The simpler life...

(HEAVY RECOUNTING + RANTING + FOREIGN NAMES ALERT!)

After school on friday i went down to the city to relax a bit. haven't done tt since the holidays so thought it was fair time to do so. started off at ps, and just walked and walked and walked down until forum... my, was tt nice, just being able to stroll around without any sort of worries or rush. pure indulgence... but my was it bad for my wallet.

think i spent 10+ dollars just on snacks alone during that time. takoyaki, pretzels, anderson's ice cream, japanese satay, ice cream waffle, curry puff... so bad for health too...

then it so happened that i was in a shopping mood tt day. everything seemed so tempting and if i had brought more money i could have made myself more broke then i already am (no more class fund this time round...) wanted to buy the garfield dvd with all the extra stuff (well, i wanted to buy tt some time already but the temptation have never been so great), taufik and kelly clarkson's cd, plushies galore and so, so many more... in the end bought ryan cabrera's cd and a garfield mousepad... also just saw the ipod shuffle... my it's so small! but i'm still holding out to see if can get an ipod mini...

my, i'm so incoherent today. think it's the aftereffects of abandonning my blog for that few days. feels so weird now. read through the earlier part and it feels like someone else has written that. oh well..

so in the spirit of incohesiveness i fast forward to today... just now. suddenly chatted with some p sch friends and i feels so weird catching up. it's like i've forgotten so many of the things tt'd happened and is trying to pull back those memories now. reminds me tt i've lost contact with most of them. glad to know tt we still remember each other til now. now tt i think bout it i have met quite a few of them recently. chun kiat at tj (nice talking to him the past few times), hui xuan too (though we still haven't even exchanged greetings yet =( ) cai yun tt day on the bus during e1 outing (too bad she was with her bf so didn't want to interrupt her and couldn't chat), xiu hua and shiying whom i missed the opportunity to say hi, kelvin yeo on the mrt... and now got to chat with 5 others... nice ^^ brings back those fuzzy memories of p sch. those days were fun... and yan shuang says she's thinking of organising a mini-gathering or sort of thing... cool

(so enough ranting for today. if i continue with this kind of entries i'm gonna alienate my readers or get frustrated at my own entreis and stop blogging entirely whatever comes first. but nvm, at least i'm updating now ^^

(i think leaving this entry blank might bring across my point more effectively ;P... but well, just for the sake of trying to get acclimatised to blogging again)

JC life is one hell of a hectic life imo. i'm still surviving, but now i've been using almost all my free time slacking away just lazing around or surfing the web. nothing much interesting going on. and now tt i've not blogged for so long it feels so weird to do so again.

originally came here to lament bout long days and how scary a possible timetable change might have turned out [5.15 on every day! X(] but well, don't see much point in that now. it's not sth that i want to remember say a year down the road or sth anyway and it's definitely not very thought provoking and beckons to be explored. i digress...

so far jc life really making me treasure those simple things in life... oh well, i'm going one big round and back to a point i made an entry or two before (now tt i think bout it, did i? hmm...) i'm out of ideas for now, so sorry to dear blog readers but unless i find it soon (go write motivational blogs if u write urself ^^) u'd either have to bear with these rather pointless entries or no entries at all... now to prove my point =P...

I almost lashed out at my mom just now =(. she was in one of her ultra-naggy moods today and been nagging me to go to sleep since 10 and i got really irritated by that... hate myself for this. how can i not my family... but i especially hate it when people point out things which i don't see much wrong in and pester me all the time to do what they think is correct... grr...

i guess it's just the aftereffects of the official timetable being out. wasn't prepared at all so was pretty grumpy for the day. hope i've not offended anyone in the process... just one of those days where i get worked up over trivial things. almost lost my temper against bout two acquaintances in sch... bah...

at least i'm feeling much better after school after deciding to pon it club to have some time to reflect myself and douse my 'sorrows' in tutorials (how ironic lol). at least i'm safe from blowing up for now. tml will be better!

(might want to elaborate next time if i feel like it. quite a lot of details i left out here... but i've left too many things to do now what with the past few entries. i can do without another placeholder...)

starting to really enjoy the lectures these few days...

fmaths i just simply so fun haha. kinda like the essence of why i enjoy maths so much. esp when the questions is one of those where have to use those unconventional methods which we won't normally think of. oh, the satisfaction of solving them. only prob is the amount of paper i waste. it seems that i will crush one piece of paper due to carelessness or plain don't-know-how-to-do for every piece i complete. first writing pad almost finished in like around 2 weeks. scary... still, i like it ^^

and yeah, on the lectures... i really like the two fmaths lecturers i've had. there's mr ngoh, who imo gets the point across very well... don't really know how to describe his teaching style but i understand and feel very comfortable in his lectures... then there's mr ng. with all due respect i don't think he gets the point across as well as mr ng but he's just as good imo. it's obvious that his maths is really strong from the way he try to show us some short-cuts we can take for certain questions (i just love that haha... no more having to show every single step like in sec sch. and we're even encourage to skip steps... "as fmaths students u should do this question in less than 3 steps" he says lol... nice ^^) and is he funny, joking around frequently...
learning has never been so fun for such a long time =)

physics lecture are pretty nice too. things are clearly pointed out and learning new things is fun haha... and physics is pretty much like maths =P.
chem is kinda disappointing though. so far the lectures have been covering on what had already been thought (or maybe it's just cos mr won gave us extra info last time) and the lecturers... don't really like them =(... they ain't tt bad (at least they're not picky and grumpy etc) but lessons ain't too fun... oh well

well, my point is that i'm starting to enjoy life in tj now. i'd definitely hate to leave after 3 months... think i'd definitely miss maths lectures... will miss lt 2 (the fmaths lecture room haha) and my favourite seat there... will miss the canteen, the food and my favourite seat there as well (haha... so many fave seats now)... then what i'd miss most would probably be the time spent with lymon and aaron in the canteen either eating, doing tutorials or just plain talking crap. ash and lik's more with their og now so it's been the 3 of us together most of the time during our free periods... only 2-3 weeks but being in their company have been a truly good time.

i can't deny i'm starting to waver a bit. most probably cos the past few days have been early without tutorials or ccas so i'm not feeling the pinch of travelling. but until i can solve the travelling (very slim chance though) i know i definitely should not stay cos once the tutorials, cca and exams/tests come along i'd struggle big time. perhaps i'd try out different routes in the next few days. unless a miracle happen though i'd still probably stick by my decision...

and just had swimming for pe today. really bo liao, going to the pool, having to pay 50 cents then swim 50 metres and we're done. but at least there's no need to run haha ^^... and it'd be swimming for pe for the term so i'd not need to run until after 3 months. yay! but wow, seeing some of the swimmers marked as 'expert'. so impressed with their stroke. competitive-style breaststroke just seemed so natural to them (can't believe i feel so tired swimming it after seeing it). oh well, guess this pe lesson today was just a way to mask 'swimming trials' lol.

A few things i wanna blog bout happened in the last few days but i haven't got down to typing cos i'm either stumped by the choice of words i shoudl use to describe them or just plain lazy (probably the latter though).... and i think i might just blog bout more recent stuff later or tomorrow so just wanna reserve this place for when i feel like blogging bout them....

to staunch fans of my blog here who refresh every now and then to see if i've updated (yeah, like these people exist haha), sorry for teasing you with this 'new entry'... man, i'm starting to get really lame... oh well

(seems like whenever i think i'm not gonna update frequently i come back the next day and write sth... wrote sth yesterday but looked like something happened and it's lost so i'd try touch a bit on what i wrote then)

WEDNESDAY

went for CO practice after sch, and my, was i shocked and a li'l disappointed. when i was about to graduate from p sch xu lao shi, my yangqin instructress then had painted an image of CO in secondary school and beyond being much less intense than what i'd went through and easier cope, so i went in with a prima-donna mindset in a way...

lo and behold tjco turned out to be (according to the instructor) the second best co in singapore after the singapore chinese orchestra society or sth like that... scary. he talked bout syf and general co expectations but still it was going a li'l alright. after that training started and i was stumped...

i was rusty, yes, but it was more than tt. it turned out that the songs played were very tough, comparable to the songs i used to play or of an even higher standard, but that's not it. they featured the changing of keys midway through the songs, something i've never experienced. and all three songs were in different keys (at least at the start before the changings)...

i got too used to g major during p sch and though i picked up a li'l c and d major it was too li'l too late and i'd definitely have to work doubly hard if i want to make it to the team. then later realised that one of the members turned out to be the best yangqin player in the nation age-group wise (according to my understanding of the instructor's chim chinese which i hardly understood at all) and the other two were pretty good as well...

i was definitely in no standard to compete with them now... and i wonder bout the others who signed up but didn't come. so there i was thinking of whether i should commit myself and go for it but then all of i sudden i got a familiar yet strange feeling... like i just remembered something i've forgotten for a very long time... i realised that the feeling was that of how i felt when i fell out with yangqin nearing the end of p sch. the feeling that i might no longer like it any more because my priorities are not set right...

in the end decided co was definitely not for me, at least not tjco. ok, so done with wednesday now...

THURSDAY (TODAY)

after sch today went back to zhss... met up with old friends, talked for a bit and it was pretty fun. would liked to have talked to some teachers, but oh well. don't feel like elaborating on it too much...

and i've finally come to a decision: i'd be going to aj after 3 months, results permitting... have been thinking bout it for a long while... distance was the biggest factor in the end. i can withstand it now, but i don't think i can last come nearing the end of the year with tutorials piling up, cca commitments, preparation for promos and my own life to attend to with 3h of travelling every day... i'm afraid i'd be unable to cope, unable to withstand tt pressure and collapse if i stay

there are the things i'd be leaving behind though... i've grown a to like tjc quite a fair bit. the sch compound's pretty nice. i like the lts and the lectures so far. i've known quite some pple in my cg and og, while not a lot but at least i know their names and they know mine with the ice broken a li'l. the freedom they give us (at least for now). the sch system i'm starting to grow used to...

i think i'd miss those things if i do go to aj. i have a feeling the lessons won't be as gd, i might struggle to fit in initially with most pple there already acclimatised to it and the no handphone rule is *bleh*... the environment's old and many more gripes and stuff... but in the end, i decided that the difference in travelling was just too much... i will just have to enjoy myself to the fullest during my remaining time at tj and try my best to enjoy myself at aj if things turn out like that. no point sulking and all...

also been thinking bout cca... feel the pearls system is kinda biased... but oh well. after what happened at co i thought cca might be one of the plus points in aj but turns out the situation's as bad, at least for me. i can't seem to find something i really want to join. my horrible stamina and inwillingness to train too hard strikes most sports out of the least. lack of experience leaves only a few left, and i don't seem to have a passion for those left to pick them up. for performing arts i only have co, which turned out like that. and aj co is under the same instructor as tj co, so...

moreover i'm not wiling to commit too much (i think it's just my fault lah. how can someone expect things if he's not wiling to work hard)... but it's not tt i want to get an 'a' or 'b' for it or sth. i'd readily settle for a 'c' grade for my cca and i don't mind contributing in a way too. i'd try to be proactive in entering maths and science related competitions. i don't mind being a treasurer for either class or cca. but i'd struggle big time in achievement and representation if i'm joining a club which will most likely be the case. in tj i might wanna commit and join the science council with the researches which should earn me some points but now that i think i might go aj i think i'm stuck with it club and maybe publishing... and scrabble don't look too likely with no inter-college competitions scheduled and i don't think individual competitions will count...

enough of rants for now. dear blog readers, i'm sorry for boring u here just lamenting about my own problems which you'd probably not be concerned bout. i just need an avenue to get things off my chest a bit... still have some stuff to recount here and there but don't really feel like typing anymore so that's all from me

[PLACEHOLDER... JUST A REMINDER FOR MYSELF TO BLOG ON SUCCESS EITHER AS A CONTINUATION OR ON A NEW ENTRY...]

only been less than a week but seemed like so many things had happened in the past few days, though nothing particularly blog-worthy hence my lack of updates. i think i'm not gonna blog so much nowadays... have been just retelling the things that had happened to me for the past few entries and i'm not a fan of that, at least not when i do it myself as i don't have an interesting life to talk bout and neither do i have the humour to pull things off even with a boring life.

am starting to settle into tj now, and will definitely enjoy myself at least for the slack week until tutorials start. still thinking a lot bout aj vs tj but yet to make a final decision. wanna make one soon though so i can set out my priorities more clearly for the first three months.

and on priorities, turned out a lot of mine have changed since a few months ago. ash pointed sth out to me earlier in the morning and i have to admit i'm not doing what i originally set out to do now. as much as i wanna stay in contact with zhss people now i can't improve my social skills unless i mingle with more strangers aka new friends in my cg more often, can i? guess i have to devote some time to them, but i'm promising myself here that i'd never sacrifice the bonds we've built over the past year(s). we have been jokingly calling lik khian and ash 'traitors' but well...

was about to lament bout my boring life but then again it life had been truly wonderful the past month (now how many times have i said that?) so i'd count my blessings. i don't mind having nothing to do everyday (or too much, in the case of last week) if this warm, fuzzy feeling can last forever.

the orientation really makes u appreciate the small things in life... now i get so happy when i have time to nap, am glad to eat mom's home cooked food at home for dinner and so many other things... i think i'm sounding more like garfield every day... eat and sleep's all i seem think of nowadays.

don't feel like blogging for the past few days so i thought i should be filling in on them today. initially wanted to just use stuff from msn chat/sms-es where i detailed bout what happened then but am too lazy to even do some simple editing.

so, oh well... i thought mon and tues were horrible, but at least it got a li'l better. on wed had wet games which was pretty fun. got to know pple in the og a li'l better, and our group suddenly became really enthusiastic all of a sudden then, running around the sch singing sch song and even doing a strip tease at one station.

thurs the lectures started. free seating, so it was so nice to be with zhss pple most of the time. and there were so many free periods where i caught up with much needed sleep. the official timetable does not start until the week after so i'm definitely gonna enjoy the next week with a whole lot of free periods. at night was og outing and later we had mass dance at suntec around the fountain of wealth. kinda cool, though short (we only did 3 songs) and i'm starting to enjoy the dance sesssions ^^. after that provided moral (and financial?) support for a gd friend... got home really late cos of that, but tt's alrite. Go for it, eh?

fri was another day of free periods lol. fmaths was kinda scary as the lecturers went through what we should expect from the subject but i think i'd still take it anyway. lessons ended at 12, and the orientation night only starts at 6, so we had lots of time off. had a long, long sleep and felt so good. things went on, and orientation night was pretty fun. stayed back for an hour after the official ending time to dance but went at 11. prolly couldn't catch the bus at woodlands anymore so i took the cab, and it only took 20 minutes! to think i spend 1.5h travelling everyday. but it was 17 dollars! scary...

starting to get the hang of things now. still miss zhss and those days, but well, at least i'm not suffering so much now. and also kinda starting to like the atmosphere there at tj. would love to stay there after results release (if i can) but there's the prob with travelling. i'm thinking a lot bout this now. aj or tj... but until then i hope i'd enjoy my time there. haven't had very good reviews of aj too... think i'd postpone the thinking to later.

hmm... have some mixed feelings bout today. woke up in kind of a daze today morning as if u'd only just lied down on ur bed a moement ago so felt incredibly sleepy and to a certain extent, grumpy (i'm pretty susceptible to the early morning blues). slept almost the whole trip on the bus there and when i got into the auditorium it looked like almost everyone is feeling the same.

a talk on college ethos and expectations later which i didn't really agree with the DM but well, i was dozing off halfway through his talk anyway.

soon the activities started started and we had the over-used amazing race. thankfully by then i was out of the funk and started to get a li'l into the orientation. first thing was charades, but we had to get passer-bys to stop and guess what we're doing. i did singapore idol which was easy (i did the careless whisper move) but failed in my 3 attempts to stop a passer-by. needed help from classmates later to get a passer-by to stop. i'm just too shy at these times

then we tried to squeeze some extra points out of the station and the sc manning it said to perform or sth on the platform for others. so i juggled and we did that for the rest of the day at every station we went to and earned points... haha... kinda funny

the next few stops were pretty 'un-blog-worthy' so i'd just skip past them. after that was og time and we had to plan for a performance on og night. after some discussions and as usual mine of doing something simple like singing simple songs the group settled on a skit 'portraying stereotype students'. in the end i had to act in the 'sportsmen' group. wonder how it'd turn out tml in the auditions. i think some of the more enthusiastic people might have been irritated by my attitude then, but well, that's me, always trying to find the easiest way out and get over and done with things

finally it was a long, long mass dance session. i still feel like i've two right feet (i'm left footed =p) but was kinda glad when i managed to catch up with the music even though i still make so many mistakes and prolly look so awkward and stiff. but kinda fun to a certain extent until it got pretty tiring... dancing's tough!

day's over, and had dinner with lymon and aaron. we'd prolly have lots of dinners together for the next 3 months. overall i felt the day was much, much better than yesterday (to which both of them concurred as well) but today i think i thought way too much as usual at times when there's nothing to do, making me a li'l moody sometimes. at least i'm feeling much better now.

not exactly looking forward to tml cos it's wet games but still, i'd try to have fun again. i've prolly shook off what i was thinking so should be more relaxed to have a gd time. after all, there's not many orientation activities lined up after tml so i'd look forward to that ^^

First day kinda turned out pretty much as expected, and i just felt incredibly weird and disorientated throughout the whole day. something just didn't feel right, and it didn't help that my closer friends were all separated. at least i'm relieved that there was moses, pek sia and karen in the same og...

somehow i never felt like this before... many people have told me of the tough transition from primary school to secondary school but thankfully i never suffered from it. maybe that was cos there were things that happened near the end of p6 that i wanted to put behind so i didn't mind starting over new among total strangers in an unfamiliar territory. then other people talked bout struggling from sec 2 to sec 3 but again it felt alright, and again that might be because i was looking forward to leaving the horrible class atmosphere and there were many familiar faces.

this time it's different though... after how everything had turned out, i'm more than contented to continue the way things are. satisfied with my present (now past though) condition. there was little if any incentive to move forward, but we just had to. as much as i wanna improve myself as a person, i don't want to change the essence of who i am and sometimes i get afraid just that might happen.

as i told some of my friends there, things change, priorities change and impressions change.

but i'd end on a brighter note. i'm thinking a lot now (as i almost always do too much) but i think i'd get it sorted out eventually. so until then i'd have to try my best to enjoy myself at the orientation. no point being all moody and failing to move on. after all, it's part of life and i just have to take it as it is.

as much as i thought today's activities were ho-hum and the plans for the week leaves much to be desired i'd try my best to have fun. the OLs are generally (sorry to offend them, but...) but one was pretty humourous. and classmates look intesting even though i might find it tough settling in initially.

regardless of how things turn out i'd be there for 3 months so no point wasting them. i'm gonna try learning the dance as lead-footed as i am, i'm gonna try take part in most of the activities as long as they're not overboard and i'm gonna try learn more bout new friends. but all that while trying to keep contact with old ones...

not particularly looking forward to tomorrow, but since i have to go through it anyway let's get over and done with it. i'm looking forward to when lessons start and hopefully things will go a li'l better from then on. and one thing i like bout jc life is the extra freedom given. i've always believed that there is no need for strict rules as long as everybody is responsible enough to know when not to do certain things... well, that may be just a false impression, but no point speculating so much...

# posted by Kelvin @ 9:45 PM 0 comments

Soon, i'm gonna be sleeping and when i wake up, it'd be the start of something new... jc... wonder how it'd be. no more walking purposefully to the classrooms in the first day of school (cos i had to finish up my homework =p). that must feel weird lol

actually i'm not really looking forward to it... i don't really like changes in my life. trying to look at it optimistically but still i'm kinda cautious. just hope things turn well... will see if tml can change my perception

orientation... i've never had gd memories of them. maybe i'm too cynical or maybe i dunno how to have fun (boring ol' me haha) but somehow the activities carried out during orientations seem to range from downright silly to barely-ok imo. i just don't really like doing stupid stuff and making a fool of ourselves. nor am too into some overly-dramatic stuff some committees plan. but hope i'd have fun nonetheless...

may all go well ^^

[read my entry but it didn't seem to make much sense and as usual doesn't seem like what i'm really thinking... but well, i've done my best ^^]

today a close friend of mine asked me if i wished things could have happened earlier and whether if i had a chance i would have acted earlier... sure, it might have been nice if things did develop earlier when there were more chances but i staunchly said no... yet another one of my many beliefs again, i suppose

it's kinda cliche, but i believe in the present... a lot of times i allow myself to be dragged into speculating bout the possibilities of different outcomes but it's thanks to this belief i've been able to shake that tendency off. things don't change no matter how much u regret it and regardless of how high the possibilities of the 'if's happening were...

i believe that for every 'if ', there's an 'if ' that could happen as well. things happen because... they happen. since they're already past, i should be contended with them cos things could have been so much worse. i've never really trusted probabilities before, cos even if the chances of something happening is 0.000000001% it still does happen. even though you have that 99.9999999% not to be in the position you're in now sometimes, eventually that event will have to happen to someone.

fate has been pretty kind to me so far and i've been on the end of some pretty gd outcomes. so i don't wanna take my chance and jeopardise everything i've been given. so my new year's resolution for this year shall be to treasure everything i have and do my best to make sure that i do not miss too many opportunities to pursue my dreams. the last few days i felt like i've slowly taken steps towards bliss so may it continue into this year. and to all reading this, happy new year!

# posted by Kelvin @ 11:05 PM 0 comments