A New Beginning

1 Year, 1 month and 2 days since the last post, so many things have happened since then. The day before yesterday marked the end of a journey that began 6 years ago when I was just a small boy fresh out of primary school entering into this new world of elite known as Anglo Chinese School. Hearing stories of elitism and snobbish people, I didn't know what to expect. However now 6 years on, having completed the IB diploma, I can proudly say that whatever preconceptions i had initially were all wrong and I truly enjoyed the journey and the friends who were there along with me. The elitism and snobbishness are just labels that others give to us when they misunderstand our confidence and school culture. But i must say there is a good reason for us to be confident because seeing the results of my 4th batch of IB students, we have smashed the records by an amazing margin doubling the number of 45 pointers and defying all odds despite "the students have more behavioral problems compared with previous batches" (Straits Times, 7/1/11, Acting Principal Fanny Tan). I would to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the teachers who were there along to help me along the way and also my parents who were supporting me all the way.

On another note, post IB resuslts has been really fun!!! Went to swensen to celebrate after results, celebrated with my pri sch friends over late night supper and also caught like 2 movies in the past 2 days which bring me to the important part of me trying to follow my friend's suggestion of reviving this blog by writing movie reviews. So i guess here goes nothing?





The first movie was The Fighter staring Mark Wahlberg (whom i somehow confused with Matt Damon from the Bourne Trilogy) and Christian Bale. I must say Christian Bale looks very different from the Batman movies not that we get to see much of his face anyway. But as for the movie, although it got some 4 stars in the Toronto film festival, I would say that it is very confusing and does not provide many exciting scenes that would put you in the edge of your seat. The plot chronicles the true story of a boxer who is on a journey to fight his way to the top with the help of his ex-boxing legend brother but along the way meets with many obstacles and has to make some hard decisions. The ending was as expected where he triumphs and succeeds in becoming a boxing champion. The boxing scenes were quite exciting as they were very realistic and with blood and all but not for the squeamish (judging by my friend's reaction). Haha. I would give this movie a 2.5/5 but I do not recommend you watch it because its not the kind of movie that appeals to all which coincidentally has a M18 rating.



The second movie was Meet the Parents: Little Fockers which is the 3rd movie of the series. I must say this movie was full of jokes and was a very hilarious one. It got my hugging my stomach in pain from laughing too much from the well timed and executed jokes by the skills of Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro. The storyline was also quite good but as my friend noted had a slightly unrealistic ending when the wife forgave Gaylord too easily. However it was a barrel of laughs and i would give this movie a 4.5/5 and highly recommend that you watch it cause it is perfect for all ages except for the fact that it is NC 16.

Well I guess now after all the fun and games, I should get down to studying for my SATs which are coming up soon. On this note, I guess I am signing off and until next time... =D

Its the Holidays!!!

Ok so for most of you, half the holidays have passed but for me, the holidays have only officially just started. Although School ended like a month ago, I have been going back to school almost everyday to do my EE experiments and all. NOw that it is finally over, I kinda miss the daily sessions where I get to go back to school from 9-5 and meet my friends and have lunch together, bull shit together and generally have a lot of fun. Now that everyone has gone on holiday to like Hong Kong and like Japan or return home back to like Indonesia or the Philippines, I guess I have to deal with the boredom myself.

Anyways, the past 2 weeks have been rather crazy with me setting like personal records for things that I have never done before. Lets see, I watched like 4 movies namely Paranomal Activity, 2012, The informant and most recently on Friday the Twilight Saga New Moon. And there is also Zombieland which was watched at Mcdonalds at Crown Plaza. Haha. I think this is a personal record cause I usually watch like a movie a month max but now like 4?!? Then there are like the numerous trips to like Plaza Sing and Swensens and also the crazy night where I stayed out at the Merlion Park till 1 before proceeding to the Airport with my friends and stayed there till 6 to send a friend off to Hong Kong for his family holiday.(Hopes he appreciates us and buys us presents. haha. jkjk). There are also those numerous glutton sessions most recently Yuki Yaki where we stuffed ourself full with Bbq meat and like steamboat before topping it all off with Ice cream which we got to 'Fry' ourselves which was like very cool except for the fact that they were closed when we wented to go and get seconds so we ended up making like a cool man out nuts on the cold pan. I also ate like Mcdonalds for 3 straight days and also had like cheesecake at the airport at like 5 in the morning all of which are brand new experiences. I guess u could say that the friends are a bad influence on me but I would say that this is the best holiday I have had so far.

I would also like to take a brief moment to talk about my awesome birthday party. Haha. I would like to thank everyone who was there to spend that day with me. From the shopping/ cleaning session the day before to arriving early to help with the preparation of the food, I would like to say thank you very much. Then there are the presents ranging from the crystal with a drawing of the beijing olympic stadium ,shirt with drawings and writings on it, wallet which I went along to buy but was supposed to act surprise when I saw it and finally the delicious chocolate cake. Thank you guys for being such awesome friends and I will cherish the gifts even though it is highly unlikely I will wear the shirt in public. haha. After most of the ppl left that night, 3 stayed and we had like a movie marathon with shows like My sisters keeper and Shutter. After staying up till like 4 or something, we couldnt take it anymore and went to sleep before waking up at like 8 to go to church. We went to my friends church which is like located inside the cinema at Vivo! How cool is that? Anyway, going to church was quite a new experience but it was similar to the monday chapels that I have except that the Hymns are like more professionally done and the devotions are less boring. Anyway after that we went to Vivo and did some shopping before ending up at Starbucks where we stayed for 3 hrs or so just chatting. I would say these are the little things that I would remember for life.

Life isn't all about our studies or our grades although to a very large extent these would determine our future but I mean when we grow old, we wont want to remember like the atoms we learnt about or the differentiation, I am sure we would want to remember the fun and memorable experiences we spent with our friends. So I say to you, during this holiday, dont just catch up on work for the past year but take some time off and go spend time with your friends and do something fun. Go catch up with classmates you have not spoken to for a while. Take a day off and go out for a movie or outing. Life is too short, so make sure you Cherish it. And that reminds me, I have to go plan a primary school outing and also possibly get Christmas presents for my friends. So until the next post which is usually a spur of the moment thing, I hope u spend some time with your friends =D

Post Exams Mood

Ok. Lets give this blogging thing another shot. I havent blogged in a very long time partly due to the insanely crazy schedule I have in school and also because i am lazy. Anyway, was inspired to start blogging again cause now is after exams so got time and also because today my class went to watch Julie and Julia which was mostly about a girl blogging about her cooking experience and might I say that the movie got progressively bad from a good start to an unresolved ending so i would not advice you guys to watch it. Wanted to watch fame after that but there were only front row seats and not enough so sadly had to give it up. Anyways, today was one of the happiest day in my IB life in a long time because finally got to go shopping and do absolutely watever we wanted without worrying about our studies. Went to Ding Tai Fung at Wisma for dinner with classmates cause our chinese teacher highly recommended the xiao long bao there and i must say its quite ok costing $1 each and the shop having like 10% service charge + 7 % GST = 17% Tax which was exorbitant considering the service was very bad we were tempted to write a feedback form for them but decided against it.

Well, some updates about the exams... I think i did pretty ok for everything except for maybe chemistry which i am more or less prepared to attend concentration camp for which will cost like $200 per subject for a week of extra lesson then a retest. Theres also the english con camp which u will get into if u dont get like 6 points which i have a feeling would constitute at least half of the year 5 cohort so its practically like remedial except they make u pay for it. And if by some stroke of luck i do not make it into con camp, there will still be my extended essay to worry about. It is like a 4000 word report and i have choosen to do it on chemistry but currently i do not have a topic which is quite worrying considering that the trial run are like in 2 weeks??? That would mean that the whole of my November will be burnt doing my experiments and typing the report. And theres that TOK essay which i have to type which is like basically about philosophy and all which is like questioning our existence which is wat i am doing currently. I know i have been ranting on and on about how my life sucks and all and i am pretty sure its the same for you but take heart in the fact that there are friends who walk the same road with you. Classmates who encourage you, demoralize you, make you laugh, make you angry, they come in all shapes and sizes and considering that you will be friends with them for at least 1 more year, i suggest you make the most out of it cause i know i will walk out of this IB experience and the most important thing that i will bring along with me (other than the IB Diploma) is the friendship that i made along the way.

Anyway, on a happier note, I am teaching Indians how to sing 'Peng You' for a chinese karaoke competition and its quite cool. Tomorow dunno whether to go play squash in school, gym and badminton at jurong west or go play frisbee at sentosa. Have like a break from now till wednesday cause marking day and all so now i will enjoy the most out of it. Life is too short to worry about things, I will just take it one step at a step. P.s. If anyone still reads this dead blog, please leave a tag so that i would be encouraged to continue blogging =D

Orientation

This week marks the official start of school after the o level students joined us on monday even though sch for me started on 19 Jan. Anyway, my Orientation Group(OG) has 7 girls and 20 plus boys. On Monday, our day started with chapel and then a Principal's briefing which lasted like 3 and a half hour and this is like the longest time i have seat in the Auditorium in my 4 years in the school. The principal also kept using the term blue ocean strategy throughout his speech which no one understood until he finally explained it and it is basically like breaking away from tradition and creating a new market which is demonstrated by the IB program. Then after the long, excruciating talk, we had a break and our orientation started. We had a very fun cheering session and also some fun Ice breaker games like a game called ping pong which is actually a finger game that tests one's concentration. we were also entertained by a very hilarious skit which depicted the difference between a Acs, raffles and Chinese high boy. It also went through the history of ACS from how Oldham and Thoburn founded the school to how a parents' questions about IB were answered. After that, we had telematches which comprised of each one in the OG taking turns to first shoot a green pea through a piece of paper, then transport a tennis ball on a plastic spoon with ur mouth, limbo under a danger safety tape, then go in circles 10 times around a pole, transport the ball with the stick to the end of the course and pick up a piece of puzzle which was actually a photo of our OG leaders while competiting with the other groups. In the end, i think my OG won thanks to one guy who took 4 puzzle pieces and another who took 3 when we were only supposed to take 1 each. Yesterday, we started the day with a briefing by our deputy principal on what the IB program is basically about and then we had a discipline talk by the student council. After that we had a a mass dance session which was damn fun cause we learned a dance to the music of disturbia by rhianna and the dance moves were damn comical. DUring the warm up, there were moves like milking a cow, plucking apples and pumping tyre and my personal favourite the Chernobyl kid which is a move where u put one hand on the back of ur neck while u let the other hand hangs loose on the side and you shake it around like a retard. We also had another session of Cheering which caused my voice to become a bit hoarse and after that it was the wet games which was damn cool. There were 3 games and each OG took turns to compete against each other and the games were minefield, twister and sock war. In sock war, we had to wear our sock and on a mat that was filled with soap and detergent water, we had to attempt to take of each others sock and it was quite funny to see the difference between how the girls played and the guys played.(P.s. The girls had their our seperate round and without any guys). Next, there was twister with a twist which was we were playing with sauces. So we had chilli sauce, kaya, oyster sauce, egg white and egg yoke so when they picked a colour and hand or leg, we had to put then at the respective postitions. Lastly, we had minefield where we had to like guess the path through the oponent's minefield and if we step on the wrong box, we were bombed with water bombs but in the end my OG still won. But the road to victory was not a easy one cause when we ran out of water bombs, some guy filled up a basin with socks he got from god knows where and poured it over one of my team mate who stepped on a mine. That was freaking disgusting!!!!!!!!! Today was damn boring cause got lectures and this will continue until next tuesday where we will continue our orientation. Anyway, tomorow got lecture on the various subjects and what combination to choose for students and parents so school will like end like 8pm!!!!!! I am totally not looking forward to it at all cause tomorow, school will be like from 8am- 8pm which is like 12 hrs!!!! The only condolence I get is that next friday we get to go sentosa for some ACSiting race which will last like the whole day. I am signing off here to go rest if not tomorow cannot last the long hours of lecture. P.S. xiu jin, I will go buy the lor mee noodles soon and see whether they taste as good as u say they are. :)

Back to School

This is like my first post for the new year so i start by recounting the first 2 days of school. Yesterday, everyone went back to school and gathering in front of the front office and meeting many friends whom i have not seen in close to 3 months was a great experience. We had some chit chat before we went for Chapel. There we were seated according to our Orientation Groups(OG) and i was in 12 which mean i was with some people like Archis, Palmer, Hafiz and Viet Anh among others but sadly our group had no girls Yet. I stress yet because the girls now are those who got in by direct admission so we still have to wait for the people who are applying for the school by the O level track to come in. So anyway, yesterday we had 3 lectures which were English which was basically the history of literature, Maths which was about the math of using probability in calculating your odds when gambling in 4d or toto and economics which was about how it applied to our daily lifes. Today was a more fun day cause we had this life skills talk conducted by the Adam Khoo Company(Brings back a lot of memories for those in my primary school) and the Trainer we got was like totally hilarious and he was like telling us jokes and sharing his experiences in relationships with us. On top of that, there was like 3 people from my OG group who were seated right in front and were like acting gay with each other and the trainer would like ask them why they were touching each other from time to time providing much comic relief. One of them also claimed that he liked Hannah Montana and when the trainer said proof it, he took out a pink colour Hannah water bottle. After that cool talk, my group B which comprised of OG 7-12 had to go to some Chinese Traditional Medicine Talk at Machpherson and it cost like $12 per person. When we went there, we were introduced to the basics like acupuncture, and massaging techniques and then there was a hands on session where he would demonstrate the techniques so he was asking for volunteers and one of the guy went up and the person asked him to take off his shirt and for some reason, kept pulling his underwear lower much to the amusement and disgust of everyone. Then he put some cups on the body which created a partial vacum which caused the flesh to swell up. Then we also had tea making competition where we had to mix and match different herbs to create the tea. Then my friend went to pour half a container of lou han guo into the tea and then it became like damn sweet. Anyway, tomorow got some stupid science competition where we have to make soemthing usable out of recycled materials so i have to prepare some newspaper and bottles. We also have to write like a 1000 word essay so I guess I'll be signing off here.

XMas Present Xchange

On Monday just had a steamboat cum xmas present xchange with the peeps from 6-5. Arranged to meet at geh poh at 730 so when i reached there, i saw clarie and his friend then after a while more wan zhen and li ping arrived. We went to buy drinks for the dinner then clarie go send his friend to the bus stop. After we finished, we waited for rui song who was supposed to meet us there. After many failed attempts at contacting him including one which consisted of both parties just saying hello to each other cause cannot hear each other, we finally got through and found out that he was at NTUC with gary buying plates and utensils. So we walked to guo wei's house and meet john on the way. When we arrived, we had a very scrumptious steamboat dinner which included shark's meat courtesy of Gary and also Roast Chicken. After the meal, we slacked around while the table was cleared and then we proceeded to have some fun and games. We played a game called chubby bunny which included everyone taking turns to stuff mushmallows into their mouth and saying the magic words chubby bunny after that. Then can the long awaited present exchange which was filled with gifts from action city including mine and we drew lots with names of the person whom we were getting our present from and in the end, i got a rather cute banana organiser from siyi and i have promised her to put it to good use so i will try my best. Then kai en had to leave early cause she moved to telok blangah and she was rushing for the mrt and according to clarie who was in constant communication with her after she left, she just made it on the last train. After that and much crap talking later, we went home @ like 0030. P.S. Pictures "koped" from Yanni's Blog :)

Class Gathering

This week, I had a class gathering with my primary 6 classmates and it was like organised by thomas. We were supposed to meet at Jurong Point at 1230 but I like Gym at 10 and then in the end got pushed to 1030 cause the coach had some competition the day before and hence was late but luckily I made it in time. Anyway, when I reached Jurong Point, I saw Wan Zhen and Liping and then shortly after Thomas came and I found out that he had invited like 15+ people to come but in the end only 8 people turned up. So we went to Marina Square and wanted to go to Yuki Yaki but then very long queue so decide to go Seoul Garden but same thing happened so in the end we had to settle for Breeks where I ordered Mushroom Pasta and we sat there and talked for very long. In the end, when we wanted to leave, we requested for separate billing so the manager had to slowly print out individual receipts so she took like 20 mins to figure out things and print out 8 receipts which was hilarious on one hand but environmentally unfriendly on the other. After that we went to some place where there were like many machines to grab soft toys and we saw like many people trying their luck. Then saw one guy with a girl with like 3 soft toys one of which is so huge one wonders how they managed to grab it. Then Yan ni wanted to try her luck but i told her about what I saw once on a show called "Brianiac" which showed that these machines were programmed to give a payout only after a certain number of tries and even then you needed some skill to grab the doll. What this means is that if the soft toy costs like $20, they will only give the doll to you after like $60 has been put in. So we are actually better off just buying it. Anyway, after that we decided to go find gary and rui song who were playing some game at the arcade and they were armed with some cheated which meant they could keep healing themselves. So we decided to walk to Suntec City to play at another arcade where there were basketball machines. After like a few games they gave up and it was just in time because gary and rui song came. Then we were having a hard time deciding where to have dinner so we went to the fountain and sat down to talk things out. On one hand, some wanted to eat Seafood while others who were not hungry wanted 'tau hui' but in the end we decided to go back to Jurong Point before we make up our minds. When reach Jurong Point, we decided to go for a walk and it is now like damn huge after it got renovated and now it has like a Starbucks and a Newyork Newyork amongst other stalls.We finally decided on KFC but the JP outlet too many people so go to another place instead. There we talked for very long before going to play basketball near Jia Hou Place but no ball so Rui Song had to go borrow from his friends. Then after like half and hour or so, we decided to go back. Then me and ruisong escorted yan ni to her block before we went home ourselves. Then I got a shock from eldric who smsed me saying that his dad was timing us for swimming the next day and my legs were aching but in the end still had to go. So the next day we went down to Jurong West Swimming Complex which has pool water which is salty and swam laps. Before I went home, ELdric showed me this very funny India Music Video on his Subtitles. Coming up, I have a XMas gift exchange with my primary school friends but I have not decided what to get. It has to be above $10 and should be unisex cause the gift exchange is random so anyone with ideas please write it on the tag board.Shall post more photos when Yan Ni decides to post them on facebook.