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.

back to the routine

So I’m going to try and make a conscious effort to post more often on this waste of web space, to the point that days on which I do not post look like days in which I fall ill or something like that.

Anyway, today’s school was slack to say the least. I had a grand total of 2 (two) lectures to attend all day – each lasted 40 minutes. Pity that students are only allowed to go home from 1.10 pm onwards. So when the last of my lectures ended at about eleven thirty, most of the orientation group  – myself included – headed first to the library to sit around and relax, then to the canteen for lunch, and finally to the bleachers to inanely kill time and create an overall impression of unproductivity.

I re-installed Warcraft III on my laptop a couple days ago – I half-regret this decision. My level of DotA skill has dropped to astonishing lows, and all the games I’ve played on Garena have featured multiple leavers. Human beings suck.

I’m waiting on results for my English Language Elective diagnostic test – they should turn out fine though. Then again it’s the waiting that irks me most, not so much the actual completion of test.

the party

Yesterday was the final day of orientation – implying that it was the day all us newbs, along with the OGLs, got to scream, dance and generally party our asses off. Before the whole orgy, for me, was the English Language and Linguistics diagnostic test – it went pretty oddly, but fairly well.

The party itself started off shoddily, thanks to some crappy emceeing (those two really needed a crash course in engaging crowds). However, once it got to the dance segment, the energy levels of the cohort skyrocketed and never flagged.

In between the start and the dance segment of the party, I was called up on stage to play some lame game. My being singled out by the emcee and forced to hit the stage was the brainchild of my group’s OGLs; damn those fools.

Nevertheless that didn’t spoil the fun at all – this was the single most fun I had partying of any sort. Not to say that I’ve actually partied a lot prior, but still.

I love my orientation group, especially the leaders.

the OG

It just got made better by the arrival of a fellow ex-ACS(I) guy. Today was the first OG outing – it came after a load of cheering, games and dancing. As a group, we headed to Harbourfront station and then to Sentosa, where we immediately hit the beach and played random games like frisbee, volleyball and captain’s ball. The volleyball was made funny by the fact that among the six or so OG members playing it, none of us could actually play volleyball. It was literally a beginners’ game; every rally that lasted longer than three legit hits was considered good.

After all the games, dancing, dunking (to be precise, a grand total of two people got dunked: the leader of another OG, and me), and trash-talking, our OG went for dinner at VivoCity’s FoodRepublic. The food there is to say the least relatively highly priced - I paid six-fifty for a steak and spaghetti. That doesn’t sound that bad, until one considers the fact that the rashers of steak were thin as paper and the amount of spaghetti served couldn’t fully feed a mouse. The over-dinner chat was lively and brisk – that, and the various ghost stories going around. Empirical, first-hand observation has taught me that quite many girls could actually get scared out of their skin in well-lit places.

And speaking of being scared, I’ve got a test tomorrow – it’s a requirement for the subject I want to sit for.