Almost the holidays!

Finally updating after a VERY VERY long break. So many things I think I shall go through them starting from the more recent events

(1) Karaoke on 4th Jun – More or less the usual gang and it was pretty cheap to me (about $12 with free flow of drinks for 5 hours) and towards the last hour it was quite crazy cos we starting singing a lot of retro songs with dancing, swaying of hands, using make-shift mikes (such as an umbrella) cos everyone wanted to sing and taking a lot of extremely funny pictures and videos of the performances. A good thing that the staff didn’t walk in or else they’ll think we’re crazy hahaha.

(2) “Unpacked” on 3rd Jun – Went down to the National Library to support my army friend’s exhibition cos he’s finishing his studies in Industrial Design and his faculty had a 4-day exhibition showing the works of the final year students as well as some of the juniors. It was interesting to see the various products and apparently they even designed abstract things such as experiences (e.g. during gaming, learning music, etc.) rather than just concrete things such as the actual products (ranging from just about everything such as tea-cup sets, foldable tables, floating stationery – one of my personal favourites cos I found it so fascinating)

(3) Wedding on 28th May – Attended a colleague’s wedding at Amara Hotel and it was a nice event, the highlight for most of us being the cartoon video created that showed the love story of the couple. It was extremely cute and very funny! Very very unique I must say. Point to note (if it ever comes to my turn)

(4) IGC CIP with Park View Primary and Colosseum on 27th May – CIP was quite fun, though not surprising since we did it with them before though we’ll probably shake-up some things to improve the next time come Term 3. The Staff Race was as usual competitive, with everybody wanting to win, strategizing and warming up haha. Anyway our Callisto team won this year and I’ve had the pleasure of running with a good team. There was never any doubt we would win when I knew the lineup and I told our captain we’re going to win it. So finally some form of redemption after the disappointing 2nd place last year which kept playing in my mind (Used to have a t-shirt that says “Second sucks!”).

(5) Soccer Finals between MJC and VJC on 25th May – a heart-breaking loss (3-2) with a late goal. After going 1-0 down and 2-1 up, it was a dramatic finish (and us hitting the post just before the final whistle). Missed the 1st 2 goals because we left TM late after a nice lunch at Crystal Jade and there were some very nicely taken goals in the match including a direct free-kick (apparently we missed another goal from a free kick – both were MJC’s goals). An interesting incident that left many people talking about it (and even discussing online) was when one of the VJC players made an inappropriate gesture towards the MJC students after VJC equalized 2-2. It wasn’t obscene but it certainly was poor sportsmanship and their coach immediately pulled him over to rebuke him and apologized to the MJC teachers.


(6) Wedding on 23rd May – Attended my army buddy’s wedding at Ritz Carlton Hotel and it was pretty posh I must say (6-star hotel) though the service wasn’t really great. My friend commented that he used to work there as a waiter before and it’s common for hotels to employ part-time students for such events due to the lack of manpower. Apparently he even spilled something and knocked somebody’s head when he turned. Quite funny…

Anyway, as my army buddy gave his speech, he started thanking a lot of his past teachers (he’s a teacher also) and it was a pretty long speech (about 15 min I figure…). Also had a live band, which was nice I guess but sometimes unappreciated because a lot of people are talking most of the time. Bumped into Roy (not the Lau) of all people hahaha. Small World!

(7) Marking course from 18th to 20th May – Attended a marking workshop conducted by 2 examiners from Cambridge and it was pretty interesting for everyone to find out some of things and how they marked. Saw some sample marking schemes and scripts and most of the people tried to bombard them with a lot of questions. Good thing was that Teacher’s Network is much closer to my home than MJC so it was a good break I guess haha.

(8) Chemistry Brothers Lunchtime Concert on 23rd Apr – Didn’t have time to prepare and in truth I wish we hadn’t agreed to perform but in the end we manage to spend about an hour the day before to rehearse two songs (“Stand By Me” and “A Better Tomorrow – JC2 Version”).

The first song was because the 3 of us (we included a guest performer) were in the car on the way to our Chemistry CIP last week then we suddenly thought of the song and started singing together in the car acapella and it was pretty fun!

The second song was because I wanted something motivating after the March Block Tests and many people were getting tired in school so I modified my lyrics from 2006 to suit the context. Only managed to finish it the morning itself so again I had to refer to the screen for part of the lyrics during the performance. It was quite funny cos I didn’t have time to do the Powerpoint so I just used Journal and somebody commented that it was like tutorial cos I got somebody to help me reveal the lyrics as I sang and there was miscommunication because it was totally unplanned.

We had another song (on organic chemistry) which I didn’t manage to get musical accompaniment due to technical difficulties so I ended up singing it myself.

Overall it was pretty entertaining I guess and the students seem to have enjoyed it – at least we hope they did! Thanks very much to everyone who came down to support!!! =)

(9) Chemistry CIP on 17th Apr – Our first department CIP and we went to the All-Saints Home in Tampines. Very interesting and good bonding experience for all of us and gave us some food for thought about future preparation also because there were certain issues like the games that were prepared not being feasible because of the physical disabilities which we had underestimated. The singing session was extremely funny at least when I performed with a friend cos we were both pretty dramatic and I had some cheesy actions also as we sang some retro hits such as Yu Tian’s “Rong Shu Xia” and Liu Wen Zheng’s “San Yue Li De Xiao Yu”. =P

Went to Tampines One’s Say Cheese after and our conclusion was that it cannot make it. Some predicted it to close within 3 months because of the poor service (they were slow to serve and forgot some things here and there) and also the pricing and quality of the food wasn’t really worth it.

Ok, that’s it for now. Back to work! Will try to update on school the last few months before I fly off on Tuesday morning. =)