CNY

Day 1
My family ate a vegetarian dish cooked by my father for breakfast. It's a cantonese tradition to cook this vegetarian dish on the first day of the new year. I then went to the temple to pray. Later on, we visited my babysitter who took care of me when I was young. Although she is almost 80 years old, she is still fit and healthy. Later in the night, we went to my aunt's place at Katong for dinner. We had steamboat for dinner and it was really delicious. We then played blackjack for about 2 hours. I bet $1 per round and won about four to five dollars.

Day 2
We visited my granduncle, also at Katong. We visit him on the 2nd day of CNY every year, CNY visiting has almost become a routine for us.
Later on, we went to my aunt's place at Jurong for lunch. We had steamboat again. Steamboat's a popular way of having a meal during CNY cause its easy to prepare without much cooking. It's just dumping in the food and letting it boil.
After that, my cousins and relatives came to my house. My cousins played computer games while the others eat and drink.
In the night, we went to my 1st aunt's place at Yishun. We also played blackjack and I won four bucks~ :D

Day 3
I woke up feeling really tired. The past 2 days had really been exhausting and I slept at almost 2am for both days. I almost never get a chance to get 3 straight days of fun. Thus, I decided to go out again to enjoy the last day of the CNY holiday.
I went out with the TRP gang from NJ, not all turned up though. Nevertheless, we had much fun. I took a train from AMK all the way to Choa Chu Kang to meet up with them. One of them lives in a condo in CCK, and we went to his place. His whole house was air-conditioned and it was literally cool, haha. We played mahjong and had lunch there. The mee siam and popiah his family prepared was really nice, it's difficult to eat home-cooked food nowadays.
Later on, we took a bus to Bukit Timah and visited another friend. He also lives in a condo and the condo area was really huge. There was a swimming pool, gym, tennis court and snooker/pool and mahjong room. My friend's brother was really enthusiastic about us visiting his house. He kept talking to us and told us about the I Not Stupid Too movie. Quite a friendly guy. We played pool for an hour and had to leave as some of them had a class dinner.
I slept throughout the bus journey, this time I was really exhausted. I still have homework to do and had to scrape through to complete them.


It has been a really fun Chinese New Year holiday. I don't think we'll ever get such a long period of break again. School resumes tomorrow and it really dampens the CNY mood I have, haha...

Post X-Country Get-together

These photos were taken after our cross-country at MacRitchie (click on image to view larger version):

J1 Maths tutor with the class


Physics and Civics tutor with the class (her car in the background)


Chemistry tutor with the class (his car in the background)


Mystery couple of S6A - admiring the reservoir


Mystery couple of S6A - admiring more beautiful scenery


05S6A :D



Have a great Chinese New Year everyone! :) I'm very tired after all the visitings today, I'll post more pictures and happenings during my Chinese New Year tomorrow.
Gong Xi Fa Cai!

X-Country cum CNY Celebrations

NYJC held its CNY celebrations in conjunction with its annual cross country at MacRitchie reservoir today. I finished the run in about 22mins. I'm quite happy with the timing as I started the race walking because my friends didn't want to run. When we reached the forest, I then started running and broke away from my friends. It was really cooling inside the canopy area. I managed to come in top 50 but was not given the "top 50" collar pin as I did not register as a competitive runner. Blerh. The last time I ran at MacRitchie was 2 years ago during my Sec 4 cross-country.

Later on I went for lunch with my friends at Thomson Plaza. The prices at the food court there was expensive, kind of expected it as the Thomson area has lots of landed property. I think even the supermarket there price their items slightly higher than at areas like Hougang and Serangoon.

Chinese New Year is finally coming and it's so exciting! :D I'll get to eat lots of nice food, play cards and of course collect Hong Bao!!

Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone! :D

A new CCA

I've finally taken up an internal CCA after I was phased out from SYFC. Initially, I wanted to join the Free-Style martial arts CCA, but I somehow changed my mind so quickly and decided to join Science Society. It was not a bad idea after all as I did not have to learn things from scratch as I did not know anything about free-style martial arts. We had a shooting water bottle challenge. Each group of 2 had to build a water bottle rocket and the one which can stay in the air the longest would win. Air pressure was built up inside the water bottle and it would shoot up into the air once released. My group's rocket did quite well as it shot up quite high. But my classmate's rocket shot up higher and even got stuck on the shelter extending over the spectator stand.

However, no CCA in the college can beat SYFC in terms of thrill, physical and mental challenge and of course, the skill learnt. I'm still disappointed of not getting into the license phase due to A Levels. I keep imagining the excitment of receiving your pilot license together with the A level results. The feeling and satisfaction is uncomparable.

It's fortunate that I'm able to join a CCA even though I'm already in J2. I hope to gain valuable experience through discussions and organisation of various school events.

CIP Day

I cannot believe that I spent the entire day today doing CIP. It started off at about 9am, my class gathered at the void deck under a HDB flat at Toa Payoh. We did newspaper and clothes collection. The money from the sales of the stuffs go to the College Pocket Money Fund. I wonder whats the criteria for eligibility, the college did not even explain it to us.
Anyway, inititally, my group did not manage to get anything. But after about 10 units or so, we finally managed to get a huge pile of newspapers and clothing. The 2-storey mansionate houses at Toa Payoh is beautiful too, the residents really know how to do interior designing.
It was really good arm and leg training, as I had to carry quite a huge load and walk from point to point. We finished the collection from about 10 blocks of flats at around 1pm. My teachers bought us drinks and snacks, very good of them. I was all sweaty and tired by then. We had to wait 4 hours for the collection truck to come. Meanwhile, a few of us played with a plush powerpuff girl toy a resident disposed of. We threw it around and even played soccer with it. By about 5.10pm, the truck finally came and we spent about 10 minutes loading the newspapers and clothes.
Fortunately for me, after everything, my teacher gave one of my classmates and I a lift home as we live around the same area. I got home in about 15mins. It was time quite well spent today, as we did meaningful community work and had fun at the same time. :D

1st Solo

After 17.7h of dual flying with my instructor, I was finally cleared for my first solo flight. I am very happy as I finally completed the basic flying course. Even though I cannot progress on to the Private Pilot License phase due to A Levels, I still feel that I've achieved and gained a lot from the flying course.

My instructor and I took off at 5pm, and went for a few circuits to get myself warmed up for the solo flight. I made a about 5 good landings, which I'm very happy about. At about 5.45pm, we landed and parked at the parking bay near the control tower. My instructor got off the plane, and it was all about me. I made the radio call to Seletar ground and received clearance for taxi to runway. The takeoff was smooth. During the flight, the plane felt very light as there was only one person onboard. My approach was smooth and nice, the plane touched down smoothly. I had a huge sigh of relieve. The feeling was just great, it felt like I've just won a race or something.

I then parked the plane at the parking bay to let my instructor board the plane. He shook my hands to congratulate me for completing my first solo. Back at the Ops room, I met my primary instructor and he congratulated me too! :D SYFC had a ritual which was to pour water over students who completed their first solo. I was not to be spared too. The PPL students filled up a bucket of water and put soil and flowers in it! The next thing I knew, I was all wet and muddy. It's an experience I'll never forget.

I'll post some pictures once I receive them from my friend who took them. :D

Weekends!

Yep, the weekends are here again! This week has been a dull one, with no exciting happenings. I fell sick yesterday and had to miss lessons. I had "gastroentitis" as described by the doctor as gastric flu. It's probably due to the food I ate the day before. I queued up for 2 hours before being able to see the doctor. Later on, I tried to finish some tutorials but was too tired to do so. I slept for about 4 to 5 hours in the afternoon.

There was PE lessons this morning, but it was really a pity that I had to miss it as I still had slight fever. I really want to train for my napfa test, especially 2.4 and standing broad jump. I clocked 10.46 in my previous 2.4 run, which is way below my target of 9.30. Falling ill has really high opportunity costs - missing valuable lessons, having to miss PE and of course, suffering during the period of being ill.

An incident happened to me during physics practical lessons today. My friend passed me some sweets and I ate one. When the teacher caught me eating, she pointed it out to the class, in a way I find somewhat sarcastic. I thought such stuffs only happen in top-ranked schools where there are normally student-teacher politics, and the teachers find every opportunity to dig at a student. My physics teacher has been very caring and kind to us, so I was somewhat surprised at her actions. But no offense taken by me though.

I stayed back after school to complete some tutorials and went for a movie screening in the school LT. They screened 50 First Dates. Even though I've watched it 3 times already, it did not fail to make me laugh.

I am so looking forward to Chinese New Year. But I just detest the college holding cross-country on that day. Where is the planning by the teachers and principal? I overheard a conversation between my teacher and classmate that they planned it wrongly but could not change the date as the logistics were already organised and delivered. Talking about the college developing leadership skills among students. Duh! I was hoping to see how a college rich in Chinese culture would celebrate Chinese New Year, perhaps a cross-country event? *Speechless* I am planning to return to my Sec Sch on that Friday too, but looks like I can't.

That's pretty much my day...

Extremely tiring day

I ran 10 rounds during PE, clocking 19mins 46secs. I consider it satisfactory as I've not run for about a week already. The last time I ran a clocked 10 round circuit was last yr during PE in NJC, and I clocked 20mins 20secs or so. I've improved only that little bit. :( For the rest of the day, I was exhausted. I couldn't really concentrate much during lessons. I had a flight later that afternoon, and I knew the fatigue would affect me.
My lessons ended at 1.15pm and I had to reach SYFC by 1.40pm. Thus, had to spend $8 on taxi again. I really did badly for today's flight. By the third or forth circuit, I couldn't concentrate at all, my mind was drained. I made several errors such as letting the plane drift, and being inconsistent on my final approach to land. The instructor said I must work much harder for the next couple of flights if I want to go for my first solo flight.
The 4KM run made me physically exhausted, and the flight drained me mentally and morally... that leaves me with nothing, haha.

Rainy Days

It has been raining non-stop for the pass 2 days. On Sunday, it rained from about early 5am until the night. Thus, my flight training on that day was cancelled again. My flights have been cancelled 3 times consecutively due to weather. :( Flying depends everything on weather. Even commercial airliners would be forced to delay takeoff if the weather is bad.

Today's probably the longest day in the timetable. It is also the most exhausting and mind-draining day. I had a 2-hour long tutorial period to begin the day. It was then followed by 3 hours of lectures, and then 2 hours of tutorial again. Fortunately, I managed to endure it. Phew~! I'm so happy that tomorrow's a holiday, finally can get to rest again. It's really a rarity to get rest days in JC. I must treasure every minute of resting time I get.

I'm scheduled for flight on Wednesday afternoon. I'll have to spend $7 to take a taxi from school to SYFC again. Hopefully it doesn't rain, and I can regard the $7 as lesson fees, haha.

Have a good holiday tomorrow guys! :)

Very busy week

The opening week of the school term has been a very busy one for me. I get back home at almost 5pm everyday, and it looks set to be this way for the rest of the year. Only at home will I get time to relax, listen to music and play computer games. NYJC has changed its principal. The previous principal Mrs Ho gave me an impression of a kind and caring person, who puts students' welfare above everything else. The new male principal, Mr Kwek, is a goal-orientated person who puts the college reputation above everything. It is like how the government of Singapore makes the people suffer with long working hours and little power to affect major decisions, to create a "world-class Singapore". The principal has set a target of 100% university entry, a target which even top JCs has not reached yet. It'll be great enough if NYJC enters the top 5 rankings.

I've been having slow progress in my SYFC training. It's partly due to the fact that I know I'll not be able to progress to the PPL stage, and also because the new timetable has 3 out of 5 days ending at almost 4:30pm. Thus, my flight bookings have been greatly reduced, affecting my speed of progress. I was scheduled for flight on Wednesday. I rushed down to SYFC after school in a taxi, the trip cost me $8... Upon reaching, it started to rain, and the flight was cancelled. I was so unlucky! I missed the school assembly period and wasted $8 for the taxi fare. :(

The first week of school has already worn me down, I'm exhausted. My classes end at 1.15pm tomorrow, fortunately! I'll definitely take the time to relax and rejuvenate myself.

Happy New Year!

It's Y2k6 already. Soon, I'll be starting my JC2 phase in education, and then it'll be a venture out into society. It's really exciting to think about it, wondering how you'd live your life in the future, what your job would be, how you'd finally meet up with the girl you love, and how your family would be like. =)

Yesterday night, I went to the countdown party held at the Bradell Heights community club in Serangoon. The crowd was much larger than I expected. The guest-of-honours were the Marine Parade MP, and Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong. I went there at about 11.30pm, and missed the SM's speech. I also missed out on the Project Superstar winner WeiLian's performance... How sad, darn. My brother and I found a place in the crowd, and stood there for almost 20 minutes waiting for the clock to strike 12. 20 seconds before 2006, the countdown began. The VIPs were on stage with confetti launchers in their hands. Everyone went wild when it was finally "Happy New Year 2006!!!" A minute later, there was a short 2 or 3 minute fireworks display. It's the first time a fireworks display is held in the Serangoon area. It's probably to entertain SM Goh.:S After the fireworks, my brother and I left as the performance later on was sucky. We went to McDonalds nearby to have a drink and then went home. It's not really as exciting as it would be at Mt Faber or Sentosa, but it was still fun. :)

I'm also surprised to receive only 2 new year greeting SMS's, as compared to 10 SMS's I received during Christmas, haha. Probably many people bust their SMS limit after sending many Christmas greeting SMSes.

Anyway, HAPPY NEW YEAR! May you have a great year ahead! :)