just feel it bite and let it go. Or we can always lie on the ground feeling it through and never come back and for whatever that's really out there, we've missed it. Sometimes maybe I shouldn't even talk about this.
It's been 15 years through and through, we're all slowly watching ourselves grow up and we've been in quite a mad world. Through the things we go through and the things we experience we can only tell ourselves we're blessed with the experience, or we're just too sad, plagued by all this. Sometimes we don't even realise how blind we can be until something really happens and we take a look outside our circles and realise how deep we are and how long we've spent living in our own minds.
We fail to realise that every single day passes much to quickly thanks to the blind rush and mad pace, and everything else just whizzes by, failing to catch what's left of our extra attention and we speed through our days wondering why we're doing this, not thinking much and then speeding on again for we know what we would face should we stop and wonder.
Sometimes it's too blind. We all know we're blind. It's whether we're willing to take that chance to open up and see everything for ourselves. We all know too that somehow feeling the movement of things all around us would make us all screwed somehow for the fact that it all gets to the head, and the heart. A lot of us would have been like that once, and now we're of some other kind. Maybe some of us are still open and seeing and feeling too. Which is good in a way.
I don't know. To decide about something is too much of a challenge, at times.
And for all things' worth in the midsts of making these choices we still have to keep up. For if we've decided by some time then we'd realise we're too far back and hence we have to decide at the current point again. Keep up and don't lose track.
It's been rough.
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When it all boils down to the fact that you feel somehow your mentality has revered back to what it used to be, all rotten and down, you know you've got trouble coming your way. Somehow the path can seem so bright yet it fogs up when you're high up at it.
Or maybe perhaps it's just that I've got the wrong song in my head.
Then again the wrong songs can go on forever, and it's up to us to turn it off and get it out of our heads. Right now I guess I need some knocking and hammering to get myself back into place. All those in China and Vietnam now hope you're all doing fine, Singapore is fine now too.
Things have been so bad. They can't get worse for all of us. And yes please spread the message.
PLEASE HELP TO PASS THIS MESSAGE TO ALL RI STUDENTS.
Dear Batchmates of 2007 and fellow Rafflesians,
We are very shaken and very sad at Zhi Hao's sudden departure. Most of you would probably be feeling the same way too.
While we are all grieving at the loss of a wonderful friend and batchmate and being overwhelmed by feelings such as the brevity of life, unfairness, futility, sorrow, loss and pain, we would like to propose that we recall the wonderful memories of our times with Zhi Hao - in school, in class, in project groups, in CCAs, in org comms , or when we were just hanging around with him in and outside school.
Let us capture all these in a book of tributes in loving memory of Yew Zhi Hao. It will be a book of memories, tributes, photos and more, celebrating the life of Zhi Hao.
If you wish to contribute to this book, please follow the following guidelines:
- Use an A4 size paper (any texture and colour)
- Draw, print, handwrite, cut, paste (let your creative juices flow)
- Use proper language, ensure that it is a fitting tribute and be sensitive to the feelings of Zhi Hao's family
- Please contribute as many photos of Zhi Hao as possible
We will start collecting and compiling all contributions into a book when school reopens. Paul Tern is presently away on an overseas CIP journey, so in the meantime, please contact Jonathan Lim at jonathanlimes@gmail.com should you need clarifications.
Zhi Hao's parents may have lost a beloved son, but let us keep memories of Zhi Hao alive for them through this book. May this book be a source of comfort and strength for them .
Let us do our best for a dear friend,
Paul Tern and Jonathan Lim
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It's a nice morning.
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The following are random stuff experienced in Beijing haha. It was fun, I guess!
Here's the car which we were mainly driven around in. It's a China local car and it's called a Buick. Haha it's grand and it's comfortable. The other car which we sat in was an Audi A3 if i'm not wrong but I didn't manage to snap a shot.
Was at the Temple of Heavens or something then we were walking by some trees and people were saying that the trees stood through the test of history and time and they are shaped by how they feel about the things happening around them. Now I somehow think they're really so heavily emotionally laden.
Of course well the highlight of one of the days was this grand dinner in this really grand room in this really grand Peking Duck restaurant. And haha it was a dinner with my uncle's ex-classmates (he was an RI boy!) so yeah and then we met all of them. And we happened to be dining with Mrs Deborah Tan the rgs principal too. It was fun.
I bought myself lots of real nice stuff. Adidas shirts, Nike shirts, Nike sneakers, a nice Nike bag. Of these stuff only a few are the true originals lah but who cares hahaha they're all nice!
Last but not least... ENGLISH ERRORS yes.
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Reached home near 11pm yesterday from Beijing and it was really great. Lots of things to talk about but I'll just sum all five days into one nice entry full of photos which I can't really make head or tail out of. Eventually I managed to piece them altogether nicely haha.
Ok this post is for the house itself. There're too many photos.
Well for the five days spent in Beijing we stayed in my uncle's house, and it was really five days of pure luxury and fun. Couldn't get used to it at first but after a while it proved to be really great! Haha. And here is the house and it's a real nice one, three storeys.
And his house is in this big expatriate area and here we have one long row of these nice and new red houses which are like so comfortable inside haha.
So here we enter the house and the first thing we have is the lobby.
Then walking into the living room you'd find yourself in some oriental heaven with all the nice furniture and chinese style decor.
Going further there's the nice and cosy kitchen and with dining table overlooking the scenery outside! Here we had our breakfast for 4 days. and the breakfast is really great. Good food all throughout the day really it's so nice.
Haha then there's the endless flight of stairs. At the lobby we go up this initial flight...
Then reaching here we have this little area between the first and second storey, which has a big tv and alot of interesting stuff. But sheesh I lost the photo somewhere never mind. And yeah here's the next flight of stairs up to the second floor.
Then up again! And after this final flight there's this nice area with yet another giant TV underneath the roof. Then looking down from the 3rd storey stairs it's really a long long way down.
Haha and here's my room! It's cosy with another tv only a little smaller and also there's my very own washroom.
Well haha that's about it. More photos in the next post. Well the thing is that we were driven around by 2 chauffeurs, had 2 maids in the house, got driven around in 2 cars out of 4 of my uncle's cars, and we lived in 1 out of a few of his houses in different states in China. Hahah.
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Today was real fun. Teachers' Day celebrations (kudos to Linan and Sadikin) then a nice long trip back to Yumin and seeing all the p6'2003 people. Met so many teachers, yet missed out on even more. Lots have left and many untalked. It's just sad well we're all drifting apart as a 2003 batch, in mentalities, in ideologies, in personalities, in minds and feel. Soon we'll just be a miserable group of fivesix strolling back into those gates.
Then after that went back home then hopped over to Eugene's house to slash some swords around haha then went to have dinner with Junyang, Paul and Bingwen at Seoul Garden at Taka. It was a fruitful dinner yay.
I guess it's time for a break. From tomorrow onwards till Tuesday I'll be away in Beijing and will rest to my fullest and work my hardest when I get back. I'll return all recharged and refreshed for the next wave of Raffles revolution. Any important matters, send to jonathanlimes@gmail.com.
And Jon Goh waves a farewell for me, till next Wednesday! Beijing awaits.
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