dEsKOh91 VX

actually...the update is not scheduled. I update when I find something worth talking about. but when I have no specific idea for a title it will be called a "scheduled update" =P

today is your average wednesday with nothing too exciting, except maybe the PE today. before we began we had to warm up and for guys it includes 3 sets of 15 push ups. well I have to admit I cant do 15 standard push ups at once (it is around 3 sets of 10, standard as in the hand bends all the way down and knees do not touch ground).

after 45 push ups comes the introduction of a new game called touch rugby. as with vilau he introduces the game and talks about the variation. then he let us learn some basics, which includes some demonstration. and I am one of those who had to demonstrate... didnt exactly do it very well =X

and after the demo comes the practise. the training mode is pretty strange at first so I screwed up somewhat and (as usual with anyone who dont follow instructions) down 20.

and at the end cuckoo thought he meant me do something wrong do another 5. so I did 70 push ups! a new record! (even if some of them are not standard). if I train this way I can do chin ups soon! (better be -.-")

enough of PE. after changing and resting in class and waiting for next hour of lessons to begin, janaki came in and told us the history class test is brought forward to today at 3.30pm. everyone started to read the notes crazily as most havent even started studying.

when I finally had time to study at around 1.30pm to 3.30pm, it is so horribly noisy that it got a bit hard to concentrate. after that phyo came in and started to distract the lot of us (namely calvin, wei lei and chong chiang himself and I) in a typical phyo conversation (meaning lots of corny jokes, such as badminton doubles and singles) and cannot study properly. luckily I maanged to finish Chapter 4, 5 and half of chapter 6.

luckily the test is only 10 short answer questions (which isnt exactly very short) and I managed to answer most of them (except one or two).

after that chong keng, calvin and I went to buy some cup noodles and ate them at the bus stop (seeing there is no seats anywhere else) and halfway through chong keng had a stomachache (interesting) and so we decided to walk home with him (since calvin is desperate for the CDs for some game and we do not want chong keng to faint or crap his pants on his way back..ha ha, not to forget it is not exactly far)

and nothing much happened there before we came back and tried to watch the rehearsal. calvin and I are watching sneakily up at the gallery and was err..impressed by the low-quality rehearsal, considering it is already the second one in the week. they still had to make changes here and there.

we finally got spotted by ridzwana (or at least we think so) and decided it is finally time to leave before we get into deep sh!t. and that ends the day

quite an extraordinary day in school actually, seldom are there so many events that happens within a day.

finally got pam linked. anyone whom I left out in the links section can tell me too.

since everyone is talking about it, I might as well join in.

refer to page: http://u.mediacorptv.com/story.aspx?Editorial_ID=68&SubCategoryID=19 for quotes made within the post.

junyang, the hot favourite, upon losing, broke into tears and made a very hurtful statement:

“Last night, my mum went online and read the SuperStar forum. She told me that there are many people on my forum saying that ‘Aiya, I should have made more than one call, ten calls maybe!’ I feel that there is nothing wrong as long as they supported us. But one thing I must highlight is that actions speak louder than words. You may feel that there are many contestants who shouldn’t have been booted out but were. But don't just complain. Singaporeans like to talk a lot but little action. If they feel strongly about something or someone, they should voice out in whatever means they have. I’m saying this not for myself but for the other contestants as well.”

so you lose it is our fault is it? we dont owe you votes okay? if you are really that good more people will be willing to vote on you what! whats more its just a competition, dont you think you are taking it too seriously?

read the below paragraph where you will find out Weilian's voters have a lower votes cast per voter. Chan is actually Paul Chan, Channel Vice President, Network Programming & Promotions of Chinese Broadcast.

Chan also noticed that Weilian’s voters differ from the rest of the contestants’ in that the number of votes cast per voter is low. This, Chan said, could indicate that Weilian is indeed the more popular contestant whose pool of voters cut across a larger population. As for female contestants Kelly Poon and Chew Sin Huey, eventual finalist Kelly’s votes doubled that of Sin Huey’s, sealing the former’s popularity with voters.

so weilian didnt win because of relations. unless of course, he did have that large a network of connections to have such a result.

of course, that is not to say weilian did not get any sympathy votes

Host Yifeng applauded his efforts after Weilian sang his third and final song even recalling a poignant anecdote about how Weilian called up a certain producer after last week’s results show to apologise for still being in the competition and that the team has to make special arrangements to film him as he is unable to give the production team any good facial expressions.

After Yifeng’s ‘revelation’ of Weilian’s efforts, votes reportedly soared, said Chan. Unfair advantage some may say, but Chan maintained that Weilian has been one of the ‘forerunners’ in terms of votes since the competition started. Junyang also garnered numerous votes but he has so far managed to beat Weilian, in terms of votes, only once.




and now lets take a look at hardwarezone forums, one of those forums I surf often. all quotes from below onwards are found in the forums.

refer to page: http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=1090211 for full discussion.

by Wolfaro:

he really cry baby leh just now saw the Wan Bao saw he crying in his mother's arm


By: en_8_en:

if u notice ar, jy at the beginning quite ok. but as he become more famous ar, he become more proud leh.. taking the competition too seriously.. as in REALLy too serious. thats y u can see his unhappiness when he got kicked out. look at xinhui, lose oso nvm de. singing like she win liao liddat.i support wl since he sings with his heart, and humble.

Ronaldo_7, hello8985, badboi_kh all agrees with his point and thinks he is a sore loser.


I personally dun like those who rely on looks lol. (think it's because I was born not good looking lol ) . serve him right. 24 years old still so mummy's boy. his english song is not good, compared to wl's heaven knows..but judges bias. he sang tong hua HAPPILY when it's a sad song. judges bias again.. say it's touching. i should say, serve the judges right! now their reputation gone!

jujubeans, Integra.TypeR, badboi_kh, hello8985, seowbin, WJY (etc.) all agrees they dont like those who win relying on looks and generally commented that he is a sore loser. WJY is disappointed with such actions from him.


By Vyzyl:

Man, he's not even thankful to the people who voted for him?

I agree with this point. in his statement made just now, he made it sound like people ought to have called more. hey voting costs money as I mentioned just now and people spent 60 cents on you you should be glad already. still say must call more.


post from Ivan_ng supporting junyang. xmm refers to xiao mei mei, which happens to be girls of 14-20 in the HWZ context:

Wah piang, don't hit pple just becos he attracts more xmm than WL lah..

Have read the articles, he reply this way becos he was asked his opinion on the numerous pledges and postings on websites complaining of his elimination AFTER the incident..

He is a more complete and versatile artiste comparing with wei lian in my opinion, WL can only sings a limited range of song types.

Judging on singing alone, JY voice control and technique is better than WL.

WL is a bit shouty at times, he did sing with his emotions and feelings but he seems to have difficulty to control the tempo and add variation in volume control to make the presentation more contrasty and dramatic. He always hit it all out in the entire songs from the start to end, it will appeal to some less experienced listeners initially, if u listened only for 1 or 2 songs. But if u buy a cd or listened to a continuous concert that has 10 or more songs u will slowly suffer listening fatique and strain, and u might feel that the presentation become monotonous.

On the contrary, JY singing is more relaxing and easier to sit back and enjoy, and u can see that the professional judges always give him high scores.

I know I might get flamed for this post in this thread but I really did analyse their performances.. I have nothing against WL, felt that he has a very clear and good voice but still have lots of room for improvements..

and yes, hwz does discrminate people who are younger. get used to it.


and a point from dareaper who makes sense:

to those who said weilian has lousier technique and control than junyang.. well i agree, but if u guys think abt it, its mainly due to the professional training junyang went thru compared to the self taught weilian. so imagine how good weilian can become after a few more months of training with the professionals!


from ZhiXin:

Actually when William + JiaXin r kicked out, I already boycotted the show, knowing the ppl with good singing ability may not last long, which is very sad IMO becos this shows that Singaporeans don't have a good taste on music but only cares about looks.

Speaking about Weilian, I admire his singing talent. He is able to touch ppl with his voice. Both he and JY know some musical instruments, which to me is a basic requirement if u wish to be a superstar. IMO his knowledge of singing is even > JY. And he is humble, I suggest he should follow Ah Do's steps, go to China to develop and give up the Singapore market. This way he will be more famous.

Music shouldn't be based on entertainment alone, it deeply reflects on the message the person is trying to convey, his feelings, characteristics + his culture (in which what song he sings). Speaking of this Weilian has done better in this aspect compared to JY, who sings TOng Hua happily as if it is a children's song when it is meant to be a sad song. TBH I can't really hear the speciality in his singing. This guy definitely can't last for long.


thats quite a lot of quotes to compile from a 4 page thread. so in conclusion from redalert123:

do you think superstar produces quality stars ????
i think they all go into acting like the sg idols
singapore cannot make it already


cant help but agree =P the singapore market is really too small. if they really want to be a succesful singer they would have to be prepared to develop their career further in larger markets such as China.

and all in all, all the top 8 will get some sort of career in the entertainment industry anyway (think odelia, sly and taufik). and they did:

Junyang, Sin Huey and other SuperStar semi-finalists might also be involved as hosts or performing artistes on Campus SuperStar, a spin-off of Project SuperStar which will be telecast on Channel U in December

and I guess I will end here then.

I think I left out the SPA part yesterday no thanks to the Journey To The West.

before I begin, I should introduce SPA first in case you all do not know what is it. the full name of SPA is Secondary Pratical Assessment, replacing the "O" and "A" Levels Science Pratical examnations.

SPA are actually a series of pratical tests that are held during normal lesson times, for a total of six or eight times per year, with the result averaged and forming the science pratical score.

SPA is the brainchild of Mr Charles Leonard Surin, the current VP of Northland Secondary, previous HOD IT of Commonwealth Secondary, during the course of Citisuccess 2004 held last year. this idea won the top prize (http://www.learningsociety.org.sg/ideasinaction/2005/media_capitalfund.htm) which is $10000 dollars.

the idea is subsequently adopted by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, to replace the "O" and "A" Levels (meaning in Secondary Schools and Junior Colleges) Science Pratical Examinations.

well and here I am doing this crapamajig for the sake of the Life Sciences course we attended this year. well all I can say is I made a few mistakes throughout the thing, namely during the pouring of 250x diluted rice sample. I emptied the entire thing onto the bloody petri dish! which is a BIG mistake as I should have just taken that innoculation loop and dipped it into the sample and spreading it along the petri dish.... alright I know it is lame but it did happen! I shall say no more I guess as I hear you rolling on the floor.

well and for today. again nothing very exciting happened! the science teacher, elfie, isnt here so we are pratically slacking away.

I am currently at page 210 of that Journey To The West. seems there is some hope for me to finish the book by tonight.

well I thought I would just make a short post before going over to do the chinese assignment over at my chinese blog. but as you can see it isnt exactly short so I better go over and finish it before getting onto that lame Journey again.

great! there will be a test this friday on Journey to the west. well, I admit we ought to have finished it eons ago (before Term 3 even started), but with only one half-hour slot per week for us to read chinese books, you cannot really blame me for it right?

other than that chinese reading period every friday, I practically dont touch that book, mainly because some weeks ago I am so preoccupied with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and even before that I am busier trying to finish all the rubbish projects up. other times are used for tuiton homework or recreation.

as of now, I have read 100 out of 280 pages (!) dont know whether I can read 140 pages per day within such a short time but I guess I have no way out. my plans to keep pushing this thing backwards has landed me in such a state.

the moral of the story is, never procrastinate. it would just keep stacking up and you would die from having to finish them all.

well, I have to say I am err... disappointed with my IPW Written Report scores. yes, of course, my group failed it (thats why its so disappointing duh). I hope to have at least just passed that test instead of getting such a failure for the Written Report.

yes I know my group did not do exactly well for that section, but surely it isnt THAT bad right? anyway I heard there would be some moderation in scores since quite a few groups failed their Written Report. hopefully the moderation brings us out of the failure zone.

well enough of sad stuff. turns out that chong keng's group produced one of the top written reports. and apparently they will be getting a certificate signed by AskNLearn and National University of Singapore as well as making their oral presentations again to the secondary 1s and their parents. so best of luck to his group (since everyone except chong keng needs to speak up. chong keng needs to give more chance to let his group members speak =P)

I guess these are the only interesting things that happened this few days. could feel that more horror awaits as scores to the different sections of the IPW are released.

after busying myself with trying to modify one of the (gasp!) templates blogger provided, my chinese blog is finally ready! links updated, posts up, personal info too. no tagboard since I think it will most probably be spammed than anything else.

hmm...lets pick up from where I left off. since the days are all pretty uneventful till the school days, lets pick up from there.

on thursday, it is your extremely boring thursday (no thanks to the hour by hour boring lessons) by the timetable. alicia and liesl is trying to get chong keng to say who he likes but since chong keng remained tight lipped, alicia decided to spread some other rumours in order to get him to say the truth out. the (fake) rumour is of course regarding liesl and chong keng (only 3 of them at that particular secluded corner). so if you hear it dont bother since it is a blatant lie

(chong keng paid me to put the above paragraph in the blog)

however, seeing how chong keng is comparing liesl with kornelius and jiahui. it makes us wonder how many girls does he actually like.

after school it is the teachers' day performance auditions held at Music Room at 4.30pm. we happened to be on the last day of auditions. the performers (about 20 of them) have changed by about 3.30 and are rehearsing for the dance.

this is a show of much improved class spirit and bonding as you can see from the various paragraphs later and you can see for yourselves how much we changed from last year to the noisiest class of the level with class spirit.

the performance evolved a lot. from a modified dance from Para Para Sakura to adding miming (padey's suggestion), break dance (padey, chin tau, reuben, wei hao either of theirs' suggestion) and finally tango (wei hao's suggestion) into sections of the performance, all with the same song that is used from the start to the end of this performance.

to get everyone to know how to perform the modified dance, the performers have to meet nearly every day to practise in order to know how to do the dance well as well as to be coordinated at the same time. the better dancers often had to give some guidance to those who are not as good. bringing the bonds closer among the performers.

the highlight of this dance would have to be the tango near the final part of it. the four pairs of guys and girls doing the dance chose the male/female (it have to your opposite sex) partners themselves and as they gradually warmed up to the idea of the girl having to fall onto the guy's arms as it changed from standing on one feet to one that the girls really fell on. another evolution by itself as this is the first time there is such contact between the guys and girls of 2/3.

finally off to the auditions. as it is the music room, only performers can go in. supporters like us have to view the show from some of the open vents of the curtains pulled around the side of music room which is where we watched the show. the supposedly air conditioners' compressors holding area became a supporters zone. nearly all the non performers are there where we watched the show and cheered them on (in our minds, make too much noise and ridzwana will chase us off) and some even prayed for them. another show of class spirit.

the performance ended and the performers came out where we congratulated them for the good job they have done. I think the rest went up to celebrate the passing of the first round of auditions but calvin, mx and I left first.

the results are supposed to be known the next day (friday) but the info got leaked thanks to some sources and we knew that we will be going onto the 2nd round the moment I reached home.

next day, making it yesterday. the only lesson worth mentioning is the chinese lesson where liang lu opened up virtually all the blogs to take a look and ask a few persons to go and present what they wrote. he opened mine too, but unfortuantely it is not updated. I swear I updated it. maybe he should try Ctrl+F5.

after school comes the CCA. before it begin I am back at class watching the performers rehearsing for the final auditions (which is the 2nd round of audtions. real lame considering it only eliminates 2 out of the 6 classes). think they made some more changes but I didnt really catch sight of it as I went off soon for cybernauts.

cybernauts is utterly lame as well. as we cannot get lab 3 we have to use the ancient lab 4 (at least the aircon is good). the computers are perfectly useless and having no idea what to do we played hangman (-.-"). soon chng came in and told us to dismiss them as we are not doing anything useful. guess it will stay this way until two weeks later when the SPA training ends.

at first I wanna go back to class but my seniors insist I go with them to have someone to talk cock with. a big mistake as 2/3 passed the final round too (again because of leaked sources I found out about it when I reached home). meaning we are going to perform on teachers day celebration on 31st august.

I am pretty proud of all these achievements our class has made, one this as well as getting runner up class for cross country for both sec 2 boys and sec 2 girls. from a relatively below average class to one of so much more bonding and class spirit. too bad the year is ending, which signifies we are going to go our seperate ways in sec 3. if only we realised this last year. but well, at least we accomplished it in the end.

2ND POST OF THE DAY. SEE BELOW FOR FIRST.

I finally inserted all the links to blogs I have into the links section. at first I wanna put some form of description for the different people but because that thing kept screwing up in front of me and took lots of time that I just thrashed that idea. so I guess the wait is wasted.

I also did a major update to the about section of the blog. now it looks more organised and contains much more stuff. not exactly something very interesting but I thought might just want to point out to you in case you saw the ugly profile done in a rush some days ago.

well I shall end this short post here.

as usual with any activities that may be organised by the school, it is going to be one heck of a boring event. this is not an exception.

everyone arrived by 8am (though I arrived by 7.40am) at the outdoor stadium of Jurong East Sports Complex where we are supposed to assemble. then came the long long wait till 8.30am for the marking of attendance and the usual administrative work.

finally at 8.35am everyone is ushered into the cooling environment of the Jurong East Cultural Centre (essentially the indoor stadium of Jurong East Sports Complex). we began with some pretty lame pledge (definitely not the usual one) and then sing some songs and then national anthem and then the pledge before we are allowed to sit down.

after that are the various performances from Chinese, Malay and Indian Dance. though I think they were held in segments throughout the show. then finally some more songs before we are released at 11.20am. I am not too clear about the show as it is so freaking boring (not to forget the floor we are sitting on is so hard and cold) and I cant really be bothered to see what is going on.

finally I went back to my primary school, rulang, to take a look at my P6 classmates and the teachers (of course). the few of us had a very long talk with the form teacher till 2pm, topics consisting mainly academic stuff such as the International Baccalaurete in ACS(I) (whatever its spelt) and Integrated Programme in HCI as well as the NUS High School of Maths and Science (all of which have someone in the class entering). not to forget the usual war between RI, TCHS (Part of HCI) and ACS (I) where members from the various schools (okay there are only people from CHS and ACS (I) ) going into detail on how it takes place and how it is like (for example wear a "ACS Forever" friendship band into CHS and prepare to have it used for kicking or throwing).

and there ends my boring day. the next two days is going to be real boring too. whats more I dont feel like doing my homework, which is incorrigible. some more there is stupid homework which is posted on the computer and we have to complete it and post it on our own blogs too (check http://liang2005.blogspot.com , online chinese homework resource centre for 2/5'05 as well as those 2/3'05 taking chinese in 2/5'05).

I need someone to motivate me to study! note that I wont pay you for the job though. but thinking how my class is equally bad, I might as well drop the idea. what am I saying? okay I am equally confused myself so I guess I shall end here.

after 2 hours of lessons till 10am. everyone (except those with Medical Certificates) are to be at Macritchie Reservoir by 2.30pm for the annual cross country run. I left my house at 12.30, expecting to wait quite a while for a double decked 157. hell, after waiting for half and hour and three buses later (filled with people I know who are wondering why am I not boarding the bus), they are all single decked. this got me so pissed that I just boarded the fourth 157 that came along (which is also single decked)

to my surprise, I see a gang of 2/5ers occupying the back of the bus. since I knew some of them, I approached them where they occupied the back portion that sat a total of 12 of them. one of the kind and caring NCC cadet offered a civillian (its me!) his seat since he is well, NCC after all =P

throughout the journey lame jokes are cracked everywhere. so many and so lame that I wouldnt even consider listing them. we did make hell a lot of noise though, when neither of us are talking, the volume is MUCH lower.

after a 50 minutes ride, we finally arrived and went to meet up with the 2/3ers at the northen-west edge of the starting point reservoir carpark where they are playing with those barriers that are preventing bicycles from cycling through.

after much lazing around. finally the run started. sec 2 girls went first, followed by sec 2 boys at 3.30. while I did not get the top 40 sec 2 boys, I am pretty pleased with the result since I managed to beat my old record by over 10 minutes.

after the run is even more lazing around, getting drinks (from the complementry Milo van and the bottled and canned drinks sold by CMB) and soon lining up and waiting for everything to end. people around me entertained themselves by playing some hand games. hexun is actually quite a professional at it, so well... =)

as they dont wanna drag the thingamajig on, they will present prizes in school next next week assembly or something. 2/3 did get 1st runner up for boys and girls team anyway. great achievement considering we did not get a thing last year.

and comes the dreaded part of the program, GETTING HOME! the bus stop is choked full with commonwealthians eager to get home to bath and sleep. wei lei, zhepeng, ying sheng and me missed the first 157 and waited for the second one, which is (surprise, surprise!) a DOUBLE DECKED 157!

you can see the kiasuism in all singaporeans (and commonwealthians as well) as people pushed against each other to squeeze through the entrance to the bus). ying sheng, being the smallest sized, went on quickly and got us the two sets of prime seats just to the front of the staircase on the second deck, which fitted the four of us comfortably.

the bus is so full that people are standing on the staircase and the upper saloon (or the second deck) which clearly read NO STANDING. there are a few instances when the bus almost flipped because of the illegal standing.

we went past Hwa Chong Institution (consisting Hwa Chong High School and Hwa Chong Junior College), Nanyang Girls High School as well as National Junior College, all of which did not have a chance of getting in because the commonwealthians virtually booked the bus (and we laughing at them).

the rest of the journey is pretty uneventful and not written here. so I shall end here then.

I am done with the new skin too! it isnt as simple as copy and paste after all. as this skin is designed by a particular singapore secondary female student, the colour scheme isnt what I wanted. took me quite a while to do the colour matching and adjusting of different stuff to suit the new skin.

in case you all do not realise. the blog pratically lights up if you mouse over the picture to your right. I know it is lame but this is about the only green day skin I would call nice.

this should be all I would do for today. I would insert the links and do some final touches to the blog tomorrow as it seems a horribly long list to update after doing so much today =P

off to do some homework (been updating and changing skins since 6pm)

MORE UPDATES BELOW. PLEASE READ ON.

after doing some term intro I shall talk about what happened this week. my term3 schedule made some changes with the intro of some new remedials. english on thursdays, chinese on mondays (and sometimes wednesdays), history selected wednesdays, maths monday and CCA on tuesday and friday. so now I basically reach home at about 6pm daily on weekdays.

monday got chinese and maths remedial. chinese from 2 to 3 ( chop chop my lunch and sprint up for the lesson) where there is those presnetation for chinese project. quite a boring session but well. it actually continued from 4 to 5+ but 2/3ers need not be present if you not leader so well.

maths is your usual self study with Mrs Tan attending to the 2/3 and 2/4 (for my case) classes moving around. so took the worksheet and worked on the questions with some friends and discussed with friends as necessary.

tuesday we presented the chinese project. went real bad as mentioned in the previous entry. then came CCA. with the new training system I am basically do admin work. so I used that time to work on the attendance list and meeting logs and doing some contact info update.

wednesday chin hou and I conducted blog training for the class. which is pretty brief. liang lu want us to be in library after school to help those who are there to create the blog so there goes my wednesday afternoon. a few other 2/5 people came to help too. thanks ah!

thursday today lah. english remedial. also self study type. but the teacher is those more kisiao type and change weekly one. 2+pm give you worksheet. mark attendance. 2.45 or 3pm come in give you answer sheet to mark. 3.30pm come in again collect work then can go home. as simple as that. pretty typical.

friday tomorow is the anuual CSS cross-country run. we will have lessons till 10. after which we have to report to macritchie by 2.30pm. getting there is alright but the most hated thing about it is when you are going home. wait for the 157 need wait a few rounds since the entire school is heading back home at the same time. reach home around 8pm liao. some more whole body damn sweaty and bus trip 1h+

so I guess I end my entry here. will elaborate how tomorrow went after I experienced it (like duh)

MORE UPDATES BELOW. PLEASE READ ON.

I am pretty happy I can finally start posting again (after finishing all the shit like chinese project, IPW, NYAA CIP, NYAA Physical Recreation, NYAA Skills (Hip Hop) and NYAA Camp). which basically satisfies my wishlist of things to end. so you can say that I am enjoying life again.

well actually not quite. the evil CSS teachers, seeing that 2E'2005ers are so free after the end of IPW and NYAA (and what other major additional activities you can think of) is determined to keep us on our toes and so got some more new programs to keep us preoccupied. lets go and recall what activities have been proposed this year:

ENGLISH:

- Show & Tell when you basically go up to the front and crap for about 5 minutes about anything under the sun or those that comes to your mind.

- Weekly journal becomes classroom work and we have to complete them within one lesson (1/2 hour) and keep them all recorded in a book which will be checked as they like it.

- Replacing the weekly journal as homework, weekly newspaper review (making me
waste 80 cents every week to buy the Sunday Times [I am usually so busy on saturdays that I can only complete my schoolwork on sunday])

- Every week a group will have to do something similar to the world this week by finding interesting newspaper articles and cut them out and put them onto a vanguard board and present it to the class.


CHINESE:

- Chinese project on Journey To The West, which is supposed to be June holidays group work but my group slacked till one week before deadline then pia finish.

it is similar to IPW except there is no report:
- Do research within a time frame
- Create a PowerPoint presentation
- Prepare an oral presentation
- Prepare reflections to be presented
- Question & Answer session

my group screwed up in the reflections and Q&A. we did not prepare either, thinking it is your average powerpoint + oral presentation project. but well since it is over I am happy =)

- Chinese blog. as part of the Mother Tongue department plans to integrate IT into learning, this chinese blog thing (shamelessly copied from Higher Chinese) is introduced into Express Chinese and Normal (Academic) Chinese.

The chinese teacher basically post some assignments online and you are supposed to complete them by typing them out and posting it onto your own blog (I created a new one as I do not want to be confused) where all could see your work. somewhat similar to AskNLearn system except you cant mark it and everyone gets to see it.


MUSIC:

- Just when we thought music is gonna be the same lame sheetz that happened last year (lame performances and watch videos and complete the worksheet regarding the instrument mentioned in the video), it is RADIACALLY different!

originally part of the NYAA skills section, the guitar courses got removed as they got some Hip Hop instructors to teach us Hip Hop instead. so now it strikes back. having no flair in music, mastering the guitar obviously isnt easy. and definitely not my favourite lesson anymore. guess that says it all.


IPW:

- More than enough talk. go see previous posts. my joruney through IPW (and the model for some other environmental project) officially ended on 29th July 2005 (26th July presentation, 29th July completion of model).

One advice for juniors heading towards IPW next year: Choose a topic you are good at and DO NOT SLACK! (my sec 3 seniors told me the same thing, i didnt bother, and well...)


NYAA:

- All the frisbee courses, hip hop courses, camps and artist chairs (CIP) are over by now too. the latest being artist chairs, somewhere near 10th of July I suppose.

actually for the artists chairs (CIP) project we basically just paid the 20 and got done with it, claiming we sold the chair. dont tell ruth ng and faizal =P


now to the lessons:

D&T:

- different from last year, this year a lot autonomity involved. you make a lot of decisions yourself (how you want it designed, what colours blahblah) but they do the cutting for ya. luckily completed designing the base by now. can send for cutting next next monday.


HISTORY:

- after my first history common test, I can say that my lousy grades last year are casued by how slack I am. as long as I did study (and memorise) for those tests, I can achieve A2s or low A1s, not too high but something I feel happy that I could achieve.

we got a new teacher for history. her lessons are those that have an hypnotising effect. makes you feel as if you wanna go to sleep in her lessons. she babbles on and on with her powerpoint slides pretty monotonously. cant help it I guess.


LITERATURE:

- definitely not my strong point. guess it isnt my flair. I tend to miss out some glaringly obvious points and losing precious marks. CH (SS + Hist) will be better for me I guess.

got adrian chia for this subject. CM mah, plus teach sec 1 history and sec 2 CME and english for first 3 months so we know him all too well. class seldoms keeps volume low enough during discussions.


ENGLISH:

- same old teacher from last term. contract teacher miss tan. at least I know now her full name is Jasmine Tan and she is no longer a contract teacher, for she has a pigeon hole outside the staff room now.

likes to share own experiences. not a bad thing after all. keeps lessons less boring.


CHINESE:

- liang lu again. unfortunate 2/3ers who go 2/4 for chinese got Phoon CL to replace Qin WW. your usual friendly yet cranky sometimes china man. hobby is to force students to stay after school for extra lessons til 6+ pm, which usually ends up as a waste of time. so what can I say.


SCIENCE:

- its elfie! the dirty minded and open to comments science teacher specialising in Biology! jokes around a bit in class. though somewhat dirtier than what other teachers would crack. likes to give test for no reason and sometimes teachers so briefly that we might as well read it ourselves.


MATHEMATICS:

- got the trainee from Feb back again who simply cant capture our attention. go back home (not NIE) and dont come back again. a teacher who cannot captures student attention cant teach well. didnt mean to be so harsh but well.

oh yeah, if I rely on him only can fail Maths final exam liao lah


MUSIC:

- stella quah. only music teacher in the entire school. boring teacher who seems to only have old materials =P

think no more things left. so I guess I wrap this up. oh yeah old info but I just wanna mention them since I should have done it four or five weeks back.

after leaving this poor blog alone for hell a long time, it is finally time to be back on it again! since we have to do a chinese blog due to some new and "innovative" plans by the Mother Tongue department, might as well work on this age old skin first.

this time I just went to blogskins to dig for skins instead of designing it myself (since I seriously lack creativity). finally found one which looks okay and fits my Internet Explorer window perfectly. (it should for you all too assuming all of ya is running on 1024x768 which is the de facto standard nowadays).

took me an hour of searching before deciding on this one as I wanted something abstract but after a while decided to find green day ones as I am feeling a bit lazy (the list is darned long) and here it is.

and after this post. I pledge to post at least once every week, and posting about everything I could remember. (have to keep reminding myself to do remember something or I would forget it in 8 hours). for one, I would be posting the summary of activities for this week in a later post.

and in case you are wondering where the skin is, you arrived too early. I havent put the skin up yet as I wanted to post first before I get too tired and forget about it again.