School at 8pm

Hi all,

I'm in the mood to descibe the scene I encountered when I left debate training.

I gasped when I stepped outside. The darkness had mercilessly snuffed out the lights. Trying not think about the Japanese Occupation, I stepped outside and walked towards the multi-story carpark. 

Near KK Hall, I saw a women practising Tai Chi. The mind is an amazing tool, and how I wonder why my mind can so easily link this image to that of a young Chinese women brought to this once-Japanese stronghold. At 8, when you're tired and hungry, your mind can make very weird connections.

I walked to the multi-story carpark using the SMTP block. The first floor lights were all turned on, casting a pale white glow over the eerily green tiles and my determined face of not to think of anything scary. However, it is relatively difficult to look at the surroundings and not think about appartitions and many P3 average compostions with things like, "I saw something like a white blanket" "I screamed with horror" "The ghost knocked me down" etc.

Finally, I passed by the comforting lights of the area near LT 3 and the General Office. There, it was brightly lighted all the way to the carpark. Home safe home? Not the best description, but relatively apt.

When you look at so many turned on lights at such a late time, you are in a dilemma. The lights provide you with safe travelling and comfort you, but it adds to global warming. What do you think? It's your choice.

Cheers,

Darrel

Gender power balance

Hi all,

On the way back from my very long debate training today (5 hours), I heard this on the radio, "A man is gay because of women. I mean, come on, how heavy is a handbag? When men carry it for women, their hormones go off balance." 

I know that many of you out there will go giggling away at the g-word, but seriously, this is cause of thought. There's this facebook post going around and its really very popular - its about how female and how male are you. Basically, there is this list of criteria, and all you have to do and see how many apply and convert it to percentage.

Are men servants of women? An impromptu answer would be a strong, "NO!", but then, consider it. Worker bees slave their lives off serving the queen bee. All worker ants want when they work is to mate with the queen ant. The lioness hunts the food, thus exerting some sort of control over the majestic lion. Are these signs of the fact that men are actually under the strict control of women?

A "non-animalistic" example is this - when a man falls in love with a woman and vice-versa, how many times do we see men proposing elopement? Practically none, for its the women that does that. To quote a very famous Chinese saying, men will "love a women till the earth cracks because of age". We don't see the opposite.

To conclude, till the 1900s, male chauvinism was rampant and we use "Man" to signify men and women. Today, however, I wonder: Is this simply a bully complex of the mind of men that men are weaker than women? I really wonder. 

Clarification: I am not a feminist. This is simply a casual thought. Do comment upon this article. 

Cheers,

Darrel

Piano...again

Hi all,

Sorry for double posting, but I neglected to mention something. i went for my last piano lesson yesterday. My piano teacher was relativelty focused on the area of my scales and my pieces, which weren't very good. She said that I don't have to take this year's exam, but I need to mantain and improve my current standard. It's sort of weird, how I had thought I would never come back, and did. But now, I'm sure I'll come back, to visit her when I'm free. And when I go back to visit my primary school (it's only a fifteen-minute stroll away from my piano tuition centre)

Cheers,

Darrel 

JGs Quarter Finals

Hi all,

Firstly, when I arrived, I saw:

1. 3 Sec 4 debaters, two I don't know very well and vice versa, one I know very well and vice versa.
2. 1 Se1 NYGH debate nemesis, cause she's a good speaker/debater, and she was once my enemy in terms of EL and CL in primary school (her Chinese was too good for me to take down. She's not as good as the Chairman, JY and Ming En, but her compositions are slightly worse than mine. I beat her in English)
3. 1 Sec 2 NYGH debater senior from my primary school, but she didn't recognise me. I know her cause she was a prefect when she was P6 and I was P5.

Yup, so anyway, the debate commenced. 

Speaker scores by me (not official and not final)

Nettie: 7/10

Kah How: 8/10

Ee Wei: 8 + half/ 10

Li Ki: 8/10

Nicolette: 6 + half/ 10

Darion: 8/10

In the end, while waiting in the adjudication (complex and fanciful word for judging), the seniors told us to spread the message that if we didn't win, we're going to jump into the pond.

So, we won, even though the best speaker was 2nd Prop. Li Ki was so emotional, he did something that was completely unexpected, which I'm not supposed to say. Boo.

So yeah, that's all. Just describing my work-orientated weekend. Actually, my schedule consists of three parts - work, sleep, eat. Except on Saturday, where I watched 1 hour of Animal Planet. Apparently, this is Sec 1. Never mind, at least I still get to sleep, compared to CSE (Cannot Sleep Early). Haha.

Furthermore, this post is really really short, only 150+ words

Cheers,

Darrel

GEBPSDCs

Hi all,

Today was the GEBPSDCs. Because I know this will result in a lot of brain cells wasted to decipher this, I'll decipher it for you: Gifted Education Branch Primary School Debating Championships. Mrs Laura Ng posted a message about it. 

So anyway, I was chairman. This means I was the guy who goes like "You will have 4 mins to make your speech. At the 1st half minute, a bell will be rung like this (DING)..." Yup. i was also the timekeeper, which name explains itself. 

So, to talk about the first debate I chaired, between Henry Park and Radin Mas. Henry Park lost. Amazing to hear a GEP school lose to a non-GEP one, right? No offence to them. But if you were there, you would have understand what I meant. The second speaker of Henry Park was like at the end of her speech, because she was seriously rushing for time, was like "(indistingushable stuff)andthusthismotionmuststandthankyou." If I were to slow it down, "I have successfully proven to you that handphones are bad and thus this motion must stand. Thank you."

Next debate was between Bukit View Primary and St. Hilda's. No repeat of previous scenario, cause St. Hilda's won. It was sort of clear cut. Bukit View kept on harping on Obama, when they weren't even too clear about him. St. Hilda was really confident, and it was seriously outrageous, the margin which they originally won by. Then, there was serious moderation, making the margin significantly lower, but it was still a relatively large margin. 

Then, we did some cleaning up and clearing up. When I say that, I mean extreme cleaning/clearing. We had 40 mins to tidy up 32 classrooms. Sounds fun right? What if I told you the average commuting distance was 1 min between each classroom? But still, we made it. Then, we had to carry a huge pile of publicity materials from the Ops Room (which is near the clock tower) to Kong Chian Admin. It's a really really fun thing to do under the hot sun. Following that,we had to carry a box of mineral water from the Ops Room to the clock tower. Then, as a reward, we had a lunch packet that was leftover. Finally, we had to stack up chairs. 

However, all in all, even though I only had 5 hours of sleep because of the iCIT camp yesterday, (here comes the very moral oral stuff) I feel that this has enriched me greatly in terms of dealing with conflicts and I understand now that one should be responsible for his/her mistake and this is especially important for us to grow. 

Yup, that's all. As I still have tons ofstuff left undone, especially the 作文, I shall not chat longer. Adios!

Cheers,

Darrel

2300 - little thoughts of a passenger

Hi all,

Sorry for the really depressing and confusing post, I really felt like that. I feel so much more better after venting my feelings. 

Anyway, the previous night, i was travelling home after the match between Liv'pool and Man Utd. As commented in the class blog, a 4-1 win is seriously very surprising. Even though I said that only serious Liv'pool fans would bet on such a score, I asked one of my relatives, who is one of them, and he said that 2-1 was very good already. In the end, it's Singapore Pool who takes the most money. 

Anyway, while my dad was fetching my cousins home with me on the car, at the traffic light near the overhead bridge that is very close to our school, we saw a young man drop his handphone at the bus stop as he was crossing the road. A Samaritan immediately got off the 132 bus next to us, picked up the phone, and shouted for him to come back here. 

(Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to hear the moral,P6 Oral stuff.) I feel that this is very good, for we live in a self-centred society, where coldness enshrouds every single person's heart, and it is good to know that within some of our hearts, the little bright seed of warmness can still emnate with glory and brightness, it can still rip off that blanket of ice over a person's heart. A flame may be small against an iceberg, but if the small flame is hot enough, it can melt the iceberg, and this is exactly what I saw.

Anyway, any good moral views that I had was thrown out of the window when my cousin commented that both were of the same race, with no offence meant to anyone. I apologise for attempting to be so politically correct, but I don't want my comment to set off a furore, virtual or reality. I sincerely mean no offence to any race groups. 

Anyway, after we had left that scene, we saw a police car next to us. As we were in a car that was supposed to sit only 5, and there were 6 in the car, with one of us without a safety belt, naturally I would get panicked, thinking that a fine was in order, but the police car just drove off. Being really really puzzled, cause I thought that the police were supposed to be really strict, I voiced my inquiries. My two cousins, both serving N.S., nearly laughed their heads off. Through the laughter, I heard one of them say ,"You cannot believe in the police one! Inside the car, one of them is regular, the rest of them is like us one! Driving around at 2330 already very sian (boring), where got check one! They supposed to shine torchlight into car, but who really care!"

"Really?", I replied, not really believing that this was true, for if it was, why were the general public so afraid of the police?

"Yeah! Only traffic police on motorcycle than you scared, this one don't need la! You know on TV, they say what 'the steel within', right? You see them go do duty, all of them slack one! They sit under the tree in the hot sun, say vulgarities, never do any work, two minutes only, all will go 'Sergeant, smoke break leh!' Don't know one hour got how many smoke break."

  After hearing my cousin enlighten me (no offence to any NSmen who feel deeply insulted, and I'm not being sarcastic), I truly understand why Singapore wants to make peace with every other country to fight the terrorists. (No offence to any military personnel.)

Cheers,

Darrel

P.S. Saw a really big rat on the void deck of my cousin's house. 

Why do all good things come to an end...

This song by Nelly Furtado kept on echoing in my head the day before.

Yesterday was my last piano lesson, after my Theory exam. As I entered, my teacher was still explaining stuff to a cute little small boy, who seemed to be in Grade 1, so I didn't dare to play my atrocious piano pieces, instead preferring to play my scales. 

After him was me. As we practised, she constantly spoke about me having to practise my piano and not let it fade away. She also wanted me to make time to take my Grade 6 practical exam next year. As she thought and corrected me, my mind was constantly wandering. My mind returned to the first piano lesson, where I was an innocent P3 boy who had stopped piano at Grade 2 for 1 year. Then it slowly flitted though the four years I had been there, where my theory was slowly brought back to life and a 100/100 paper was to be expected. My piano playing ability also rose to quite a high level. I also thought about the highs and lows I had there, about the time where I cried because I had got 88/100, about the time where I was so happy that I received a Merit for my Practical...

Soon, it was the end of the lesson. My piano teacher asked me, "Can you come on the 21st?" I told her that I was not sure and was most likely unable to because of the Gala Dinner. After she thougth for a while, she said she would be there on Wednesday and I should come along if I could. However, there was a feeling the air that I was not coming for any official lessons ever again. As I walked out of the door, my heart was in deep turmoil. How do you say goodbye to a person who has witnessed you through your maturing years? 

Leaving the classroom, I avoided the eyes of the counter clerk, who seemed to be looking a t me. Leaving the centre, I heaved a long last sigh before silently bidding the place farewell. 

As my father would not be there till around 1o minutes later, I went to walk around the mall my centre was situated at, knowing very well it might be the last time I came here. As I walked around, it suddenly struck me that i had stayed only on the second floor, I knew so little about the others. It is funny, when you look back at your bitter experiences, you feel happy, but when you look back on youur happy ones, you feel sad.

I walked around the place for around 10 minutes before I left. I constantly looked back, for I was wondering if the tears flowing down my face and dripping onto the floor would be obvious. Is parting sweet sorrow? I really wonder.

However, apart from the grief at leaving, there was another deeper emotion inside me. It seemed to be related to the fact that I would never be taking my Grade 6 using the current syllabus, which would change in two years time. What was it? Was it the sadness at wasting my hard work? Or was it disappointment at not fufilling my teacher's last wishes? Whatever it was, I would most likely never find out.

Flashback 000001

Hi all,

This will be one of the many in the series of my memories, be they good or bad. This is the reason why I'm  posting two posts in a day and posting in spite of the fact that I haven't done my Geog 1.8 yet. 

While waiting for my dad after my piano tuition, a boy just walked up to me and asked me, "Excuse me, were you the Vice-Head Prefect?" As I answered yes, I asked a question of my own, "What class are you in now?", even though I've never seen him before. He answers "5H" with a smile. As I waved him goodbye and walked away, I suddenly got into one of my writing mood. It's like a mood where you suddenly feel like writing essays and the like, you know? It's basically the opposite of writer's block. But anyway, yeah, this is how the story goes.

The boy stood behind the pillar nervously, eyes shifting from the announcement book he had just left on the stage, to the reading student population whose eyes would soon pin him down, and to the mike which he would hold later. The beads of sweat tricking down his back, usually a rare occurrence, was affecting his mind crazily now, and he tried to remember what he was supposed to say. This was different from acting. In acting, you know it was most likely make believe, you know that all it will do is to propel your name into stardom, but this...this was totally different.

When the bell rang, he heard it with astonishing clarity, and it seemed to be like a death sentence, a death sentence that rang for 5 seconds and set off a general murmur as students rejoiced the end of silent reading and kept their books. He made his way to the stage, attempting to cool down that jumping heart of his that he swore was what everyone was looking at now. The flag-raisers took their positions. They had it easy, the boy thought. Just raising the flag. That's all they do. The conductor, a P6 veteran, looked at him with question, asking him if he was ready. He could barely detect the faintest hint of scorn, of surprise, and of acceptance of impending doom as he nodded his approval and nodded his head, while making his way up the small, elevated stone platform doubling as a stage. 

As he looked around, the general murmur was raised by quite a few decimals as the general school population silently sized up this new guy. He could almost hear them saying, "Who's that? I thought that only a P6 can do it? What's this P5 doing here?" He quelled the general whispering as he spoke into the mike, "School, please stand." The whispering, like the wind caressing the leaves as it made its swift journey past, stopped at once. Trying to imitate the senior's authoriative tone and praying for a shred of confidence to make him sound more like his senior and less like a wimp, he enunciated, "School, atten-tion!"

To his general surprise, what folllowed after that was good. As he recited the pledge, he could feel the student body reciting with him, and for the first time, he felt something coursing through his veins, spreading through his soul, an emotion which he had not felt for a really long time. Pride. Finishing up the pledge and the announcements, he left the stage, to be greeted by the looks of pleasant surprise by the P6 seniors. That wasn't too bad, he thought. It wasn't any trouble at all. 

It was a year later. The boy stood on stage, tall, proud, and thinner than he was the year before. As he went up on stage, his aura of sadness of palpable. Those who looked at him were wondering what was happening, especially the innocent, bubbly P5s, who were the ones standing in front of him. Going through the process of being the "commander", he knew that the P6 prefects could feel his anguish. Even though he was the Vice-Head, he had more friends than the Head Prefect, for the Head commanded respect, while he commanded friendship. He knew it was inevitable, he knew that sooner or later, the PSLE would take higher priorities than his prefectorial duties, but as he stepped off the stage, a close observer would have noticed that the boy's eyes were red, and he rushed off in the direction of the toilet after he had finished. He couldn't be blamed, for that signified the end of an era, the end of a lifestyle, the end to the daily routine he had. From now on, it was unfaced dangers, territories whose maps had been lost over time. He really couldn't be blamed, for the small little boy who had went up a year before was now leaving behind a group of people who had grown relatively more mature listening to his baritone dictating the progress if the morning assembly. He really couldn't be blamed. 

Yup, that's the end of my essay. Yes, I know its really long, but I just couldn't help myself. I was the boy, just in case you haven't inferred, which is not very likely, so no offence. It's ultimately your choice on whether this essay was good, and by the time you feel like commenting, I think my cbox would have been OK. Watch out for my next post! (This sounds corny, haha. )

Cheers,

Darrel

You've got another think coming...

Hi all,

This blog has just been resurrected by me, due to the fact that my ACE is precious and the tsunamis of homework have finally been halted by the corals of Week 10 and the mangroves of the holidays. However, the forces at work are still there, an actions must be taken such that their devastating effects will be unable to affect us when these shields are reaching their ends. That was nice metaphor, wasn't it? How egoistic can I be, really...

Anyway, I'm not doing my Geography 1.8, because I'm still reading "To Kill a Mockingbird". OK, I know I should be doing my 1.8, cause I've already read the book like ten times from November to December,when I first bought it, but still, the delight of applying the concept of "chewing the cud" to a book is very nice.

Well, what I'll be talking about today is about Friday's CA. Mrs Laura Ng shouldn't have termed it "debate motion", cause she made me structure a really bad rebuttal at Cheng Yao's points, but Cheng Yao has finally been able to set a lot of very nice traps for trapping opponents, as you can see when he reiterated his stand that he was all for donation, but not for legalising. His reply to my point about the right of life wasn't good, but the right of life argument is one of the strongest cards anyone can play in the debate, which was why I left it as my final point, but no one seemed to get the hint. Weirdness upon weirdness. I wanted to mention something about liberal democracies too, but there were teachers behind, so I stopped myself.

Excluding Cheng Yao, cause he's a debater, I personally feel that teh best speaker was Mark. Mark's confidence has been growing really steadily, from the Crawfurd (Am I spelling his name correctly? No offence.) thing to this. Mark's points were relatively solid too. I wonder if Yi Zhe would have been best speaker if he was there, because his points were all like really heavy and really strong points, and if Yi Zhe could speak well on that day, well, in Chinese, they call it adding eyes to the dragon, which basically means enhancing something that's already really strong and good.

Which brings me to the History thing. Zhu Cheng thrown a lot of facts inside, but it just wasn't easy for him to express the first part, cause he didn't read LKY's memoirs (book 1 and 2), and I did, but no offence to him, cause I took bac the books and if Zhu Cheng were to read it, he would not be able to do a lot of stuff. It was really heart wrenching. In case any of you notice, I was tearing when Zhu Cheng said that portion.

But back to yesterday. To be honest, I had a premonition that we would be released early yesterday. One of my Sec 2 debate senior told me as we walked into the hall, I quote: 'There are only two reason why he calls us here like that. One, the system's screwed up. Two, we're going to be released early. Look, (Dr.) Hon's smiling. That's a good sign." 

So yeah. As my title states very clearly, if you expected this to be long, you've got another think coming. It's time for me to do my 1.8 and do up my History file. Bye people!

Cheers,

Darrel