Yesterday was the last day of school

… and I visited ACS(I) band at their camp with Alex and Teow. There were the batch-mates, seniors, and section to talk with, and the street soccer court to abuse. From what I heard firsthand yesterday, the IB band is improving steadily, and looks on course for a good result at SYF. I, sadly, can’t say the exact same about the main band, which has less than three weeks to competition. I like pie.

I miss the street soccer court real bad. Already. Good times I had playing there with classmates, bandmates, friends, random people and whatnot…. I like pie.

blah blah birthday!

Today’s birthday bash at Sancia’s (happy 17th birthday in two days!) was good good fun. There were drinks (of both the clean and alcoholic sorts), cards, darts and people to talk crap with, which generally made for a lively atmosphere. 

So first, Bryant, Audrey and I went to Felice’s place to bake. The first batch of cookies came out burnt to less than a crisp – the second and all after, though, turned out excellent, courtesy of the elite baking skills of yours truly. The whole baking process (as well as many moments of unproductivity) made us arrive at Sancia’s house at something like six-thirty, which was much later than expected. Still, it did nothing to take away from the fun. Melvin turned up shortly after us – good thing too. It’s always good to have someone to rag at parties.

I like my OG. Really. This party was just one more excuse to add to our supremely vast collection of group photos. That, and an opportunity to just chill in a.. home environment?

fun stuff for a change

Tuesday’s hockey practice was the most fun one so far. It was held at the NIE instead of the usual CCAB, so our practice proper started at seven. There were two highlights of the training session: one, the incredibly stupid things that some of us did during warm-up runs (jumping as we changed directions being one of those things) and two, the first ever match among the J1s that did not feature any seniors or DSA students. There were sixteen of us, of which six had come from ACS(I) and a similar number from Nan Hua. So when we were called to split ourselves into two teams, the predictability factor kicked in. When push came to shove, however, my team triumphed by three goals to one (we weren’t allowed to shoot, due to the fact that none of us had shin guards yet, so the only way to score was to dribble into either of the opponents’ two awkwardly narrow goals). Yours truly scored a poacher’s effort, walking the ball into the goal from about five inches out after a scramble.

Wednesday’s post-school hours were spent visiting the IB band (and Alex Oon). I’ll leave aside all the judgmental trash regarding the band’s playing standards, and instead thank the stars for the opportunity to see so many familiar faces over at my alma mater one more time. All of the bus ride home was literally spent talking and catching up with friends and whatnot. Gosh it seems I do really miss those fools.

tough shit

Much as I hate to admit it, I think that my creative juices have long been sapped, at least in the writing aspect – I haven’t penned a poem/story of any sort in perhaps a year. And this realisation comes at a time when I’m taking no less than three subjects (out of seven) that require extended writing (Economics doesn’t count because it’s all facts and theory).

Anyway, today was ACS’s 123rd (and my fifth) Founder’s Day celebration. I slept through the beginning part of the whole event, and when I woke up, the British High Commissioner had just taken the stage. I found his speech funny and fairly entertaining, so I was glad that I had at least woken up at a worthwhile moment.

I look to the weekend with much appreciation and relief. This past academic week has been the most draining one in my post-O’s life (due more to physical reasons than anything else, ironically).

Epic Fail

That could very aptly describe today’s school cross-country run. It’s got nothing to do with the concept, level of preparation or organisation of the run – rather, the run itself was an epic failure in that possibly ninety percent of the mass run participants didn’t even complete the stipulated distance due to a sudden (and rather heavy) downpour. The memory of the poor souls seeking refuge under the shelters, shoes and socks soaking wet, will stick with me for a long time to come, if only because the whole ordeal lasted about half an hour.

After the whole event, the bulk of the OG went to Junction 8 to have dinner (in the case of some such as me, a compulsory pre-dinner meal) and talk cock in whatever area could house us for an hour or so. The first few days of class proper so far have only caused me to miss the OG more – as the old adage goes “you don’t know what you got till it’s gone”. Thankfully though I will get to meet some of the OG mates during tutorials.

collection of thoughts

Today’s hockey training was exhausting, but at the same time fun and productive. Recent days have come and gone in similar vein, especially regarding the ‘exhausting’ part, which would partially explain the lack of posts these past few twenty-four-hour-blocks.

I’m positively falling behind in Math H2 work – I’ve, more than once, mulled the possibility of my math not being as good as what my results throughout life have said of it to be.

English Language and Linguistics may seem like some elitist subject (what with all its labelling variant forms of English as creoles, basilectal forms and so forth), but recent lessons have shown that it is indeed a genuinely “low-level” form of the English language – it deals with all the nitty-gritty with regards to grammar, syntax and the like. Which basically is the stuff that everyone takes for granted (thus messing up their foundational-level language skills).

I think my new class is odd. Not that there aren’t nice, pleasant individuals around, but in 1AA1, cliquing is fairly highly evident. You get groups of people who’d known each other before the whole sorting process sticking like glue and whatnot – I am in no manner exempting myself of blame pertaining to this matter. However, it’s not like I didn’t try opening up.

I vote the sofa in the Oldham Library the Most Comfortable Place/Thing in ACJC. It’s sleep-inducingly cosy, and blue to boot (yes I’m being very random).

I am going to get awesome at hockey. You haters just wait.

Protected: The Boycott

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So I’ve been posted to 1AA1. In perhaps a few weeks I’ll be finding out if that’s a good or bad thing, to put it in as simple terms as possible. As things stand, I can only say at most four things about my class.

1. I like the class name (number?)
2. There are too many boys in this class for it to be truly cool
3. The form teacher seems quite nice
4. The people inside are a starkly different bunch from the general populace in school

Today also marked my first ever training with a ‘proper’ sports CCA. I’m now in hockey, ladies and gents. Today’s training was tiring as heck, but fun. The seniors, especially the ACJC alumni, seem like a fun, chill bunch of people – unlike the alumni members of a certain other organisation. If I’m to make the tournament squad this year (which given the current circumstances looks monstrously difficult), I’ll obviously have to train my hockey skills and perhaps more pertinently, GET MY FITNESS LEVELS WAY HIGHER. The sprints segment of training completely exposed my lack of speed and stamina; I should hope that a few more of such exercises will contribute positvely to my overall physical capability.

Tomorrow we find out our new classes – I meet this with mixed feelings. I’ll miss the bulk of the OG for sure, but I’m excited as heck to be seeing a new group of people. 

Today was spent stoning for the longest periods since my salesbitch days; my first lecture was at twelve-thirty. It was also my last lecture for the day: go figure how many I had. I might as well not have attended school. However, any doubts as to whether today would be well spent were all erased after school. Most of the former Class 4.2 guys, plus Shao and I, played basketball, rugby and all sorts of random games at the basketball court. The only blip in the whole buzz of activity was our getting caught by a teacher for playing in inappropriate attire. Well actually, to call it a blip would be extremely harsh – the teacher was reasonable and nice. Unlike certain others with hair of flame and tongue of devil.

In other news, Eduardo da Silva of Arsenal and Croatia has finally completed his recovery, and is able to play professional football again. Good for him.

didn’t turn out quite as expected

Today was my first ever choir audition. Well I’m not seriously considering joining this particular music group, but I wanted to at least have a feel of how the audition process went, so two OG mates and I went for those. We were required to sing the school anthem, and a bunch of random notes and parts of scales. Fun and slightly nervy stuff it was.

Having watched some of the weekend’s Premier League highlights, I have come to a conclusion that Gianfranco Zola has made a great impact at West Ham – this team are playing some eye-catching football. Manchester United were arguably the inferior team despite beating the Hammers 1-0. Also, Fernando Torres’ recovery from injury couldn’t have come at a worse time; just when it seemed that United were going to cruise their way to a third consecutive league title, up stepped Torres to get Liverpool some valuable points.

In other news, I was admitted into the English Language Elective Programme, meaning that I had done sufficiently well for the relevant authorities to deem me at least worthy of a shot at this whole syllabus. Today was the first ‘real’ lecture in that subject – an interesting one it was. I’ll be looking to take away some particularly pertinent knowledge from the two years I’ll spend taking this subject.

Today also was the first day I played basketball with any of my OG mates, and the first time I played basketball in about two years with my second-favourite Chinaman, Mr. Shao Ye Tong. I must have played for more than two hours today; I finished dead tired and very sweaty.

Tomorrow is perhaps to be the second-most significant day of my junior college life to date – subject combinations are to be submitted then. I’ve already confirmed what I’m going to take for these two years; the only thing left for me to do is get the formalities over and done with.