nothing's like before.

Monday, September 29, 2008

wake up to the mess. | 9:45 AM

lit assessment was ok, i suppose. thought i was going to fail during the MCQ quiz, but somehow managed to pull of a credit-score which wasn't too bad (at least, i think so :D) timo-the-imba got 18/25, earning him a distinction!

anyway, after that was mugging with max at macs (try saying that really fast!) along with some random people who asked us to take care of their things while they went toilet o.o met teacher eugene, yiktin and fiona who somehow didn't seem to see me.

cafe cartel was flooded by oipchangchun people! :D really sorry to those that didn't go/didn't know about it, because it was pretty much last-minute and there weren't any official details so it was quite hard announcing to everyone and more of depended on the word-of-mouth.

first 30 minutes was spent waiting for the food and talking to the people over there, mainly about school stuff. when the food came, we had about 15 minutes left only till we had to go back for some NMP (nominated member of parliament) Talk so we used the 'zomgut teacher released us late we're going to be late for next lesson!'-speed of eating.

quite cool that we thought only 10-15 people were coming, but ended up more then 20 came (:

who's up for after-eoy gathering!

Quote of the Day: "SQUISH."

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

all comes back. | 8:34 AM

talking to changchun-people now. really great fun, although there's definitely room to be improved on. especially censorship on...certain photos. (looks at Max)

yup, hope we can have a great gathering after eoys. i'll probably post my reflections on this piece of internet space here, so keep watching!

and i still think that i deserve an oscar award for writing out the superduper long post down, down there. it's updated! with different colours and the last day :D

RLP boarding people are really fun, especially when they're at reading room @ level 9 all msn-ing, checking out love calculator (and typing in some people's names, hmm. don't ask me) and crapping about.

oip reflections:
a) one thing you learnt about the educational system
b) one thing you learnt about yourself

I do still miss changchun, I suppose. The educational system there, the people there, the weather there. some of the things that I really find inspiring about the education system there is that they really do cherish the times they have with foreign students. for example, they give loads of presents, treat you as a celebrity (hahaha) and it's really amazing about their treatment.

whereas in RI, it's quite disappointing in reality. when foreign students come, you don't seem to find any students extremely eager to welcome them, you don't find students willing to sacrifice their time and money to make sure you have an enjoyable stay, you don't find classes who give you presents when you're leaving.

it seems like we're all sort of "jaded", i think. all of us are too used to the fact that foreign students actively visit our school that sometimes, we just treat them as an everyday figure that's easily ignorable. most of us are nonchalant, indifferent, even uncaring, towards their existence. and that's really one of the things that i'm quite sad, or worried about.

one thing i learnt about myself...hmm. i can speak chinese now? :O

PS: cards again in 3.1. i think i'm going to miss boarding when this entire program ends, amazingly. prometheum day's gonna be like our graduation ceremony (:

Quote of the Day: "That's just disturbing, seriously." (on people asking what's under the PE shorts when kwuntong wore the gym leotard today.)

Saturday, September 20, 2008

they stay and not fade. | 9:47 AM

it's all over now.

no matter how hard we try-

Thursday, September 11, 2008

located: changchun! | 4:10 AM

tatharlo people of singapore!

currently posting on my very nice host's computer now. he's doing some math mugging i think, so maybe i'll ask him about my math eoy paper rotting in my bagpack. really should've brought my dSLR here.

his house's relatively nice (and big, too) and he even gave me his bed to sleep while he slept in another room o.o i felt quite bad la, but i think it would be worse if i refused his nice nice nice gesture of hospitality.

the flight here was super long T_T (9.30 to 3.40) and during the entire time i was doing

a) math ws 2 hw 3 completion (YES!)
b) listening to some auntie flirt with Jun yang (hahaha, ok not flirt but talk for a long long time and offer us calligraphy lessons o.o)
c) sleep + music
d) "help" Junyang with Physics. note the ""s.

the new beijing airport's really cool actually, photos when i can get home. there's much much more new stuff (along with a really cool train!) and the environment's improved by leaps and bounds from when i came here a few years ago. managed to buy a cool set of olympics poker card set (it's silverish!) killed time by eating and walking around the airport from about 4.15-6.30.

flight to changchun was much smaller and sleepier. discussed abit about the lesson plan, and we were all quite glad to touch down in changchun after an entire day's of travelling in planes. transport by bus to the school. was too sleepy to note what was happening.

met my buddy (Richard! or Du Jia Shuo in chinese) and he's quite an interesting guy. likes basketball along with math and science, and his father was very nice to stay up so late to fetch us to their house which was pretty far away. speaking of which, they sleep at like 9.30 everyday o.o in singapore i usually sleep 3 hours later.

first day morning, woke up at 5.30. it was friggin bright, thought it was 8.30 and i got a huge shock. turns out that the sun comes out super early and goes down super early. at 5.30 it was like 6.30, while at 7.20 now the entire house is dark.

anyway, got to school. Met my second friend Emily (Li Wei Hang, i think) and the class monitor of 2.23, my buddy's class and my class as well. The school population's really really big (about 8000 students!) which definitely is a huge eye-opener compared to the paltry 2000 RI students T_T each class is about 70 students, and 2.23 was also really hospitable. they wrote in big words over the entire blackboard : WELCOME MY FRIENDS. or something liddat, but it was really really thoughtful nonetheless. just felt kinda bad that the teacher made some student switch tables so i could have a place to sit down :/

3rd friend was Tan Cheng, the guy sitting next to me. turns out that he's my second host (haha i sound demonic) and my third host's another guy sitting the left of me, save a space. first period was chinese, it makes singapore chinese look like primary school. they analyse all the chinese literical stuff (it was a poem) and i only got like 50% of what they were saying o.o

and after that was english lesson! kirk came over and we were feeling kinda nervous. we had to do the same for 2.24 (kirk's class) as well, and i think 2.23 was more receptive (haha, no bias here! >:D) started it off with a brief introduction of singapore and ri (haha we are older! 185 > 19) and that we were a multi-racial society. hope they understood, because their english...isn't that great, to put it frankly. Taboo and hangman was next, and hangman really killed the time because the students really learnt participated in that one. made up some words on the spot, and hopefully the students found it fun, too :] Error Detection was a bit awkward, but the english teacher thought that we were great teachers by teaching them certain grammatical errors, like.

Jim and Me went to the movies
when it should be
Jim and I went to the movies.

if you don't know why, you phail! :D

The english teacher (whom Richard said was scary) praised us after that, felt much better too. support also from richard and tan cheng was much appreciated!

2.24 was scary. i like 2.23 more!

and by the way, over there they treat you like a celebrity. everyone's like looking at you all the time o.o and one time, some people that we didn't even know just started waving at us across the square. only nigel waved back hahahahaha.

after 2.24's english lesson, we went to the gymnasium for a bit of basketball :] rather fun, and basketball's a huge part of their school culture. there's like altogether 6 basketball courts there and it's filled all the time. Mr desmond tan and Mr eng han seng played with us for a short while too.

lunch was...rather bad T_T soup got spilled over my hands and jacket.

visit to the museum was rather weird o.o the journey there and back was far more interesting then the destination itself, as it took us across the cultural square to the museum. pictures that were taken are super funny, put it up when i can get it.

when we came back it was time for the "official welcome ceremony" which was just some speeches put together. still, appreciate all that they've done for us so far and hope it continues!

dinner with richard and his parents and grandmother was quite funny. they kept asking me to eat and if i wanted to have anything special o.o their family's really nice. His mum just gave me a huge stack of fruits which i definitely cannot finish AT ALL.

after dinner, sat down and started typing this :]

Quotes of the Day:

"Stitch, stitch!"-Mr Eng
"WHY SO SERIOUS?"-Kirk (I have a video of this!)

i hear from insiders that 3A people are blatantly breaking rules when i'm gone T_T
really happy about the bonding within the RLP2 batch, with all the spontaneous group shots and lines of communism, haha.

Day 3-4

Day 3 was sort of like day 2, except that there was a change in lesson plan (from English to Math). What went wrong was that we planned to teach them about quadratics, but we found out that they haven't learned anything about it o.o so that very same morning, we had to dig up all our year-old brains (parts with indices in them) and come up with the 8 rules that we memorised so so so long time ago (ok fine, maybe i just forgot them). Additionally, university students came to observe our lesson. (DIE!)

somehow it really turned out well, and our lesson plan worked out fine (even though it was about 5 minutes short) with the introduction of Singaporean Model Method (no, not the ones on TV) and some basic rules of indices that i hope the changchun students found useful. This time, the lesson was much better as the students were more used to us (i think) and were hence more receptive to volunteering. really enjoyed myself teaching them as they were really a motivated bunch of people, though 2.24 was still abit stone.

haha 2.23 bias bias bias :D

What really touched me that day was the sheer amounts of gifts ( exaggeration detected!) that me and kirk received from the students themselves. Evidently, they thought that i was having my last day there so they just started giving me things o.o ego post below about them, so if you're allergic to big heads, move down the line.

[ego]

at the start of the day, Group 5 gave me this paper bag which they signed on and wrote all sorts of stuff (in english, how nice) with different coloured inks. inside was a box with mooncakes, but what really was the thing that caught my attention was that there were handmade paper strips and stars inside to accompany the mooncake, which i thought was far more touching then the mooncake itself. (it doesn't mean that i'm not going to eat it :D)

As the lesson continued, i received another 3 notebooks (not laptops, you geek) and inside were the signatures and some well-wishes from the classmates who wrote really nice stuff. There was one particular notebook which had a basketball magazine design on it. I think it's really special because over there, basketball stuff are really treasured and they even gave one to me :] I flipped some open and i still remember some of the quotes (be warned, they're really cute and funny)

"Singaporeans are the best! You are the best!"
"Remember my name ok? Remember my name!" -some random name which i don't know the owner of it.

hahahah. i laughed super lot after reading the two.

[/ego]

took many videos of people doing their morning exercise, will try to upload soon. it's quite an interesting thing, but i guess 2000 students doing light warmup under the Sunny Singapore Sun won't do much help for our noses. We also played some soccer with some Changchun students, and must say that they put up a good fight. Even though they usually played basketball they still played soccer with us. Doesn't change the fact that we got 3-0! :D woooo. Touch rugby was just weird o.o

Moving on, we attended the "official welcoming ceremony" at around 2.30 +. It was ok, i suppose, although as the presentations wore on it started getting a bit boring although videos and pictures certainly helped. I started taking pictures of people using Mariel's D50 (speaking of which, she has a D300, D40, and D40X and borrowed the D50) and the nice 55-200 lens.

Dinner was a rather pleasant affair with Jiashuo's mum giving me an entire bowl of noodles because she didn't know my food preferences o.o And now, i have a QQ, thanks to jiashuo! QQ's like the china-version of MSN messenger, and now i'm sort of connected to 2.23's QQ Group. haha it's quite cute, it has a penguin icon :O and that's my excuse for not blogging yesterday despite being online ~~excessively~~

Day 4

Woke up at around 5.35 today, and went back to sleep till 6.55 because it was a saturday and didn't need to reach school so early. met up with the rest at school and boarded the bus which was heading for Jilin lake and the meteorite museum. After certain delays (haha junyang was late! 1 demerit point. another RG person, Shaina, was left behind. ouch) we finally managed to reach there after a 1 1/2 hour bus journey ride. It was occupied by Taiti, Snap! with wenjian (which i lost 2-1 T_T) bridge and other card games, occasionally accompanied by periods of stoning.

Due to some changes in the program, we first visited the museum (which was actually quite boring, frankly) which showed us some chinese creations (like artpieces created from scrap metals) and meteorites. Thankful to get out of there, we took some photos around the Mao Zedong Statue (hahaha) and we were off for another 20 minute ride to the lake!

The lake was really really huge. It's called Song Hua Hu, if i'm not wrong. really beautiful place in China and we took a 40min-1hr Boat Ride to the some island or shore or whatever, but the journey there was really really funny. Apart from waving and shouting to random people on other boats and pretending-to-pay-attention to the tour guide, we also took billions of photos (not me in most of them ha-ha) and i guess that was where majority of the interaction took place. Singing loads of songs (from Fall For You to Jenny. The song, not any person) and trying to sneak photos of people, it was really really a good (and windy) time for all of us.

Even though the time spent at the island was really short, it was nonetheless fun as well. Watched people flail around helplessly (HAHAHA) on some aircushion water- thingy) and bought some wooden sword for 8 Yuan (1.70 Singapore, approx) along with many other very nice butterfly shots on the D50.

have to get that memory card!

Trip back was even more fun :) everyone seemed to be natural. it was even nicer (and colder) when we returned because the sun was setting already, even though it was only around 4 +. Finally got a picture with Zac!

trip back on bus was sleepy. zzz. and i finally met a toilet which was worse then the school toilet. -puke x 10000000- you can easily ask any of the RLP guys who entered. the girls didn't dare to enter the female toilet. booo.

In the end, we reached back 2 hours late (5.00 became 7.00, woops :S) and the hosts all had to wait. turned out that it was our final night with our first hosts, hence Jiashuo's parents brought us to some Dumpling Restauraunt which was really quite yummy! Met Kirk and his buddy there, too :)

At home, exchanged presents with Jiashuo. Gave me some quite nicely-decorated household decoration (haha i don't know what to call it) So today's my last night at my first host's house, and i'm not sure if i'll be able to get the connexion on the other nights. Would really want to say thank you to Jiashuo (richard!) and his family for the warm hospitality that they've shown me and the individual sacrifices that they have made.

really liked today, though the bus rides were boring, but it was still wonderful nonetheless.

Quotes of the Day:

"I can't believe that I took a half-naked picture on the boat."-Chander. I wonder how i'm going to explain this to my parents if they see it.
"This is not for bringing home. This is for those that misbehave!"-Mr Eng, wielding a 8 yuan nunchuck.

Day 5! :]

Split up in the morning into different buddy groups. Buddy-hosts were Tony, Dull (lol yes, that's a name) and among others. An interesting fact was that some of the Changchun students came to RI and even 3A about 2 months ago, where some of our students hosted them. Got paired with Max and Jun Yang, but in the end Nigel Choo joined us after Russel and Ryan Tan (who were supposed to join us) pretended to be Mariel's relatives to join her group =.=

So it was quite cool, with 4 Singaporeans and 4 Changchun-ers. Everyone when to the same place via Taxis (it was quite funny waving to people when you're overtaking them)

DIGRESSION: Taxis in Changchun are super fun and scary, seriously rollercoaster-like. Drivers are super, super pro and are really not afraid of dying or crashing or whatever! I took a video, so you'll be able to see it for yourself sooner or later.

We first went to some big big b0okstore. It was a bit boring flipping chinese books page after page, and somehow we translated Nigel into being a mouse, because of certain rice-s. ahem Max. but i managed to buy a book about the olympic spirit (at least, i think it is). It wasn't till we discovered the DVD section upstairs where we really started buying stuff :D Bought (REAL ONES) Stardust, HPGOF and 1 more which i can't really remember.

Shopping for clothes was more like Nigel Choo dragging us around (haha ok, exaggeration!) into different shops. I tell you, there's like 3 adidas shops in the same street and they pretty much sell the same thing. Bad thing was that all the branded/international goods were all about market price so no discount T_T Managed to buy a card-reader because mine was falling apart, literally.

After scouring different shops and shopping centres, bought this quite cool beijing 2008/adidas shirt for about 132 yuan after discount. that's about 27 sing dollars or so, so i guess it was quite worth it considering it's to commemorate the olympics. another cool thing was that i got about 4 extra keychains from the purchase! Somehow, the cashier wanted a souvenir of Singapore so we exchanged about 2sing Dollars for 10 yuan. the service improved dramatically after that :D

Bought some fuwa (the lucky dolls which was limited and overpriced T_T) went to some shady place which sold DVDs/CDs/Gadgets and stuff. initially, thought they were really selling real stuff but after buying one realised it was fake. got so guilty i stopped buying any fake stuff after that T_T Dull bought Johnson a present though :]

Went for lunch at some super, super, super packed restaurant. As the adjectives suggests, it was super crowded and had to wait for a bloody long time (about 1 hour plus outside) but the food was quite good actually. Buffet-style with a a 28 yuan pricetag per head. Cowboy-themed, so they had waiters and waitresses dressed in the western american style and bringing about different meats to distribute to tables. on a random note, the ice cream was addictive.

crazy-taxi-rided to another building where there was an arcade! chionged the basketball game (where you're supposed to try and score. oh you knew that already?) and by some stroke of luck, we hijacked this malfunctioning machine which didn't stop the basketballs from coming down :D this equated to mass shooting from all 8 of us and occasional attempted layouts. attempted.

ice-skating was neat, too. was feeling quite apprehensive as it was my first time skating. besides the shoe being very cold (and slightly wet :S) surprisingly, didn't fall much (once, because the front of my shoes dug in) although Junyang....was quite poor thing. kept falling (ow. ow ow.) but what really surprised me was that he had the courage to stand up and continue learning. before long, most of us could do one entire lap without falling :]

after frosty hours (fine, minutes) of skidding precariously on thick and painful ice, we took off our blades and waddled back to the warm haven of the arcade. where we played even more basketball :D

Time was short, and a hurried dinner was next. dumplings again o.o to add to the non-existent sense of emergency, we were supposed to be back by 8. we finished our dinner at 8.05.

although we were pretty much late already, the hosts still surprised us to bringing us to set off Kong Ming Deng (check it on the internet) at the cultural park. it was really, really, really a magical experience setting off these lanterns. indescribable, and definitely memorable seeing your lantern fly up into the night sky amidst the hundreds of other lanterns dotting the darkness.

No regrets, from my point of view, although sorry to my second host (lv zhuo xiu! or jack) because we reached back 1 hour late (9.00) lucky i didn't get scolded compared to the people that came back at 8.30. i think the teachers didn't want to spend any more time scolding us :O

Jack's more warm and there was less awkward silences. Turns out that i was going to stay with huihao because my host is AHH's host's cousin (William), so we lived together. they look really alike! (the hosts) William's mother is 2.23 and 2.24's chinese teacher o.o As it was mid-autumn festival, when we went back they gave us many many nice snacks (and of course, mooncakes) to eat. Another really interesting thing was that they pitched a tent at a patio outside, so that we could talk while looking at the bright bright moon :] Though abit chilly, but it was nevertheless a new new new experience. I also learnt that when the moon seems to be glowing brightly (like there's an aura of white-ness around it), there's going to be wind the next morning.

Day 6! -oh noes, where are the days going. noooo.-

slept really late, because i realised that in changchun i have a phobia of waking up too early. seems that i can't go back to sleep because i start imagining and thinking of things too much. Turns out that they didn't have school that day because of the Mid Autumn festival.

LUCKY! (but so do we :D)

went to the palace of the last emperor. Though it was quite informative, but it was abit boring at times. But kudos to adithya and kirk and ashraf who managed to pull through despite not knowing a single thing the tour guide was saying. 2nd part of the tour (exhibition) was more intriguing and sad, as it displayed what happened during the Manchuria-period. now it's called Dong Bei.

At the palace garden, Nigel managed to catch 2 red/black worms (or was it caterpillars) in his waterbottle. looks jelly-like, according to many o.o On another random note, that place had a nice toilet for once.

Kirk was spazzing on the way back to school by Res-PECK-ing every tree.

When we returned, the hosts hadn't returned because they were still at lessons. Used QQ to talk to some 2.23 members and tried to find some guitar chords. Turned out that the two hosts knew how to play guitar (though not very well) so i taught them abit. we also managed to watch CJ7 after going to the park.

Chander got injured though, hope he gets well.
became a bit more daring about singing today :D

Quote of the Day:
"Gym-Photog person!"-Nancy
"Res-PECK!"-Kirk, assaulting a tree.

Day 7 - reverse the clock! D:

managed to pass the souvenir to Emma (Li Wei Hang, not hermione) by giving it to her chinese teacher. somehow the entire class knows about it now o.o

Went to the Long Zi Xin School created by Jackie Chan. it's this school for the underpriviledged, so it was quite meaningful teaching there. However, it was quite difficult teaching them because their standards compared to JiDaFuZhong was much more different and they learnt at a different pace. Managed to pull it off amidst certain awkward silences, though.

Somehow, as we were waiting for some people to finish, some RLP2 people got swamped by autographs. the students (i think they were sec 1) started coming out with notebooks and pens asking us to sign on it. It was really quite paiseh, but quite flattering too. The children were really nice though :] when we were going back, we took some photos with them and they waved to us on the bus! really touching and all, and some of us succumbed to the disease of "THEY'RE SO CUTE" disease.

Went to the Ji Lin University after that. It was actually quite boring, and at some point the tour guide was more like introducing the facilities to the teacher instead of us. I was more of focusing on taking photos rather than listening to him. But the place is really really big!

After another dumpling dinner (i tell you, i'm getting sick of it >_>) we went down to the park where we walked for quite a long distance to climb this hill. the view up there's really great, and managed to take some videos/pictures of it. atmosphere up there's great, and we could even see some Kong Ming Deng (refer to previous Day) and random blinking planes.

exchanged some presents with my host, they gave me really a lot lot of things that i can never repay them back.
special day indeed.

Quote of the Day:
"I don't want to go back!"
"Somehow, whenever I cross a road in changchun i feel a sense of accomplishment."-huihao/AHH

Day 8 - concertetiquette

Edit: this is like my third time editing this screwed up part of the post, so pardon me if you find me lacking in...enthusiasm.

At the start of the day, rehearsed abit of the concert sequence that's going to happen. it's quite big scale in fact - with reporters and newscasters coming down to cover the event.

Cow Factory (hahaha wendi) was next. Before entering we had to dress in professor-like robes and cooking hats which made us look like a combination of scientists and chefs. Zac looked like a girl while Sarah looked like a nurse o.o

No photos allowed, even though even if they allowed i wouldn't. really gory gory and sick stuff in there, with bloody and dripping cow heads to strewn pieces of meat to the blood-saturated air inside. felt a bit queasy afterwards :S

Concert practices were next after lunch. Spent around half the time stoning and trying to get the guitar because the performances didn't need the extra manpower and they were practicing instead inside some small room which amplified all the noisy noises T_T

Performances were really great anyway! Even though it was a bit messy and impromptu at times, i think everyone tried to put on a great show and could really see that all their effort paid off. and even though i didn't join in at the end (even though i really, really wanted to) i must say that they did pull off a great performance, especially Ashraf, the hosts Tat Siang and Trisha, Adithya/Nitya who had to memorise chinese songs. Videos are upcoming, so just wait for them till i get back to Singapore!

It's a bit frustrating sometimes though, being the only one not participating.

went to a public bath (which i was forewarned by Tat Siang and Ashraf about) Over there, sometimes they don't have a proper heater so in the winter they usually bath at public bath houses. it's really quite disgusting and i don't think i should mention anything on my blog, except for the fact that i kept my underwear on.

oh oh my new host is Tan Cheng/Jim. Abit stone at times, but he has a pretty nice brother and a mum who constantly attempts to speak english to me. which she does...but in a very,um, comical manner. but then again, he's still nice and even wanted to play Counterstrike with me on his computer o.o

Day 9 - For One More Day

it's 9.18 today, which is the day where the japanese invaded Dong Bei. We visited the street where all the war veterans lived at. turns out that the government takes very good care about them. something really interesting about their society there, and hopefully something that we can adapt in the future. at around 9.15-9.20 we stood for about 2 minutes and maintained silence to show our respect.

Visited some 76-year-old man's (an old soldier) house with Tat Siang, Nigel Choo, Chng Yan, Mariel and Liqi and Nancy and Juliet (sorry about leaving your name out!). thought we had to ask some questions but somehow he kept talking and talking so in the end the daughter had to stop him after many attempts to keep us listening to him.

Also visited this kawaii x 1000 kindergarden with many kawaii x 1000 children. we visited some of their classes where they sang songs and showed us how their lessons were like. simply kawaii x 1000

Official farewell lunch was a very nice affair at some very posh restaurant :]

Took 2 different buses to a shopping centre. Quite squeezy o.o turns out that i've been there before, so Nigel Choo, Max, Jun Yang and meI went down to the underpass to buy all the cheap cheap and inevitable, some fake goods.

After about 2 hours of running around the entire place and buying even more fuwa, we finally met up at 4.20. some really unfortunate girls were trying to find the underpass (with all the cheap goods) but after many many misdirections from people, they ended up buying tea because they simply couldn't find the place. they all got quite distraught (no exaggeration) while others were all happily discussing about their new items, fake or not :O

Track and Field finals tomorrow!

Quote of the Day:
-sees a dog walking past- "Is that real?"-Max

Day 10 - the last and final

Woke up briiiiiight and early today (about 4.50 am, mind you DMP-ers）for the track and field event which would span for the next 11 hours or so. had to be there at 5.40, so after a very sunny-ishly glaring car ride for the next 20 minutes or so, we reached this massive massive stadium (which is like 2 times bigger then Bishan Stadium) which was packed with students.

went up to the organiser's stand (haha i feel powerful) which we were grateful for the extra heat the sun provided (it was freezing in the shades). it was then i really noticed how we've managed to assimilate in the past 10 days. at the start of the trip, it was like girls one side, guys one side. but over the past few days, i think we 've all gone through a similar unifying experience that's really made us bonded.

before and after effect! :O

march-in was really funny, with loads of waving and usain-bolting every 5 steps.

first was...shot put, i think. chander and russel really tried their best, but i think the ~~overweight~~ shot putters did really through it extremely far. but then again, the two haven't trained before. mariel and especially trisha was fantastic, securing a dunno-what-position and a 1st overall respectively :]

caterpillar-race/train for girls was next. it's this event where you all put your hands on each other's shoulders and start running 100m in the shortest time possible. even though we didn't have any team at first, they still were willing to try. which they did, and got pro-ded results! (top 8, i think. which means they get a prize!)

my event was super long long long time away (3.00) so in the morning i was running around the stadium to watch their events.

what really struck me as amazing, too, was that our changchun'08 batch really were there for one another all the time. no matter who was running, we still cheered our hearts out no matter what position they got. like the 4x100m guys, even though they were far from being first, we still did try our best which made the entire day special for every competitor.

soccer game was stress-ful. i don't think the undercooked and lukewarm lunch agreed with me playing under the bright sunny sunshine.

long jump was super delayed. meant to be at 3.00 but i think we only got it started at like 4.30. must really thank all those that came to support like Kirk, Adithya, Ashraf, Nancy, Chng Yan, Tat Siang who brought water and lent me his spikes for the last jump, Nitya and Beatrice who also brought some water, Josh, and Sarah who stayed throughout the entire time, shade or no shade/people blocking or no people blocking. Zac was jumping with me too!

and i don't think we did that badly, considering that we were the shortest there. the others were all like 1.8 plus, mind you.

Josh-wallet bullying was masterminded by Tat Siang, Micah and a seemingly innocent Chng Yan.

(haha i have all the prizes won by raffles now because most of them didn't collect their prize. woo)

visited 2.23 after the entire thing because Tan Cheng wanted to hear the results of the track meet. 2.23's 5th overall! which is pretty good, considering the fact that there's about 32 classes per level. and needless to say, got swamped with unnecessary items and requests from people there.

they're really nice :O i dont think i know half of the class's names but they still do quite alot. and i realise today that i'm horribly lousy and taking solo pictures of myself! ^_^

Quote of the Day:
"I can tell you that your wallet is in this direction." - Tat Hsiang
"I bet you she won't notice that I tucked in my shirt!"-Zac

more reflections, sadness and flights tomorrow. till then!

Day 11

Woke up in the morning, stared at the ceiling for the next 3 minutes or so. thought to my self that 'hey, it's my last morning here.'

it's really hard to grasp on to time, even though you know that you have to cherish every minute, every second, but you know that you can't really hold onto it forever and can only watch as it slips past.

Got shuffled down to the living room, ate final meals, glanced final looks at the house, and woosh - at school already. packed final stuff, walked final steps in the school, and boarded the final bus trip.

my host started crying; i wasn't. it was just really touching about how they really cherish having an overseas friend around. imagine in singapore, wouldn't it be much more different? Like when i was hosting the taiwanese friends - even though i was a little sad that they left, i was also quietly relieved that they had gone. what happened to the student population's perception of immersion students?

could we really have been so much better.

bus ride was hyper as usual - everyone passed around pieces of paper/contact sheets to make sure some of us could go home with new friends and so. beijing airport was breath-taking as usual, with the the shopping spree at the beijing 2008 shop and haagen-daaz last row occupied with all of us having a good time (one of the last we could have together)

time fast-forwarded as usual, and after photos with the paralympians (woot!) china seemed to disappear before our eyes and a long, sleepy and painfully torturous flight was in progress (with really nice notes passed around along the way)

final goodbyes, final faces, final debriefs, final rolecalls.

sleeping clearly wasn't meant-to-be, and came online instead. started adding all the people, downloading QQ, and was pleasantly surprised by a few others in the low/high mood of the trip who came online (who couldn't sleep, too)

bleh, melancholic-blogging sucks.

Quote of the Day: "10 days worth of time, but memories for a lifetime."

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

forever naught. | 8:09 AM

FLIGHT TO BEIJING: 10 HOURS

thanks to all those that have wished me so far, really. though i can never recall all your names, many unexpected faces actually appeared and i'm really touched. really!

RLP Batch 2-ers have also bonded considerably much more over the past week in boarding + lessons, and it's nothing short of amazing on how we've all come together from different backgrounds and CCAs.

pity about the boarding internet though D:

Tomorrow's trip is hopefully going to be awesome. I don't think i've bought enough stuff for my hosts though, bought a bit only. hope they like it tooooooo.

Bye all! will be back on the 20th september, so don't miss us all too much when we're gone.

PS: Haha no school, ha-ha :D

And on a side note, i'd dedicated a small part of this post to yunxin who's flying off to China on the 20th for a 3-month long program! as i probably won't meet you at the airport on the same day (lol patrick lol) i guess this is one of the last times that i'll be able to contact you while i'm in Singapore. Remember, that despite all your hardships, you still can share them with your friends and don't let expectations overwhelm you!

Stay happy all the time, and God bless!

Quote of the Day:"Remember our SS 4.0 Marks!"-Wen Zheng and Shien

you asked me why i did that?

the answer's quite simple, really.

Monday, September 08, 2008

trying too hard. | 7:58 AM

thanks to all those (pingyen mush mardhiyyah jean) that have wished me (the really really early birds) who have braved the current storm outside through the channel known as the internet.

magical, really :]

OIP in 2 daysssss. hopefully we're all prepared to have the time of our lives! bad thing is that i have to wake up at around 5 T_T have to meet at 7 at terminal 1.

Quote of the Day:"No la no, i'm not a PSL. i'm your mother."-Charles

what happens when you try too hard?
and it all falls apart.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

twirl it away. | 9:42 AM

RFAC - RIOT! For A Cause tomorrow, so jiayou to all the performers as well as Kelly the organizer/singer. ha-ha-ha.

Shien and wenzheng came over today for SS - it was pretty productive i must say, although the random youtube-ing for 'trailer ideas' and shows threatened to digress. sad thing was we didn't have any recording devices so couldn't take the trailer. Report's finally done though, and sneaky things we did to obtain it.

As wenzheng would say, "SNEAKY BAS(KET)"

and i finally know how to solve a 2x2x2 rubik's cube! even though it was by sheer luck, actually. and speaking of games my brother has this really cool Mario and Sonic Olympic Games thing on his DS. it even has trampoline (really fun) as one of its games :D

for once, i'm not really overloaded by work over the past holidays. I only have CLE project, SS project, RLP Compilation for English Lessons, Lit Genre Essay (which i have absolutely no idea on how to do) ~~LOADS OF REVISION TO DO~~.

on second thought, i was wrong. T_T

PS: RIMB's blog has a really, really cool URL :D

Quote of the Day:"how u can even start...tats an acheivement" - Kevin on Genre Essay. it's that cheem, mind you, about notions of cathartic experiences and differences.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

don't look back. | 8:05 AM

don't tell your heart
don't say that we're not meant to be.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

and all the world's gone | 8:30 AM

RLP was stressful today.

9-12 was some etiquette thingy where they taught about certain techniques in socializing, such as fine dining, cocktail parties and um, how to drink soup.

fine dining's a really really confusing art, perhaps even harder then biology. there's like a million things to remember and imagine that having to multiply it by the different cultures (every culture has a different set of rules you have to listen to) lucky if you break them, you don't get demerit points :D

PS: I can't use chopsticks properly still

and the best thing of the day (somehow which i still remember) is how to drink soup! you have to hold it at a 45-degree angle when you drink it due to the "THERMODYNAMIC FLOW OF LIQUID" according to Mrs Jill Lowe.

lololol. thermodynamics.

and on the way to J8, we found out more scandalous stuff about mr law as well :O

Quote of the Day:"Hit your head on the edge of a tofu and DIE!" - Mr Law

and all the world's gone
the music plays for the only two.
it makes it so close to feeling,
feeling alive.

Monday, September 01, 2008

so close. | 8:21 AM

love this video absolutely !

on a side note, to all the RLP-1 Members, have fun on your trip to VIETNAM tomorrow! Remember to learn lots there and leave a good impression on the people there. Take care and God bless to you all.

speaking of which, changchun in about 8-9 more days :S