Today after school, the entire Sec1 and 2 cohort stayed back to watch a performance called "Lose Cannon". At first, I was dreading it as it was some show on poetry. "How interesting can poetry be?" I thought but I was wrong. The show was really hilarious and showed the different types of poems. I shall not go into detail one by one but I will tell you my favourite ones.

How to recite a Shakespearean poem:

First you have to warm up. Shake you legs, hands, head and body.

Next you have to take a deep breath. When you recite a poem, you have to control your breath. (Guy takes a deep breath and holds it there)

Ok, now exhale.

Lets try the first line of the Hamlet "To be or not to be"

Guy stands straight up and says "To be or -"

"No, thats not the way to say it. You must gather it from your bootie"

Guy graps his bum and says "To be or -"

Not thats not the way its done. When poets recite poems, they move around. So I want you do some fanciful prancing.

Guy bobs up and down like a dummy and graps his bum "To be or not -"

No, no, no. Thats not the way its done. You are reciting Shakespearean poem and you must have a Shakespearean chest.

Guy sticks out chest, does fanciful prancing and graps his bum " To be or not -"

This is all wrong, why are you grabbing your bum. You should have exxagerated actions when you are reciting it.

Gut sticks our chest, bobs up and down, and does exaggerated actions like a lunatic and starts "To be or not -"

Hang on, there is one last thing that you should do, this poem is quite sad, so to recite it, you have to switch between lunatically mad and lunatically sad.

Guy sticks out chest, prances around, made weird actions and switched emotions between lunatically sad and mad "To be......"

You forgot your lines right?

But there's so much to remember.

Well, that's all for it (: I would encourage you all to watch it if you have a chance.

<3
ELaine

The entire NAFA is OVER!!!! I just finished my 2.4km run yesterday. In the morning we had gym and it was raining cats and dogs. "Meow!! Woof!!" It was already raining the night before though. We were hoping that it would continue raining until 3pm so that the 2.4km run would be canceled. I can FINALLY do a FORWARD ROLL :D Gym's really fun... we are learning how to do an aerobath (I wonder if it is spelled this way) and a candle stand. We did jumps the lesson before and it was hilarious (:

The rain lightened to a drizzle throughout, start and stoping at times. Alas, we still had to run our 2.4km run. Anyway, I thought that it was better to run it now. Get the entire load off your mind and concentrate on MYA and EOIs. (Mid-year Assessment) We were split into pairs and one would record and the other would run. I was the first to run while Gloria recorded my timings for me.

The spirit here is really different. When I was in primary school, the teachers brought us to this road beside this gigantic canal to run our 1.6km (I wonder if it is accurate) But anyway, everyone would just run their own. they don't care whether you are lagging behind or whether you fail. They just ran their own race. However here is different. On different areas of the entire track, there was always people cheering you on. When you start walking, there would be someone, to say "Don't walk. 加油!" The most classic thing was that I saw the sec 3s and 4s holding each others hand or the faster runner pulling the lagging runner along until the lagging runner can catch up. Little did I know that all these actions were being filmed on camera (:

I took a slow jog 5 and 3/4 around the track, enjoying the 'beautiful' scenery 5 times and got a timing of 16.14min. At around the 5 round, I spotted Miss Er, our form and physics teacher for the time being, cheering for us. Thanks Miss Er. Gloria was good. She was extremely steady and ran a timing of 13 somthing min. Grace is the fastest runner. She completed if in like 11 mins. Almost unbelievable!

I was able to skip infocomm that day (:

<3
Elaine

Now for Physical badge (in GB) I realised they were going to teach us a ball game called chooke Ball. Yup. This game believes in sportsmanship and hence NO INTERCEPTING. how TERRIBLE :( Also , there is a penalty when you drop the ball, the ball goes to the other team. There is also a net like thing that you throw the ball onto. The ball is supposed to bounce out of the restricted zone ( some semi-circle area around the net) and land on the groud. If it does, you score a point. The team that loses a point always gets to start the ball. It is kind of confusing, despite my good ball sense. I have been playing netball for about 3 year, so I kind of get the passing and throwing part. But the INTERCEPTING PART... ermmm. There always seem to be a tinge of impulsion to intercept the ball. I wonder how no intercepting makes the game have good sportsmanship --" I mean if you throw a good pass and the person catches if well, the opponent would of course not be able to intercept. The ball is kind of smaller than a netball, and does not have the spring that a netball has. It just feels different. :(

Anyway, the game is kind of slow with us unexperienced people playing it. There seem to be a 'lagging' phrase when we play. :( Partly good and partly bad. The good thing is that you get more time to react. The bad thing is the slow, crawling game that lures your to sleep. *YAWN* :O

Anyway, we have practised how to pass and the different techniques for throwing the ball at the net and the different defending techniques. Interesting enough to keep me awake. Anyway, thats about all. TATA!!

<3
Elaine

Its amazing that I heard the exact sermon twice by two different people, but I shall just relate one.

This one is by Pastor Adriel. This is what he said:

Knowing is everything.
There was once this muslim lady. She carried her child to the river bank and trembling, she steps into the water. She hesitated then continued. As she let go of her 6 month old baby into the river, her eyes were filled with pain. She wadded onto shore and wept. A missionary passing by heard her sobbings and asked her why she was crying. She told him that her family was having financial problems and she thought that if she were to sacrifice her first-born to the Goddess of the River, she would be in favour of her family and they would not have such a hard time.

The missionary proceeded to tell her about Jesus Christ and the good news. She looked up at him with a quzzical look. "I hae not heard this before. If only you could have come 30 minutes earlier, my child would not have to die."

Knowing is everything... so I want to tell you what God wants for you.
1. God bless you

You know how when you do well in examinations and your dad decided to give you $200 as a reward and you go "Dad, its ok. I take $100 can already. No lar." For those who are Chirstians and wondering why you not enjoying the blessed life that God has promised us. It is because we are living like the child refusing the reward. Why live like a pauper when God offers you all these?

2. God approves of you

The approval of the Father is important to all kids.

There was this young student who was a scoccer player. The coach usually see the son bringing his dad around the school. "The son mustbe very close to the dad," the coach thought. However, one day, the coach received news that that boy's father passed away in a accident. "You know son, your dad just passed away," The coach told the boy. He said down there weeping... suddenly he looked up and said "I want to play in the championships."

The coach was not sure whether he could play up to standard so during the actual day, while they were leading 3-1, the coach decided to send him out to play. The boy played the game of his life and scored 3 goals.

After that, the coach asked " I have never seen you play like that. How did you do it." The boy looked up and said "Coach, my dad was blind and he could never see me play. However, tonight, I knew he was watching."

This was how much his father's approval meant to the boy. Some of us have never heard the phrase "I am proud of you" from the mouth of their parents and they do all they can to be approved. However, parents will go "Why can't you be like so and so..." In order to shut out the pain, kids build walls, boundaries and everything they can do to leave that gap between them and their parents. Now God is saying he approves of you and you, not for the things you have done.

<3
Elaine

I passed my NAFA test (: Whooo... It is really a load off my mind. We were separated into groups of 12. However, Grace , Catherine and Gao Ang was not here as they had Finals to play. My sit and reach was quite well done. I got like 36cm. You should see the Sec 4s doing it. One even went over the bar. I am impressed.

Our next station was IPU. (Incline Pull Ups) I did just to pass only. Like 5 and then I just let go. That is the most trecherous station for me. To pass was already quite a feat liao. we proceeded with shuttle run. My first timing was 12.48sec. However, my second reading was 12.15sec. This is the first time I did my shuttle without shoes.

Sit-ups... I missed 1 to get an A. So devastating. But nevermind. The last and final station was standing broad jump. Congradulations to Carey who jumped a distance of 190cm. I got 164cm. We were the very first group to finish and we ate ice-cream to celebrate the fact that we all passed. My very first self-treat (: Now, we only have one more challenge - 2.4km run.

<3
Elaine

Kinematics is the new topic that we are doing for Physics. Today is 20th April... tense and supension is in the air. I'll tell you why later. Assembly was enjoying but I nearly got booked. Not for not wearin my tie but for being late. Morever, we were about to enter when the door closed, shutting us outside.

In conjuction with Earth Day, we were having an assembly on Global Warming. What kind of world do you want? This question struck me. Look at the world we live in now. Animals crying, the forest dying and the air thickening, the ozone layer disappearing and people suffering. Humans are really horrible in ways.

19th April 2007, we survived for two blocks without aircon (: We are so environmenally friendly. This was done by the SLs (students Leaders) to save energy. We actually thought that both our air cons broke down and almost made a report to the general office. The magical thing was that our spoilt aircon was actually working.

I was terrfied when I realised my Literature on Warren Pryor disappeared from my file. Warren Pryor is a name of a poem. I was like a mouse out of the comfort hole. We are currently starting on annotations. Luckily, Miss Santhi did not realised. But I guessed it was a lesson learnt.

Infocomm was done with Chinese Guy no. 2. It is interesting that We do not know all our trainers' names. We only knew our first trainers' name only after he left. He is Mr. Sarsi (as in the soft drink). We spent the whole lesson talking on film. The rank goes like this:

Daddy gave me his old phone which was extremely new to me. Its white, 3G, has camera functions and can store music... however, its memory is horrible. So little I can hardly store much inside. My old phone has been with me for 2 years and it has followed me through my PSLE. It is kind of antique as you can't find it in the market anymore. They should set up some Phone Museum then I can sell my antique phone to them. Maybe I can sell it for a higher price too. (:

Anyway, I got excellent for my Philosophy Journal. Yay! After rewriting that whole chunk of chim stuff 6 times, I think it is worth it. Well, I must continue to work hard. Week 8 coming liao. I so dread it. It is where all our MYA and EOIs come in. We had a humanities quiz today. I think I am going to fail terribly.:( They asked stuff like which islands are Japan and Russia fighting over and so on. My general knowledge on political stuff isn't really that impressive. Most of the questions are done by intinct or in our language, 6th sense. It is the ability to sense the right answers unknowingly. Cool huh?? Must try and master this. Very important.

Thank God I passed my Chinese Spelling. Almost three-quater failed. Considering the fact that I actually forgot to bring home my textbook and managed to pass is really quite a feat. It is a joke that right after the spelling, people started copying the entire passage out. That was the penalty for failing and some already knew they were going to fail.

Ms Siu actually came back to see us (: She also brought us tarts and treats. Her son, Ryan, is a month old already. How time pass. Miss Er has been teaching us Physics during the time she was away. And guess what, she knows my cousin who was in RJC with her. How small the world is.

Some sec 2 people came in during our Maths lesson and wanted to film us looking board during lesson. Lol.. I hope Mrs Pey doesn't mind. We are currently looking at Hire Purchase. Mrs Pey's pregnant too... her baby is due in a month's time. Wonder who our new teacher is

<3
Elaine

Donation and Charity has become rather hostile in Singapore. As I was walking down the underpass with my friend Esther at Orchard Road (TANGS mall), a young man clad in a polo shirt and jeans carrying a file approached us. I managed to walk away but he stopped Esther.

"Excuse me, can you give me 3 minutes?" The man questioned her. Esther walked away, but he followed and barred her way.

"Just 3 minutes... I am from the Trust Leaf Organisation and we ... help the ex-convicts..." (or something like that) Esther shook her head and wanted to walk off. But he kept following her. To 'get rid' of him, we donated $2 to him and left.

Meaning of charity: It is to give willingly to the less-fortunate. However, this is not the case. The people asking for donations are usually forcing you to donate. Leaving no choice for you to donate or not as they will not stop following you. I have also seen these kind of people driving students to a corner to ask for donations and worst off, they target students.

It is really irritating to me as it has happened to me for three times. In fact, I feel that this is definitely not the right way of asking for donations. It is not that I am heartless or cruel or just being a miser. I would very much like to donate but I would do it through those trustable donation drives like Red Cross. The NKF saga has been a lesson learnt, but that should not make us close our wallets.

Please be more courteous and open-minded when asking for charity. If a person refuse, please please let the person go and stop stalking them.

<3
Elaine

I so sad that you would think that I was mourning the death of someone. Well, actually not quite. Last Saturday was the last PSL sessions. (I sure you know what that is) Jacquline and Charlene our SPSLs gave us a short song performance. They were so 'cute' dressed in some hawaiian skirt and a bunch of glittery 'flowers' in their hair. We had some game, sharing and the best part, the party itself. The class had decided 2 days before that we would be having a movie party and asked Miss Er for permission to eat in class. The movie we watched was - Bring It On All Or Nothing. It is quite a nice show except for the "unsightly" parts.

While watching, we munched on snacks and cakes. Thanks everyone for making this party a success. So sad... Tricia said she would come but she didn't. Probably had something on.

<3
Elaine

My class is really a joker... but I love it. Today was exceptionally fun. We played netball (only a little) and then we ran 3 rounds around the gigantic, newly completed track around the J block (where it houses all the sec1). 2.4km run is just like 3 weeks away. This is called part of the training xD I completed it in 8.3 mins. All sweaty and thristy, we returned to class only to find out that the UK teachers are going to sit in our class for History lessons.

Wearily, we walked to the other end of the school to reach the Physics lab. The 3 storey staircase seemed like Mount Everest. I was totally worn our after all the climbing, running and walking + the excitement. We were going to do an experiment in the lab.

I learnt many enlightening stuff. In primary school, they taught us the theory of light travels in straight lines. However, we did an experiment using a cardboard with a hole, a screen and a small light bulb. When we put the light bulb in the same line as the hole, there was only one circular patch of light on the screen. However, when we moved the light bulb upwards, the light patch moved downwards and became fainter. If you only apply the first law, then this would not have happened. So to add on, light actually travels in all directions but in straight lines.
Therefore when two small light bulbs were lighted one on top of another with only the same circle hole, two patches of light will appear.

Another amazing thing was that when you put a few lighted bulbs together very closely, instead of circular patches of light, we say a oval-shapped rectangular patch of light. Reason? Simple... it is because the bulbs are so close together that the circular patches of light overlapped each other, producing.. TADAA!! that patch of light.

But the most amazing thing was that when a light bulb (the one with the large top and the skinny bottom was shone through a triangular hole, an inverted light bulb appeared. Cool huh? Go find the reason why yourself.

Literature was done doing some worksheets as Miss Santhi was not here. As I have told you before, History was observed by the UK teacher. We did the topic on what makes a civilisation and is Singapore a civilisation? And guess what, Singapore is effectively a civilisation. But we are too small to even have cities. Singapore is a city on its own. I tell you a joke. You know the card that you have to fill to enter a country. There is this question that says " Which city do you stay in" I nearly wrote Lion City. Lol... (:

Georgraphy was the typical lesson with Miss Wong, full of laughter and joy. But today's was a little quite caue almost 2/8 of the class was gone for competitions. The netballers, badminton players, Malay Dance and table tennis player. We learned how monsoon winds were actually formed. It was really interesting. I wonder why don't they teach such fun topics in Primary Schools.

Learning is really a journey but a really tough one. I order to learn, one has to sacrifise alot of things. Time, Sleep and many more... Homework piles as high as a table but I am going to embrace my entire time in RGS...

One last thing, I heard that the gym toilet in RGS was haunted. In the toilet there is nothing except a mirror, a sink and a cubicle. It is said that a girl hanged herself there and all the other mirrors were taken down except one. It is also said that the person who looks inside the mirror can see funny and weird stuff like a floating body?? However, I saw a really funny joke beside the mirror.

"Which is the tallest Mountain before Mount Everest was discovered?"

"Mount Everest. Because it was already the tallest mountain before it was even discovered"

Laugh leh... Lol :D

Elaine

Research studies was a disaster. We were supposed to do a research on The Wright Brothers using the NLB's Digital Library. The irritating thing was that we were all unable to login nor were we able to register. The website kept claiming that our NIRC no. has already been used under another login. This is impossible. Everyone has a different NIRC no. I wonder why they make it so difficult to register. We need it for a project!!

Mathematics was okay(: I managed to solve a tough one after pondering over it for about a whole afternoon. Cold air is denser and sinks I am sure you know that... then why don't you feel the pressure. You mean you feel faint when you are in cold countries ah?? That was that of our geography lesson on winds and air pressure. It was really interesting about the Doldrum and how winds start.

Philosophy was hilarious. We are currently doing on Discrimination and we watched Shrek for that topic. Studying it in the philosophy way, I saw it from a different perspective. At first, I only took it as a comedy animation that entertained me with its ingenious plot. Now, I see it as a movie sending out strong messages about discrimination, prejudice against someone and marginalisation. They show how they have an effect on people and the people who does it. Really meaningful. I wanna watch it again.

Well, don't discriminate (to treat someone worst than another), don't stereotype (expect someone to be the norm), don't prejudice (to have a wrong concept of someone based on shaky reasons), don't marginalise (to leave someone aside, out of something) and don't don;;t allienate anyone. It is hurtful.

<3
Elaine

I met many people today.
As in the people I know. Duh --"
I met Sheena, Elizabeth and Ding Yi's cousin
Sheena looks the same and so does Din Yi's cousin
But I could hardly recognise Elizabeth.

(Why am I writing in a style of a poem. Okay, focus and come back!!)

Yay!! I'm back. Last Poise and Confidence lesson today.. I would really miss it. I enjoyed myself difinitely. Next is the D'n'T module. Which spells DEsign and TEchnology. Its going to be a lot more scary than what I thought. We learnt more about the different types of fabrics and about Poise and Confidence. I tell you, this is actually the needle work class. There is only one lesson of Poise and Confidence. (So cheater) We discussed about personal hygiene and Mrs Wong acutally claimed that there were good smelling perpiration. EWww... We finally started on our ACP project - making handphone pouches. Mine is a piggy. Its so cute that I wanna but the one I made back for my own phone. (:Plus the workmanship is really neat too.

Computer Studies was HORRIBLE in one sense and enjoying for me. HORRIBLE cause me and Karen are the so-called 'monitresses'. Everyone started asking for help like some thousands of atomic bombs dropping on our heads without any cover. I don't mind helping but after a while I get fed up too. I too have my own project to cover and so do Karen but at the rate we are going, we won't be able to do any work. There are 36 pupils and only 2 of us. Each pupil only needs to ask 2 questions and we would be as dead as a duck. xD

So please ask the person on your right before asking us. Thanks alot. (: I am currently making a girl crying... overjoyed she has many friends but sad to leave. (I got my inspiration from AiLi who will be leaving for Canada) Our class has 3 SLs.. so scary. They are Victoria, Gloria and Jan. They can book people one... we got booked as a class today. ): Jody and Grace forgot to off the lights and fans of the classroom. Anyway, we forgive them. Everyone makes mistakes... <3

Elaine