Sunday, December 28, 2008

the life of a victorian V

As mentioned, the new year meant a new beginning for me with a new set of goals and i recall setting some resolutions. The climax of my holidays coincinded with the start of OGL stuff for me. I really wanted to be an OGL ever since the last orientation and this thus explained the excitement and anticipation for orientation to arrive for me. Spending almost half the holidays in china meant that i was not involved much for banner painting etc. Nevertheless i arrived in time and participated in the trial run of games and it will definitely be the highlight of any OGL training.

I recall angel describing how it was so interesting to call people up and tell them about orientation and how she tried to derive how the people will look like. She made it sound so exciting and interesting. How wrong i was when i got to call them up. I remember the first night i called, only 1 picked up =.= and if i remember correctly it was Rina. I found no pleasure in trying to imagine how they will look like(my og kids)

But anyway, the first day of school will somehow always be so exciting for me. I recall not being able to sleep the night before and thinking so much about the next few days and orientation. Maybe its just the whole idea of school which is the cliche second home that makes people like me so eager to go back to school. Or it could be the lower expenditure when one is in school. For secondary 4, the first day of school was orientation camp and i remembered going to school at a ridiculous time of 645 am. This time it was a less ridiculous time of 7 am but it was still freaking early for me. The theme was VICTORIAN KNIGHTS and thus we decorated the entire school in knightish themed stuff. I remembered doing the weaponry with edmund jiayi and camille. We were happy with what we have done i must add and i sitll have a few shots of us and our 'artwork' on my computer. I arrived in school shattered however to find our hard work in a mess. The wind was stronger than the double sided tape and we needed to re-paste everything again.

Registration soon begun and time flew by so quickly and i finally got to meet up with my OG kids. Perhaps it was the high expectations i had for an OG due to the large success of IRHUMBA as an OG but for me, I initially hoped to see a little bit of life in the OG like how mine was but unfortunately it was not really the case.

To be honest i think i was pretty MIA as an OGL. Because of my other duties like game mastering etc, i sorta neglected my OG. Games are by far the best way to bond people and the fact that i was not that with them for that meant i missed the chance to bond with them. To further compound the problems, i had a pretty quiet OG and a few who made disappearing acts. So yeah the excitement and highness level was so low that the most high people all the time was me and sharon and tina who crashed our OG at times mostly for the outings. The combined dinners of the OG was always domintaed by OGLs rather than OG kids but i know it would be due to parents as i remember for me, i went through the same thing.

To me sea regatta meant no one gets out dry. Same to the other OGLs present.So when the whistle blew for the start of it, splashes could be heard all around. Howver a teacher came scolding us about dunking 2 minutes into sea regatta, and it sort of lost its fun. Of course there were those who didnt care. I for one know because straight after he left, i was dunked by the crashers from my class =.= To make things sadder, i think i had more fun in sea regatta than my OG kids did and that is in theory impossible. I remember half the OG being dry and i really felt like i failed as an OGL beacuse i was not able to transmit the highness i had to them. But i realise people are just different.For IRHUMBA as far as i can remember we ended up dunking each other rather then play what we thought was boring games. While for VAGABOND we prefered to be task oriented and finish the games up quickly.

But thinking back i know it is unfair to compare OGs like this. Being an OGL might not have been the greatest success for me but i know that with the other council stuff we did for O1, i did my part in making sure the freshmen had a wonderful orientation.

ALl in all, the second orientation experience was definitely not one that i was entirely happy with. I had my fun but the inability to make my OG have the same fun will always be nagging at the back of my head as i look at the OG photos we took.

Following O1, I still remember how high the OGLs in the class were with me sh and xh still shouting random cheers as we walk to classes for the next week. I will remember the infamous frame when i was made scapegoat when jermyn shouted explosion during lecture. Because the explosion thing was my idea for the cheer,everyone assumed it was me. It did not help that i was beside jermyn at that time. But those were good times and such moments will definitely be hard to forget.

Twistin' at 9:33 AM
Friday, December 26, 2008

the life of a victorian IV

For me the 2nd half of the year of 2007 wasn't at all great. In fact it sucked. For one we had exams and i am unable to bring myself to dont study for an exam. Yes i deserve the model student award for placing importance on all examinations. So with the horrors of the almost month long O'level examinations rather fresh in my mind still, i had to cope with mid years partly to keep my scholarship cause i needed to pass everything to do so.

I remember how i was being such an oversensitive retard like some girl and making so much out of nothing and in the process had the first fight. I remembered how a simple CIP became such a day to remember. But eventually things became better so it was all happy once again. Although thinking back, i was really such a lame shit ass retard like more than the usual retard i can be.

One of the highs for me was definitely Renaissance GOLD. For me, band was my life. i ate band shit band talked band for 4 great years and i missed playing my trumpet so much it was like denying drug addicts their crack. So when the chance came to play for the alumni there was no hesitation. Because of the night pracs i dunno how many times i got scolded by my parents because in my previous 17 years of existance, reaching home after 10 on a school night was ridiculous and unthinkable. So yes 9 out of 10 practices i received numerous phone calls on the bus home to ask me where i was. i dont deny, i was bloody pissed and irritated.

But it was all worth it. Playing in the NUS cultural centre on that day and with our good ole conductor leading us. it felt like the golden years of SJIMB all over again. I was back in my familiar seat on the extreme end of the stage left. We played badly but heck we all had fun. Caught up with the batchmates and my desire to be back in SJI and not in JC got even stronger.

The highlight of my june hols though other than the pleasant mugging was definitely CLIC camp.It started off cool enough as i got to know another wayne,phoebe,ming hwei,yee jek,benjamin,may and the first few days were definitely fun with all the games and all. then may and phoebe sorta left for lit trip and for the bash night which was supposed to be the highlight of the entire camp, became kinda booring. we lost the 2 most self high girls u can find and our skit was pretty sucky although i must admit most of the lame stuff was my idea.haha.nevertheless i got to know more people through the camp which was the intention of the camp and i left the camp knowing how to be a better leader.

At the same time, council was becoming intense because of open house. Suddenly i was so busy. i began to struggle to catch up tutorials. I started to read notes and not get them the first time. I actually struggled with Maths. I made the biggest mistake in my life and tried for UCLES Maths H3 and got owned like a sad noob. I learned absolutely nothing and i think it was partly because i did not bother to make the effort. I remembered just wasting time there talking rubbish with Shane.

Then to add more shit to the shit pile i was already in my mum found out why i made more detours after school and the scolding she gave me made me feel so guilty i really wanted to die. with the weight of expectations on my shoulders, i knew i could not afford to screw up my life which equated to A levels at that point of time. This burdon would continue to be on my shoulders throughout my J2 life.

Being the inexperienced noob i was, the best way to solve anything is to avoid. Thinking back, i was really such a huge bastard that i deserved to be stoned on the streets for doing what i did. I was facing some retarded internal struggle which not many would experience. The guilt became even more immense when i found out that i got over it rather easily when a new crush came my way. I could not tell anyone this because i was really such an asshole. it did not help when i stared to find the wide disparity in personalities which made it so much easier to get over.

It was on XD's birthday party when i finally told a friend about this. He tried to console me but i know deep down i was at fault. For the next 5 months i did not tell a single soul about it.I never discussed the issue with that friend ever again. I just wanted it to go away. I was so distracted by this admittedly at that time that i had no mood to study for promos and of all my exams, my promo results were the worst in my JC life.

Till today, one of my greatest regrets will be not patching things up fully with you. The friendship that was lost because of this is something i know will never be salvaged. Sure we had talks and all but the level of friendship we enjoy now will never be close to half of the closeness we used to share even if only as good friends.

In a way i was glad when school hols came about. i was gonna be off to china for a month away from everyone and when you dont see you dont feel. I am so glad that i spent almost my entire hols, the times when i was in singapore with wg and javier. we went out on crazy frequencies of 3-4 times a week. plus the almost daily msn convos and gb sessions which became a neccissity to fill that childish void in us, i cant count the number of days we did not interact during the hols. I am glad for having them because they are the 2 dudes who can make me laugh so much and really enjoy spending so much time with.

I recall the random emo posts on my blog last year during school hols and how truely stupid i felt for feeling the way i did. but i was determined never to show how i felt in person.

i was determined to start of 2008 much better and not be distracted by anything other than my bid for 5 As. and i entered 2008 on a rather happy note having spent a quality christmas with my friends and had parties which i enjoyed so much.

Twistin' at 10:13 PM
Tuesday, December 16, 2008

the life of a victorian III

As mentioned in the previous part, i made the toughest decision of my life till date, rather one that i did not make. Choosing to stay in VJ over RJ was perhaps THE one and only time i will make such a difficult decision. So much to weigh, so much to consider, so many opinions to seek. i asked for advice from people aged 15 to 70. i remember the disappointment on my grandad's face when he found out i decided not to go RJ in the end. But nevertheless 2 years on, i am glad i did not make the move. i am really glad for all the opportunities that i have enjoyed in VJ and i am very sure its something i will not get to experience as a 2nd intaker in RJ. in a way i am glad they are scraping the 2 intakes rubbish for my sis year. because it removes the unfair advantage that a first intaker has in holding a leadership position etc in any cca.like it or not the first intakers always have an advantage in CCA related stuff.

With the 2nd intakers all settled in, it was really time to work and no more play. We were introduced to this amazing subject Project Work.A masterstroke by the ministry some may consider and definitely so by MOE themselves as evident from http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/programmes/project-work/."Project Work is a learning experience which aims to provide students with the opportunity to synthesise knowledge from various areas of learning, and critically and creatively apply it to real life situations. This process, which enhances students’ knowledge and enables them to acquire skills like collaboration, communication and independent learning, prepares them for lifelong learning and the challenges ahead." The dawn of a new era. The development of our future leaders. The start of something new. The rising sun over the fading horizons. That was what PW intended to bring to us all.

But alas nothing could beat the elation, the celebration of the seniors when they heard we were going to be handed our PW question paper in the following week. Being the caring supportive seniors they were, they felt it was essential to showcase the Victorian spirit by cheering as vigorously as they would when mr Chan announced a full day.I swore there were even a few cheeky shouts for full day to celebrate this great day for the j1s. "Rubbish","waste time" were one of the kinda remarks i heard about PW from my seniors. Such is the amazing effect of peer pressure, i started to grow a dislike of PW even before i knew who was in the group. Sarcasms aside however, i might be one of the few who say this but i really enjoyed my PW experience although the end results were screwed up.

When Mrs Chan mentioned somethign about dynamics and balance in choosing the PW group for us, i thought it was pretty funny because i was on good speaking terms with every single one of my group mates and thus it was pretty strange to 'learn' to work together when we got along very well already. So the PW adventure begun. What started off as laming sessions at kian mao's place watching retarded videos and movies for long hours to playing PES to playing O2 Jam soon became a race against time to meet deadlines. Time allocation was clearly not in our blood and more often than not we went home doing more things than during the meetings but this is the PW experience we all enjoy.

The most dramatic moment in our PW life was during the period of submission of our WR where 2 weeks before final submission, we realised(the teachers realised) that our entire format was to put it kindly totally messed up. So yeah we were as screwed as 2 prostitutes in geylang and we were all confused not knowing what was the best thing to do. Eventually we got our composure back and managed to salvage it all. Perhaps our mistake was not being focused and playing too much. Our project from the comments lacked depth and to be honest when i found out i got a B i wanted to die. B was unthinkable for me. Yes a B was not a C but it is also not an A. The thing about people trying to console you is that they try to let you see there are others worse off than you but for me i prefer to see things such that if people could get As why couldn't I. And yes the PW blow engulffed me for a full week before i was ready to pick myself up and tell myself i wont make the same mistake for the rest of A's but aye we know all about the papers who got.

Nevertheless the PW chapter in my life is another aspect of JC education i wont forget. Having a ridiculous long break in the afternoon before going back to school for PW session everyweek was lame but the lunches were good. Good money if good =alot was spent on food. And i would like to think that friendships grew stronger throughout the experience. So yes i will remember the amazing linguistic abilities of kian mao. the no nonsense of jomaine aka taima. the fast typing of huiqing(although still losing out to km cause no one can beat him in typing i think). the enthusiasm marcus brings. because deep down we did make a good team.

Twistin' at 1:32 AM
Friday, December 05, 2008

the life of a victorian Il

The conclusion of the supposed honeymoon period of the first coincided with the period where i officially joined council. The decision to join council was definitely one that made me think for quite a while. Having spent 4 years in a military band, I was perhaps sure if not foolish to think that band in VJC will not be the same. I think this sentiment was shared by my friends in other schools like the fat thing deyong who quit band after a few days(or was it 1?) after deciding it felt different. The next option for me was to join a sport. Other then my brief stint in badminton in sgps(2 years actually before i quit) i had not much exposure to sports in school. Floorball intruiged me and i was really tempted to join it. However, with much of the sji dudes joining hockey and floorball being dominated by cath high, i was perhaps a little insecure with the prospect of joining a cca without someone i knew. who was going to help me? who was going to guide me as i was a HUGE noob? i remembered going for kayak training with shaun and shaun but all 3 of us left after 1 training. I was perhaps not too ready for the intense training the canoeist went through. Eventually, the floorball idea was also scrapped because i decided jc was the time to try and stand out and i did not want to waste 2 years rotting in the reserves and not get a chance to play. Perhaps pride played a part and i did not want to be a nobody and i dont doubt my ability and my willingness to improve, but there comes a time to realise that you are not cut out for something and sports was definitely not my forte at competition level that is.

With a little tinge of unwillingness perhaps at that point as my OGLs were keen to make sure that i knew SC were the saikang warriors of the school and that i must know what i was getting myself into, i still decided to hand in the application on the last day. And then, the council journey begun. 7 of us ran for council in the class. We were dubbed the sexy 7 and i believe i have one of the posters we put up somewhere at home. Campaigning was not as interesting as compared to how the seniors did it assuming they didnt lie of course. URSA seemed an awesome house because of the sheer number of nominees we had. I was happy that agung the only person i respected in SJI in the batch, hsuan te the crazy dude which i had a crazy fun time as part of the PSFs and aravind who was my classmate in SJI and in VJ decided to run too. We made our first apperance on stage one fine assembly and did a cool cheer to make ourselves heard. However, this was once again disrupted by the release of Olevel results and for the 2nd time, i bade farewell to dominic and yujie who were 2 people that i could talk to. Awhile before this, we had our speeches. I remebered how i tried to make people remember me by making each letter of my name a positive adjective. it was something like wonderful amiable yellow-pages never-ending enthusiastic if i recall correctly. Elections followed speeches and unfortunately one of us didnt make it in the class but thats life i guess. so there it was then the 37 of us all ready to make an impact and show the school what we were capable of.

The first event the elects had to handle was Orientation 2 and i volunteered to be a baby red shirt. Cheering and school spirit was something i had in abundance and my experience as being the bastard yelling at every small thing in SJIMB made cheering and making myself heard such an easy task. In band, it was easy to see who were the leaders in the band but in council it was so different. Everyone was a someone and held leadership position in secondary school. We had head prefects,deputies, band majors(okay thats me lol), sports captains and it was really a gathering of leaders. I remember being obsessed with the famed mat beat of VJC and by the end of the week i heard it, i could do the synchronised movement of both my arms to the beat. I embarrassed myself totally on the first day of cheering as i was supposed to introduce the mat beat but i made a total mess of it. I also remember the sudden disappearance of large numbers of the crowd by mid-day and the usual O2 disappearing act failed to disappoint. By March, the elects were relatively prominent in school no thanks to the HUUUUUUUGE blue tags we wore.i fondly recall the picture i had on it which was probably the most UGLY photo i took in my life. i remeber being dam annoyed on that day and i just gave a WTF face while the nice lady took the photo.

random comments aside, council was really an interesting experience for me although not entirely new. the next activity i was involved in was the council investiture. it was really a biiiig thing because who would want to mess up their stepping up?worked well with the adhoc and some of them became one of my better friends in school. next we went through the usual training camp for all elects and i got to bond with the best group on earth EZALOR with great caring facils in shu xie/hua and beertini. Following that shortly was the selection of the presidential nominees.we all know what happened next. dhilshad whom i refer to as binti became our boss(deservedly in my opinion i must add) and there it begun. the transition to full fledged councillors. there came the choosing of committees. like my decision to choose VJ over RJ, the choice of feco over reco was one that was really hard for me to make. having to give up what i enjoyed doing along with seperating from those i had slowly became close to amongst the baby red shirts. in fact i think i was the only one who left the baby red shirts after this =/ however at the same time i knew openhouse was what i wanted to do and it was the main attraction for me in council. i made the move and found myself in a committee i grew to love eventually.

i am always proud of the fact that my committee was one of those to be bonded first. however, it is sad for me that is that what seemed like an unbreakable bond initially is actually not that great. through time and especially after we stepped down, feco seemed to have just disappeared. today i am still in contact with my committee members but the collective bond we used to have as one huge family is no longer there. or perhaps it was always foolish on my part to think that we were ever close? this and the whole concept of friendship in general became the pinnacle of deep discussions i had with some other friends like zh who shared the same sentiments.

happier things though, council for me would become one of the best things to happen to me.as individuals and not as committees, i grew to love hanging out with all of them and the many mass gatherings we had were really times to remember. The first event my committee handled was our interesting toilet campaign and from time to time, i would play the video and reminiscence the good old days. surprising to some since i am one who loves the limelight, i am actually not in the video.

and my jc life seemed to be going steady.nothing was going to ruin what i had for these first 5 months...




Twistin' at 9:25 AM
Thursday, December 04, 2008

the life of a victorian I

been wanting to this for awhile. to blog about my life in VJ which despite the many ups and downs was indeed a pleasurable experience. this might be abit draggy so stay with me my loyal readers if any of course.for added effect i shall blog in italics for the rest of the post

life in VJC
-wayne teo

For me, being educated for the past 10 years of my life in a single sex school, i have not been exposed to the opposite sex in a school environment. i met my fair share of boys who are just like girls but hey man they lack certain features a girl possesses.i first entered VJ with lucas guo who has been my loyal faithful travel companion up till now. whether rain or shine, 1 umbrella or no umbrella, car or no car, we boarded the same bus to school for much of my jc time. i had the false impression at that time that brown hair was the ulimate source of envy amongst my friends and the long fringe with sloped sides and back was the best hairsyle to have. i entered VJ not knowiung there existed food for eyes in the form of eye candy. i remembered having one the second day of orientation.

New things aside, i got a smashing OG where i got acquainted with chunhanzhihansheenashannonthomasjiamingswanyeevanessadianeshiyingjingtongtedriddominic and till today a core group of us are still meeting up constantly and i still am in active contact with them.i regret the fact that the rest of the OG which we sort of broke away from. I had a crazy wonderful/caring OGL which resembled my cousin so much that i felt attached to her from the first day like a big sis i could always confide to. i had another OGL which was super motherly and had a young ip kid who stunned us with her revealation that she was younger than us. We had a fair share of lame and funny moments with the occasional knn from jiaming.shannon will always say somethign funny to make us laugh. chun han will give us his insight on life as a victorian along with the many deep stuff he says. sheena will act deh and give the dam pissed face we grow accustomed to. thomas will say something once in a while to make us laugh. zhi han will always suggest the next hangout place and organise everything. It seemed like life in college could go no wrong.

Brought back to reality by day 5 of school. We had our first lessons. I met the class for the first time a few days prior to that. I will never forget the guy i deemed a retard SIMHARNGYI who went about asking everyone whether they played dota who today is one darn good friend of mine in VJ. Neither will i forget the extraordinary high proportion of non chinese in the class. But hey singapore is multiracial isin it. Met a form tutor who seemed to fit the bill as the usual physics teacher but to me was a good and real nice teacher nevertheless. A day passes and I am met with the sudden switch of 1 boy for 3 girls in the class. It is somethign that could not be explained by the theory of comparitive advantage but it was early christmas for the guys in the class. This caused the equlibrium to shift to the female side and suddenly the class seemed better. Lessons was pretty okay and i ponned my first lecture on the 3rd econs lecture i had. I formed an awesome cool bimbo clan consisting of hq xh serene marcus and myself. I played angel and mortal and got deceived by the angel i thought was a girl for the best part of 2 months. I applied for a scholarship and got it. i applied for another and screwed up the interview. you take some you lose some was what i thought.

Then as time passed, OGs seems a distant memory for some, not for mine. we had the OG table we sustained for an entire year though admittedly i was starting to be more attached to the class. random outings i called for often ended in much laughs and it seemed like we were lifelong friends. deja vu for some who felt the same way about their OG. we had an awesome slv where i played the role of the proud founder of singapore. standing still and looking cool is something i pride myself in. however fate was cruel as with the o level results, we lost 3 classmates but we gained 2. we welcomed an additional indian to the family to further increase the proportion of non chinese but hey thats secondary of course but we also lost an indian which i enjoyed talking to. though i have lost contact with you aruna i want you to know you were defnintely one of the people i could click with. siewhui and saranya came in with yuling aruna and freddie leaving and that was the new class we had to be accustomed to.

the class rocked in the sense that we had the most wide range of personalities in my opinion. we had the cool dudes like joe who emitted that coolness. dudes like kian mao who could make any lame thing darn funny. guys like daryl and freddie who had bodies toned and ready to charm the girls. people like ben kang who never looked like he existed in the first 3 months but turned out well once you got to know him. jermyn and sk who were the closest gays you can find in a mixed school until hl mama came along and charmed sk away with her sweet love. xh was the best bro to all the guys. dhilshad would inspire people with her leadership. we eagerly await the next bimbotic moment of marianne chin as much as we awaited the next rare bimbotic moment of jomaine i call my taima. marcus ong who was my emo pal. harng yi the random dude who will blog the most entertaining stuff on the class blog. hq and sh who would be found talking about britney spears 56th child with her 47th boyfriend. serene who will be the most jidong girl in the class. the indian who will go on to go through most shit with me and being there for me.liyin who will compete with me for the most lame joke with her great sporting ability to go with it. abishek will amaze me with his beatboxing for the first 30 sec before i found it annoying.LOL(jk dude u are pretty good) peiting who i saw as often in school as i missed school. xiaoqin the econs rep which i tend to pay overdue debts to. saranya who will amaze me with her great insight on harry potter despite never reading the book before. and there was iris who i never got to know well but i still know was a nice girl.

so yes life in VJ was indeed cool for the best part of 3 months. I even had my first real crush during this time...

tbc in next post.....

Twistin' at 8:48 AM