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"You've got sixteen minutes left. Only sixteen minutes left before you stop wearing red [jerseys] anymore. These sixteen minutes will go down in history. It's now or never." - HSM3
That was a statement during the awesome movie which really made my insides churn with thoughts of how we're living our lives and how magic can be made in moments where we give our all and cherish the present for all these opportunities. It's so funny how we have a year and we think we have all the time in the world to achieve what we set out to do in school, but turns out we never have as much time as we thought we'd have, and as much as we want to do so much, there's just a time limit to everything.
Okay it was weird at first how tingzhang and i wanted to go watch a High School Musical movie, of all movies, but in the end tingzhang had to do it in the name of council (MATCH SUPPORT CASE STUDY YO :D) and we joined boss and vinna at the cathay to catch it yesterday!
And I think no other movie can paint a high school scenario so similar to ours. It was really great.
I agree with boss seriously; it's our Senior Year next year, one final year before everything ends.
I will not be wearing a school uniform anymore after that.
I will not be a current Raffles student anymore.
I will not have all my wonderful friends around anymore.
I still remember what tiankai said, many months ago when we were running for council. He told the crowd "The only sad thing about RJC is the fact that we only have 600 days to enjoy this wonderful school life," and that really shook some people.
Haha I just think school is a really wonderful place sometimes - as much as it doesn't seem so now, with all that work and all those pains - but true as I slowly come to realize, that All That Work and All Those Pains get magnified out there. It's really such a nice comfortable home in here. Looking at it, I think I'll really miss my friends and the many many familiar faces and places all around. Every day we trudge to school and we pass day by day but little do we notice that once it's gone IT'S GONEE.
I think I'm really proud to say that Raffles is my second home, and I am very certain that these 6 years are truly indeed going to be the best and most eventful years of my life. I'm sounding like I'm going to graduate ahhh but yes no I HAVE ONE YEAR MORE. I promise to be a happy boy and I will make sure I get the most out of this one year for I won't have anything to get out of there after. Once this coming year is gone, it's gone.
And I'll convert that statement:
"You've got one year left. One year left before you stop donning the colours of green black white. This one year will go down in history. It's now or never."
I'LL BE OFF, PW OP WILL END TOMORROW :D
Then I'm off to enjoy a night of dance at Rafflesian Spotlight!
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I just got back from a quick weekend break in malaysia - it really was very weird being made to go overseas in the middle of all this crazy work going around with PW and whatnot. But well, these three days have passed, and here I am sitting at home feeling rather strange.
The long driving trips to and fro from singapore to malacca during which I could pretty much do nothing freed up some time for me to think about loads of things. And with the huge rush of work flowing in and out every single day I guess this was where a small holiday made this much a difference. I've reminded myself that these two years, no matter how quick they may appear to pass or how blind they may turn out to be, will definitely be a time where I will have done my best - nothing short of it. I don't want to leave regretting everything.
Well that's for certain, all along. I just need to give myself reminders along the way. Otherwise, the immense sleep has done me a lot good, along with the sights and sounds :D
Nothing like old bustling streets and a humble dinner :D
And the occasional copycat lurks around this part of malacca too.
Malaysia has countless malls that give vivocity a run for its money in sheer size and design - like sunway pyramid with its new extensions!
The Rangolis around the mall are wonderful - I still remember how measly our rangoli was when we did one for inter-house rangoli! We should seriously learn some stuff so we can do better next year.
And some buildings along the streets are lined with lights at their corners, so at night it makes the entire area look as if it's some toy fairyland! I snapped a shot on the road and well it wasn't too clear.
It's time to set things on a more definite path I suppose, with this flurry of events that has been tugging me in all directions.
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This has been an awesomely crazy week :D
Stand Up Take Action in RJC has been a blast so far; I think what really made it a blast was the immense support we had from everyone in school :D I'm just so glad! Friday 17th october was the international pledge day to stand up against poverty, and it was a huge pity that we couldn't hold the pledge-taking session during assembly to secure mass support. But it was just so comforting and inspiring when I walked into the amphitheatre at 12.30pm to see the entire place filled full of people ready to take the pledge omg :D I was really really awed. Really shows that all of us have a big big heart and we are willing to Stand Up and make sure our voices do not go unheard!
So to whoever who reads this, if you have taken the pledge / taken a photo for the countdown clock / visited the Coalition of Aid Fair / bought a Make Poverty History band / bought a Stand Up badge / ordered a shirt / signed up for the Open Mic session / donated rice for the rice drive / left your handprint on the banner / signed up to be a volunteer, THANK YOU SO SO MUCH BECAUSE YOU ROCK AND YOU'RE GONNA SHAKE THE WORLD BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU DID :D
And the following, essentially, is what went on over the past few weeks of Stand Up!
The banner! It was quite funny how we got it done initially - I ran out of cloth after I painted RAFFLES then I went to arab street with tingzhang to find another piece of cloth. Mingzhe suggested that we find this shop called Teng Joo Textiles but after a complete hour of wandering around arab street searching for Teng Joo (and getted spied on by dubious RJ teachers who were driving around Bugis in a small car hahaha), we still didn't manage to find it. In the end we found a shop called GHIM JOO TEXTILES and we bought a piece of cloth for $9, as compared to naomi's initial $20 for the first piece of cloth. NAOMI YOU GOT SCAMMED! But yes it was really fun anyway hahah we finished painting and started handprinting :D
Here's the completed banner, hung above the announcement area woohoo!
The floor decals! Vinna got them printed very nicely and they're wonderfully professional yay :D
It was quite funny too because the second floor decal initially had a really striking typo. It read 'STAND UP TAKE ACTION AGAINST POVERTY AND INQUALITY.' And we didn't notice it for an entire weekend after we pasted the floor decal on the tiled floor and felt very happy about getting it done hahah. Then eventually we realized after an entire weekend passed.
The lanterns! They were pretty fun to make :D Haha then I proceeded to line all the light bulbs while jiayun audrey and hongjie decided to camwhore with them!
Eventually they were hung up and they are marvellousssss :D
The coalition of aid fair was wonderful too! It was certainly more major than any other fair previously held at the canteen entrance and what was even more wonderful was that loads of people came down to view the booths and buy bands/badges and take photos for the countdown clock!
Then on friday we were at the indochine, clarke quay for the official opening ceremony of the stand up countdown clock, selling stand up t-shirts as well as the anti-poverty bands. The place was pretty unique - probably converted from one of those old shophouses, and recreated to give off a rather ancient chinese dynastic feel.
In fact in the day it looks like some dilapidated temple in the middle of clarke quay - no wonder I never noticed it when I walked by, so many times! At night it just transforms into this pseudo-ancient china hotspot with flashing lights and cool music. I didn't really like it when they started to release this funny mist all over the place and when they placed aromatic incense sticks around the area, but haha I guess that's what makes it interesting!
John Chan from Plain Sunset came to perform!
A huge wall of these light thingies whose name I can never remember somehow. To measure the sound of music.
The opening ceremony!
We sold a lot a lot of t-shirts :D and a lot of bands! I'm so glad.
My dinner was an interesting one; I landed myself with 5-6 hot dogs because there was surplus (turns out we bought a lot more food than required), and I managed to gulp down about 4 while giving the other 2 away. Then I reached home before midnight with my flu slowly creeping back to my nose and fell asleep rather immediately when I turned in.
And yes, so ends the week; Stand Up will continue next week with Open Mic sessions, Movie Screenings, and a continuation of the Fair, Sanitation Project, Rice Drive and sales! EVERYONE KEEP COMING DOWN TO STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY OKAY!
Today, today, today. Today was a uniquely refreshing day; I woke up at 9am to the nice view of the Singapore Flyer from a window! I had a hotel stayover at the Conrad Centennial the previous night. Soon after I enjoyed a rather hearty breakfast at suntec before taking on an afternoon of strolling, shopping and just unwinding.
Life is a piece of cake... and a cup of coffee!
And yes today I managed to get Ne-Yo's latest album, Year Of The Gentleman! I'm really really glad; I've set my eyes on this album months ago and finally I got it (almost for free at HMV, thanks to one of dad's credit card promotions again haha).
It's not just any other album; the songs in this one are really great. Still popular, yet also with a touch of sincerity and earnestness. And also, Year Of The Gentleman speaks about those times 'where you couldn't walk out of your house unless you looked your best', lending strength from the past R&B giants like Nat King Cole and the Rat Pack. "They're suited and everything is right from top to bottom. Not saying it has to be a suit, 'cause clothes don't make the man — it's the attitude and person."
And I agree - this album speaks of style, yet speaks volume too. Definitely shallower than the likes of Corrinne May but this is a whole different level altogether!
IT'S DOOMSDAY MONDAY TOMORROW! Let's be steady and await our results.
The prospect of it is really scary. But I just want to say that I'm ready, even if I'm not. I will be!
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This isn't anything near a complete and fulfilling post to account for all this stagnation over the past week, but I really have to say today was a really great day, probably the most pleasant ever since the promos ended. It's a huge pity all this nice air only lingers around for a while more before it dissipates away at the imminent onslaught of the results. But yes these few remaining days are all we have - I'll just leave all the worry and concern to monday itself and allow my head some peace!
And why was today a great day, in all simplicity:
- PW oral presentation dry run ended today, instead of tomorrow for it was pushed earlier by a day. I developed a severely extreme aversion to the shift in date initially until it really dawned on me after the presentation that I have a day more to relax and a day more to reflect over what went wrong during the presentation, and certainly everything will be sorted out all in good time :D
- Today was the first day this week where I didn't have to eat lunch on the go! I had a nice comfortable lunch sitting down with tingzhang and company, and it sure beats eating lunch from a packed box discreetly in between meeting breaks.
- SONG AND DANCE MEETING! Where we decided on the songs for next year's batch dance, and started choreographing. I'm so glad for the group for I'm in and the song which we're allocated to choreo moves for! We are a pretty high bunch of people and GUESS WHAT WE FINISHED CHOREOGRAPHING OUR ENTIRE SECTION BEFORE THE MEETING ENDED :D Haha I really had so much fun dancing all the way past the afternoon and into the evening, with the loud music, really nice company and much of the light-hearted atmosphere. Houyes when I left at 6 plus I think we're done with half the entire dance already yay :D
- I got the Stand Up banner up after song and dance, with lots of help from wangye weiting and charlene! THANKS SO MUCH!
- Before I left for home I managed to squeeze another 5km run on the really dark track. It's been quite a while since I last ran on the track in the dark and it put my nerves to rest yay shall keep running on and on I won't stop :D
And yes, what a nice world woohoo we definitely have got to love today of course we have to!
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The past few days have been in colourful hurry. Many times I remember walking here and there all over the school getting to different places and listening to different people talking, coming up with different ideas and settling on different decisions. Yay I'm back to the old life of handling numerous projects again and I can't love this life any greater!
To make days more wonderful still, our timetables have been restructured for these two weeks, and with the exception of PW, our lives have reverted back to that of the old orientation days, having huge free blocks, absolutely no tutorials, and most desirably, having a peace of mind after all that crazy studying for the promos. In fact school life now is as good as it can get - in between the promos and our results, with nothing but slow-paced lectures and lots of fun stuff after school late into the night. I'm treasuring this. Even when there's an entire presentation to prepare for, this can't really get any better :D
More importantly, to everyone who's reading, READ THIS MOST CAREFULLY!
I will STAND UP AND TAKE ACTION AGAINST POVERTY on 17th October 2008 in RJC. Join me!
Stand Up and Take Action is here once again. Last year in RI a very small-scale event was organized, and a group of really passionate people Stood Up against poverty, making sure that the world knows we're not happy with the present situation of widespread poverty in developing countries and pledging to take steps to make a positive difference in this society.
That was last year. This year, continuing on from the Stand Up events in RI and RGS last year, we bring to you STAND UP & TAKE ACTION 2008, RJC! The actual pledge against poverty will be on the 17th, and in that week, you will find for yourself countless opportunities to take a stand against poverty. Await the week ahead :D
Events and fringe activities to be held in RJC include:
1. Coalition of Aid Fair - where various NGOs and aid organisations such as WorldVision, RefugeeSEA, AIESEC, Action for Aids and HOPE Foundation will set up informative booths/displays for you to take further action in the fight against poverty!
2. Sales booth - Purchase white wristbands from MakePovertyHistory, and badges with the official SUTA logos 2008 to show your support for the cause!
3. Banner Handprinting - Make your impression by handprinting on a giant banner which reads 'RAFFLES STANDS UP AND TAKES ACTION'!
4. The Sanitation Project - It takes only USD$150 to buy enough cement to build a sanitation unit for a co-ed school in India. Through pledging and aid, we can help provide clean sanitation to Third World nations!
5. The Rice Drive - As an individual, class or SIG, donate some rice into the huge RJC collection sack, and help feed abused migrant workers resting in the H.O.M.E. shelter in Singapore!
6. Oh, Say That Thing! - An open mic event where you have up to 7 minutes to say all that you wish to regarding the issue of poverty. Perform anything - and we mean anything, speech, song or dance - original or adapted, and let your voice be heard!
Coming to RJC next week. Stand Up and Take Action against poverty.
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This is again, another lazy sunday, seemingly uneventful and pretty much dead, but it's telling me so many things.
On top of everything, it's telling me to wake up!
So I shall.
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For most of the past two days, I've been in the performing arts centre at the CCAL conference with a whole lot of friends and councillors - initially I thought that I'd probably already have gone through the courses, seminars and talks to be conducted, but it turned out to be two days of inspirational talks by Eric Feng and Martin Tan, and it really did help a lot!
You don't get to listen to good speakers talk everyday, and this was simply a good opportunity to just drop all forms and inklings of disbelief and dismissive ignorance, and listen out earnestly to what they had to offer. And I really enjoyed a good chance to re-learn what I had forgotten, and re-enforce what I had dropped. These lessons come to us in many forms all the time, and half the time we're too tired or going at a pace too fast to learn from them, so I'm glad I did manage to refresh myself on my purpose and focus in this short period of time devoid of any studying and PW (to my horror, OP is only a few weeks away!)
I seriously think I've forgotten myself too many times, sometimes. Too frequently I've allowed myself to fade into the background of acceptable standards and foundational targets, and going on this way, I'll never be as good as I really want to be. And I think it's really all too simple to be the best person I can be - to just keep at it and keep at staying as the person I am and want to be. It's not that hard, in essence. It's somewhere near. I'll keep at it :D
I remember this point about how we shouldn't limit our dreaming and we should always have big ideas, aspirations, and keep our hopes up high about every single little thing we wish to see happen, or want to make happen. Sometimes in front of us, it seems so clear that this is certainly the right thing to do, but yet we hold ourselves back a tad too often because of many reasons which we can never be able to count. I think I've been a little too wary of failure, a little too doubtful, and it's seriously wasting my time and getting on my nerves - will work at it and make sure I get somewhere!
I realize I never seem to realize some truths. I believe I'm dreaming.
Random stuff over these days:
The size 13 titus shoe versus xian's size 6 shoe hahaha!
HIOK :D Haha not bad ah we owned the world these two days!
The army of little plastic troops I was ready to deploy in a lazy game of Risk with mingzhe stanley joelynn while we waited for the awesome steamboat buffet dinner we had later on :D where boss promptly toppled every single one of them and said that they needed to sleep and they shouldn't be standing up hahah.
Sudden realization: This is a 600th post, wow.
Okay o'comm meeting tomorrow and council outing woohoo!
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The promos ended on monday, taking with them a whole load of pressure over the past month and lots of brain saturation! It's been a whole month of crazy studying, to the point that this small portion of 09A01C actually thought of going home to mug whilst shopping along orchard. But anyway our post-promos experience was quite dismal, owing to the fact that the movie we watched, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, was utterly disappointing and a cheap thrill for a gory horror/thriller. Well in fact most of us entered the cinema hall thinking that it was some chick flick and something to laugh at but yes I guess we were wrong!
And we walked out of the cinema feeling the huge loss of our money and time but no nothing stopped us from going mad and just plain enjoying ourselves; well after a few hours of orchard shopping i then proceeded on to pay shanzhi and claire a visit at funan, and spent a few hours talking away and catching up. Not to mention shanzhi attempted to drop my phone down five floors while I was in a conversation with tingzhang haha! But yes monday was quite a day, not really one which was all exciting and leaving me all tired at dusk but just a comfortable and simple day where I had everything to feel happy about :D
All this happiness reminds me of the past few days too, starting from last week's monday and all the way through the week where one by one, subject by subject, the promos slowly started to disappear - especially after the killer day of math and history! And by friday, the BCME/PCME people were all done and they all ran off to party while poor me had to study lit still, but it was fun enough :D cousin naomi was around waiting for people to go out with and she showed me her very cool john mayer velcro thing! Which I then proceeded to paste onto her monster wallet.
Oh then we got smarter so we pasted Mayer over john donne haha!
Then later into the day I ran into Kirk and Ryan after running around trying to find a non-tiring place to study (which was an epic failure) and I had a really wonderful talk with them in that very lazy late afternoon. Time flies really, now here I stand nearing the end of my J1 year and next year I'm going to take the A levels soon, oh please just a moment ago I was just done with PSLE. Two years ago, kirk and ryan were so small and now ryan very sadly towers over me! But ya ryan was saying it was quite funny how finally this day I'm talking to him face to face over major school matters concerning RI but yes time really flies and I just want to say that I'm really super super proud of ryan and kirk and ripb. TAN AH DON'T LET ME DOWN AH JIAYOU :D
On saturday there was the BCG phase III presentations - which brought back a lot of memories about how all of us pulled through BCG for the whole of last year, crazily rushing, researching, presenting, rehearsing. Including how our team used to go over to Tom's place the day before every single presentation day, rushing till the very last minute. And how jiahao gobbled every single piece of food that entered the room, and how we all fell asleep halfway whilst preparing. But yes everyone's getting a lot better and I'm just glad that I had the experience of BCG for the whole of last year. Makes me a whole lot stronger, versatile and business-smarter!
And here I am, after all this studying, ready to restart council work YAY I REALLY CAN'T WAIT. There's so many things to do and so little time but there's just so much we want to do so yay I'm going to give the best I can give, nothing less. Not going to stop till the end of our term where we can look back and firmly tell ourselves that this was really the best year of our lives.
Alright a new day ahead :D turning in!
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