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Moved OnPlease relink! =)
Due to server stability problems, I'm moving my entire blog operations over to http://cctay.blogspot.com/ choral excellence....This entire week is going to keep me really busy... Thanks to the
Choral Festival and the upcoming Speech Day cum School Official Opening
Concert... I bought a Hillsong CD in church on Sunday... "Hillsong Ultimate Worhship" is the title in case you want to know... I really like those songs in the album... Then I was asked this question during cellgroup by my cellgroup leader, "When are you going to join the music ministry?" Well, there is the choir, piano, drum... I would like to join a ministry in church, but I think I can only do so towards to the end of this year... My busy schedule... Anyway, choral excellence has given me permission to "play truant" in school... If you think I am very lucky, think again... Standing non-stop for 4 hours just get 2 songs right (and without much of a break, mind you) and another 4 hours with Mr Robert Geary, Piedmont Choir's choral conductor... Still have some difficulty adjusting to his conducting... And I have some 'doubts' about Piedmont Choir's singing... You can ask me to find out... Thanks to choral excellence again, I cancelled my piano lesson and tuition again... My piano teacher is hot on my heels, since the ABRSM pianoforte examination already started for some people, and I am still screw up my exam pieces here and there... what can I do if I don't even secure 70 marks through my exam pieces (out of a possible 90) There is still sight-reading, which I always mess up everytime. -.-;; My homework is already piling up... There's OPW, Geography, Mathematics and a whole lot more... 1 week of my life fully devoted to choral singing and sacrificing other parts of my schedule = a total mess. Really. ...Continuing from my last post... Yes, yes... Italy are the champs... The recording of the 2 songs to be sung for the 130th Speech Day and School Official Opening concert took place on 6 July... We made use of the recording studio in the School of Film & Media block in Ngee Ann Polytechnic... The recording studio was actually meant to accomodate 12 people, not over 20... so throughout the recording, less than half of the total 'recording people' could hear the background music and follow the rhythm to sing, so it was a bit of hassle. Thankfully, there were some speakers in the studio and they played the music very softly(and I was standing next to them) so I could hear... I was told(again!) by Mr Low Xuhao not to blast that E flat... so in the end I had to make do with falsetto to sing that E flat... I didn't want to go through another session with Xuhao pressing my larynx down as if he was choking me... My first cookery lesson in Home Economics of the year - Friday, 7 July. We were supposed to prepare keema and roti prata, but morning assembly took a lot of our time, so while other classes had 1 hour and 40 mins of Home Economics lessons, our class had slightly over an hour. We were like rushing through our cooking after Mdm Nazeera showed us a quick demonstration... 15 mins get the keema ready, 5 mins for the roti prata and 10 mins to clean up. The keema Wei Guang and I did was really dry, but Mdm Nazeera didn't leave us with any comments, just like other groups in the class. Electricity - the one that shocks - is going to be the last topic in the Physics module for Secondary 2s. During Physics Lab lesson on that same Friday after Home Economics, I shocked myself while I was setting up the experiment with batteries... Thankfully it was just 2 1.5V batteries, otherwise I would have my hair blown up... Then school ended at 12pm thanks to the MOE Excel thing... So for two Fridays in a row, the Sec 2s skipped Mother Tongue lesson... Heh. Then went to church on Sunday as usual. 'Brother Sam' is now 'Pastor Sam', so I may have to take time to adjust addressing him as 'Pastor Sam'(sounds weird, seriously). Then after service I got the DVD for S.N.O.W. - UNIFY, the event that took place in March... I really liked that 2 solid hours of praise and worship, and now I own it on DVD... Hahax... And so I 'skipped' piano lessons on Monday thanks to a rehearsal for the 130th Speech Day and Official Opening concert... Some pointers from Mr Wong LS(the 'all-rounded' one) about resonance... Well I can say that it is applicable only partially to choral singing... Going to do a voice class with the VS Choir basses soon... a solid, full voice class that is going to last about 3 hours... I need the voice class myself too... haha. I did my persuasive speech today, right after Tamim and Zhi Yuan. First, Mr Maran asked,"Any volunteers to start the ball rolling?" Then Tamim was the only one who raised his hand... So he started... PS3 is better than the Xbox 360? Then Zhi Yuan started when Mr Maran said "I'm sure there's more than one person". Then after Zhi Yuan, Mr Maran said again "I'm sure there's more than two people", then every one was like looking at me... so I mainly read from the script... didn't get myself that well prepared, so perhaps I won't score well as compared to Zhi Yuan... "A smile is the most contagious disease" was Zhi Yuan's topic by the way. I think I can be a philosopher representing Singlish in future, since my past 3 speeches were refering to Singlish... haha. "Action, Re-action." A quote I picked up from the movie 'Les Choristes' during Music lesson... Who says you can't relate that to spastic smiles? Erm...Just a quick post before I leave home for school.
School starts at 9.30am today because of the World Cup fever that appears to be running around Victoria School. Sad to say, the world cup has come to an end and Italy beat France to be the champions. I didn't stay up to watch the match though, but I woke up at around 4am to get some water and noticed my brother and Dad with their eyes glued to the screen... Extra time.. I was hoping France to win... Oh well...
School's back!The past week has been rather hectic... let me briefly run through the past week... Thurday, 22 June - Choir Practice, finish up holiday homework Friday, 23 June - Choral Excellence Workshop, finish up holiday homework Saturday, 24 June - Choral Excellence Workshop (supposed to go for choir practice but ended up at the workshop), Dinner at "Ah Mah's" place Sunday, 25 June - Church, Dinner at "Ah Mah's" place Monday, 26 June - School, Choir Practice Tuesday, 27 June - School, Rehearsal for 130th Speech Day Concert Wednesday, 28 June - School, Tution in the afternoon Thursday, 29 June - School, Choir Practice Friday, 30 June - School, Visit somebody(I'll explain later) Well... that was my week in a nutshell... Now for the in details (read on only if you have enough time...) My holiday homework was in a mess... really sat down and rushed through it from 21 - 23 June.... Maths and Chinese... So used to leaving my homework to the last minute then rushing through it like some mad dog. I've been watching my aunts and my mum play mahjong together since I-don't-know-when, so that particular weekend wasn't any exception either, except the fact that it takes 5½ hours to finish one entire game! Is that a new record? How can one be glued to the chair for 5½ hours??? For the choral excellence workshop... I had some difficulty getting myself to "bite" into the words of the "Como Compongo Poco".... which losely translated means 'since I compose little, I'm crazy'... It was really weird when I sung it for the first time... coz' I learnt most of the song on my own... then singing in a combines session gave me some hiccups while singing(the literal meaning). I heard some difficulty came up during the Saturday choir practice(though I wasn't present). Apparently Mrs Ho Beng Huat(the choir OIC back then) and the year 2000 Chairman stepped into the Music Room and the whole choir nearly got walloped... According to my brother(who was then VSCO Student Conductor), his name is Steven(and I checked the 2000 yearbook too, they were the batch that went to UK)... I was wondering why they stepped in when most of the important people weren't around... I am still in the dark of the actual details though. Then the reopening of school... Choir Practice immediately after school on Monday. I was only told there was practice while I was trying to stuff a homemade popiah right into my mouth when Chan Wei called (and please stop drooling already, thank you). I thought I was going to be late for choir practice, since some problem came up during the OPW period thanks to the group leader who was absent at the wrong time. Here's the remark Ms Sheika about the report we were supposed to hand in without Yogi "I do NOT want cut-and-paste work!!!". We had to start all over... and finished it up at 2.35pm. Had to skip lunch because of that particular spoof. The rehearsal for the 130th Speech Day was on Tueday. Now I have to agree that the hall is definately not a place for choral singing. No matter how loud you BLAST, you can never be heard by people from other sections. Basses around me were complaining that I was drowing them... But I am still unable to be heard by other sections!!! PE on Wednesday. I must have really messed up my 2.4km run/walk. My timing - 15:49. I was walking 40% of the actual distance, so that would be my form of self-consolation... I think I shouldn't mess up next week since it is the actual test. Mr Ng brought a particular equipment to class for Physics on Thursday. A small container in which you can pump out air and make it a vacuum. So his question was: What would happen if you put a tomato inside it then pump out all the air? He did a little demo by having a small plastic bag over the opening of the container(instead of the given lid) then pumped out all the air. Then.... Bang(a really loud one, maybe 150 dBs {i.e. louder than a passing jet plane})The poor bag exploded. So what would happen if it was a tomato? Imagine all that tomato juice wasted. Haha. Our first Home-Economics lesson of the year was on Friday. Then it was announced that Mrs Bok and Mr Quek was retiring from teaching on that particular day. So there's Mdm Nazeera to take over. It was written Nazee on the class timetable, so people were thinking about Germans in World War II... Then I went to visit the grave of my late maternal grandmother after school... One year just seems like yesterday... I still miss her cooking and her smile... Well, that was my week, in another nutshell(if you think it is...) Last week of holidays...It appears I haven't been posting much during the June holidays... A total of 3 posts so far(including this one). Well, considering that I'm not at home 5 out of 7 days in a week for more than 5 hours, it is considered not bad in my perspective(not sure about you readers though). A big spoof on the previous post... The text sizes just keep going up and down... I'll make sure it dosen't happen again... Away from blogging for about 2 weeks... I wonder where I should start... Okay then, I'll start from the past 3 choir practices(and the one committee meeting) as the Bass SL... Well it is kind of weird... being one that really teaches instead of just being asked by the then SLs to help play notes on the keyboard... First ever committee meeting for the new committee on 8 June (Thursday). Whole thing lasted 5hr and 15 min or so. That includes the time waiting for those late. I think there isn't a need for me to name who... And the practices... I always start sectionals with additional warm-ups... The section always seems very tired... On the last practice, I drilled a lot on the high notes(that tenors usually sing) for the songs... Almost every one seems to strain a lot to hit that 'E flat' just above the middle C and nothing can be heard at the 'E'... I wanted to push basses all the way to an 'A flat'... Then Chan Wei asked me to be more "lenient" on the range... Did up to an 'F sharp', but all couldn't sing anyway... At least I more or less ractified the main problem about "high" notes, but now it is up to the basses to apply their vocal techniques... From the looks on the faces of choir members, they are unhappy when it comes to combines. Background music of the songs we will be singing are provided. so we use a CD player to play the music... And everytime the student conductor is about to press the "PAUSE" button on the CD player to correct a mistake, everyone seems to scream a "Nooo!" in their head... I remember doing "Go Forth With Pride" and being stuck on one page for 40 mins... tsk tsk... Away from choir.... My cellgroup outing and my primary school class gathering happened to fall on the same day, so I went for the class gathering... A lot of my P6 classmates changed... From hairstyles to nail polish, and even hair dyes... Applies more to the girls lah... I forgot to bring my camera... what a shame... could have caught people running around Marina Square and doing stupid things in my camera... ahahax. For the first time, I walked into the Library at Marine Parade... to do the math project with my group... not to borrow books... I woke up on Monday at 9am, then Ranon called me saying that the group was meeting at 10am... I was really half-asleep then... He claimed that he had been calling me for the past 2 days... Well quite true, since I was hardly at home for both Saturday and Sunday... We managed to get the main frame of the project done in 1 hour. Very productive indeed... I was thinking that we would spend 5 hours and get nothing done... Great! ... ... ... Dunno what to type le, so I'll just end here. ermm...Okie... I don't know how to really start this post (though it happens
every post) but I'll dispense with the moving around the mulberry
bush... I'm part of the VS Choir 2006-2007 committee... Bass SL
(Sectional Leader) alongside with Chan Wei. My mind was in a blank and
I froze for 2 seconds when my name was announced by Reuben. I'm
worried, I'm excited, I'm apprehensive, I'm nervous, I'm terrified...
The many feelings that raced past my heart... SYF Central Judging
coming up in 8 months and I am one of the eleven leading the choir to a
place as the top secondary school choir. (don't know if I should type a
"sigh" here or a "wow" here) VS Choir 2006--2007 Committee (not in order of any merit or whatsoever) Chairman: Jonathan Vice-Chairman: Pock Thong Secretary: Wei Liang Assistant Secretary: Syukri Treasurer: Roger Student Conductor: Sherman Soprano SL: Neng Wei Alto SL: Gabriel & Justin Tenor SL: Joshua Bass SL: Chan Wei & Kenneth(me, duh) Now being an SL... what can I say... no more messing around anymore... Now Sherman is going to drag me to play the piano parts for non-a capella songs because he can't play with both hands well. (I didn't say he couldn't) A double job that will leave me with white hair and I will have to stock up on a lot of black hair dye... I hate myself as well... I can never play compositions my Chopin as my fingers are not that fast or flexible to play those Major 9th and above intervals in split seconds though they are long enough... I'm basically stuck playing Baroque, Classical and 20th century pieces and leaving out the grandest period of music compositions - Romantic. Argh. ****end transmission**** holidays... and falling ill...First week into the holidays... Here's a quick review of the past 3 days and 23 hours. Monday - Woke up at 9am. Left home at 12pm for piano lesson. Reached home at 5pm, played PS2 with my brother. Tuesday - Woke up at 10.30am and realised that I had overslept - I signed up for the Math Olympiad and it was supposed to start at 9am. Dang. I can't even get my refund... Slacked for the rest of the day... Wednesday - Boring day. Woke up at 9am. Tried to fix up the wireless router so that laptops in the area could connect to the internet(I'll explain later). But, the power adaptor burnt out, so had to get a new one. lolx. Had a quick chat with Ms Noorreny on MSN and she asked me why I didn't turn up for the Olympiad. Thursday - Woke up at 10am. Fixed up wireless router. Left home at 12.12pm for choir practice... the 2nd last one with the 2005-2006 committee. I wonder who will be in the new committee? My dad recently bought a laptop... at $699. Reliable and big on value(first 8 sets though... hahax) Been messing around with it since the beginning of this week. And woot... I'm online on MSN at the same time as my brother despite being on only one connection. Psst... I'm getting mad at myself as well... My fingers recently "stiffened" overnight and I even had trouble playing a C Major chord... Must be the weather... I already had a really bad sore throat that prevented me from blasting my voice during choir practice... and I seem to be down with a fever too... In need of barley and "cooling" tea... My mum's home brewed ones that taste (fill that blank in with any word related to disgusting or atrocious. You go figure...) As usual, I purposely bite my tongue to numb it before drinking... (lol, weird way right? works for me...) Arg... falling ill during holidays... what a bummer... post-examination days...Slacking around in class after exams... Nothing much to do... Just in class playing "Truth or Dare", "Blow Wind Blow" and telling jokes(mostly sick ones that will make you vommit while you feel that your stomach is going to blow up laughing so much) We will be having the Victoria 130 Challenge the coming week... A smaller-scale Victoria Challenge. We plan to make a 13.0 metre sandwich and sell one-third of it at $1.30. Psst... Oh well, here goes... exam results.... Those without brackets are those I scored for the SA1 while those in brackets are either the overall or 1st combination to be carried to the final-year examinations. English Language C6 (C6) Higher Chinese C5 (C5) Mathematics A1 (A1) Lower Secondary Science(Chemistry+Physics) A2 (B3) History A1 (A1) Literature B4 (B4) Design and Technology A1 (A1) Not satisfactory though... I really screwed up for English... bad... just passed... but the thought that hardly anyone got even an A2 cheered me up a bit. We had a choral item for some old folks in the auditorium... Made several mistakes, but I don't think the audience minded anyway.... We sung the following songs (in order): Can't help falling in love, Tantum Ergo, Gaude Maria and finally Go Forth With Pride. The emcee read like this "Camp fell", "Tumtum", "Gauwdge", "Go flop with Pride". We chuckled on stage... I'll stop here for a while... blog again sometime the coming week. hi hi...Just happen to drop by my own blog, since I have got nothing much to do... Rewining back in time a bit, I had my 3 minute "yan jiang" during Mother Tongue sometime 2 weeks ago (ugh, so long ago). I just blabbered my way through, and I got an 8.5/10. I am honest... didn't prepare anything except to write something on the board and read a story... Haha... And finally, I'm back in church after so long! I already missed service 3 times in a row... I noticed some changes in the Sanctuary(i.e. auditiorium)... They changed the colour of the curtains from red to orange... Fewer people thanks to the examinations... That is about it... Sermon on how to study the bible. Cool right? Went to Tampines Mall after service to have lunch at around 3pm. Dropped by Long John Silvers and ate the Combo meal. Tch, it appears that the portions of all fast food restaurants have been significantly reduced. No elaboration is required I suppose. Took a bus home and then walked. When I was almost reaching the backgate of my place, I kicked against an iron bar(those used as railings) and my left toe went "kraak". It was bleeding and I limped all the way till I open the door of my house. I plastered it, but I could not walk properly: My right feet took bigger steps than my left feet. Sigh. Tick tock...Thursday, May 11 2006. 9:58:29 hours. On the whiteboard is written "Higher Chinese Language: 7.59am -
9.59am"
During this period, the latest I stayed up to was 11pm or so... Sleep is
essential for health right? And now I have to clear the horrible mess I made
during the past week in my study room... Mrs Raj gave us some hints on the examination questions that would come out for the History paper sometime last week. She was talking about David Marshall and the First Merdeka Talks, but then what appeared in the paper was about Lim Yew Hock and the Second Merdeka Talks. What difference one number makes! Many people were complaining about how Mrs Raj mislead us and said that she was "an unreliable source". At least I read up a small portion on Lim Yew Hock, so it wasn't very shocking to me... History was quite okay... Should be able to get at least a B4, which is incidentally not very good...
Literature "killed" me... Questions on the Merchant of Venice were just mind boggling and those on the prose were "killers" as well... Unseen Poem and Prose are okay when tackling... I don't think I will do very well, perhaps a mere pass...
Chemistry was a breather as it was relatively easy after looking at the Literature paper. Tackling not so much of a problem... a B3 perhaps? Not very good as well...
Ms Noorreny told us to keep track of time just before the mathematics paper. That was a big hint that it would be difficult... I keep getting strange answers... an A2 ? Still not good...
There's nothing I can say about English, since one can't really study for English... but overall it was quite smooth-sailing until the summary, where I had to crack my skull open to get the main points. B3?
And lastly Higher Chinese... The vocabulary words I focused mainly on actually appeared in the paper. The first time since I "whacked" something to study and it actually appeared... Not very confident of it either, since the comprehension questions were quite tough... B3?
Overall estimated MSG: 4 Not very good... since I don't think I'll be able to score one A1 (besides D&T) this time... sigh... what a mess.
At least I still get time to rest my brain for a while... helloHello people...
It appears that this will be the last time I blog before my mid-year examinations, so please do not be surprised if you don't see me online on MSN for the next 1 week or so.
Sometimes, I really hate it when exams come. No, not the exam paper, but rather drinking all those tonics my grandmother and mum brew every day. The "aroma" really "stimulates" mental thinking... I have no choice rather than to drink it... The taste of it stays in your tongue for almost 2 hours before it goes away... You would feel like puking but you can't.
Past few days were just revision, and I spent the whole of Labour Day locked up in my study room. Pitiful? Hmm, yes, in a way... 5 hours stuck in one chair... Then stopping for a while to drink water to rid the taste of "Herbal Tea" in my tongue.
Yes, it's horrible just preparing for the examinations even before you even sit in the examination room and stare blankly at the examination paper...
I really need a break, but it seems I can't... Have to wait for another week to go by before I can throw in the party poppers.
Maybe... maybe... Mid-Year Examinations...I hate to say this, but the Mid-Year examinations are here... The very last time I can score for Literature, History and Design & Technology. This week in school was practically pre-revision week. Mr Jackson Tik is back to teach Chemistry again, since the SA paper would only consist of the Chemistry Module. There happened to be a University of New South Wales Science Paper on Tuesday. I was notified only on the actual day itself, so I just had to walk into the examination hall with my mind blank. The paper's questions are meant to be answered with the mind blank, as the answer is always written somewhere in the question... Then at the end of the paper, Mr Jonathan Oh announced "Please put your pens down and your Science teacher will collect the answer sheet, and the first class of every student please go down the row to collect the question booklet." Another mistake with the "mislocation" of the pronouns. Haha... Nothing much to blog... I'm already sandwiched between homework and revising for Mid-Year Examination. My room and my study area has already become worse than a pig sty... Zzz...It appears that I'm not updating my blog as often as I used to be,
since my brother has already "retired" from national service and is
studying part-time. I now have less time to the computer(the computer
is in my brother's room, what a pain) Anyway the past few days(err, weeks?) have went quite smoothly for me. First, the History project on interviewing old Victorians (which I did impromptu) has been selected to be one of the few to be put up on display during Speech Day. It happened that there was an old Victorian in my home - my brother. lol. Next thing... the speech that I was supposed to give... The title was Singlish, and I got full marks, beating both Glen and Eduardo. The School Cross Country team bagged both the C' Division and B' Division Championships again! At first, the announcer said that VS came in 4th overall for the B' Division, then later it was like 4th, 3rd, 2nd... where was VS's name during prize presentation? It turned out that the panel "miscounted" the points, so VS beat ACS(I) by 1 point. We had a day off on Wednesday, 19/4. Argh, trying to recount what happened over the past few days (err, I mean weeks) is quite difficult... Okie... Here's a funny one... During our Physics lesson sometime last week, Mr Ng was using the transparency projector for once. He was using a transparency pen then he said, "My ink is running out of pen." A first "haha" moment during Physics. I now must say I can't blog any furthur as I can't think of anything else to blog about. Tired...The month of March has passed so fast... 31 days seemed like a split second. We had Sports Day on the very last day of the month of March. However, it ended up raining after 1½ hours of sweat, blood(you never know...) and tears. It wasn't just raining, it was a thunderstorm, and because of safety, Sports Day was cancelled halfway and the rest of the events will be postphoned to a later date. Went to see the concert by the Dunman High School Choir with 7 other people. After the rain "ralletendoed" to a drizzle, we went to Bedok Interchange first then took bus 30 to Dunman High. When we walked out of the bus, it started pouring again. I didn't bring an umbrella, so I shared one with Sherman, but nevertheless I was drenched. The starting of the concert didn't go very well, but the choir managed to get back in track and redeem its status as a Gold choir. The choice of songs was relatively good, good enough to cool down my boiling blood for not bringing an umbrellla. The first day of April as everyone knows, is April Fools' Day. No one actually played any prank or whatever on me, but I witnessed some during choir practice. And the worst "prank" played on me was this: a 8 minute interview with 5 members of the Secondary 4 choir committee. The questions were just fired at me faster than I can put a full-stop at the end of my answers. If I recall their sitting positions from left to right, there was the Bass SL, the Records Manager, the Chairman, the Soprano SL and the Secretary. I was totally shot dead and left the "conference room" gasping for breath. Not good for the second interview in my entire life so far. (I'm not at liberty to speak what the questions asked will be....) Today at school, the first thing that made me laugh was Tamim putting his hands around Ranon and me and then saying "You are my friends!" then Mr Maran cut him off wtih "...... and Tamim, stop putting your hands around the people around you". lol. We were supposed to have the Presentation Skills Workshop today, but according to Mr Maran, "both Claire and Wendy are lost somewhere in Malaysia", and the workshop will be postphoned. And I spent so much time preparing for the speech I was going to present... A solid 2 hour piano lesson with my piano teacher. My sight-reading "can jump to the deep blue sea", as quoted by my piano teacher. Then I took a bus home. And when I got off the bus, a thunderstorm came again, and I had no choice but to walk in the rain. My books, uniform, spectacles, hair... all got soaked. School's back in! :'(It's about 1½ weeks since my last update. Time just seemed to fly past so quickly... I wasted quite a lot of time during the holidays.
I managed to finish up most (read: most) of my holiday homework over the weekend before the weekday holidays began. Went back to school on Monday morning at 9am for the Physics practical lesson. 9.10am, no teacher. 9.20am, no teacher. 9.30am... Everyone left school since Mr Ng didn't turn up. I just went to my piano teacher's studio... She wasn't there yet, so I started on homework(again).
The next 2 days were nothing but sleeping, drinking, eating, playing and sleeping. I just felt so lethargic that I didn't want to sit down and do my homework.
Went to school again on Thursday, for choir practice. I expected practice to end late, from 8am all the way to around 3pm, but rather practice ended at 12.30pm. Rushed home after that for preparation of my brother's 21st birthday party. He invited his friends over and relatives... I was the one barbecuing the food for most of the time. I nearly burnt my fingers on the barbecue grill when I was turning over a piece of chicken with a pair of tongs when the charcoal started igniting faster with the help of the fire starter. It was like "bloommmm!" Miraculosly, I moved my hands away. If my fingers were reallly burnt, my "carrer" in playing the piano would be gone with the wind...
After eating the cake, my brother was "taupoked" and thrown into the swimming pool. I was just a spectator.
Friday was in fact the most fruitful day in the whole of the 9 days availiable to me. I started in the morning practicing the piano, finishing the last bit of homework in the afternoon and went to church in the evening. Just before SNOW(Speedlight Night Of Worship), we had lunch as a cellgroup. Alvin, Jieying, Jane, Nicola, Jonathan, Matthew and me were the only ones who were not serving for that particular service. And Cindy(another cellgroup leader), guessed that I looked as if I was 16 years old. My answer to that was "What?!" Do I really look that old? Later during service, it started off with songs of praise and then worship... and back to praise again. The whole thing lasted about 2½ hours and I could feel the presence of the Lord...
Had this ISG on Saturday. I was playing badminton with Ian. We lost every single match we played, thanks to some confusions caused by the person taking the score. Eeeew. Then I played a single with Gabriel, and I was trashed flat 7-0. In fact, everyone that played in a single with him either lost 7-1 or 7-0. What more can I say?
Well... time to go now. School's out!Woohoo! Finally, a 1 week break from school!
We had this debate in class during my Mother Tongue lesson to replace normal going through our textbook, as the Vice-Principal(Acadamic) visited our class to check out on our individual performance. The topic was "Religious Freedom vs Freedom of Speech" with regards to the cartoons on the Prophet Muhammaed. (no offence to Muslims) Many of us chose to stand on the side of Religious freedom and then VP ended the debate saying that we should be united as a nation. And what's is the worst way to end a day in school on a Monday? Well, it's seeing Tamim chewing on his shoelaces during the presentation skills workshop. Yuck. And I had to tolerate that for 20 mins, including the time I needed to present the introduction of the speech I'm giving.
Then on Tuesday, OM Chia called up for Tamim during morning assembly at our form classes. I suppose Wendy reported the gross incident to OM Chia. Then after flag raising was Mrs Raj's lesson, but she didn't turn up. We really turned the class upside down, and when OM Chia was fast approaching our class, someone shouted "Chia next door, everybody shut up!". OM Chia just walked past our class without saying anything.
On Wednesday, we were going to begin on our next Science module. We were expecting to do Biology, as we heard from the next door class that the first topic in Biology would be sexual reproduction in humans (ahem!), but ended up with Physics. Mr Ng Wuay Boon would be teaching us Physics until Term 3 Week 2. Tamim was disappointed once again. And Mrs Raj was again not in school.
Thursday. It was one of my most horrible days in CCA. Firstly, the Sec 3s were away in camp, Desmond was in camp too, and Ian Lim was not well, so Ling Chung got me, Yan Cheng and Yixun had to lead sectionals. I wasn't getting the attention I expected, though I managed to scrape through the 2nd page of "Gaude Maria" with the help of Yan Cheng. Yixun was like the one beating the rhythm and I was playing the keyboard. Honestly, I wasn't mentally prepared to lead sectionals, so I felt that I screwed up badly.
We had a Physics practical lesson on Friday. 23 people in class forgot to bring their practical books(and that includes me), and all 23 had to go back to school on Monday to have a make-up practical. Sigh... That means I won't be able to sleep late on Sunday to watch Arsenal vs Liverpool. The practical lesson dragged 13 mins past the actual time, and reached the class 17 mins late for Ms Noorreny's lesson. She looked as if she was fuming, but she didn't scold us. And listening to hear talk about the 4 holiday assignments for Mathematics gave me quite a headache.
Saturday. There was only 1 Section Leader in the whole choir, so we had combined sectionals. I was again the pianist, since neither Reuben nor Ian could play the piano smoothly. I somehow managed to reach a G4 with real voice during Reuben's mini-warm-up. (Note: A middle C is a C4). Finished up with the Tenor and Bass parts of Gaude Maria. I find the Tenor part interesting and melodious, just that the notes are somehow way beyond my reach.
I went to Suntec City with my Mum and Dad after choir. We went to the IT Show at the Suntec Convention Centre, and there were atrociously a lot of people moving around. You need to take at least 20 mins just to walk 20 steps (and I mean it!) We bought a wireless ethernet router and a SD card reader... Went home, bathed and came to my aunt's place and started blogging. What?!(spastic)Aww right! 6 days of inactivity in blogging here.
It was a terrible week for me... Having to see myself failing every(well almost!) recent test by 1 mark. My blood boils(literarly!) whenever I think of it. Let's see... there was a Chemistry practical test, Chemistry written paper, English written paper 2, English Literature written paper... I failed all of them, except the written chemistry paper. It was reallly shocking... I expected myself to get at least a pass for all of them and I ended up failing 3 of them?! Grr... I suppose it's time for me to start studying... Haven't been studying much anyway. Besides failing tests by 1 mark, I failed a math class test really miserably... 2 out of 20! *screams* But I took a re-test and scored better than that... Couldn't remember the rule of expanding and factorising algebraic equations.
This week was the last week Mr JT had Chemistry with us... So next week are are going to start on either Biology or Physics. I quite enjoyed his lessons... At least I don't fall asleep easily unlike the same time last year when I fell asleep during Mdm Nabilah's Biology lesson and got summoned for "meditating".
Sometime last week, while I was hearing "the life story of Tamim", Ms Noorreny came up to me and said, "Kenneth, do you have a blog?" My answer was a "Yes" and I pondered over how she managed to stumble upon my blog. Well, quite a number of people link me in their blogs and when you type "Noorreny" in Google search, Yahoo! Search or Blog Search(http://search.blogger.com/), you could find my blog...
Now today, while walking up the staircase to get to the auditorium of my church for main service, I noted that the area outside the auditorium was totally different. They replaced the wall tiles(not floor tiles) with a wooden wallpaper or that sort like they use in hotels, and they placed an LG LCD TV there. Cool... *cough**cough*I've been feeling sick lately. Should be due to the horrible weather that we have been experiencing...
On Thursday, I got my Chemistry test back, and I failed it by 1 mark :S. I've never actually failed a test before, so this was somewhat a surprise. But again it wasn't really a surprise because I didn't study. The first few questions go like this:
"Identify whether the following are physical or chemical changes and state the agents of them.
1. Nakazawa-sensei fries an egg.
2. Nakazawa-sensei boils some water.
3. Nakazawa-sensei takes a photograph with a film-based camera
4. Nakazawa-sensei turns on the lights."
I scored poorly in this section, and Mr JT had all 4 questions with his Japanese name in it... And when I first saw the paper last week, the whole class was like giggling.
Later then, I got this Mathematics test on Factorising and Expanding Algebraic Expressions and we were supposed to complete it in 25 mins. I didn't manage to finish it up, with almost all of the questions half-done. Argh... I just feel like pulling off my hair whenever I think of it.
Then I had to sit down for 20 mins in the school canteen to hear "The life story of Tamim, in a nutshell" by Tamim himself. I didn't really process about 40% of what Tamim told me then, but it was honestly very long, and he calls it "in a nutshell".
Choir practice where we only had voice class/sectionals. Frederick (former bass SL) came back to take the basses for the voice class. Then combines with the rest of the sections at around 5pm. We were pumped by Johnnie, because of quite a lot of problems. Then I got pumped by Reuben after practice, because I did something stupid during sectionals. Won't elaborate further.
Friday... Had this D&T MCQ test. I managed to score an 80% for it, so that means an A1 will be written in my CA report for D&T. Yay. And during music lesson, me, Ranon, ZhiYuan and Tamim went to the Music Room to find stuff to make rhythms with for our music project. We were like wasting time there, and all we did was go into the music store and open the cupboards and "check for dust bunnies". Lame. Argh!I entered a blog entry like a week ago, but the MSN server was busy, and whatever I typed in the last entry was practically gone... I was so frustrated back then... 30 mins of my time gone just like that. So oh well, I'll just recall whatever I typed back then. Anyway, once again, I felt the trauma of CAs. For us Sec 2s, we only had an English Language paper, an English Literature paper and a History paper. The English paper was allright, since the comprehension questions were quite straightforward, but the Vocabulary questions were tricky... I don't think I'll do well in that section, even though I got a flair for English. Literature... I was basically stuck in my seat, looking dazed and confused as I took a quick glance at the paper... Questions given were straightforward, but rephrasing them and getting all the main points that happened to Shylock in Merchant of Venice cracked a hole in my head. Yucks... And History... horrifying. Mrs Raj was like talking about opium smoking in every of her lessons the past 2 weeks, and the questions were based on opium smoking, which I didn't really touched on myself during my revisions at home... But I managed to pen down the answers to the questions without much difficulty because I tried to pay attention in her class. Yay? Maybe. And Saturday, I went to school for choir practice... Dad picked me up to school, because he wanted to go to East Coast Park with Mum for a jog. And waiting for Mum to step out of the house took 15 mins, and I left home only at 7.42am. Argh. Then I reached the school gates at 8.03am. Was I going to be within the 5 min grace period given? I brisk walked, and somehow, I managed to get into the Music Room before my watch struck 8.06am. There wasn't PT, but there was an extra long sectionals + voice class. We had 1 on 1 for voice class... Trauma... I had a throat with lots of phelgm then, so I had problem tuning myself to the right note... Always go a semitone flat or sharp. Sigh. Sunday morning... Woke up and attended cellgroup as usual. Had a case where my cellgroup leader used an "uncouth word" and he pulled his own ears as punishment. Haha... I was unfortunately, unable to pull out my camera phone in time to take a picture of that hilarious moment. Haha. And I didn't attend the Church youth service, since I got lunch with some association where my dad is a member. Food was served in intervals of 30 mins, and lunch started at 1pm, and ended at 3.30pm. Monday... We had like the first 3 periods as free periods, as form teachers across the level was busy with something and the Sec 1s and 2s were given a comprehension passage to do while they were away, but the comprehension was done like last year, so majority of the Sec 2 classes didn't do, with the exception of one. (to prevent humiliation of classes, I shall not name which class). Then during CCP, I had to give a speech, with "Use an object to describe your personality and draw it out" as the theme. I drew a Violin, and explaining that "A violin normally plays the melody part, usually not bothering about other parts in a string orchestra. I, like a violin, prefer to work on my own than to work with others, but I don't mind working with others." I was contested by Tamim, saying "How can you say that when you're singing bass in choir?". And I shot him by replying, "Can't a non-melody singer say he likes the melody part?" and he closed his mouth. Haha... And for the last 2 Mother Tongue lessons, Ms Ding Ni breezed through 2 chapters of the textbook. I was like "ahh... one moment she takes 6 periods to clear 1 chapter, another moment she takes 3 periods to clear 2 chapters" as quoted by myself. Lame. Tuesday... Another day of horror. Time to act out the modernised version of Merchant of Venice, Act 3 Scene 1. I wore a black Nike shirt and a black U2 long pants to show that I am acting as Shylock. I couldn't fully memorize my lines, so I brought my script to me while I acted. Don't know if anyone saw me with the script. *shrugs* |
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