rey's ramblings

I crossed the bridge at 10:03 PM

Friday, January 26, 2007

Speaking of the right direction..

Plug-in: You Learn - Alanis Morissette

CJC is a pre-u institution that happens to be the only jc located on the side
of a major expressway and also only accessible via expressway. Just one of
the many unique elements about this jc that i've come to know so far for the
past month or so. This may sound utterly random but i've just realised that
there is something that establishes each and every jc as being unique or
different from the others contrary to my belief that most jcs in the above 10
points range were all the same.

After swimming on wednesday, philip and i met up with the rest of the ig -
angeline, oriana, sheryl, bernice, wei chun, xavier, nicholas, and cheryl cher - at
crystal jade kitchen in j8. Our ig3 is certainly a fun and lovable bunch to be around,
i'm rather grateful for that (:

Had shopping with adriel, rebecca, crenshaw and nanda yesterday for our class
bbq stuff at taka's cold storage. And grocery shopping is something i haven't done
since the last time i accompanied my mom to a supermarket, i think 4 or 5 years
ago, haha. But anyway, the bbq originally on tomorrow was eventually postponed
when we called and found out that all the bbq pits were fully booked already... My
my east coast is in high demand eh. So now the groceries will have to be stuffed into
adriel's refrigerator for a week or so.. no longer fresh anymore! :(

More tutorials, projects, assignments due next week not to forget i still have not
decided which GC to buy yet...

c-c-c-hanges!

I crossed the bridge at 10:37 PM

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Bling, Bang, Boom!

Plug-in: This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race - Fall-Out Boy

The past week's flown by in a blaze, but almost every moment was worth it.
It might be the new jc system or maybe it's just that my lucky side's finally
showing up but so far i have had absolutely not a single moment of worrying
about teachers pouncing up on us with harsh penalties if we talk, sms, have
due homework to pass up.

The funny thing is that most of the disciplinary system in jc seems to have been
scraped off. Whereas you had to be constantly conscious of whether what you do
would be deemed illegal by the administration and teachers in secondary schools,
being in a jc suddenly feels like you have this vast space of freedom, in a way very
much like that of a university but still maintaining the basic framework of punctuality
for classes, lectures etc. No one here orders you to keep quiet during classes, greet
people, pull up your socks etc. but the utter irony in this is that there are less
disciplinary cases and the occurence of teachers scolding students are almost zilch,
unlike back in secondary school. Plus everybody's just so much happier. So were
harsh rules ever really necessary?

It did feel a lot as if the teachers were constantly breathing down your neck back
in secondary and sometimes often making morally ambiguous judgments. Somehow,
junior colleges manage to weave in and out of the whole moral decisions dilemma
with ease. It's super good just to be able to focus on learning, making new friends
and having tons of fun crapping around with your classmates and ig group people.

Speaking of which, my class people turned out to be a really great bunch. Despite
their lack of internet connectivity (1/4 of the class doesn't use msn :O) they are
still a very fun and open group of people sticking together everywhere from the
canteen to the lecture theatres to the class. I love the back row, we ask the wittiest
questions (blame it on erika tuason :D) and do the most random things sometimes!

We went out on tuesday for a class lunch at pastamania cine. It seems like i'll have
to pass through orchard almost every other day nowadays - either going home or
having lunch/dinner and walking down from far east throughout orchard has become
so commonplace because the buses from cj only stop at far east but don't pass through
orchard. Anyway, at pastamania we met acjc j1s that some of us knew and so the group
turned out to be quite huge in the end. Afterwards, it was off to starbucks with crenshaw,
adriel, erika and nanda for coffee/dessert before we disbanded too and i went to the
cathay to meet joel and charisse to catch blood diamond, which had a really powerful
message about war-torn africa and humanity, including lots of high-octane action. Plus
dicaprio's accent was priceless.

The workload has already begun to pile up, worst of which is geog and econs. I'm so
not taking geog after the first 2 months, right now it's just because cj doesn't really
have the subject combination i'm looking for, although I've heard from seniors that
it will only be available post-JAE intake. I have a feeling getting A's for pure geog
in secondary school won't necessarily translate into distinctions or even a B for A level
geography, the content is just super mega huge and a lot to swallow.

Anyway, I went for a couple of swimming trainings on monday and wednesday which
turned out to be quite alright on the whole. Might consider staying in swimming for this
pae period because the trainings aren't as much as other sports ccas like canoeing, which
is super crazy... 5 times a week?!?! Had dinner at some hk char siew cafe in toa payoh
after training on monday with philip, xianyi and joseph. After some heavy discussion, I
might consider odac as cj's is the best by ranking and they play games beside just running
and gymming. Still not so sure about choice of cca yet but its not really that important
considering the pae period's only 2 months.

Friday was a humongous relief, TGIF! Looking forward to the weekends not because of
school but because of sheer exhaustion and the dire need to have mega sleeping sessions.
Took a bus to vivocity with mingli to grab some stuff from candy empire. Had lunch at
carl's junior and then walked around before having to leave - her for french and me for
the bed!

Had geog group project meeting earlier today at lido after church with mingli, erika and
nanda for which we are supposed to do an evaluation of hiv/aids in a particular country -
ours being zimbabwe - and suggest policy changes to help stem growth of the disease.
Groupwork so early in the year! But mostly productive anyway and later at orchard
library's galilee to finish up econs.

these were the unproductive parts:

mingli (cut-off), erika, nanda, me

I really don't know but contrary to what i thought previously, cj's been great so far and
the people are friendly and welcome you instead of sticking to their own cliques and all.
I'm not so certain whether only cj is like that or that it rings true in all the other jc's as well.
In a way, its kind of a good culture shock, i guess blame it on being in an elite boys school
for 10 years, haha. ACS was good in a lot of ways too - for example you could do things
then that girls would freak out at - but it really makes you miss out on a lot of other things
as well, not just merely the lack of interaction with girls on an academic level but even the
dynamics and hence, the whole system in a co-ed school is just a lot more different. Being
in a boys school was fun while it lasted but now, as its time to move on to the next phase
that is jc, i'm pretty glad that everything is co-ed now.

Well, i can foresee a dilemma on choosing jc's coming up soon. Decisions decisions.

out of your comfort zone, blind beliefs and into the real world

I crossed the bridge at 11:34 PM

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Rain, rain go away

Plug-in: You Give Me Something - James Morrison

The past few days have been not too bad despite the horrendously bad
weather. Didn't go for the day activities at east coast on wednesday - some
kind of amazing race - because I was down with a slight cold from the rain but
that cleared up soon enough and i made my way to the finale night on which we
had with our super crazy, complicated but fun mass dance and campfire was loads
and loads of fun. Debbie, my dance partner from ij katong convent happened to be
a dancer so thankfully we didn't look too bad!

Thursday marked the start of official lessons and we had mostly introductory
lessons for our subjects, everyone was sleeping in maths not surprisingly. The
whole new system of having to shuttle from class to lecture theatre and back is
somewhat refreshing from the staleness of staying (and rotting) in classes during
secondary school but i do miss air-conditioned classes :( although the really cold
weather makes it unnecessary for now. Got to know my classmates better by
chatting throughout breaks (and sometimes the lectures). The canteen now is a
super hotspot for social activity and i get to know about 3-4 new people everyday
from other classes via their friends. The atmosphere's almost akin to that of a beehive.

Speaking of which, the canteen's food isn't remarkable for school standards but
fairly decent. It's slightly better than the old acsi canteen food with same or lower
pricing sometimes, so it's a fairly good trade-off. The noodles stall is supposedly the
best although i haven't gotten around to trying it out because of its intimidatingly
long queue (due to its inefficient order system) and the western food stall also has
an amazing range - thai, french, korean, italian, mongolian?, bbq - such that it should
be renamed the International Food Stall.

Had some cca tryouts on friday.. fencing, canoeing and choir which i was reluctant
to try but due to eager persuasion from bernice... However, the cost of fencing
equipment at $640 was hardly worth the cca and I also declined from choir eventually.
I'm faced with canoeing or I can wait til' the end of next week where there will be more
cca trials and auditions for the various other ccas, which I probably will.

Left for dinner at subway cine with bernice, sheryl and nicholas after everything, which
ended at around 7. Chatted and people-watched (bernice's favourite pastime, haha)
our way til 10, bumping into many friends both old and new, nicholas's ex-cat high band
members included, before deciding to head home, due to nicholas having drank 3 bottles
of _______ but not before grabbing some popcorn. Watched click on dvd rental with dad
and sis before bumping off at 2.

sheryl and i taking pictures of each other whilst nicholas
attempts to look innocent (hint: bottom left corner)

I'm really quite burnt-out from the week's activities, had barely any sleep. Today's lunch
with charisse and joel was fairly entertaining with our own stories to tell about being in
a junior college though (:

it all happens too quickly

I crossed the bridge at 10:55 PM

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

All work all day makes jill a dull ___

Plug-in: Supermassive Black Hole - Muse

The second round of orientation begun yesterday as we got to know our new
class. I'm not too upbeat about it but there are certainly nice people that I've got
to know so far.

Yesterday was the announcement of the academic class for the next couple of months
and we had to immediately regroup into them, hence I bid goodbye to my orientation
group, which i will sorely miss being in and entered the new class of 1T02. We started
off with the routine orientation games but because they were cut for time, the focus
was mostly on getting to know each other. Our class is mostly girls, there are only 7 of
us guys which is fairly okay considering that there are classes with only 2 girls or vice
versa.

Then it was ig3 dinner and we took about half an hour to gather at the canteen before
very slowly making our way to taka for dinner at seoul garden so that by the time we
reached there it was already 7. And then it was just pure pigging out + camwhoring
although it was probably more of the latter. It's amazing how games like 'chubby buddy'
and 'eat your own desserts' put a whole new spin on eating with big groups at buffets :D

More unsolicited camwhoring ensued post-dinner before heading home. It was possibly
my latest time out on a monday (and the first one of the school year no less).

Today was super tiring not just because of last night's events but also because we were
at kallang doing some activities, most tiring of which was dragonboating and this was all
in the RAIN. Which decided to be a pain in the arse by lightening up just so it could deceive
us to get out into the open before flushing its bowels repeatedly. Thus, six hours later, we
were all soaked by a possible load of 20 olympic pools of water. Ergh. But dragonboating
was fun nevertheless although i would rather it had been under the sun instead. Luckily,
we were dismissed almost immediately after returning to school.

Took a bus back with lixian and an utterly random occurence happened when we were at
the bus-stop outside the school with a J2 guy who was carrying a black crumpler bag and
his girlfriend.

J2: Hey, your bag colour design is super cool man.
Me: Err...
J2: I'm quite bored with my one, wanna swap?
Me: Huh?
J2: I'll pay you 5 bucks too.
Me: Err okay, no thanks.
(the girlfriend stares on dumbfoundedly)

Then the bus came with much great relief, both of us got on and moments later we were
laughing our heads off. It's amazing what crumpler bags can do to you.

Anyway, pics from yesterday..
WARNING: This is going to be image-heavy.

random girl pops in at the bottom :D

whatcha lookin' at? _______________________bernice! my extended cousin, haha.

looking all innocent... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...NOT.

angeline! who drinks a lot of milo>>>>>>>>>>>>>our table

prawn love: courtesy of bernice & me>>>>>>>>>petrina, our bubbly OGL!

oriana, from mg!_________________________jasmine, from ij!

jon, our other ogl, simply can't resist camwhoring with my camera

outside and inside... a lift?

(Bleh, blogger refuses to accept anymore so this shall do)

IG3 - will be missed.

I crossed the bridge at 8:49 PM

Saturday, January 06, 2007

The Polar Bear Hunters

Plug-in: Something About You - Jamelia

I took the first step into jc life on wednesday with much dread and uncertainty
initially but whoa, impressions do change fast. Although coming for the first day
of orientation late and just recovering from the insane diarrhoea i'd been having
over the past week wasn't too much of an exciter, but the moment i stepped into
cj orientation, things were quite a blast. I was placed in og3 (or IG3, IG standing
for index group as it is affectionately known in cj) with a bunch of wonderful
people... wei chun, wei zhou, joey, xundong, philip, lanz, xavier, rastus, shi lam,
derrick, nicholas, dong xing, bernice, oriana, deepana, angeline, cheryl cher, jasmine,
vrinda, sheryl and gwen! Most of the girls were from the various IJs around...
ijst.nicks, ijtp, ijkc, ijst.theresa's with a couple of exceptions from swiss cottage and
mgs. The guys were more diversified, some being from sji but mostly from various
other schools like fairfield, catholic high, chung cheng etc.

The first day started off with introductory orientation games, e.g. those which
require you to remember the names of other orientation group members in
order to save your skin and although everyone was hesitantly silent initially, by
the time it got to the 5th or 6th game everyone was nosily chatting away. The first
few people I had full-length proper conversations and got to know about for that day
were bernice, rastus, oriana, angeline, gwen and nicholas. Bernice, rastus and oriana
are really great people to know. Very chatty and willing to talk about everything
under the sun. Interestingly enough, most of the people in our ig did not put cj as
their first choice and are aiming for other jc's so we had a very strong sentiment in
common but we were still determined to make the most out of our 2 months here.

The second day started off with a talk on subject combinations. Everybody fell asleep
when it came to general china studies in english... Chose plme on the computer: physics,
lit, maths, econs with physics being the h1 here. The rest of the day was spent on more
orientation games like captain's ball etc etc. Spent breaks in the canteen mostly getting
to know new people around like friends of friends and a lot of introductions going back
and forth around. Took 105 down to far east (omg, i'm so exhilarated that orchard/town
is only 5 mins away by bus!!!) to meet janice who's posted to temasek where we went to
coffee bean @ wheelock to share our experiences throughout the first two days and
exchanged presents! Thanks muchly for the sony headset! =D

Friday was over at the police academy doing even more games... plus the cca fair back at
school. There and then we had the disappointing news that for the rest of the orientation
next week, we would be in our academic classes instead, which would be announced next
monday and our ig would hence be split up which was kind of sad considering how well we
had bonded over the past 3 days.

Have I forgot to mention that we have the nicest ogls ever? Jonathan and petrina who
were virtually the most enthu and caring people were really great and didn't once make
us feel unwelcome (petrina's the ex-ijtp head prefect shh).

Took a train down to vivocity earlier today at noon to meet javier for lunch at sushi tei
and swapped albums, my 'futuresex/lovesounds' with his 'loose'. We shared our experiences
from our own jc orientations.. whereas his has already finished, mine has yet til wednesday
and talked about the various other orientations. I'm relieved cj's orientation isn't anywhere
near the worser ones.. Somehow or other, it's still very surreal to us that we're no longer
secondary but jc students already and in different schools...

Afterwards, we went over to gv to catch a sneak peek of pan's labyrinth which is by far
one of the best foreign language films i've ever seen! Set in World War II Spain, it tells
the story of a girl whose mother has remarried with a fascist general in charge of wiping
out the guerilla rebels. Moving into the woods where the general has set up a base to begin
the extermination, she escapes from the harsh and brutal going-ons by stumbling into a
fantastical world stemming from the nearby ruins of a labyrinth belonging to a faun where
she gets the chance to leave the cruel reality behind her.

I didn't get some of the political undertones in the film but the way they seamlessly
intermixed the worlds of fantasy and reality was amazing. The entire movie throughout
never felt draggy at any one point because of the appropriate pacing and the engaging
scenes plus the score suited the dark fairytale atmosphere really well, the best part being
the lullaby sung by the housekeeper mercedes at the end which is coincidentally the best
and most moving part of the movie (which i wont reveal because it also happens to be a
major shocker/spoiler).

Minds still reeling from the excessive imagery and nachos, we popped over to harbourfront
to chat some more before I left for home.

I'm so super tired but yet my mind's fully awake now... i'm somewhat eagerly awaiting
school this monday, plus the ig dinner after it. And shoot me, but that new year feeling
still hasn't worn off yet..

I crossed the bridge at 10:53 PM

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Two Double-oh-Seven

Plug-in: Waiting On the World to Change - John Mayer

New Year's Eve was just simple and awesome. We had the last service of
2006 in the morning and the message was meaningful. It was all about the
necessity to forgive and being able to take great strides forward into the
unknown. Then, esther, charisse, vanessa, joel, serene, marcus, janice, roy,
kenneth and I went to cartel at ps for the last lunch of 2006! It was really
great just to share our targets, goals and hopes for 2007 in a noisy chaotic
environment. I think I'm greatly inspired in terms of motivations for the
rest of the year.

I'm not making any resolutions but this year I'm really going to strive to
become more determined to follow the goals and plans that I've set out
(something I'm never really good at). This means a lot of courage and
focus, especially when it comes to studies. I guess the next 2 years or so
will be really hectic ones and I'll probably hardly have much time to laze
around so busy is or should be the operative word here. Procrastination
is a deadly sin and downfall, especially when living in such a fast-paced and
demanding society so I'll definitely try to be a lot more proactive and I'll
have to sustain my energy levels at a high rate, so LOTS of sleep is going
to be required!

Mistakes are and will be inevitable but I hope that I'll be able to rise quickly
from any falls or stumbles, learn from them and carry on more confidently.
In a way, this really isn't a resolution of sorts... it isn't a particular objective
but more of something that encompasses being positive in life.

What happened on new year's eve(ning)...

So anyway, we had a relatives steamboat dinner at night but here's where the
horror story kind of began. I started feeling really nauseous and all, eventually
ending up at the toilet to puke like 3, 4 times and by the end of it all, I was just
experiencing a super-giddy sensation with slight exhaustion setting in. What
luck, I've never gotten food poisoning for the whole year and it just had to happen
at the turn of the year close to the stroke of midnight. Thankfully, with the help
of some medicine, I got a bit better and was even able to drag myself briefly to
marina bay to watch the breathtaking fireworks display (I was not about to let a
bit of stomach upset ruin the new year by spending it in a toilet). So I managed
to get home safe, intact and all but ended up spending the next couple of days
trying to withstand the effects of diarrhoea.

Right now I'm feeling a lot better than on sunday night/monday but I just hope
it's completely gone by tomorrow when jc orientation will begin or else I'm either
gonna miss out on a lot or suffer more!

Before I sign out, thanks to everyone who sent me festive greeting cards, postcards
e-cards, notebooks, calendars etc. Am so thankful that I'm going into the year of 2007
fully equipped with new shoes, bag, stationary, clothes (but not like i'll be able to wear
those to school) and other miscellaneous items :D this is such a marked change from
the usual humdrum of starting a new year in secondary school, i really feel as if it's
starting anew!

what a new year really means

I crossed the bridge at 5:44 PM

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