Yup. If you are an avid reader of my blog, you'd probably have realised that this is the 301st post that you're reading on my blog! WOOHOO! another milestone. I did 205 posts in total this year. That's more than 1 in 2 days. The most posts appeared in may, 41! That's more than 1 a day. But that's not really amazing cuz a post can be made very simply. Just add a word into your post, and it's considered ONE post. There are a few posts which I'm particularly proud of. So here they are:
Jan: OBS and BACK (coincidentally my 100th post)
Feb: The jing dian one (better known to most as my P6 video)
Mar: Weiqi comp + Penang Trip
Apr: sad
May: change of blogskin
Jun: 在路上
Jul: 台湾中的一个小天堂 - 敦安
Aug: sian
Sep: Birthday! YAY!, sat, Hooray!
Oct: Inter-class soccer, sec 3
Nov: The OIP experience
Dec: My RI experience and new year resolutions, The end of 2007, RICO concert 07
I remember wanting to blog about my blogging experience on my 200th post but it was used up by some emo post. So I guess I shall do it now.
My blogging experience has been a really good one. The blog started out in a really weird fashion. I think my Dad said that if I created a blog, then I could play computer. If not, I would need to do a whole math exercise. Weighing the pros and cons of each, I decided that creating a blog was the more logical option and in no time, I was playing my com game. HAHA. Anyway, Dad didn't say that I must continue updating so I could just leave the blog unupdated! But somehow, I started blogging and I started liking it. It started slowly. I didn't write often although I did write some really long posts and it didn't take long for me to blog much more often. I think my blog posts have matured from those when I first started. It's really enjoyable putting your goals list, things to do list or whatever stuff that you want to rant on (cannot be too "rant-y" though, later get sued...), or simply reflections or maybe a diary post online so that you yourself or many others can read it. Reading my posts in the past has been very exciting cuz it really shows how much I've developed. Anyway, just hope that my "blogging streak" continues. It's 301 now! It's still my first ever blog and I'm proud I have yet to abandon it! Hmm yay!
ok anyway, it's important that I start getting things sorted out cuz it's already 31st Dec. So here are stuff I need to prepare:
1. My file!
2. My bag.
3. My pencilbox.
4. My hair (prepared) lol. just cut it.
5. My books.
AND OF COURSE, PSL STUFF. lots of documents to go through so I guess I shall just stop here and go go through those stuff. Hmm. yup. this should be my last post for the year. So an early happy new year to all you guys out there! and continue visiting my blog for more exciting updates to come!
Patrick
Monday, December 31, 2007
Thursday, December 27, 2007
My RI experience and new year resolutions!
I've spent 3 years in RI now and I guess it's time to reflect back on what I've done and what I should have done. RI's been a wonderful choice for me and I never once did regret my choice of joining this school since orientation day. Sometimes, I did think whether I may be better off in other schools, whether it's HCI, or neighbourhood schools where there is less competition, but I guess after these 3 years, I can safely say that till now, it's been a good choice.
Year 1:
Year 1 was, as usual, the foundational years. It wasn't much, but I guess it was still a really fun and enjoyable year. We started the year with a bang with orientation, all the activities we did, from bishan hike all the way to the star wars night game (forgot the actual name) and of course the station games and war games. It was a really fun way to start my life in RI and although I can't really remember what I did except for maybe a few really memorable scenes, it must have been really fun. Never in primary school have I seen such huge-scale events carried out in school, and by students too! Needless to say, I was really impressed and was even more astounded by the qualities of my SPSL, who was totally amazing.
So that got us going. Afterwards, it was time for us to catch up with the academics. Although looking back now, the workload then seems to be much less, I'm quite sure I didn't feel that way when I was in sec 1. I remember vividly the first presentation I did where I totally SCREWED-UP, and it's true screwing up. haha. Throughout the presentation, I was stuttering and singlish kept coming out every few seconds. I guess I thought it was "the way to present" at that time. I went to the front of class with no script in hand, and erm, well, though it was embarrassing, I've learnt from that horrible experience and improved by leaps and bounds. It was rather hard to score with all the new projects and stuff which I was rather unfamiliar with and I remember hitting a 3.67 for my first term. Not bad, but definitely, there's room for improvement. After all, many of my close friends in my then sec 1 class like Edward, Ying Jie, Rich and Aaron were scoring well above me. So, entered term 3 of year 1. It was one of the most fantastic terms I've ever had. Topping my class in 3 out of the 6 ccts that were packed into term 3, I started chasing up in terms of my grades. The quality of my project work gradually became better and better and I guess it's all to do with improving with every project that you do.
Another big event for year 1 was the Dr. William Tan marathon race. I had no idea who he was at first but after his speech during our assembly, I was really motivated. I see him as someone very similar to Mr. Mac in terms of the speeches they make, the perseverance and strength that they had and the willing to push forth something virtually impossible. It was a really nice experience running with him around the track. Although I can't say I did much, it was still something really big for me given that it was only my first year in RI. I remember that on that day, we had lots of drinks for sale, CDC was selling if I'm not wrong, and we were in charge of stepping on cans to save space. haha. whatever the case, it was a nice experience to be there.
Oh and of course! Year 1 marked the start of my "CCA career". I always love to tell stories about my CCA life cause it's all topsy turvy. I still remember vividly. I knew I wanted to join the choir, Raffles Voices, cause my whole family has been in choir. Thinking that I would definitely enter choir, I put random choices in the rest of my CCA choices in the "CCA choice list". I remember entering Raffles Voices as my first choice and Guitar Ensemble as my second. Another really intersting point is that rugby was actually in one of my choices! haha. and gymnastics too. >< all right, but anyway, it was a Sunday, so Wing Hang, the guy who came for tuition last time, came over to my room and he says, "JOIN CO! IT'S SLACK!" all right. but anyway, i was thinking that since I would definitely get into raffles voices, why not just put CO as my second choice? So I did. And the end result? I forgot to go for the RV auditions and got myself "landed" in RICO. woah. BUT, there was another twist in the story, I decided to have a go in CO for maybe 1 term before quitting it and joining RV, when suddenly I see myself in the most famous or notorious (whichever suits you better) section ever - PERCUSSION. Honestly speaking, I had no idea what "percussion" meant when I first knew I was in that section and I was imagining some random chinese instrument that either looked like an erhu or a dizi (haha. yes. I was dumb then, but so am I now! xD). Well, so as soon as I found out that perc was actually that really cool thing where you use a stick to hit the drum, I decided to give it a shot. Surprisingly, though percussion was so pro then (as compared to now), they were actually lacking people for SYF! So, without even knowing what the instruments were called or even knowing how to hold a stick, I was called up for dazu. haha. Oh yes, it was that experience. All the stares were on me as I walked in from the backstage of the hall (we practiced in the hall last time) and they must have been wondering, what is this idiotic sec 1 doing here for dazu when he doesn't even know how a conductor conducts! Truthfully speaking, I really knew nothing about chinese orchestra, about performing in such a huge group, or even about percussion itself then. But the dazu experiences in sec 1 were just fantastic and made my learning curve so steep that I couldn't believe how fast I was learning. In no time, I had learnt how the conductor conducts, how to play the muyu (my first instrument! YAY!) and even tried out on the timp once for some simple part in feng nian ji. I guess I was regarded as "the pro sec 1" then, but honestly speaking, I wasn't. If anyone had such a wonderful chance to get into dazu after 1 xiaozu, and not even knowing how to hold a drum stick, their learning curve would be much steeper than those who carry on in xiaozu. I guess dazu is really where the application comes in. If I hadn't been in dazu so early, I guess I would be writing about RV life now cause I would have most probably quit CO. Drumming on tables (which we did last time in sec 1 before moving to RJCO room) was certainly much less entertaining than having so many instruments to play with and so many other people and instruments to play with. For that, I have to thank BL for giving me such a wonderful opportunity. I think he's the reason why I'm still in CO. So sec 1 marked my first syf which was really rare cuz many people only get to go for syf when they're sec 2 or higher. I was really noob at that time so I wasn't really sure about our overall standards. I was hoping for a gold but we missed it and instead got a silver. It was rather sad because we were having intensive trainings so often. But I guess it's the experience that counts. I'm still really happy that I got to perform for SYF as a sec 1! Oh and of course, BL was the one who gave me that fantastic opportunity to perform in a hsinghai concert in sec 1 end of year! it was my first time playing for a semi-pro orchestra and it was even more fantastic because i went for the concert after 2 or 3 practices! (but i was only playing the sus. cymbal. haha.) but it was still a nice experience cuz it was the first time (and probably the last) that I played with a semi-pro CO after just learning one year of perc! yay.
And year 1 also marked the start of my "chess club career!" I don't really remember which competitions we went for but I do remember quiping where we got 3rd. Hmm. not bad considering the junior team consisted of all sec 1s (me, hongbo and kengyong if I'm not wrong)... so that must have been a wonderful experience too!
Overall, year 1 in RI was basically an introduction to what was going to come. We were introduced to project work, to Research Education, to CCAs and how we played for the school instead of ourselves now (used to play weiqi on an individual level cuz only 3 people in MSHS knew how to play weiqi...)... And so that was it for sec 1.
Year 2:
Year 2 was an interesting year. Well, actually it was almost like sec 1, just that we had moved to a higher level. First, RE went up to a much higher level. No more rigid surveys and interviews. No more copy and paste from internet. No more guidance from teacher mentors. We were pretty much on our own. We had the most fantastic RE group ever (in my opinion... haha) with Edward, Ying Jie, Aaron Tang and me! That's 2 GPA 4.0s in an RE grp! But anyway, we embarked on some really weird project on lights and spiders (basically how do different colours of lights affect web-spinning behaviours). Like any other RI event, we always left things to the last, procrastination or so they call it... but i thought we did a fantastic job. I remember that SYSF deadline was coming up in a week and our report was still not ready. All the other groups were sort of ready with all their reports done up ready for touch ups and our experiments were still pretty much undone. The spiders apparently didn't really like spinning their webs. Well, to our amazement, it finally did and with the poweress of the RE group, we worked through countless nights, spent hours in school, all the way till 10pm at times, to finish up with the report. Then there was SYSF exhibition which we once again rushed out towards the end. The end result? We got best exhibition and best report for SYSF. It was totally amazing. Even we ourselves were surprised at how far we had gone and how much effort we must have put in after those spiders just refused to spin their webs until a week before. Well, that was certainly not the end. We carried on with YSC and won a gold there. RE congress wasn't so much of a success as our progress was halted during the semi-final stages. But we got ourselves back on our feet and won the gold award once again for the IRS. It was an amazing RE year for me, and I'm sure it was the same for the others. All the countless hours we spent in bishan park catching spiders were fun and enjoyable and the countless hours we spent discussing how best to present our report and our analysis of findings over the phone, over MSN or in school, were totally fantastic. Our group did what I believed to be unachievable and it's all down to our hard work that we've achieved all these. All right, so RE was a major success in year 2.
Then, there was academics! I did wonderfully well here in sem 1, scoring a 3.87 which was well above my expectations. But then, I did terribly in sem 2, causing my humanities grades to drop horribly and I got a 3.73 overall fo that year. That's not a horrendous GPA but I guess it was rather frustrating cause I got 2 79s and 1 78. Well, I guess that's the result if you try to achieve the bare minimum (the 80 mark) which reminds me of what the sec 4 said to us today. but nvm, that will be saved for another post. Well, so academics wise, it wasn't so good, but there were definitely some positive points to take away. I topped the class in the 2 CTs for Science and got highest in LEVEL for Math in Special/Express. It was totally cool cause I would never have thought that I would ever be able to top anything in class, save level, in RI with so many pro people around. But I guess Mrs. Ng was a really good teacher. One of the most fantastic math teachers I've ever got. ok. so that's for academics.
Then, there was CCA. Year 2 was a really "CCA" year with the big events being qiuping, pesta sukan and whompoa for chess club and mediacorp performance, rjco concert, myRIad and rico concert for CO.
Qiuping was great as the junior team (this time me, hongbo and ernest) got the better of dunman to clinch the 2nd place. The senior team too were rather good! Playing with 1 sec 4 (our chairman, shi hao) and 3 sec ONES (yiheng,m alan and zexi), they did their best and managed to clinch 3rd place. Although it was lower than last year's 2nd that we got for the senior section, it was truly amazing as we beat all odds with 2 sec 1s playing in the senior section. Pesta Sukan was another truly amazing experience as we almost beat HCI for the first time ever in the history of SINGAPORE SECONDARY SCHOOL WEIQI. ALMOST. but we didn't. It was really the closest that we've ever gotten. HCI had 18 points, RI 17. It was even more disappointing because hongbo had to lose the last game to a HCI guy by ONE SEED! If not, we would have finished 1st in the team category. Well, not to be. But it was a really good experience. I played very well in this competition, having 5 straight wins (beating 2 HCI players along the way) before losing to one HCI guy who was going to win all 7 games anyway... I won the last game too to finish individual 3rd. I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad because the 2nd position (which went to a HCI person, was the person I beat on the 4th round) but the 4th placing, was Shi Hao (our chairman!) who i very fortunately did not play against (if not I would definitely have lost... The whompoa was great once again! This time I won 6 straight before losing the last round, thereby ending up in 3rd position once again and getting a 3Dan certificate. Hmm... so i did well for chess club.
Then there was CO! CO was a mixed experience for me in year 2 with the addition of DeViL to the perc team. It was not a very nice experience but then again, the events that we had were great. We got to perform in Mediacorp for the first time in our lives together with many actors and actresses and of course the winners of Project Superstar. It was a very nice experience to be there and playing matsuri on television was totally fantastic. And we were the starting and ending performance! woohoo. I think I played timp for the first time then. Hmm... so once again, another achievement! yay! all right, then, there was RJCO concert, which was another good experience. It was then that Raffles djy really started knowing each other. It was fun practicing qin wang with 25 percussionists. I remember being the only RI person to be on the dagu! YAY! ok nvm. >< but anyway, it was a good experience not only because I got to know Raffles djy and some RJCO people and maybe work with RICO alumni like BL but also because it was the first time we were going to perform in ESPLANADE! woah cool. Got myself lost in the amazingly confusing backstage... and it was a truly amazing experience performing in front of such a big audience! Then, there was myRIad, the first ever combined RI musical groups performance. It was a rather big event cause it was the first time we were doing it and also because it was going to be in ESPLANADE (again). haha. but it was once again amazing as we did lao hu in esplanade (COOL!). haha. i remember all the practices when me and lionel kept screwing up. Thanks to Thomas for covering up for all my mistakes which would have sounded rather audible in Esplanade. Then, there was RICO concert! woohoo! RICO concert VOICES OF THE DRAGON 8, totally rocked. I loved all the dazu songs that we played from feng nian ji, taiwan to long, huan xin, dong hai and matsuri. YAY! it was the first time i've performed for a full 2 hr concert so it was a whole new experience once again. It was fun playing cards and talking crap during rehearsals or backstage but it was made even more meaningful because it was going to be the final time that Mr. Yeo conducted us on stage. Dong Hai and Matsuri certainly rocked the audience and it was a fantastic experience. I can still remember during dong hai, thomas, yin kwan, tze ern, BL and I were all discussing how loud we wanted to go. Decision? AS LOUD AS WE CAN! woah. tze ern was relieved he had his ear plugs on. haha. well, that was great too! and of course there were even more small performances like those at Expo or some hospitol (forgot which one) or at some HDB flat or at Toa Payoh... All these were really nice experiences too. The expo one was especially fun because there was a perc ensemble. YAY! and i was leading it! YAY YAY! ok. nvm. but yup, that's all for CO for year 2!
Year 2 also marked the start of my CIP life with THREE large-scale CIP events held. The first was pathlight, which is a school for autistic children. Went there twice. First time was to help them in the sorting out of library books. The second was to carry out an assembly session with them which meant small performances. Then, there was the beach clean-up and newspaper collections. Not really huge CIP events but definitely much more meaningful than going around asking for money as we did in sec 1. It certainly was the foundation stones laid for the CIP events that I would be embarking on for year three.
Year 3:
Year 3's been the most fantastic year of my entire school life. There were just so many huge events going on around me and it was basically the best experiences ever.
First up, OBS! OBS was the first really large-scale camp that I've gone for, the second largest being sec 1's orientation. There was 1 for sec 2s in Malaysian Montage but I had to miss that one because of RE commitments. But well, OBS was both physically and mentally challenging. All the activities we did, from the pitching of tents, hiking, rock climbing, to the kayaking and maybe stealing of waterbottles at the end from other teams. haha. It felt really like an achievement when we finished OBS. It was as if we didn't mind doing unite cheer in the middle of Orchard Road anymore. ok, maybe we would reconsider that but it was really brilliant. We helped each other out in any way possible, cheered together as we hiked for 9 hours straight, ate our rations together and shared the food that we ate when rations ran out (cuz the dumb dog came to steal in on the 3rd night...). lol. but for all the efforts that we've put in, we could really see the results that we achieved. The bonding of the team became really good, we got to know each other so well in 5 days and we can proudly say that we finished OBS. woohoo! OBS was a whole new experience for me. There were lots of first-times whether it's kayaking, rock-climbing, hiking, pitching of tents... But with the help of all my friends, I managed to see it through. I may not have climbed to the top during rock-climbing, I may not have done much during kayaking cuz I wasn't strong enough, I may not have carried the most things during hiking, but it was still truly amazing that I actually dared to try out all these new things. I would never have thought of trying to hike for 9 hrs with such a heavy backpack. I would never have thought that I would try out rock-climbing some day and neither would I have thought that I would try out kayaking. But I've done it all in these 5 days and it made me really proud because Mr. Mac keeps saying, "When was the last time you did something for the first time". I'm also proud that I helped lots of my friends during the way, helping Brian carry the bottles when he got tired, helping Jie Liang when he pitched the tent... It may not have been much help, or it may even have been a case of 越帮越忙, but at least I tried to give a helping hand.
Then, there was Math RA. Math RA was another nice experience. Suddenly, during Math lessons, I found myself flooded with Gifteds and pro scholars who could solve olympiad questions in no time. I found my math far inferior from them and it was as if I was relearning math. It was certainly a major fallback from the top in level I got last year as I started to realise just how much I still had to learn. Though I may still not be as good as the others in Math, Math RA has certainly got me going. I've found more interest in Math than in normal lessons which would sometimes be quite boring going through mundane stuff. I found the learning curve much more steep and once again, although I couldn't absorb everything that was taught, I certainly learnt much more than I would have in normal Math RP lessons. Overall, it's been a very very nice time with this bunch of really smart people.
Then, there was 3B! 3B's been the most fantastic class I've ever been in. Most of the times, I would only have a really close group of friends like Cedrych, Nigel, Ting Fong in P1-4, Dewei, Max, Shihao and Kairen in P5-6, Ying Jie, Edward, Rich and Kejing in sec 1 with the addition of maybe weijie, kejing, jaryl and aaron in sec 2. But in 3B, everyone seems to be so close. Sure, there are still close friends but the not-so-close friends still seem rather close to me. Huiyao, Barry and co. are all very friendly and nice. Then there's Mark, Benyong and co. Then maybe Leonard, Brian and co. and many more but they are all really nice. 2H was really nice with such a big bunch of close friends but I think 3B's been better. The spirit's been burning since the start and inter-class soccer clearly showed just what 3B's made of. Although inter-class soccer's not really a big event, it was truly amazing how the "mugger" 3B class got 4th position. It's all down to the teamwork of the players, their trust and believe in themselves and of course the rest of the class where around 15 people or even more came to cheer them on. That's almost the whole class down at the field! Although we eventually lost in the semi-finals and 3rd/4th placing, it was already a very good achievement for a class which isn't really so sporty.
After which, there's Gang of 6 Pros (Go6P)! Made up of Junsheng, Kenneth, Jerald, Keng Chee, Dennis and me, with the occasional addition of EDWARD from 2H! haha. well, when edward joins, Jerald's not considered a pro so Gang of SIX pros still stands. haha. Hmm... ok. well, this must be the closest friends I've been with, closer than all those mentioned before, even Dewei and Max! haha. It's just amazing cuz we all come from different sec 2 classes and yet we still become such great friends. Junsheng from 2F, Kenneth 2A, Jerald 2C, Keng Chee 2E, Dennis (gifted), me 2H! but Go6P has made 3B an even nicer class for me cuz it makes mundane stuff like recess and lunch, or walks to science block or to PE or even after school times much more interesting. And then, birthdays become much more interesting too and times between lessons also become fun when you get to poke people like keng chee, bitch with jerald, crap with kenneth and junsheng and joke with Dennis! haha. And of course, there will be times where we go out together, whether it's to kBox, to J8, S11 or wherever... It's really fun to have such a great group of wacky friends with you. YEAH! ROCK ON Go6P!
Then, there was the IBN experience in June Hols. June Hols was mostly spent in IBN with Aaron and Ying Jie where we did research work with professional research mentors. It's taught me loads. Not just research techniques or maybe some excel usage but also how to work from 8-6 (sometimes even to 1030. haha. OT.). Then, we also got to know many friends from NUS like Cao Qi, Ji Qing and co. and got to work with the nicest mentor around, Dr. Deng Rensheng! woohoo! haha. it was fun working together with 2 close friends for long periods of the day in the lab, spending time together eating lunch at Ghim Moh or Holland V., spending time together slacking off in the pantry or playing mass pinball games in the labs. That was the fun part. Then, there was the boring parts where we had to look over the experiment conducted in the lab, roll out fibers, glue them, paste them, and do whatever possible to squeeze them into the really small cartridge... ><. ok. maybe that was fun too! haha. Then, we also had times where we had to troubleshoot our own experiments, find out problems regarding it, ways to improve it and stuff... Lab skills were also learnt like pipetting and stuff but yeah. it was overall, fun at times, boring at times but a really good learning experience.
After that, it's the RE experience! RE was fantastic this year for the most fantastic RE group ever once again. Although we lost Edward because we could only form a group of 3, we continued to work hard and achieved brilliant results. We were the only ones to get ourselves RE projects in Astar, we were one of the few groups who made it through the Congress to win the gold award and most of all, we were the only sec 3 RE team to present in the VIP session for RE congress 2007. It was a totally new experience for me once again, presenting our findings in front of a huge crowd with VIPs and well, it was an amazing experience. One I guess i'll never forget. And of course I maintained the A* grades that I've been getting for RE since sec 1 so that's great! I realise my presentation skills have improved tremondously too from the humble beginnings in sec 1. Maybe not as good as Aaron but there's definitely improvement! I guess presentation skills come with experience...
THEN, there was the all-too-amazing taiwan DWEN AN trip. It was TOTALLY BRILLIANT! oh my gosh. i can never over-emphasize this point cuz it was really really really really really fantastic. In a short span of 7 days, we learnt much more than we could have learnt in school. We learnt the taiwan culture, the games they play, the people there and how the spend their lives. We did a HUGE project all by ourselves (teens and maybe a few young adults), working together, striving to deliver the best. We learnt LOADS in terms of communicating methods in big groups, the ability to stand out from a crowd to lead, the ability to speak up from a big group to break a 冷场, and many more... It was really tiring as we worked from 8am-12midnight but it was very fun at the same time. We worked with so many Taiwanese, random people who came together to do something for the community together. We may not be linked. There were people coming from mainland china, us from singapore and most from taiwan. We may have had different likings, we were of different age (although around the same), but we all had a common goal in mind and that was all it took for us to become a team. We worked hard everyday, planning for the big day. We discussed problems, big or small, we solved them, together as a small team and then as the whole big group. We helped other small teams in whatever way possible and our progress was really good. On the day itself, we delivered the best. I myself did my best and I think I really did a wonderful job on my part. All the hard work that we'd put in, it was just so amazing cause we benefited so much from it. We learnt so much from taiwan culture, people to leadership skills, teambuilding activities and communication skills. We had fun together playing card games, 节奏游戏 and bang bang 007. We persevered through adversities, especially in the case of our small group where we faced loads of problems because of our inability to capture the big picture and focused to much on the details. But at the end of the day, it was the most memorable and touching experience that I've ever had, watching the visually impaired chilren have so much fun, watching them as they struggled to walk but continued to smile to us, watching our fellow friends as they did their best to make the children have a fun day. In the end, when we all had to leave and probably never see each other again, it was once again very sad and emotional but I can safely say that we've been the best of friends for 7 days, all of us.
It was a really good academic year for me too! It was the first time I was going to take triple science and SS so it was always going to be hard. But I think I did very well for everything! From Social advocacy, to the history projects, to the Chinese project all the way to all the CCTs and stuff. I'm especially pleased with my CCT results for my math and sciences and SS and all the projects that I've done this year. In the end, I had an overall GPA of 3.87 which was a huge improvement from last year's and it's not as if I'm lucky or anything cuz I got a 79 for history... haix. Still lose to Kenneth due to some freak moderation of physics but nvm. haha. I shall beat him next year then. (: Anyway, great job on academics this year. I think it's been my best academic year since P6 or maybe even the best ever. YAY!
Then, there was the CCAs! Year 3 wasn't really a CCA year. There were much less "CCA stuff" going on but there were still lots! For chess club, there was the yearly, qiuping. Although we lost our pro chairman, Shi Hao, last year, we still did our best and produced the best results since the formation of the chess club. Yup. 2nd in both for junior and senior sections! It was 3rd for junior and 2nd for senior in sec 1. Then, 2nd for junior and 3rd for senior in sec 2. So it's been an improvement this year! Hongbo, Ernest and me (the junior team last year) won the senior 2nd while Yiheng, Zexi and Alan won the junior 2nd. haha. not bad. Although I lost the individual award which I won last year, it was still ok as long as we got the team award that we aimed for. YAY! haha ok. Then, for CO there were 2 major events, SYF and concert. SYF was great. Although we lost our former conductor due to cancer, we got his (our former conductor) student to come conduct us and he's really cool! haha. Lots of people say it's very hard to hire him and I guess we must be very lucky to be able to do so cuz we aren't exactly the best of orchestras. And so, we practiced long and our set piece every week, with me trying to perfect my rolling skills on the timp. It was a rather slack half a year for perc because both songs weren't really "perc" pieces. But we still concentrated on doing well and hoping that we won't screw up on the day itself. I was really afraid that we would get silver again after so many years cuz it would really spell disaster both to the reputation of CO and we were in danger of losing some of the best instructors. On stage, I just tried to concentrate on not screwing up and not dropping the bowl like thing which I was supposed to hit. haha. It was rather hard cuz of my stupid sweaty palms but I did it! I still remember how stressed up I was after long, couldn't smile at all. haha. I was in fact SO stressed up that Mr. Lim (new conductor) came over and pat me on my back while he was walking out. Somehow, that told me that something good would be coming up and WOOHOO! GOLD! although it wasn't really the award we would have craved for, it was still fantastic. A gold award after so many years. My only regrets is that we couldn't get it under Mr. Yeo. It was truly amazing. We were all jumping up and down after the results were announced. I'm not sure why we were soooo happy but I guess Thomas had lots to do with it. He was a really good student conductor for us. He kept adding pressure to us to practice. Even a week b4 the actual SYF day, he was saying,"With this sort of standards, you all can forget about gold. Be prepared to get a bronze. Practice hard and maybe we would get a silver". That probably freaked us out cuz I saw many practicing really hard towards the end. Our improvement was so great during the last few weeks that Mr. Ngoh said that it was either a case of Gold of Gold with Honours. Well, no gwh but I'm still really relieved that we didn't get a silver again. WOOHOO! WE ROCK! RICO ROCKS!
Spring of Life, RICO concert '07, was totally fantastic. haha. Most of you people might have read my reflections already but I still can't over-emphasize how great an achievement it was. All the sponsorship, concert booklets, rehearsals, xiaozus, intensive practices and stuff were just so fun and enjoyable. In the end, the concerts really rocked the audience. The afternoon one was average I guess, but the evening one was really really good! We were all so pro! I think we've done a great job and Mr. Yeo would be very proud of us. Even Mr. Lim was praising us at the end when he himself was THE STAR of the concert! haha. he was really really great. All the fun and joy that we had, I'll never forget.
Then there was OIP '07. It was the first year that they were holding OIP but it was really great. The ChangChun team totally rocked and ChangChun itself with ji da and jiu tai and xi wang all rocked! yay! it was a really nice experience there. I got to learn a lot of things which I probably would never be able to learn in Singapore. I tried out living in the village, I taught a class of 70+ students for the first time in my life, I touched snow, I worked on a huge project in karaoke competition within a limited amount of time... It was all just fantastic. I got to know lots of friends both in Singapore and in Changchun and it was a really great feeling to be out there, far far away from home, with so many great friends. We cheered each other on when we felt down. We helped each other out when it was needed. We played card games together. We worked on projects and lessons together. We suffered in the villages together. But it was all a great experience that I'll never forget. haha. Look out for ChangChun post which I promise WILL be coming up soon enough. haha.
There were actually a lot more stuff that happened in Year 3 like Teacher's Day org comm where we all stayed back till 9+ to prepare for the big day. Then, there was the introduction of DMP which was rather fun because lots of time could be spent mugging or eating at S11 with friends when one had no lessons on! haha. And linear algebra was super fun! But yup... these were all the really MEGA-SIZED events that happened in YEAR THREE!
And Year 3 also marks a new journey that I'll be embarking on - PSL! It really excites me because it's going to be so fun taking a whole class for orientation. I'll try to make the best out of all these and put my best into whatever I do. Hopefully I'll learn some stuff and the sec 1s will be happy! haha. There's still much to prepare so I guess I must get ready. But I'm sure I'll benefit from all these. Tze Ern did ask me to create a goal list for becoming a PSL so I guess I'll do it now.
Goals for myself!
1. Become braver and be able to speak in front of a whole crowd and not stutter. (hope all the training in ChangChun OIP will help! (:)
2. Become less forgetful! haha. this has always been a problem for me. Hope these activities will get me to remember more stuff along the way. It's good memory training. haha. need to memorise where to go, when to go, what to do, what to say... And then all the water breaks, first-aid boxes... (:
3. Make more friends! Whether it's with the PSLs that I still don't know or it's the new sec 1s. Hmm.. (:
4. Train on-the-spot thinking! will have lots of chances for doing this cuz all the stuff aren't exactly detailedly prepared.
5. Become more organized! This should help in communication with the sec 1s as well.
6. HAVE FUN! (:
Goals for sec 1s:
1. Become accustomed to school practices. e.g. cheers, assembly, institution anthem...
2. Know their surroundings! From places to people (students, teachers...)
3. Bond together as a class like 3B or 2H! and hopefully as a batch as well but that's really hard...
4. Know the Rafflesian style of living and be proud of it. haha. sounds so cliched. but i do love it!
5. And of course... HAVE FUN! (:
All right... so i guess that's all for my RI experience! hoping that sec 4 will be even greater! and next up, new year resolutions.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS!
1. Academics
2. CO
3. Weiqi
4. CIP! / Interact!
5. RE - SMP + SL?
6. Music!
7. Others
1.1 - Maintain 3.87 GPA!
1.2 - Improve english vocabulary! sigh. i realise i have no synonyms for fantastic or brilliant. HMM!
1.3 - Improve CHINESE! O-levels coming! haha. but chinese is fun!
1.4 - Basically redo what I did this year cuz I think I did a great job. (all the review of lessons and marks and stuff...)
2.1 - Hopefully get pro sec 1s in!
2.2 - Train perc till there are at least 3 who can play impt instruments and 2 for smaller ones.
2.3 - Make concert '08 a stunning success (sponsorship, concert booklet and stage plan) and of course everything else from Raffles Trail, CNY to concert with Mayflower (i think...)
2.4 - Have fun during interaction (hopefully it will take place) and if possible help out in RJCO or RGCO concerts (but probably they won't need help... ):)
3.1 - Achieve double 2nd in qiuping again.
3.2 - Participate in more competitions
3.3 - Hopefully rope in more people to come for training
3.4 - Improve myself! Get to know more stuff.
4.1 - Embark on at least one BIG cip programme like taiwan or OIP this year.
4.2 - Start going for and enjoying INTERACT! and hopefully do my best in it.
4.3 - Become a more helpful, courteous and smiling person! (: Yay!
5.1 - Embark on TWO RE projects like the pro sec 4 this year!
5.2 - Work well for SMP. Learn research techniques and other stuff! do well for YSC!
5.3 - Get and SL project done up and make it good! Hopefully something like taiwan!
5.4 - Do well for RE congress.
6.1 - Continue playing the piano and play whatever I like! (:
6.2 - Continue improving snare! rolls! or doubles or whatever...
6.3 - Play the timp more often. Practice rolls and tuning!
6.4 - Try out drum set. Hmm...
7.1 - Make 3B and Go6P even better!
7.2 - Get some leadership positions and work hard for it! (whether it is in projects or CEC or the new students leaders thing...)
7.3 - Start training pull-ups and running unless I want to fail Napfa. HAIX.
Guess that's all for now. It's another rather long post. ><. haha. shall add on when i think of more new year resolutions. and you can be sure changchun post will be coming soon enough! (:
Patrick
Year 1:
Year 1 was, as usual, the foundational years. It wasn't much, but I guess it was still a really fun and enjoyable year. We started the year with a bang with orientation, all the activities we did, from bishan hike all the way to the star wars night game (forgot the actual name) and of course the station games and war games. It was a really fun way to start my life in RI and although I can't really remember what I did except for maybe a few really memorable scenes, it must have been really fun. Never in primary school have I seen such huge-scale events carried out in school, and by students too! Needless to say, I was really impressed and was even more astounded by the qualities of my SPSL, who was totally amazing.
So that got us going. Afterwards, it was time for us to catch up with the academics. Although looking back now, the workload then seems to be much less, I'm quite sure I didn't feel that way when I was in sec 1. I remember vividly the first presentation I did where I totally SCREWED-UP, and it's true screwing up. haha. Throughout the presentation, I was stuttering and singlish kept coming out every few seconds. I guess I thought it was "the way to present" at that time. I went to the front of class with no script in hand, and erm, well, though it was embarrassing, I've learnt from that horrible experience and improved by leaps and bounds. It was rather hard to score with all the new projects and stuff which I was rather unfamiliar with and I remember hitting a 3.67 for my first term. Not bad, but definitely, there's room for improvement. After all, many of my close friends in my then sec 1 class like Edward, Ying Jie, Rich and Aaron were scoring well above me. So, entered term 3 of year 1. It was one of the most fantastic terms I've ever had. Topping my class in 3 out of the 6 ccts that were packed into term 3, I started chasing up in terms of my grades. The quality of my project work gradually became better and better and I guess it's all to do with improving with every project that you do.
Another big event for year 1 was the Dr. William Tan marathon race. I had no idea who he was at first but after his speech during our assembly, I was really motivated. I see him as someone very similar to Mr. Mac in terms of the speeches they make, the perseverance and strength that they had and the willing to push forth something virtually impossible. It was a really nice experience running with him around the track. Although I can't say I did much, it was still something really big for me given that it was only my first year in RI. I remember that on that day, we had lots of drinks for sale, CDC was selling if I'm not wrong, and we were in charge of stepping on cans to save space. haha. whatever the case, it was a nice experience to be there.
Oh and of course! Year 1 marked the start of my "CCA career". I always love to tell stories about my CCA life cause it's all topsy turvy. I still remember vividly. I knew I wanted to join the choir, Raffles Voices, cause my whole family has been in choir. Thinking that I would definitely enter choir, I put random choices in the rest of my CCA choices in the "CCA choice list". I remember entering Raffles Voices as my first choice and Guitar Ensemble as my second. Another really intersting point is that rugby was actually in one of my choices! haha. and gymnastics too. >< all right, but anyway, it was a Sunday, so Wing Hang, the guy who came for tuition last time, came over to my room and he says, "JOIN CO! IT'S SLACK!" all right. but anyway, i was thinking that since I would definitely get into raffles voices, why not just put CO as my second choice? So I did. And the end result? I forgot to go for the RV auditions and got myself "landed" in RICO. woah. BUT, there was another twist in the story, I decided to have a go in CO for maybe 1 term before quitting it and joining RV, when suddenly I see myself in the most famous or notorious (whichever suits you better) section ever - PERCUSSION. Honestly speaking, I had no idea what "percussion" meant when I first knew I was in that section and I was imagining some random chinese instrument that either looked like an erhu or a dizi (haha. yes. I was dumb then, but so am I now! xD). Well, so as soon as I found out that perc was actually that really cool thing where you use a stick to hit the drum, I decided to give it a shot. Surprisingly, though percussion was so pro then (as compared to now), they were actually lacking people for SYF! So, without even knowing what the instruments were called or even knowing how to hold a stick, I was called up for dazu. haha. Oh yes, it was that experience. All the stares were on me as I walked in from the backstage of the hall (we practiced in the hall last time) and they must have been wondering, what is this idiotic sec 1 doing here for dazu when he doesn't even know how a conductor conducts! Truthfully speaking, I really knew nothing about chinese orchestra, about performing in such a huge group, or even about percussion itself then. But the dazu experiences in sec 1 were just fantastic and made my learning curve so steep that I couldn't believe how fast I was learning. In no time, I had learnt how the conductor conducts, how to play the muyu (my first instrument! YAY!) and even tried out on the timp once for some simple part in feng nian ji. I guess I was regarded as "the pro sec 1" then, but honestly speaking, I wasn't. If anyone had such a wonderful chance to get into dazu after 1 xiaozu, and not even knowing how to hold a drum stick, their learning curve would be much steeper than those who carry on in xiaozu. I guess dazu is really where the application comes in. If I hadn't been in dazu so early, I guess I would be writing about RV life now cause I would have most probably quit CO. Drumming on tables (which we did last time in sec 1 before moving to RJCO room) was certainly much less entertaining than having so many instruments to play with and so many other people and instruments to play with. For that, I have to thank BL for giving me such a wonderful opportunity. I think he's the reason why I'm still in CO. So sec 1 marked my first syf which was really rare cuz many people only get to go for syf when they're sec 2 or higher. I was really noob at that time so I wasn't really sure about our overall standards. I was hoping for a gold but we missed it and instead got a silver. It was rather sad because we were having intensive trainings so often. But I guess it's the experience that counts. I'm still really happy that I got to perform for SYF as a sec 1! Oh and of course, BL was the one who gave me that fantastic opportunity to perform in a hsinghai concert in sec 1 end of year! it was my first time playing for a semi-pro orchestra and it was even more fantastic because i went for the concert after 2 or 3 practices! (but i was only playing the sus. cymbal. haha.) but it was still a nice experience cuz it was the first time (and probably the last) that I played with a semi-pro CO after just learning one year of perc! yay.
And year 1 also marked the start of my "chess club career!" I don't really remember which competitions we went for but I do remember quiping where we got 3rd. Hmm. not bad considering the junior team consisted of all sec 1s (me, hongbo and kengyong if I'm not wrong)... so that must have been a wonderful experience too!
Overall, year 1 in RI was basically an introduction to what was going to come. We were introduced to project work, to Research Education, to CCAs and how we played for the school instead of ourselves now (used to play weiqi on an individual level cuz only 3 people in MSHS knew how to play weiqi...)... And so that was it for sec 1.
Year 2:
Year 2 was an interesting year. Well, actually it was almost like sec 1, just that we had moved to a higher level. First, RE went up to a much higher level. No more rigid surveys and interviews. No more copy and paste from internet. No more guidance from teacher mentors. We were pretty much on our own. We had the most fantastic RE group ever (in my opinion... haha) with Edward, Ying Jie, Aaron Tang and me! That's 2 GPA 4.0s in an RE grp! But anyway, we embarked on some really weird project on lights and spiders (basically how do different colours of lights affect web-spinning behaviours). Like any other RI event, we always left things to the last, procrastination or so they call it... but i thought we did a fantastic job. I remember that SYSF deadline was coming up in a week and our report was still not ready. All the other groups were sort of ready with all their reports done up ready for touch ups and our experiments were still pretty much undone. The spiders apparently didn't really like spinning their webs. Well, to our amazement, it finally did and with the poweress of the RE group, we worked through countless nights, spent hours in school, all the way till 10pm at times, to finish up with the report. Then there was SYSF exhibition which we once again rushed out towards the end. The end result? We got best exhibition and best report for SYSF. It was totally amazing. Even we ourselves were surprised at how far we had gone and how much effort we must have put in after those spiders just refused to spin their webs until a week before. Well, that was certainly not the end. We carried on with YSC and won a gold there. RE congress wasn't so much of a success as our progress was halted during the semi-final stages. But we got ourselves back on our feet and won the gold award once again for the IRS. It was an amazing RE year for me, and I'm sure it was the same for the others. All the countless hours we spent in bishan park catching spiders were fun and enjoyable and the countless hours we spent discussing how best to present our report and our analysis of findings over the phone, over MSN or in school, were totally fantastic. Our group did what I believed to be unachievable and it's all down to our hard work that we've achieved all these. All right, so RE was a major success in year 2.
Then, there was academics! I did wonderfully well here in sem 1, scoring a 3.87 which was well above my expectations. But then, I did terribly in sem 2, causing my humanities grades to drop horribly and I got a 3.73 overall fo that year. That's not a horrendous GPA but I guess it was rather frustrating cause I got 2 79s and 1 78. Well, I guess that's the result if you try to achieve the bare minimum (the 80 mark) which reminds me of what the sec 4 said to us today. but nvm, that will be saved for another post. Well, so academics wise, it wasn't so good, but there were definitely some positive points to take away. I topped the class in the 2 CTs for Science and got highest in LEVEL for Math in Special/Express. It was totally cool cause I would never have thought that I would ever be able to top anything in class, save level, in RI with so many pro people around. But I guess Mrs. Ng was a really good teacher. One of the most fantastic math teachers I've ever got. ok. so that's for academics.
Then, there was CCA. Year 2 was a really "CCA" year with the big events being qiuping, pesta sukan and whompoa for chess club and mediacorp performance, rjco concert, myRIad and rico concert for CO.
Qiuping was great as the junior team (this time me, hongbo and ernest) got the better of dunman to clinch the 2nd place. The senior team too were rather good! Playing with 1 sec 4 (our chairman, shi hao) and 3 sec ONES (yiheng,m alan and zexi), they did their best and managed to clinch 3rd place. Although it was lower than last year's 2nd that we got for the senior section, it was truly amazing as we beat all odds with 2 sec 1s playing in the senior section. Pesta Sukan was another truly amazing experience as we almost beat HCI for the first time ever in the history of SINGAPORE SECONDARY SCHOOL WEIQI. ALMOST. but we didn't. It was really the closest that we've ever gotten. HCI had 18 points, RI 17. It was even more disappointing because hongbo had to lose the last game to a HCI guy by ONE SEED! If not, we would have finished 1st in the team category. Well, not to be. But it was a really good experience. I played very well in this competition, having 5 straight wins (beating 2 HCI players along the way) before losing to one HCI guy who was going to win all 7 games anyway... I won the last game too to finish individual 3rd. I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad because the 2nd position (which went to a HCI person, was the person I beat on the 4th round) but the 4th placing, was Shi Hao (our chairman!) who i very fortunately did not play against (if not I would definitely have lost... The whompoa was great once again! This time I won 6 straight before losing the last round, thereby ending up in 3rd position once again and getting a 3Dan certificate. Hmm... so i did well for chess club.
Then there was CO! CO was a mixed experience for me in year 2 with the addition of DeViL to the perc team. It was not a very nice experience but then again, the events that we had were great. We got to perform in Mediacorp for the first time in our lives together with many actors and actresses and of course the winners of Project Superstar. It was a very nice experience to be there and playing matsuri on television was totally fantastic. And we were the starting and ending performance! woohoo. I think I played timp for the first time then. Hmm... so once again, another achievement! yay! all right, then, there was RJCO concert, which was another good experience. It was then that Raffles djy really started knowing each other. It was fun practicing qin wang with 25 percussionists. I remember being the only RI person to be on the dagu! YAY! ok nvm. >< but anyway, it was a good experience not only because I got to know Raffles djy and some RJCO people and maybe work with RICO alumni like BL but also because it was the first time we were going to perform in ESPLANADE! woah cool. Got myself lost in the amazingly confusing backstage... and it was a truly amazing experience performing in front of such a big audience! Then, there was myRIad, the first ever combined RI musical groups performance. It was a rather big event cause it was the first time we were doing it and also because it was going to be in ESPLANADE (again). haha. but it was once again amazing as we did lao hu in esplanade (COOL!). haha. i remember all the practices when me and lionel kept screwing up. Thanks to Thomas for covering up for all my mistakes which would have sounded rather audible in Esplanade. Then, there was RICO concert! woohoo! RICO concert VOICES OF THE DRAGON 8, totally rocked. I loved all the dazu songs that we played from feng nian ji, taiwan to long, huan xin, dong hai and matsuri. YAY! it was the first time i've performed for a full 2 hr concert so it was a whole new experience once again. It was fun playing cards and talking crap during rehearsals or backstage but it was made even more meaningful because it was going to be the final time that Mr. Yeo conducted us on stage. Dong Hai and Matsuri certainly rocked the audience and it was a fantastic experience. I can still remember during dong hai, thomas, yin kwan, tze ern, BL and I were all discussing how loud we wanted to go. Decision? AS LOUD AS WE CAN! woah. tze ern was relieved he had his ear plugs on. haha. well, that was great too! and of course there were even more small performances like those at Expo or some hospitol (forgot which one) or at some HDB flat or at Toa Payoh... All these were really nice experiences too. The expo one was especially fun because there was a perc ensemble. YAY! and i was leading it! YAY YAY! ok. nvm. but yup, that's all for CO for year 2!
Year 2 also marked the start of my CIP life with THREE large-scale CIP events held. The first was pathlight, which is a school for autistic children. Went there twice. First time was to help them in the sorting out of library books. The second was to carry out an assembly session with them which meant small performances. Then, there was the beach clean-up and newspaper collections. Not really huge CIP events but definitely much more meaningful than going around asking for money as we did in sec 1. It certainly was the foundation stones laid for the CIP events that I would be embarking on for year three.
Year 3:
Year 3's been the most fantastic year of my entire school life. There were just so many huge events going on around me and it was basically the best experiences ever.
First up, OBS! OBS was the first really large-scale camp that I've gone for, the second largest being sec 1's orientation. There was 1 for sec 2s in Malaysian Montage but I had to miss that one because of RE commitments. But well, OBS was both physically and mentally challenging. All the activities we did, from the pitching of tents, hiking, rock climbing, to the kayaking and maybe stealing of waterbottles at the end from other teams. haha. It felt really like an achievement when we finished OBS. It was as if we didn't mind doing unite cheer in the middle of Orchard Road anymore. ok, maybe we would reconsider that but it was really brilliant. We helped each other out in any way possible, cheered together as we hiked for 9 hours straight, ate our rations together and shared the food that we ate when rations ran out (cuz the dumb dog came to steal in on the 3rd night...). lol. but for all the efforts that we've put in, we could really see the results that we achieved. The bonding of the team became really good, we got to know each other so well in 5 days and we can proudly say that we finished OBS. woohoo! OBS was a whole new experience for me. There were lots of first-times whether it's kayaking, rock-climbing, hiking, pitching of tents... But with the help of all my friends, I managed to see it through. I may not have climbed to the top during rock-climbing, I may not have done much during kayaking cuz I wasn't strong enough, I may not have carried the most things during hiking, but it was still truly amazing that I actually dared to try out all these new things. I would never have thought of trying to hike for 9 hrs with such a heavy backpack. I would never have thought that I would try out rock-climbing some day and neither would I have thought that I would try out kayaking. But I've done it all in these 5 days and it made me really proud because Mr. Mac keeps saying, "When was the last time you did something for the first time". I'm also proud that I helped lots of my friends during the way, helping Brian carry the bottles when he got tired, helping Jie Liang when he pitched the tent... It may not have been much help, or it may even have been a case of 越帮越忙, but at least I tried to give a helping hand.
Then, there was Math RA. Math RA was another nice experience. Suddenly, during Math lessons, I found myself flooded with Gifteds and pro scholars who could solve olympiad questions in no time. I found my math far inferior from them and it was as if I was relearning math. It was certainly a major fallback from the top in level I got last year as I started to realise just how much I still had to learn. Though I may still not be as good as the others in Math, Math RA has certainly got me going. I've found more interest in Math than in normal lessons which would sometimes be quite boring going through mundane stuff. I found the learning curve much more steep and once again, although I couldn't absorb everything that was taught, I certainly learnt much more than I would have in normal Math RP lessons. Overall, it's been a very very nice time with this bunch of really smart people.
Then, there was 3B! 3B's been the most fantastic class I've ever been in. Most of the times, I would only have a really close group of friends like Cedrych, Nigel, Ting Fong in P1-4, Dewei, Max, Shihao and Kairen in P5-6, Ying Jie, Edward, Rich and Kejing in sec 1 with the addition of maybe weijie, kejing, jaryl and aaron in sec 2. But in 3B, everyone seems to be so close. Sure, there are still close friends but the not-so-close friends still seem rather close to me. Huiyao, Barry and co. are all very friendly and nice. Then there's Mark, Benyong and co. Then maybe Leonard, Brian and co. and many more but they are all really nice. 2H was really nice with such a big bunch of close friends but I think 3B's been better. The spirit's been burning since the start and inter-class soccer clearly showed just what 3B's made of. Although inter-class soccer's not really a big event, it was truly amazing how the "mugger" 3B class got 4th position. It's all down to the teamwork of the players, their trust and believe in themselves and of course the rest of the class where around 15 people or even more came to cheer them on. That's almost the whole class down at the field! Although we eventually lost in the semi-finals and 3rd/4th placing, it was already a very good achievement for a class which isn't really so sporty.
After which, there's Gang of 6 Pros (Go6P)! Made up of Junsheng, Kenneth, Jerald, Keng Chee, Dennis and me, with the occasional addition of EDWARD from 2H! haha. well, when edward joins, Jerald's not considered a pro so Gang of SIX pros still stands. haha. Hmm... ok. well, this must be the closest friends I've been with, closer than all those mentioned before, even Dewei and Max! haha. It's just amazing cuz we all come from different sec 2 classes and yet we still become such great friends. Junsheng from 2F, Kenneth 2A, Jerald 2C, Keng Chee 2E, Dennis (gifted), me 2H! but Go6P has made 3B an even nicer class for me cuz it makes mundane stuff like recess and lunch, or walks to science block or to PE or even after school times much more interesting. And then, birthdays become much more interesting too and times between lessons also become fun when you get to poke people like keng chee, bitch with jerald, crap with kenneth and junsheng and joke with Dennis! haha. And of course, there will be times where we go out together, whether it's to kBox, to J8, S11 or wherever... It's really fun to have such a great group of wacky friends with you. YEAH! ROCK ON Go6P!
Then, there was the IBN experience in June Hols. June Hols was mostly spent in IBN with Aaron and Ying Jie where we did research work with professional research mentors. It's taught me loads. Not just research techniques or maybe some excel usage but also how to work from 8-6 (sometimes even to 1030. haha. OT.). Then, we also got to know many friends from NUS like Cao Qi, Ji Qing and co. and got to work with the nicest mentor around, Dr. Deng Rensheng! woohoo! haha. it was fun working together with 2 close friends for long periods of the day in the lab, spending time together eating lunch at Ghim Moh or Holland V., spending time together slacking off in the pantry or playing mass pinball games in the labs. That was the fun part. Then, there was the boring parts where we had to look over the experiment conducted in the lab, roll out fibers, glue them, paste them, and do whatever possible to squeeze them into the really small cartridge... ><. ok. maybe that was fun too! haha. Then, we also had times where we had to troubleshoot our own experiments, find out problems regarding it, ways to improve it and stuff... Lab skills were also learnt like pipetting and stuff but yeah. it was overall, fun at times, boring at times but a really good learning experience.
After that, it's the RE experience! RE was fantastic this year for the most fantastic RE group ever once again. Although we lost Edward because we could only form a group of 3, we continued to work hard and achieved brilliant results. We were the only ones to get ourselves RE projects in Astar, we were one of the few groups who made it through the Congress to win the gold award and most of all, we were the only sec 3 RE team to present in the VIP session for RE congress 2007. It was a totally new experience for me once again, presenting our findings in front of a huge crowd with VIPs and well, it was an amazing experience. One I guess i'll never forget. And of course I maintained the A* grades that I've been getting for RE since sec 1 so that's great! I realise my presentation skills have improved tremondously too from the humble beginnings in sec 1. Maybe not as good as Aaron but there's definitely improvement! I guess presentation skills come with experience...
THEN, there was the all-too-amazing taiwan DWEN AN trip. It was TOTALLY BRILLIANT! oh my gosh. i can never over-emphasize this point cuz it was really really really really really fantastic. In a short span of 7 days, we learnt much more than we could have learnt in school. We learnt the taiwan culture, the games they play, the people there and how the spend their lives. We did a HUGE project all by ourselves (teens and maybe a few young adults), working together, striving to deliver the best. We learnt LOADS in terms of communicating methods in big groups, the ability to stand out from a crowd to lead, the ability to speak up from a big group to break a 冷场, and many more... It was really tiring as we worked from 8am-12midnight but it was very fun at the same time. We worked with so many Taiwanese, random people who came together to do something for the community together. We may not be linked. There were people coming from mainland china, us from singapore and most from taiwan. We may have had different likings, we were of different age (although around the same), but we all had a common goal in mind and that was all it took for us to become a team. We worked hard everyday, planning for the big day. We discussed problems, big or small, we solved them, together as a small team and then as the whole big group. We helped other small teams in whatever way possible and our progress was really good. On the day itself, we delivered the best. I myself did my best and I think I really did a wonderful job on my part. All the hard work that we'd put in, it was just so amazing cause we benefited so much from it. We learnt so much from taiwan culture, people to leadership skills, teambuilding activities and communication skills. We had fun together playing card games, 节奏游戏 and bang bang 007. We persevered through adversities, especially in the case of our small group where we faced loads of problems because of our inability to capture the big picture and focused to much on the details. But at the end of the day, it was the most memorable and touching experience that I've ever had, watching the visually impaired chilren have so much fun, watching them as they struggled to walk but continued to smile to us, watching our fellow friends as they did their best to make the children have a fun day. In the end, when we all had to leave and probably never see each other again, it was once again very sad and emotional but I can safely say that we've been the best of friends for 7 days, all of us.
It was a really good academic year for me too! It was the first time I was going to take triple science and SS so it was always going to be hard. But I think I did very well for everything! From Social advocacy, to the history projects, to the Chinese project all the way to all the CCTs and stuff. I'm especially pleased with my CCT results for my math and sciences and SS and all the projects that I've done this year. In the end, I had an overall GPA of 3.87 which was a huge improvement from last year's and it's not as if I'm lucky or anything cuz I got a 79 for history... haix. Still lose to Kenneth due to some freak moderation of physics but nvm. haha. I shall beat him next year then. (: Anyway, great job on academics this year. I think it's been my best academic year since P6 or maybe even the best ever. YAY!
Then, there was the CCAs! Year 3 wasn't really a CCA year. There were much less "CCA stuff" going on but there were still lots! For chess club, there was the yearly, qiuping. Although we lost our pro chairman, Shi Hao, last year, we still did our best and produced the best results since the formation of the chess club. Yup. 2nd in both for junior and senior sections! It was 3rd for junior and 2nd for senior in sec 1. Then, 2nd for junior and 3rd for senior in sec 2. So it's been an improvement this year! Hongbo, Ernest and me (the junior team last year) won the senior 2nd while Yiheng, Zexi and Alan won the junior 2nd. haha. not bad. Although I lost the individual award which I won last year, it was still ok as long as we got the team award that we aimed for. YAY! haha ok. Then, for CO there were 2 major events, SYF and concert. SYF was great. Although we lost our former conductor due to cancer, we got his (our former conductor) student to come conduct us and he's really cool! haha. Lots of people say it's very hard to hire him and I guess we must be very lucky to be able to do so cuz we aren't exactly the best of orchestras. And so, we practiced long and our set piece every week, with me trying to perfect my rolling skills on the timp. It was a rather slack half a year for perc because both songs weren't really "perc" pieces. But we still concentrated on doing well and hoping that we won't screw up on the day itself. I was really afraid that we would get silver again after so many years cuz it would really spell disaster both to the reputation of CO and we were in danger of losing some of the best instructors. On stage, I just tried to concentrate on not screwing up and not dropping the bowl like thing which I was supposed to hit. haha. It was rather hard cuz of my stupid sweaty palms but I did it! I still remember how stressed up I was after long, couldn't smile at all. haha. I was in fact SO stressed up that Mr. Lim (new conductor) came over and pat me on my back while he was walking out. Somehow, that told me that something good would be coming up and WOOHOO! GOLD! although it wasn't really the award we would have craved for, it was still fantastic. A gold award after so many years. My only regrets is that we couldn't get it under Mr. Yeo. It was truly amazing. We were all jumping up and down after the results were announced. I'm not sure why we were soooo happy but I guess Thomas had lots to do with it. He was a really good student conductor for us. He kept adding pressure to us to practice. Even a week b4 the actual SYF day, he was saying,"With this sort of standards, you all can forget about gold. Be prepared to get a bronze. Practice hard and maybe we would get a silver". That probably freaked us out cuz I saw many practicing really hard towards the end. Our improvement was so great during the last few weeks that Mr. Ngoh said that it was either a case of Gold of Gold with Honours. Well, no gwh but I'm still really relieved that we didn't get a silver again. WOOHOO! WE ROCK! RICO ROCKS!
Spring of Life, RICO concert '07, was totally fantastic. haha. Most of you people might have read my reflections already but I still can't over-emphasize how great an achievement it was. All the sponsorship, concert booklets, rehearsals, xiaozus, intensive practices and stuff were just so fun and enjoyable. In the end, the concerts really rocked the audience. The afternoon one was average I guess, but the evening one was really really good! We were all so pro! I think we've done a great job and Mr. Yeo would be very proud of us. Even Mr. Lim was praising us at the end when he himself was THE STAR of the concert! haha. he was really really great. All the fun and joy that we had, I'll never forget.
Then there was OIP '07. It was the first year that they were holding OIP but it was really great. The ChangChun team totally rocked and ChangChun itself with ji da and jiu tai and xi wang all rocked! yay! it was a really nice experience there. I got to learn a lot of things which I probably would never be able to learn in Singapore. I tried out living in the village, I taught a class of 70+ students for the first time in my life, I touched snow, I worked on a huge project in karaoke competition within a limited amount of time... It was all just fantastic. I got to know lots of friends both in Singapore and in Changchun and it was a really great feeling to be out there, far far away from home, with so many great friends. We cheered each other on when we felt down. We helped each other out when it was needed. We played card games together. We worked on projects and lessons together. We suffered in the villages together. But it was all a great experience that I'll never forget. haha. Look out for ChangChun post which I promise WILL be coming up soon enough. haha.
There were actually a lot more stuff that happened in Year 3 like Teacher's Day org comm where we all stayed back till 9+ to prepare for the big day. Then, there was the introduction of DMP which was rather fun because lots of time could be spent mugging or eating at S11 with friends when one had no lessons on! haha. And linear algebra was super fun! But yup... these were all the really MEGA-SIZED events that happened in YEAR THREE!
And Year 3 also marks a new journey that I'll be embarking on - PSL! It really excites me because it's going to be so fun taking a whole class for orientation. I'll try to make the best out of all these and put my best into whatever I do. Hopefully I'll learn some stuff and the sec 1s will be happy! haha. There's still much to prepare so I guess I must get ready. But I'm sure I'll benefit from all these. Tze Ern did ask me to create a goal list for becoming a PSL so I guess I'll do it now.
Goals for myself!
1. Become braver and be able to speak in front of a whole crowd and not stutter. (hope all the training in ChangChun OIP will help! (:)
2. Become less forgetful! haha. this has always been a problem for me. Hope these activities will get me to remember more stuff along the way. It's good memory training. haha. need to memorise where to go, when to go, what to do, what to say... And then all the water breaks, first-aid boxes... (:
3. Make more friends! Whether it's with the PSLs that I still don't know or it's the new sec 1s. Hmm.. (:
4. Train on-the-spot thinking! will have lots of chances for doing this cuz all the stuff aren't exactly detailedly prepared.
5. Become more organized! This should help in communication with the sec 1s as well.
6. HAVE FUN! (:
Goals for sec 1s:
1. Become accustomed to school practices. e.g. cheers, assembly, institution anthem...
2. Know their surroundings! From places to people (students, teachers...)
3. Bond together as a class like 3B or 2H! and hopefully as a batch as well but that's really hard...
4. Know the Rafflesian style of living and be proud of it. haha. sounds so cliched. but i do love it!
5. And of course... HAVE FUN! (:
All right... so i guess that's all for my RI experience! hoping that sec 4 will be even greater! and next up, new year resolutions.
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS!
1. Academics
2. CO
3. Weiqi
4. CIP! / Interact!
5. RE - SMP + SL?
6. Music!
7. Others
1.1 - Maintain 3.87 GPA!
1.2 - Improve english vocabulary! sigh. i realise i have no synonyms for fantastic or brilliant. HMM!
1.3 - Improve CHINESE! O-levels coming! haha. but chinese is fun!
1.4 - Basically redo what I did this year cuz I think I did a great job. (all the review of lessons and marks and stuff...)
2.1 - Hopefully get pro sec 1s in!
2.2 - Train perc till there are at least 3 who can play impt instruments and 2 for smaller ones.
2.3 - Make concert '08 a stunning success (sponsorship, concert booklet and stage plan) and of course everything else from Raffles Trail, CNY to concert with Mayflower (i think...)
2.4 - Have fun during interaction (hopefully it will take place) and if possible help out in RJCO or RGCO concerts (but probably they won't need help... ):)
3.1 - Achieve double 2nd in qiuping again.
3.2 - Participate in more competitions
3.3 - Hopefully rope in more people to come for training
3.4 - Improve myself! Get to know more stuff.
4.1 - Embark on at least one BIG cip programme like taiwan or OIP this year.
4.2 - Start going for and enjoying INTERACT! and hopefully do my best in it.
4.3 - Become a more helpful, courteous and smiling person! (: Yay!
5.1 - Embark on TWO RE projects like the pro sec 4 this year!
5.2 - Work well for SMP. Learn research techniques and other stuff! do well for YSC!
5.3 - Get and SL project done up and make it good! Hopefully something like taiwan!
5.4 - Do well for RE congress.
6.1 - Continue playing the piano and play whatever I like! (:
6.2 - Continue improving snare! rolls! or doubles or whatever...
6.3 - Play the timp more often. Practice rolls and tuning!
6.4 - Try out drum set. Hmm...
7.1 - Make 3B and Go6P even better!
7.2 - Get some leadership positions and work hard for it! (whether it is in projects or CEC or the new students leaders thing...)
7.3 - Start training pull-ups and running unless I want to fail Napfa. HAIX.
Guess that's all for now. It's another rather long post. ><. haha. shall add on when i think of more new year resolutions. and you can be sure changchun post will be coming soon enough! (:
Patrick
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
woohoo.
it's been a rather uneventful past few days for me. Well, I guess they were normal days, but given that it was Christmas, it was a bit unusual. Hmm... Shall post on mom's birthday then.
Mom's birthday was on the 23rd of december! YAY! haha... Hmm.. it was quite a simple one for me (maybe cuz i didn't cook ><)... haha. anyway, it was a dinner prepared by Mike and Tam for the whole family. It took them hours to buy the food and cook it while I slacked off (oops! xD). Hmm. well, ok. so here comes the pictures...
The mushroom soup. Hmm. it was supposedly all pure and errr... real? mushrooms at first that were sort of blended... haha. but it's nice. yay.
Salmon with french fries with onion with tomato ++
Chicken! lol the thing i ate.
bread. lol.
mom, dad, tam, mike! woohoo!
mom, dad, me, mike.
the cake!
me, mike, mom, dad, tam. ok i look horrible. ><
mom and dad with the cake.
mom blowing the cake.
ok last pic. mom eating the cake. haha.
Hmm okok. that's all! (:
Patrick
Mom's birthday was on the 23rd of december! YAY! haha... Hmm.. it was quite a simple one for me (maybe cuz i didn't cook ><)... haha. anyway, it was a dinner prepared by Mike and Tam for the whole family. It took them hours to buy the food and cook it while I slacked off (oops! xD). Hmm. well, ok. so here comes the pictures...
The mushroom soup. Hmm. it was supposedly all pure and errr... real? mushrooms at first that were sort of blended... haha. but it's nice. yay.
Salmon with french fries with onion with tomato ++
Chicken! lol the thing i ate.
bread. lol.
mom, dad, tam, mike! woohoo!
mom, dad, me, mike.
the cake!
me, mike, mom, dad, tam. ok i look horrible. ><
mom and dad with the cake.
mom blowing the cake.
ok last pic. mom eating the cake. haha.
Hmm okok. that's all! (:
Patrick
Saturday, December 22, 2007
rico concert
Yay! I feel so pro today! I read 100 pages of hong lou meng! woohoo! (:
Hmm... not sure why.. but i'm still suffering from post-concert syndromes... still miss everything that we had for concert. maybe cuz i keep wondering whether we will have such opportunities ever again! haix.
Hmm uploaded the video that my bro took. haha. it's jia jia le, huan xin and first 2 movements of ji liu. And my bro mostly zoomed in on me... haha. hope u guys don't mind... enjoy the music!
oh and this is the 298th post!
ChangChun post shall be coming soon!
Hmm... not sure why.. but i'm still suffering from post-concert syndromes... still miss everything that we had for concert. maybe cuz i keep wondering whether we will have such opportunities ever again! haix.
Hmm uploaded the video that my bro took. haha. it's jia jia le, huan xin and first 2 movements of ji liu. And my bro mostly zoomed in on me... haha. hope u guys don't mind... enjoy the music!
oh and this is the 298th post!
ChangChun post shall be coming soon!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The end of 2007
hi people!
Didn't really want to post so quickly cuz I wanted the RICO concert reflections to be the top most post for a longer time... But well, since Kenneth is my really really really good friend, I shall be nice and do a small post of it...
Kenneth's b'dae was... nice!
But the day didn't start with kenneth's b'dae... it started with the finding of the xiao luo in rjco room... After some tracking down and calling, I realise finally that it had already been returned... mm so no problems there!
Well, so onto Kenneth's b'dae...
Presents we gave!: A pooh bear (grp present!), 2 keychains (1 from dennis and me, 1 from junsheng), a wrapped present (from edward), a card (from KC but since he's so nice he let everyone write on it too!)
Hmm... the birthday party was nice and simple... First up was Golden Compass... An average movie but since Kenneth treated us, I'm not complaining... (: And coincidentally, MR. NGOH (perc teacher) was sitting 1 row in front of me! haha... So after the movie, it was back to Kenneth's house where we played games from card games to polar bear... haha.. polar bear's really fun! Of course, dinner (pizzas~! yay!) and cakes were also served...
Well... that was the not-so-important part...
Kenneth Yong!:
Kenneth is a very very very very nice guy who's rather tall, but still not as tall as me! He's also very funny but at times irritating with his lame jokes (forks! RARH!)... haha... and of course! he's the loudspeaker of the GANG of 6 PROS... Anyway, to make it short and sweet, Kenneth's a nice guy who loves talking! Many thanks to you for being such a great friend, partnering me for so many projects even though I must have been a slacker for most of the work... It's been great having you in 3B class and even greater having you as a close friend! wishing you a really really cool 15th year ahead! Can't wait to be in school with you and the rest again! (:
Hm so that was Kenneth's b'dae party! Wishing you a great year ahead!
then, on tue, it was class party!
yup.. BBQ time!
Class party was ok. It was a rather good one in fact. We had lots of fun bbqing... We had lots of fun playing cards and of course we had fun playing the most in thing in 3B now, lame games! ><
Shu Kiat and Ben Yong! The AMAZING cooks who made delicious chicken wings and satays for all of us! YAY!
Eugene Gan, Barry, Junsheng, Kenneth Yong and Jerald Han in Shu Kiat's empty condo! haha. thanks to shu kiat for making such great arrangements for the class!
Erdong, Vincnt, Shu Jian, Jinghui and the imba Leonard bbqing!
delicious! (:
some really cool marshmallows! lol. looks more like rocks to me! ><
Junsheng, Kenneth, me and Jerald! haha. 4/6 of the Go6P grp! YAY! lol...
Eugene and Jinghui ready for a fight in the pool! haha..
random photo! haha. I FEEL TALL! (:
Final one! Group photo of everyone who turned up for BBQ! Yeah! Everyone looks great here! haha. had to put this one cuz it was the only one with Mrs. Low. She's been a good form teacher and although there were times in which we thought that we would be better off without her teaching us, we do realise in the end that there's always a person behind a bonded class, someone who causes a class to be so united like us and someone who really helped shaped our character, and Mrs. Low is this person. Mrs. Low, you've been a great teacher and a great mentor for all of us! 3B will never forget you! You'll always be remembered as the person who brought 3B'07 to where we are today! YEAH!
and so ends yet another year in RI! 3B'07 has been the most united class I've ever been in and this can be shown in all the activities we do, from interclass soccer to simple stuff like during classes or recess. We've shown the spirit and I firmly believe that 3B'07, though not as mugger as 3C, nor as sporty as most of the other sec3 classes, is the best class in the sec 3 cohort! i hope it will continue to be so in the year to come! Can't wait to see you guys in school! (:
all right, so after that it was.. FRIDAY! Hmm...
Friday was REGISTRATION DAY for RI so it was he first major thing for the new batch of PSLs. It was a rather good one too! We got loads of praises from parents to teachers and it was fun doing ushering at the gate with kenneth! haha. we experienced all kinds of parents, from those who didn't look at us when we were ushering them to those who even waved to us from their car! haha. but most of them were the latter so it was quite nice! then there was he talk with these two parents which was rather fun cuz it was a perfect opportunity for advertising CO and chess! haha... OOPS! anyway, a cat died along the road of the side gate. it was rather horrible and saddening... haix.
But anyway, PSL activities have been getting hectic and it's going to be an even more busy year next year with SL saikang jobs and vice-chair more saikang jobs. but i'm sure it will be rewarding just like this year. Sec 3 has been my best school year so far and this year has been one that's near perfect! Another recap of all the BIG events this year!
1. OBS
2. Math RA
3. 3B'07 with THE spirit! + Interclass soccer!
4. Go6P! yeah!
5. IBNexperience! Astar!
6. RE and the vip sharing sessions!
7. Taiwan Dwen-An Trip!~ yay~!
8. Results! 3.87!
9. Chess club and qiuping!
10. CHINESE ORCHESTRA and SPRING OF LIFE! <3!
11. OIP! CHangCHun~ the rocking team!
12. the beginning of a new journey in PSL!
yup. it's been a great and happening year! of course it's all down to the school, the teachers, my friends and of course my family who've given me so many wonderful opportunities to experience such a wide variety of stuff! I really hope that next year would be just as good, if not even more wonderful!
Patrick
Didn't really want to post so quickly cuz I wanted the RICO concert reflections to be the top most post for a longer time... But well, since Kenneth is my really really really good friend, I shall be nice and do a small post of it...
Kenneth's b'dae was... nice!
But the day didn't start with kenneth's b'dae... it started with the finding of the xiao luo in rjco room... After some tracking down and calling, I realise finally that it had already been returned... mm so no problems there!
Well, so onto Kenneth's b'dae...
Presents we gave!: A pooh bear (grp present!), 2 keychains (1 from dennis and me, 1 from junsheng), a wrapped present (from edward), a card (from KC but since he's so nice he let everyone write on it too!)
Hmm... the birthday party was nice and simple... First up was Golden Compass... An average movie but since Kenneth treated us, I'm not complaining... (: And coincidentally, MR. NGOH (perc teacher) was sitting 1 row in front of me! haha... So after the movie, it was back to Kenneth's house where we played games from card games to polar bear... haha.. polar bear's really fun! Of course, dinner (pizzas~! yay!) and cakes were also served...
Well... that was the not-so-important part...
Kenneth Yong!:
Kenneth is a very very very very nice guy who's rather tall, but still not as tall as me! He's also very funny but at times irritating with his lame jokes (forks! RARH!)... haha... and of course! he's the loudspeaker of the GANG of 6 PROS... Anyway, to make it short and sweet, Kenneth's a nice guy who loves talking! Many thanks to you for being such a great friend, partnering me for so many projects even though I must have been a slacker for most of the work... It's been great having you in 3B class and even greater having you as a close friend! wishing you a really really cool 15th year ahead! Can't wait to be in school with you and the rest again! (:
Hm so that was Kenneth's b'dae party! Wishing you a great year ahead!
then, on tue, it was class party!
yup.. BBQ time!
Class party was ok. It was a rather good one in fact. We had lots of fun bbqing... We had lots of fun playing cards and of course we had fun playing the most in thing in 3B now, lame games! ><
Shu Kiat and Ben Yong! The AMAZING cooks who made delicious chicken wings and satays for all of us! YAY!
Eugene Gan, Barry, Junsheng, Kenneth Yong and Jerald Han in Shu Kiat's empty condo! haha. thanks to shu kiat for making such great arrangements for the class!
Erdong, Vincnt, Shu Jian, Jinghui and the imba Leonard bbqing!
delicious! (:
some really cool marshmallows! lol. looks more like rocks to me! ><
Junsheng, Kenneth, me and Jerald! haha. 4/6 of the Go6P grp! YAY! lol...
Eugene and Jinghui ready for a fight in the pool! haha..
random photo! haha. I FEEL TALL! (:
Final one! Group photo of everyone who turned up for BBQ! Yeah! Everyone looks great here! haha. had to put this one cuz it was the only one with Mrs. Low. She's been a good form teacher and although there were times in which we thought that we would be better off without her teaching us, we do realise in the end that there's always a person behind a bonded class, someone who causes a class to be so united like us and someone who really helped shaped our character, and Mrs. Low is this person. Mrs. Low, you've been a great teacher and a great mentor for all of us! 3B will never forget you! You'll always be remembered as the person who brought 3B'07 to where we are today! YEAH!
and so ends yet another year in RI! 3B'07 has been the most united class I've ever been in and this can be shown in all the activities we do, from interclass soccer to simple stuff like during classes or recess. We've shown the spirit and I firmly believe that 3B'07, though not as mugger as 3C, nor as sporty as most of the other sec3 classes, is the best class in the sec 3 cohort! i hope it will continue to be so in the year to come! Can't wait to see you guys in school! (:
all right, so after that it was.. FRIDAY! Hmm...
Friday was REGISTRATION DAY for RI so it was he first major thing for the new batch of PSLs. It was a rather good one too! We got loads of praises from parents to teachers and it was fun doing ushering at the gate with kenneth! haha. we experienced all kinds of parents, from those who didn't look at us when we were ushering them to those who even waved to us from their car! haha. but most of them were the latter so it was quite nice! then there was he talk with these two parents which was rather fun cuz it was a perfect opportunity for advertising CO and chess! haha... OOPS! anyway, a cat died along the road of the side gate. it was rather horrible and saddening... haix.
But anyway, PSL activities have been getting hectic and it's going to be an even more busy year next year with SL saikang jobs and vice-chair more saikang jobs. but i'm sure it will be rewarding just like this year. Sec 3 has been my best school year so far and this year has been one that's near perfect! Another recap of all the BIG events this year!
1. OBS
2. Math RA
3. 3B'07 with THE spirit! + Interclass soccer!
4. Go6P! yeah!
5. IBNexperience! Astar!
6. RE and the vip sharing sessions!
7. Taiwan Dwen-An Trip!~ yay~!
8. Results! 3.87!
9. Chess club and qiuping!
10. CHINESE ORCHESTRA and SPRING OF LIFE! <3!
11. OIP! CHangCHun~ the rocking team!
12. the beginning of a new journey in PSL!
yup. it's been a great and happening year! of course it's all down to the school, the teachers, my friends and of course my family who've given me so many wonderful opportunities to experience such a wide variety of stuff! I really hope that next year would be just as good, if not even more wonderful!
Patrick
Saturday, December 15, 2007
RICO concert '07
YAY! oh my gosh! we've done it! After 4 months of hard work, 1 month of harder work and 1 day of hardest work, we've made it through. The rehearsals were great and fun, the concert was brilliant, and rico simply rocks. (:
This week has been a totally great week for me! Monday to Thursday was practice after practice but it was neither boring nor tiring. We played cards at any chance we got, we practiced our pieces and tried to perfect them... It was fun! We had fun crashing the cymbals, we had fun polishing the cymbals, we had fun playing lame games (火车火车... ><)... We had great fun seeing BL and WY suanning each other, we entertained ourselves with the 感怀 and the 3 random notes... We had fun suanning those taking the ACCA exams... (kweky:"临时抱佛脚是没用的...")... It was also great to have rico alumni back with us. Bing Liang, Boyi, Ackerley, Ziming, Zongjin, BenAng, Ming Quan, Jason... It was just wonderful. not to mention all those fun times we had eating dinner together, stepping on Jason's shoe, listening to Boyi and his motivational speeches... haha...
It has been a long time since I've been so committed to RICO. I would never have thought of going around with Eugene and Gilbert and go into all the shops in Bras Basah Complex, even some in fu lu shou, chinatown point and random shops to look for sponsors for our concert... I would never have thought that I would actually bother writing down an instrument list and doing stage plan... I would never have thought that I would take a piano part for the concert... But with the support of all these great CO friends, I achieved what I thought I would never have achieved. Renyan may not be here, but his email really got me started. Cytam may have been away, but his speeches to the entire orchestra has been great. And of course, Gilbert and Eugene and all the others...
It's been a totally great experience... the card games we played after practices with Ackerley, Gillian, Fiona, Esther and BL... The fun we had with the synthesizer and how erhu sounds so horrid on it... I'm really very thankful for all these... Somehow, i feel that now that CO has gone back to the original RICO, i will never ever be able to do all these again. How i wish that we were all in the same batch, in the same orchestra, playing music together every week... Hmm... I guess it's impossible. But for these few weeks and especially the last few days, practices and post-practices have been immensely fun. Who can forget the times when BL scolds WY for ending a roll on the timp late? Who can forget the laughs we all had when BL screwed up his solo or when i put a piece of tissue on the snare instead of a pack of tissue? all these will stay as precious memories of my days in RICO, just like how last year's concert did. How I wish we could do this all over again. How I wish concert was a little later and we were still having practices. How I wish I could still be going around looking for sponsors with Eugene and Gilbert.
Concert day itself was fantastic. Rehearsals were entertaining as we were entertained once again by 感怀 and the 3 famous notes that I'll never forget. matinee concert was ok as we did average. There were screw-ups here and there but we all did well. Lionel even said that the matinee concert was really good! the rest times were all used to take photos, talk cock or play cards. We took every single minute that we had and made it count. It was after all the last day that this unique orchestra made up of people from various orchestras would be performing together.
The evening concert was even better. We rocked the concert hall with all our pieces. for once, our 莱佛士铜像前的遐思 sounded really good. for once, percussion played with such enthusiasm and confidence that has been so lacking since thomas's batch left. for once, the entire orchestra really worked hard together for our late conductor. 青年进行曲 was great as percussion did really well and I'm sure all the other sections did too. I was so glad I didn't screw up my first two notes. The triplets, which were changed from the semiquavers during concert day rehearsal was also really well done by me and i'm sure that's the case for Janice too! (: Everything sounded great and we were on a good start! 家家乐 was also a great job by everyone and it sounded really good. The 木鱼 sounded great and so did the perc solo parts. 划船舞曲 was also good as we improved a lot from the matinee concert. Qi Hang did a great job on the tambourine! (: 欢欣 was great too. It sounded much more lively as compared to the matinee concert. I myself was impressed with our performance. The xylophone played by BL sounded great as usual and I thought my bongo was rather well done. A good job to Wen Qiang as well for his lead in this song. And 莱佛士铜像前的遐思 was really great. The crash cymbal played by Amelia was great and much better than the matinee concert when one of the crashes made a "pop" sound. BL's solo sounded great and so did Esther's. Wenyun did a great job on the timp solos and most of all Ziming and Kweky on the tambourine were fantastic. haha. I'm really impressed how Ziming manges to prac so many pieces that he's playing in only 3 practices of which none were extensive ones. Of course, I was happy with myself for being able to play the middle part correct for once. Although not really perfected, it sounded great. 心贤 was touching according to many cuz I wasn't performing so it must have been a great performance too! 小城故事 and 月亮代表我的心 sounded all right for a sec 1 piece and the singing added variety to our concert, as Ackerley mentioned. 感怀 was great as well! The 3 notes which always sounded awkward sounded all right! And of course the last piece, 激流, was the best. 问天 was great. Ziming and Wenyun were great at the starting parts with their continuous rolling. BL's solo was great. Kweky's vibe was also great! 征海 was fantastic and percussion, after the sectionals under BL, did wonderfully well. Janice and Ziming managed to play through without any major screw ups although this must only have been their first few times playing this song. On my part, I think I did well with the suspended cymbals. The crash went really well as well. Gillian's 木鱼 sounded really good too! Wenyun's timp was once again good and it really seems like BL made a right decision in setting such high standards for us during that sectionals. 游龙戏曲 was great too. No screw-ups anywhere by anyone. 传灯 was the best as we managed to evoke the emotions and almost made BL cry while playing the piece. Kweky's glock sounded really great. Janice and Ziming covered for each other's mistakes for the snare part and so it sounded all right. Wenyun's timp on the 2nd last bar was totally fantastic and we all ended it on a high note. And then, just as we thought that it was time to prepare for 家家乐 as our encore, Mr. Lim tells me to tell everyone that the encore shall be changed to 青年进行曲 while walking off stage after 激流. I was really surprised why he only told me then because I wasn't exactly prepared to shout it out to everyone to tell them what was the encore piece. But later I realized why he did it and was truly amazed by his brilliance. He knew that I had to go back to the percussion section and I was on the right side of the stage (the cello/bass side). So, while I was walking back, I told a few people (like only 1 person from each section), that the encore's changed to 青年进行曲. and such was the brilliance of Mr. Lim as we changed the piece immediately without much movement or disturbance to the going-ons of the concert. So we began the piece and that must have been the best piece I've ever played on stage. Even better than last year's matsuri. I really admire how Mr. Lim can turn an encore which was going to be so boring because it was a repeat of the first piece in to such a nice piece. It was like a totally different song. There was audience involvement. Clapping sounds sounded like roars through the concert hall... And what makes me admire Mr. Lim even more is his ability to stop and start audience involvement so brilliantly. Suddenly, as we entered part E of the song, which was the soft part of the march piece, the roaring sounds of the clapping suddenly stopped. Looking up, I saw Mr. Lim signalling the audience to keep quiet. Then, in part F, the audience started clapping loudly once again and I saw Mr. Lim conducting the audience. Woah. It was totally cool. Then, during the last part of the song when there was a rit. and a change in speed, he signals to the audience to stop once again. And at the 2nd last bar, which was supposed to just be a rest bar with no rit. or anything signalling the change of speed, he stops there and silence fills the air in the concert hall. We wait in suspense for a few more seconds before he finally conducts the last bar and we end on a really high note. It was a brilliant performance by the orchestra, but it was an even more fantastic one by Mr. Lim. No wonder he's such a famous conductor...
And so it was it. The concert ended, the audience's applause was simply deafening. There were shouts of "Patrick" and I really thank my classmates and my brother for supporting me so much. I've not done much for them. And at the end of the day, I think that all of us, from RICO, to RICO alumni, to the RGCO and RJCO people, all the way to the conductor, the teachers, the instructors, the audience... All of us have made this concert such a great success. In my opinion, no concert that I've ever gone for has been more meaningful than this one. We may not be as professional as SCO or CCO or 星海. We may not be the best musical group in RI, and nor do we have the most musically pro people in RICO. But there's a reason why RICO remains to be one of the best when it comes to concerts. RIGE was really fantastic with their concert and I must say their innovation that won them such a great concert. RIMB has a really great conductor and a bonded band, and it was this that made their concert a success. RISE and RV have really pro people in their CCAs and their conductors set really high standards for them and it is this that make their concerts a success. We may not have all this. But I guess it's once again the amount we commit to our concert, the believe in ourselves that we can make it a success and ultimately the sense of pride of this CCA which helped us to make last year's concert and this year's concert a success. Practices from 9am to 3pm were carried out. People stayed back after 3 to practice although it wasn't necessary and was actually against the rules because there were exams from 3-6 at RJC. People went for dinner together to increase our understanding of each other. People go around thick-skinned together to sell tickets and find sponsors. People spend their time and efforts making a video and concert booklet. I guess it's all these and many more which make us stand as one of the musical groups in RI. It is also this that makes us unique as compare to all the other chinese orchestras. I hope this tradition will continue. I hope that a few more Ackerleys, Boyis, Bing Liangs, Ming Quans come to RICO because it is the spirit that these people have that really make RICO successful.
Concert has ended. No more RICO alumni, no more RGCO or RJCO people to help us. It's really up to us now to get ourselves back to where we should be. I really hope that the percussion section of RICO will become the section that we had during this concert...
And so ends yet another chapter of my RICO life. It's my last year and it's coming to an end. I'm not sure whether I'll change my opinions later on, but for now, it seems like me missing out on RV auditions was a good choice. CO's been such a good experience for me, from sec 1 syf to sec 2 voices of the dragon concert all the way to the changing of conductors, the passing away of our former conductor and our most recent Spring of life concert. Not to mention all the small performances along the way we made in hospitals and the experiences I had with various seniors like Zi Ming, Bing Liang all the way to the not-so-likable Darren and Victor. I am thankful that all these have happened because it's really benefited me.
Lastly, I would like to thank this whole lot of people for making this concert such a great success:
Renyan:
You're indisputably the right chairman for rico and I can see how committed you are to this orchestra, giving your all even when you knew from such an early stage that you would never benefit from it.
Cytam:
Your leadership was a bright torch for the tanbo section and all the rest of us as you led the way especially towards the end of our journey.
Jeremy:
You may not be the best player around, but don't worry, cuz i'm not too! But you've shown your passion for this orchestra and together with the other 2 chairmans, you've led the way.
Ms. Lim and Mr. Chong:
It's hard to hold a concert esp. when it comes to SCH, where lots of money problems (esp. with 2 concerts) come in the way. It's been a hard time for you and i hope i haven't made your jobs harder.
Mr. Lim:
Your conducting has inspired me and I'm really thankful that I can be taught by 2 of the best conductors (in my opinion) in Singapore. You're nice but commanding at the same time and I admire you for your ability to think on the spot and execute it without hesitation.
Mr. Ngoh:
Once again, I'm really thankful to be taught by 2 of the best percussion teachers (in my opinion (once again)) in Singapore. Your jokes always makes mundane practices much more lively and I must say I've learnt loads from you.
Gilbert and Eugene:
Thank you for following me to get sponsors. Without you two, I would never have done it. We all went, thick-skinned, to ask for sponsors and exceeded expectations with the $1450 we made from sponsorship. It's not an easy task and I thank you all for that. All the travelling on MRT, calling of each other, eating at random coffee shops... It was really nice to be going around doing such random things with 2 nice friends! Of course, I would also like to thank all the sponsors for sponsoring our concert! (:
Bing Liang:
You've proved time and again that your passion for the orchestra is undying. You've helped us not once, but twice now and the high standards you placed upon us together with your own brilliant perc skills have benefited all of us. Thank you for all the time spent practicing with noobs like me and thank you for all the efforts you spent together with noob sectional leaders like me to create song lists, instrument lists, stage plans... Thank you for helping me with the moving of instruments and another big thank you for being so pro during the concert day itself. You've been a great addition to last year and this year's concert and you'll be dearly missed when you go for army! I really wonder whether you can make it for the august 31st concert next year... haha. but for now, good luck in the future and have fun in army! (:
Ackerley, Gillian, Fiona, Esther:
Thanks for all the fun you added into the mundane practices with all the card games we played. I hope this concert wasn't a waste of time for all of you. Many thanks to Fiona and Esther for being such nice seniors (don't worry, i don't mind shuffling poker cards! (:)... And to Gillian, you've been a great addition to the concert and you definitely look great playing perc instruments, whether it's the timp or the concert bass or the 木鱼。And you sleep very easily too! haha. First time I'm seeing someone who can sleep in such a noisy practice room. I hope you have had fun for the concert like I had, laughing at Wenyun and BL or Wenyun and Amelia for things I'm sure you'll know of... And finally to Ackerley, I've never known you too well but I've always been sure you're a nice person! You've been really nice to me whether it's during card games or during concert hours or even on the lorry back to RJC. Wishing all of you the best of luck in the future and I definitely hope that we can meet some time in the future again.
Zi Ming:
it's the first time i've played side by side with you and it's been a great experience. I've always heard from my seniors that you're pro and indeed you are! And not only are you pro, you're a very nice person too! Thank you for all the motivation you gave me! Without them, I would never have pulled off all my snare rolls. Wishing you all the best in the future too. Hope we can perform together some time again.
Janice:
Thanks for taking time off your busy schedule to come down and helps us out. I'm still unsure whether your job is to count fish, kill fish or to count people but whatever the case, thanks for doubling up all the snare parts. It took me 5 months to learn them and it took you 5 or even less practices. So you've done a great job! Thanks for covering all my screw-ups too. mm... hope to work with you again if possible for syf 2009!
Kweky:
Hmm... so much to say, haha... dunno where to start from. I guess I must say that you're one of the best percussionists i have seen so far, someone in the ranks of Ziming and Bing Liang... You manage to sight read vibe and glock scores that I would never be able to play even if I get the scores for a week. Together with Janice, I must say that you all make one of the best pairs of seniors as can be seen from your juniors whom I must say may be a little noisy at times but are really nice. Lastly, you play the piano and sing really well too! I was really sad that the piano wasn't beside the glock for chuan deng... Hope to work with you too for syf 2009!
Amelia:
You're one of the bravest girls I've seen so far! haha... You took up so many crash parts that even I, Thomas, Yin Kwan and many others fear to take up. Not to say the many people who wouldn't even dare to play a note on the crash. It's been a great time hearing you and wenyun talk crap at the table outside rjco room and an even greater time working with you on the many pieces that we played and of course the stage plan. Hope you have a good time being rgdaji sl!
Wenyun:
haha! you're the person who talks the most! you've brought much joy and laughter to the section during lunch, xiaozu and dazu! Not to mention how pro you are when you play the timp. I've only played the timp for syf 2007 set piece which was simple cuz there was no tuning required. You and Amelia make a really funny pair and adding Xue Ling into the picture makes it even more humorous. And who can forget the fun we all had when you argued with Bing Liang over random things like timp rolls or cymbal polishing. Be nice to your brother k? He's a nice person! Hmm... hope you have a great time in rgdaji too!
Xue Ling:
Hey! haha. For a sec 1 who's rather new to the co scene, you've done a great job for the concert for the few practices that you have had. But most of all, your laughter brings about much joy to the section and it seems like you're the best person to look for once we finish our meal! (: haha. enjoy chinese orchestra because it certainly rocks, especially when you're in perc and have seniors like Amelia and Wenyun!
BOYi:
haha. thanks for all the time you spent with me after practices to talk to me. It's been truly enjoyable. Although I'm still not convinced that I should take bio in jc, I'm quite sure I'll take more notice of composers in the future! You're really one of the nicest persons I've ever seen and one of the most motivational as well!
Kwuan Boon:
You must be the coolest senior I've ever seen! Your jokes are soooooo humorous and you yourself are so humorous! The dinner that we had with all the others was such a nice experience!
Jason:
You've been really fun to be with! haha. all the stepping of shoes from the CCO concert to rehearsals to concert day itself to you trying to act as me (although failing terribly xD) on the streets of rj... It was really enjoyable! You're a very nice person to be with and although 我们有仇, it's been a very fun past few weeks that we've spent together! I never feel bored when I'm with you! At least I can step on some shoes! YAY!
Yee Siang and Angus:
You're a cool and very nice pair! How I wish we could all be in the same section. Hmm... Thanks for all the jokes that we had together. Thanks to Yee Siang especially for chatting with me during boring dazu practices especially during gan huai. You're one of the pro-est people I've seen whether it's in singing, guzheng, erhu, japanese, korean, singing, ticket sales... Hope to get to know you even more next time!
Jun Sean and Shaun:
Thanks for helping me out with all the perc logistics work. It must have been hard on you guys cuz perc has so many instruments and is so confusing but you guys have done a fantastic job!
Qi Hang:
It must have been hard for you. joining COerhu from RISE, you suddenly find yourself stuck with the not-so-fantastic RICOperc section. I hope you've had an enjoyable time here and i must say you've done a brilliant job. In fact, your first rehearsal was the rehearsal on the concert day itself. You've exceeded the expectations of many and you've just become the quickest performer after joining RICO! Hope you carry on to enjoy this CCA and I apologise for all the problems I may have given you.
Bi Ran and Edmund:
You two certainly seem like a pair to me! You all always stay back after practices right till the security guard comes to lock the door and this has been the case ever since I worked with you two for the blazer problem last year and probably even earlier. Hope you all have a nice time in JC and I'll hope to work with you guys again for SYF 2009!
Cheng Hang, Chek Hoe, Li Wei, Zhao Lin, Yi Zuo:
You all had the most mundane of jobs as stage helpers and had the most unfortunate of events as you got your cards confiscated and had to suffer even more scolding after some stepping of flowers occurred... But I must say that you all have done a great job! Hope that you all will continue working hard for the orchestra!
Jie Min:
You're the most humorous concert master I've ever seen on stage and I always laugh when you stand up to tune the orchestra. You're talented in music, whether it is in erhu or gaohu or drum set... haha. and i'll never forget how you describe yourself!
All the others:
From HongBo, Yiheng, Sng Zheng, Shi Heng, to Zongjin, Ben Ang, Joewie, Chang Cheng and all the others that I have yet to mention, you all have made this concert a great success. I really want to thank the whole orchestra for the efforts that we have put in! Together, we've made this concert such a great one and together, we've made Mr. Yeo proud! I must say that we have all done a great job!
3B friends (Keng Chee, Eugene, Huiyao, KENNETH YONG, Junsheng, Dennis Chew), Dewei, Emma, Zhuoyang, Wanen, Xinyi, Qiu Rong:
THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT! haha. Special thanks especially goes out to the 3B team for their spirit that they have shown! I really thank you all for that! You all made the concert an even better one!
and most importantly...
DAD AND MOM AND MIKE:
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING DOWN! YAY! (: You all definitely made the concert a much more meaningful one!
And so it comes to an end. The Spring of Life. RICO concert '07. It rocked SCH on 14th dec 2007 and left us and many others with happy memories of our late conductor. I've really benefited lots from it and certainly had much fun practicing and performing. And I guess it all comes back once again. All good things come to an end but that doesn't mean that there aren't any more good things. There's much to look forward to and I'm sure that with more enthusiasm and commitment, we will be able to scale even greater heights in the times to come. But I'm more than certain that the Spring of Life '07 will always be one of the best memories of my CO life.
Patrick
Post-concert syndromes... ):
This week has been a totally great week for me! Monday to Thursday was practice after practice but it was neither boring nor tiring. We played cards at any chance we got, we practiced our pieces and tried to perfect them... It was fun! We had fun crashing the cymbals, we had fun polishing the cymbals, we had fun playing lame games (火车火车... ><)... We had great fun seeing BL and WY suanning each other, we entertained ourselves with the 感怀 and the 3 random notes... We had fun suanning those taking the ACCA exams... (kweky:"临时抱佛脚是没用的...")... It was also great to have rico alumni back with us. Bing Liang, Boyi, Ackerley, Ziming, Zongjin, BenAng, Ming Quan, Jason... It was just wonderful. not to mention all those fun times we had eating dinner together, stepping on Jason's shoe, listening to Boyi and his motivational speeches... haha...
It has been a long time since I've been so committed to RICO. I would never have thought of going around with Eugene and Gilbert and go into all the shops in Bras Basah Complex, even some in fu lu shou, chinatown point and random shops to look for sponsors for our concert... I would never have thought that I would actually bother writing down an instrument list and doing stage plan... I would never have thought that I would take a piano part for the concert... But with the support of all these great CO friends, I achieved what I thought I would never have achieved. Renyan may not be here, but his email really got me started. Cytam may have been away, but his speeches to the entire orchestra has been great. And of course, Gilbert and Eugene and all the others...
It's been a totally great experience... the card games we played after practices with Ackerley, Gillian, Fiona, Esther and BL... The fun we had with the synthesizer and how erhu sounds so horrid on it... I'm really very thankful for all these... Somehow, i feel that now that CO has gone back to the original RICO, i will never ever be able to do all these again. How i wish that we were all in the same batch, in the same orchestra, playing music together every week... Hmm... I guess it's impossible. But for these few weeks and especially the last few days, practices and post-practices have been immensely fun. Who can forget the times when BL scolds WY for ending a roll on the timp late? Who can forget the laughs we all had when BL screwed up his solo or when i put a piece of tissue on the snare instead of a pack of tissue? all these will stay as precious memories of my days in RICO, just like how last year's concert did. How I wish we could do this all over again. How I wish concert was a little later and we were still having practices. How I wish I could still be going around looking for sponsors with Eugene and Gilbert.
Concert day itself was fantastic. Rehearsals were entertaining as we were entertained once again by 感怀 and the 3 famous notes that I'll never forget. matinee concert was ok as we did average. There were screw-ups here and there but we all did well. Lionel even said that the matinee concert was really good! the rest times were all used to take photos, talk cock or play cards. We took every single minute that we had and made it count. It was after all the last day that this unique orchestra made up of people from various orchestras would be performing together.
The evening concert was even better. We rocked the concert hall with all our pieces. for once, our 莱佛士铜像前的遐思 sounded really good. for once, percussion played with such enthusiasm and confidence that has been so lacking since thomas's batch left. for once, the entire orchestra really worked hard together for our late conductor. 青年进行曲 was great as percussion did really well and I'm sure all the other sections did too. I was so glad I didn't screw up my first two notes. The triplets, which were changed from the semiquavers during concert day rehearsal was also really well done by me and i'm sure that's the case for Janice too! (: Everything sounded great and we were on a good start! 家家乐 was also a great job by everyone and it sounded really good. The 木鱼 sounded great and so did the perc solo parts. 划船舞曲 was also good as we improved a lot from the matinee concert. Qi Hang did a great job on the tambourine! (: 欢欣 was great too. It sounded much more lively as compared to the matinee concert. I myself was impressed with our performance. The xylophone played by BL sounded great as usual and I thought my bongo was rather well done. A good job to Wen Qiang as well for his lead in this song. And 莱佛士铜像前的遐思 was really great. The crash cymbal played by Amelia was great and much better than the matinee concert when one of the crashes made a "pop" sound. BL's solo sounded great and so did Esther's. Wenyun did a great job on the timp solos and most of all Ziming and Kweky on the tambourine were fantastic. haha. I'm really impressed how Ziming manges to prac so many pieces that he's playing in only 3 practices of which none were extensive ones. Of course, I was happy with myself for being able to play the middle part correct for once. Although not really perfected, it sounded great. 心贤 was touching according to many cuz I wasn't performing so it must have been a great performance too! 小城故事 and 月亮代表我的心 sounded all right for a sec 1 piece and the singing added variety to our concert, as Ackerley mentioned. 感怀 was great as well! The 3 notes which always sounded awkward sounded all right! And of course the last piece, 激流, was the best. 问天 was great. Ziming and Wenyun were great at the starting parts with their continuous rolling. BL's solo was great. Kweky's vibe was also great! 征海 was fantastic and percussion, after the sectionals under BL, did wonderfully well. Janice and Ziming managed to play through without any major screw ups although this must only have been their first few times playing this song. On my part, I think I did well with the suspended cymbals. The crash went really well as well. Gillian's 木鱼 sounded really good too! Wenyun's timp was once again good and it really seems like BL made a right decision in setting such high standards for us during that sectionals. 游龙戏曲 was great too. No screw-ups anywhere by anyone. 传灯 was the best as we managed to evoke the emotions and almost made BL cry while playing the piece. Kweky's glock sounded really great. Janice and Ziming covered for each other's mistakes for the snare part and so it sounded all right. Wenyun's timp on the 2nd last bar was totally fantastic and we all ended it on a high note. And then, just as we thought that it was time to prepare for 家家乐 as our encore, Mr. Lim tells me to tell everyone that the encore shall be changed to 青年进行曲 while walking off stage after 激流. I was really surprised why he only told me then because I wasn't exactly prepared to shout it out to everyone to tell them what was the encore piece. But later I realized why he did it and was truly amazed by his brilliance. He knew that I had to go back to the percussion section and I was on the right side of the stage (the cello/bass side). So, while I was walking back, I told a few people (like only 1 person from each section), that the encore's changed to 青年进行曲. and such was the brilliance of Mr. Lim as we changed the piece immediately without much movement or disturbance to the going-ons of the concert. So we began the piece and that must have been the best piece I've ever played on stage. Even better than last year's matsuri. I really admire how Mr. Lim can turn an encore which was going to be so boring because it was a repeat of the first piece in to such a nice piece. It was like a totally different song. There was audience involvement. Clapping sounds sounded like roars through the concert hall... And what makes me admire Mr. Lim even more is his ability to stop and start audience involvement so brilliantly. Suddenly, as we entered part E of the song, which was the soft part of the march piece, the roaring sounds of the clapping suddenly stopped. Looking up, I saw Mr. Lim signalling the audience to keep quiet. Then, in part F, the audience started clapping loudly once again and I saw Mr. Lim conducting the audience. Woah. It was totally cool. Then, during the last part of the song when there was a rit. and a change in speed, he signals to the audience to stop once again. And at the 2nd last bar, which was supposed to just be a rest bar with no rit. or anything signalling the change of speed, he stops there and silence fills the air in the concert hall. We wait in suspense for a few more seconds before he finally conducts the last bar and we end on a really high note. It was a brilliant performance by the orchestra, but it was an even more fantastic one by Mr. Lim. No wonder he's such a famous conductor...
And so it was it. The concert ended, the audience's applause was simply deafening. There were shouts of "Patrick" and I really thank my classmates and my brother for supporting me so much. I've not done much for them. And at the end of the day, I think that all of us, from RICO, to RICO alumni, to the RGCO and RJCO people, all the way to the conductor, the teachers, the instructors, the audience... All of us have made this concert such a great success. In my opinion, no concert that I've ever gone for has been more meaningful than this one. We may not be as professional as SCO or CCO or 星海. We may not be the best musical group in RI, and nor do we have the most musically pro people in RICO. But there's a reason why RICO remains to be one of the best when it comes to concerts. RIGE was really fantastic with their concert and I must say their innovation that won them such a great concert. RIMB has a really great conductor and a bonded band, and it was this that made their concert a success. RISE and RV have really pro people in their CCAs and their conductors set really high standards for them and it is this that make their concerts a success. We may not have all this. But I guess it's once again the amount we commit to our concert, the believe in ourselves that we can make it a success and ultimately the sense of pride of this CCA which helped us to make last year's concert and this year's concert a success. Practices from 9am to 3pm were carried out. People stayed back after 3 to practice although it wasn't necessary and was actually against the rules because there were exams from 3-6 at RJC. People went for dinner together to increase our understanding of each other. People go around thick-skinned together to sell tickets and find sponsors. People spend their time and efforts making a video and concert booklet. I guess it's all these and many more which make us stand as one of the musical groups in RI. It is also this that makes us unique as compare to all the other chinese orchestras. I hope this tradition will continue. I hope that a few more Ackerleys, Boyis, Bing Liangs, Ming Quans come to RICO because it is the spirit that these people have that really make RICO successful.
Concert has ended. No more RICO alumni, no more RGCO or RJCO people to help us. It's really up to us now to get ourselves back to where we should be. I really hope that the percussion section of RICO will become the section that we had during this concert...
And so ends yet another chapter of my RICO life. It's my last year and it's coming to an end. I'm not sure whether I'll change my opinions later on, but for now, it seems like me missing out on RV auditions was a good choice. CO's been such a good experience for me, from sec 1 syf to sec 2 voices of the dragon concert all the way to the changing of conductors, the passing away of our former conductor and our most recent Spring of life concert. Not to mention all the small performances along the way we made in hospitals and the experiences I had with various seniors like Zi Ming, Bing Liang all the way to the not-so-likable Darren and Victor. I am thankful that all these have happened because it's really benefited me.
Lastly, I would like to thank this whole lot of people for making this concert such a great success:
Renyan:
You're indisputably the right chairman for rico and I can see how committed you are to this orchestra, giving your all even when you knew from such an early stage that you would never benefit from it.
Cytam:
Your leadership was a bright torch for the tanbo section and all the rest of us as you led the way especially towards the end of our journey.
Jeremy:
You may not be the best player around, but don't worry, cuz i'm not too! But you've shown your passion for this orchestra and together with the other 2 chairmans, you've led the way.
Ms. Lim and Mr. Chong:
It's hard to hold a concert esp. when it comes to SCH, where lots of money problems (esp. with 2 concerts) come in the way. It's been a hard time for you and i hope i haven't made your jobs harder.
Mr. Lim:
Your conducting has inspired me and I'm really thankful that I can be taught by 2 of the best conductors (in my opinion) in Singapore. You're nice but commanding at the same time and I admire you for your ability to think on the spot and execute it without hesitation.
Mr. Ngoh:
Once again, I'm really thankful to be taught by 2 of the best percussion teachers (in my opinion (once again)) in Singapore. Your jokes always makes mundane practices much more lively and I must say I've learnt loads from you.
Gilbert and Eugene:
Thank you for following me to get sponsors. Without you two, I would never have done it. We all went, thick-skinned, to ask for sponsors and exceeded expectations with the $1450 we made from sponsorship. It's not an easy task and I thank you all for that. All the travelling on MRT, calling of each other, eating at random coffee shops... It was really nice to be going around doing such random things with 2 nice friends! Of course, I would also like to thank all the sponsors for sponsoring our concert! (:
Bing Liang:
You've proved time and again that your passion for the orchestra is undying. You've helped us not once, but twice now and the high standards you placed upon us together with your own brilliant perc skills have benefited all of us. Thank you for all the time spent practicing with noobs like me and thank you for all the efforts you spent together with noob sectional leaders like me to create song lists, instrument lists, stage plans... Thank you for helping me with the moving of instruments and another big thank you for being so pro during the concert day itself. You've been a great addition to last year and this year's concert and you'll be dearly missed when you go for army! I really wonder whether you can make it for the august 31st concert next year... haha. but for now, good luck in the future and have fun in army! (:
Ackerley, Gillian, Fiona, Esther:
Thanks for all the fun you added into the mundane practices with all the card games we played. I hope this concert wasn't a waste of time for all of you. Many thanks to Fiona and Esther for being such nice seniors (don't worry, i don't mind shuffling poker cards! (:)... And to Gillian, you've been a great addition to the concert and you definitely look great playing perc instruments, whether it's the timp or the concert bass or the 木鱼。And you sleep very easily too! haha. First time I'm seeing someone who can sleep in such a noisy practice room. I hope you have had fun for the concert like I had, laughing at Wenyun and BL or Wenyun and Amelia for things I'm sure you'll know of... And finally to Ackerley, I've never known you too well but I've always been sure you're a nice person! You've been really nice to me whether it's during card games or during concert hours or even on the lorry back to RJC. Wishing all of you the best of luck in the future and I definitely hope that we can meet some time in the future again.
Zi Ming:
it's the first time i've played side by side with you and it's been a great experience. I've always heard from my seniors that you're pro and indeed you are! And not only are you pro, you're a very nice person too! Thank you for all the motivation you gave me! Without them, I would never have pulled off all my snare rolls. Wishing you all the best in the future too. Hope we can perform together some time again.
Janice:
Thanks for taking time off your busy schedule to come down and helps us out. I'm still unsure whether your job is to count fish, kill fish or to count people but whatever the case, thanks for doubling up all the snare parts. It took me 5 months to learn them and it took you 5 or even less practices. So you've done a great job! Thanks for covering all my screw-ups too. mm... hope to work with you again if possible for syf 2009!
Kweky:
Hmm... so much to say, haha... dunno where to start from. I guess I must say that you're one of the best percussionists i have seen so far, someone in the ranks of Ziming and Bing Liang... You manage to sight read vibe and glock scores that I would never be able to play even if I get the scores for a week. Together with Janice, I must say that you all make one of the best pairs of seniors as can be seen from your juniors whom I must say may be a little noisy at times but are really nice. Lastly, you play the piano and sing really well too! I was really sad that the piano wasn't beside the glock for chuan deng... Hope to work with you too for syf 2009!
Amelia:
You're one of the bravest girls I've seen so far! haha... You took up so many crash parts that even I, Thomas, Yin Kwan and many others fear to take up. Not to say the many people who wouldn't even dare to play a note on the crash. It's been a great time hearing you and wenyun talk crap at the table outside rjco room and an even greater time working with you on the many pieces that we played and of course the stage plan. Hope you have a good time being rgdaji sl!
Wenyun:
haha! you're the person who talks the most! you've brought much joy and laughter to the section during lunch, xiaozu and dazu! Not to mention how pro you are when you play the timp. I've only played the timp for syf 2007 set piece which was simple cuz there was no tuning required. You and Amelia make a really funny pair and adding Xue Ling into the picture makes it even more humorous. And who can forget the fun we all had when you argued with Bing Liang over random things like timp rolls or cymbal polishing. Be nice to your brother k? He's a nice person! Hmm... hope you have a great time in rgdaji too!
Xue Ling:
Hey! haha. For a sec 1 who's rather new to the co scene, you've done a great job for the concert for the few practices that you have had. But most of all, your laughter brings about much joy to the section and it seems like you're the best person to look for once we finish our meal! (: haha. enjoy chinese orchestra because it certainly rocks, especially when you're in perc and have seniors like Amelia and Wenyun!
BOYi:
haha. thanks for all the time you spent with me after practices to talk to me. It's been truly enjoyable. Although I'm still not convinced that I should take bio in jc, I'm quite sure I'll take more notice of composers in the future! You're really one of the nicest persons I've ever seen and one of the most motivational as well!
Kwuan Boon:
You must be the coolest senior I've ever seen! Your jokes are soooooo humorous and you yourself are so humorous! The dinner that we had with all the others was such a nice experience!
Jason:
You've been really fun to be with! haha. all the stepping of shoes from the CCO concert to rehearsals to concert day itself to you trying to act as me (although failing terribly xD) on the streets of rj... It was really enjoyable! You're a very nice person to be with and although 我们有仇, it's been a very fun past few weeks that we've spent together! I never feel bored when I'm with you! At least I can step on some shoes! YAY!
Yee Siang and Angus:
You're a cool and very nice pair! How I wish we could all be in the same section. Hmm... Thanks for all the jokes that we had together. Thanks to Yee Siang especially for chatting with me during boring dazu practices especially during gan huai. You're one of the pro-est people I've seen whether it's in singing, guzheng, erhu, japanese, korean, singing, ticket sales... Hope to get to know you even more next time!
Jun Sean and Shaun:
Thanks for helping me out with all the perc logistics work. It must have been hard on you guys cuz perc has so many instruments and is so confusing but you guys have done a fantastic job!
Qi Hang:
It must have been hard for you. joining COerhu from RISE, you suddenly find yourself stuck with the not-so-fantastic RICOperc section. I hope you've had an enjoyable time here and i must say you've done a brilliant job. In fact, your first rehearsal was the rehearsal on the concert day itself. You've exceeded the expectations of many and you've just become the quickest performer after joining RICO! Hope you carry on to enjoy this CCA and I apologise for all the problems I may have given you.
Bi Ran and Edmund:
You two certainly seem like a pair to me! You all always stay back after practices right till the security guard comes to lock the door and this has been the case ever since I worked with you two for the blazer problem last year and probably even earlier. Hope you all have a nice time in JC and I'll hope to work with you guys again for SYF 2009!
Cheng Hang, Chek Hoe, Li Wei, Zhao Lin, Yi Zuo:
You all had the most mundane of jobs as stage helpers and had the most unfortunate of events as you got your cards confiscated and had to suffer even more scolding after some stepping of flowers occurred... But I must say that you all have done a great job! Hope that you all will continue working hard for the orchestra!
Jie Min:
You're the most humorous concert master I've ever seen on stage and I always laugh when you stand up to tune the orchestra. You're talented in music, whether it is in erhu or gaohu or drum set... haha. and i'll never forget how you describe yourself!
All the others:
From HongBo, Yiheng, Sng Zheng, Shi Heng, to Zongjin, Ben Ang, Joewie, Chang Cheng and all the others that I have yet to mention, you all have made this concert a great success. I really want to thank the whole orchestra for the efforts that we have put in! Together, we've made this concert such a great one and together, we've made Mr. Yeo proud! I must say that we have all done a great job!
3B friends (Keng Chee, Eugene, Huiyao, KENNETH YONG, Junsheng, Dennis Chew), Dewei, Emma, Zhuoyang, Wanen, Xinyi, Qiu Rong:
THANKS FOR THE SUPPORT! haha. Special thanks especially goes out to the 3B team for their spirit that they have shown! I really thank you all for that! You all made the concert an even better one!
and most importantly...
DAD AND MOM AND MIKE:
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING DOWN! YAY! (: You all definitely made the concert a much more meaningful one!
And so it comes to an end. The Spring of Life. RICO concert '07. It rocked SCH on 14th dec 2007 and left us and many others with happy memories of our late conductor. I've really benefited lots from it and certainly had much fun practicing and performing. And I guess it all comes back once again. All good things come to an end but that doesn't mean that there aren't any more good things. There's much to look forward to and I'm sure that with more enthusiasm and commitment, we will be able to scale even greater heights in the times to come. But I'm more than certain that the Spring of Life '07 will always be one of the best memories of my CO life.
Patrick
Post-concert syndromes... ):
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
inspired.
Dear all,
Some of you might be hearing this for the first time - others have known since July. I thought I'd just clear this up once and for all, so that you all don't get all confused and deflated later on.
After so many months of work, the long anticipated concert is about to come to fruition. This is on all accounts our last expression of gratitude to a lost teacher. I am sure all of us appreciate this primary goal fully - let's make this a success for him. This final week of rushed preparations and practices... I haven't seen us work this hard for quite some time.
This much we have achieved. Currently, our efforts seem to have paid off somewhat - latest report from Yee Siang indicates 62% of evening tickets sold - this is a mere 8% away from our goal of 70%! Of course for matinee it's a much more modest 17% - but if we all just ask every single person we know, right now... this should go up by at least 10%. Sponsorship is finally looking positive - a list of potential sponsors has been generated, and people are calling all sorts of companies up. Newspapers and radio stations have been contacted for additional publicity. The concert booklet is about to be final drafted and printed. Logistical arrangements are being settled as we speak. And there's self practice tomorrow, which you must attend, of course. And dazu on saturday, and monday, and tuesday, and wednesday.
We are not a dead orchestra.
And for all that I'd like to thank every single one of you - however small or large a role you have played. Your efforts will not be wasted. You have contributed in all your different ways, and I am extremely thankful for all that. However the school perceives us - we know that we have something good going here. It's this kind of spirit that makes great orchestras. Don't let it die.
And yet, through this all, there have been countless difficulties, as there are always. The concert committee and exco haven't been as smooth-running, efficient, meticulous, detailed, prepared, nor effective as we would have hoped to be. There have been disappointments, conflicts, misunderstandings, complaints.. . every step of the way. Sometimes it seemed as if everything was against us having this concert. Then we recall who we're doing this for, and who we're doing this with. Mr Yeo and RICO. And all that strength and vigour comes back. As discouraged and disillusioned as you may have become with us all, we assure you that we have learnt from every experience thrown at us, and to the best of our abilities corrected the errors that we have inadvertently committed. For all the mistakes that we have made, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves. And we hope that you'll understand how foreign organising a concert is to us, as it is to you. We know our mistakes may have inconvenienced you greatly. We will hold this concert as a more mature and wiser exco and orchestra.
So here it is. I'm leaving tomorrow (the 5th) for New Zealand, and I won't be back until the 19th. I'm missing the concert. As I said, some of you have known this since July. For the rest of you, this might make you jump in your seats and go into shock or loss. Let me assure you that all relevant parties - the teachers, the instructors, the conductor, my section, the exco - have been duly informed, and have already taken steps to ensure that my absence means nothing. I haven't told all of you this - and I know it'll definitely not be any form of boost to your morale.
And at this point I'd like to take a paragraph of this super protracted letter to elaborate. I'll be frank - I cannot begin to describe how guilty I feel. Yes, I've thought through this whole thing over and over again, and I'm full of regret, though I didn't really have a choice. I didn't really choose to leave. Call it what you like - leaving, abandoning, departing, disappearing, ponning, slacking, retiring, shirking, gone... I'll say this once and for all. I have never felt good that I'm leaving. I'll try to have a good holiday, but I don't think the first 10 days will be nice at all. It'll be full of worrying.
And I'm sad.
And for all that I'd like to offer all of you my sincerest apologies.
Whether you guys see it or not - we may seem not to care, but we really really do. This orchestra is (for lack of a better word) owned by every single one of us. We cannot escape that. This orchestra is ours. We are responsible. We sow the seeds, toil endlessly, and reap the benefits.
We are RICO.
In my prolonged absence, the exco (with the exception of Chun Yin until the 11th) will continue to function, as will all SLs and concert committees. I have taken pains to ensure that everything runs as per normal without myself, and I believe I'm leaving the helm of this orchestra to a very dedicated and capable set of leaders. With effect from tomorrow evening, Jeremy is interim chairman, and from the 11th, Chun Yin will take over. Once again I'd like to emphasize that I have full confidence in both of them, and I hope that you will give them your cooperation and faith, as you have by and large given me.
Lastly... I'll be there on the 14th in a different way. Somehow. You'll see. :P
Best of luck for the concert, and see you all soon. I'll miss you all, and I eagerly await news of the concert.
For the last time in a seemingly long time, thank you. Thank you all.
Yours always,
Ren Yan
Some of you might be hearing this for the first time - others have known since July. I thought I'd just clear this up once and for all, so that you all don't get all confused and deflated later on.
After so many months of work, the long anticipated concert is about to come to fruition. This is on all accounts our last expression of gratitude to a lost teacher. I am sure all of us appreciate this primary goal fully - let's make this a success for him. This final week of rushed preparations and practices... I haven't seen us work this hard for quite some time.
This much we have achieved. Currently, our efforts seem to have paid off somewhat - latest report from Yee Siang indicates 62% of evening tickets sold - this is a mere 8% away from our goal of 70%! Of course for matinee it's a much more modest 17% - but if we all just ask every single person we know, right now... this should go up by at least 10%. Sponsorship is finally looking positive - a list of potential sponsors has been generated, and people are calling all sorts of companies up. Newspapers and radio stations have been contacted for additional publicity. The concert booklet is about to be final drafted and printed. Logistical arrangements are being settled as we speak. And there's self practice tomorrow, which you must attend, of course. And dazu on saturday, and monday, and tuesday, and wednesday.
We are not a dead orchestra.
And for all that I'd like to thank every single one of you - however small or large a role you have played. Your efforts will not be wasted. You have contributed in all your different ways, and I am extremely thankful for all that. However the school perceives us - we know that we have something good going here. It's this kind of spirit that makes great orchestras. Don't let it die.
And yet, through this all, there have been countless difficulties, as there are always. The concert committee and exco haven't been as smooth-running, efficient, meticulous, detailed, prepared, nor effective as we would have hoped to be. There have been disappointments, conflicts, misunderstandings, complaints.. . every step of the way. Sometimes it seemed as if everything was against us having this concert. Then we recall who we're doing this for, and who we're doing this with. Mr Yeo and RICO. And all that strength and vigour comes back. As discouraged and disillusioned as you may have become with us all, we assure you that we have learnt from every experience thrown at us, and to the best of our abilities corrected the errors that we have inadvertently committed. For all the mistakes that we have made, we cannot blame anyone but ourselves. And we hope that you'll understand how foreign organising a concert is to us, as it is to you. We know our mistakes may have inconvenienced you greatly. We will hold this concert as a more mature and wiser exco and orchestra.
So here it is. I'm leaving tomorrow (the 5th) for New Zealand, and I won't be back until the 19th. I'm missing the concert. As I said, some of you have known this since July. For the rest of you, this might make you jump in your seats and go into shock or loss. Let me assure you that all relevant parties - the teachers, the instructors, the conductor, my section, the exco - have been duly informed, and have already taken steps to ensure that my absence means nothing. I haven't told all of you this - and I know it'll definitely not be any form of boost to your morale.
And at this point I'd like to take a paragraph of this super protracted letter to elaborate. I'll be frank - I cannot begin to describe how guilty I feel. Yes, I've thought through this whole thing over and over again, and I'm full of regret, though I didn't really have a choice. I didn't really choose to leave. Call it what you like - leaving, abandoning, departing, disappearing, ponning, slacking, retiring, shirking, gone... I'll say this once and for all. I have never felt good that I'm leaving. I'll try to have a good holiday, but I don't think the first 10 days will be nice at all. It'll be full of worrying.
And I'm sad.
And for all that I'd like to offer all of you my sincerest apologies.
Whether you guys see it or not - we may seem not to care, but we really really do. This orchestra is (for lack of a better word) owned by every single one of us. We cannot escape that. This orchestra is ours. We are responsible. We sow the seeds, toil endlessly, and reap the benefits.
We are RICO.
In my prolonged absence, the exco (with the exception of Chun Yin until the 11th) will continue to function, as will all SLs and concert committees. I have taken pains to ensure that everything runs as per normal without myself, and I believe I'm leaving the helm of this orchestra to a very dedicated and capable set of leaders. With effect from tomorrow evening, Jeremy is interim chairman, and from the 11th, Chun Yin will take over. Once again I'd like to emphasize that I have full confidence in both of them, and I hope that you will give them your cooperation and faith, as you have by and large given me.
Lastly... I'll be there on the 14th in a different way. Somehow. You'll see. :P
Best of luck for the concert, and see you all soon. I'll miss you all, and I eagerly await news of the concert.
For the last time in a seemingly long time, thank you. Thank you all.
Yours always,
Ren Yan
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