First week of formal lesson

JC life has taken quite a toll on my overall energy use.

Simply put, I'm just tired due to lack of sleep and after 3 months of non-study time... Still, JC is fun during all the free periods and travelling to different venues for classes. For once, I'm really feeling the weird vibes of studying that I've never had before. For once I'm being psycho-ed into studying and am beginning to enjoy it.


Take for instance, the Economics teacher was the centre of the joke, but it has got nothing to do with her profession, by the way. "Kari-parfsssssssss" is how she pronounces "curry puffs" when talking fast, and apparently it stirred up an laughing uproar among ourselves in 1S02. Ticklish to Hui Juan, I guess, from the way she was both laughing whenever someone said it, and begging us not to mention about it...

Still... that was only the first day. The subsequent days are becoming more crazy as we got to know each other better day by day - we have Tricia putting the lecture notes and study materials at the bench for orderly distribution and collecting the costs for the rest of the class, which earned her the right to being the class treasurer and the reputation of being "Bookshop Auntie Tricia." In short, everyone had something funny to say about each other and I, unfortunately, got my own reputation as being the lamest fella in 09-1S02.

Things are getting more fun in JC, but the responsibilities are getting heavier, definitely. With more freedom comes more responsibility, so I'll just have to strike a balance between having fun and doing what the important stuff requires of me then...

Geek lifestyle

Right... this is what I've been up to these few days. After the games orientation ended, we started all proper lectures and study times as stated on the timetable that we were allocated today. We should've expected this long before we came into a JC anyway - school hours in JC are lasting as long as forever, and today the day ended at 5.30pm, and this was just one of the earliest days listed on the timetable.

In any case we started the ball rolling today with Bio lesson in the lab, in which I was feeling quite tense due to the sheer small size of our class - only 7 of us taking Biology in 1S02. Perfect, now I stand a higher chance of getting sabo-ed to do stuff for the teacher during Bio lessons. For some reason or another, Yong Cheng sabo-ed himself by picking a random card, and whoever the card belongs to will be the Bio rep, and it just happened to be his. Tough luck buddy!

Right after an early release by kind Mr Chen from Bio lesson, Reymond and I got changed and went to the canteen to meet up with the rest of the Bio girls, when Hui Juan handed me a dud phone, asking me for my number. "Eh, didn't you send that Valentine's Day well-wish message to me just last Saturday?" I was getting suspicious already until she lied that she got a new phone, and I fell for it. "Eh! No screen!" and she started laughing already.

Right... So I learnt that I am gullible to stuff like that, huh.

Anyways to sum things up due to lack of blogging time, we had PE, and was made to run 3 rounds around the stadium before taking height and weight. Chem lecture was heaven because there was air-con right after resting our hot and sweaty bodies. After that was lunchtime and we made fun of Tricia as the bookshop auntie because she took charge of the money and materials collection. After that was GP and Economics. During Economics tutorial I couldn't understand the part of macroeconomics and microeconomics that differentiated each other, and the teacher was blabbering away crap about curry-puff and Old Chang Kee. I just hope I can survive her tutorials, I guess...

And oh, Derek lost his Maths notes and homework, so I guess he's in for some tough shit tomorrow during Maths, both tutorial and lecture. Still, I'll lend a hand somehow, yea?

Many days of coffee from now on...

SRJC is great, despite its high cut-off point. For one, the people are friendly and warm, especially my civics group. And I mean WARM, literally. After only one week of gathering as a class, we have Linus giving flowers for all the 6 girls for Valentine's Day, Mustaqim cracking jokes that shook the floor, Raymond being misinterpreted as a gay, and the forming of a ''bisexual club'', which only served as comic relief and never really bisexual, and many other stuff going on.

Interesting shit's always going on in JC life, that's what I learned during my first two weeks down here, and the cheering during the games orientation was powerful, literally causing me to make another trip to the clinic today, due to sore throat and dry cough. No more cheering competitions for me!

Again, the people down here are really nice - I received 2 Valentine's Day SMSes yesterday from my new classmates already!

Still, JC is going to be difficult and arduous, I know it. For one, just look at the timetable they gave us. Days end at around 6-plus in the evening, and that excludes extra CCA time. Coffee everyday again to get more hours without falling asleep, I guess.

SRJC Days 6 and 7

To sum it up - tiring.

For one, on Monday I got up at 5am to get ready to school, and the activities of the Amazing Race item the OGLs put up for us were energy-sapping for people who don't really travel on foot much. It was high time for us to burn up some Chinese New Year fat, eh?

To start it off, we found out which classes we were to report in, based on our subject combinations that we were posted into. There, we quickly started getting to know each other's names, and to be honest, I'm still having some trouble getting to know some of their names for now. But, with a class of 19 people, it shouldn't be too hard - half the size of my secondary school, for crying out loud!

Bonding was fast and furious - we got to know each other, our secondary school backgrounds, activities, and the thing that made mingling with each other much easier was through the activities that we did together as a class during these two days, no doubt. In short, there was a common topic that all of us could talk about, make fun out of, and bond as a class.

Of course there'd be more college stuff and mumbo-jumbo coming soon, but I can't predict the future, that's for sure...

SRJC Day 5

To sum it up, there wasn't anything eventful after Thursday, except for the 7am bus ride to school on bus 81. Usually I would wake up at 5am, get out of the house at 5.30, and get onboard the bus by 6, and from there it would take like 45 minutes to reach school. But there was a hard lesson learnt - never take the 7am bus. You'd find yourself struggling to get to school along with the others squeezing each other in the tightly packed bus in the peak hours of morning.

When school started, everyone went around to attend the intro lectures, and because I was taking neither Physics nor Geography, I had one hour to spare before the Chemistry lecture. Hung around at the library, trying to login to the Tampines JC Online Appeal website to check for results, then I headed to LT5, and it was also there that I met Min San and his friends who were also chilling out at the cafe outside LT5. Friendly fellas are always nice to be around with, and these guys definitely fall into that category, no doubt.

Disaster struck at the Chemistry lecture. The lecturer was talking for half an hour, while the rest of us either struggled to keep up, or are completely lost, ie 'catch no ball'.

"Eh what is the lecturer saying ah?"
"Why need to find out the order of the rate law ah?"
"Don't understand this leh - why lai dat?"

That was how bad the lecture went for most of us, but at least the lecturer could have some consolation over the "enthusiasm" that we had over the subject from the questioning that was going on about the topic on the rate equations.

Other than that, school consisted of pretty much nothing else except for the showcasing of the Performing Arts groups in anticipation of the CCA recruitment that would be going on next Thursday. After school I received news that my appeal for TPJC failed and since I had long given up hope of going into Meridian JC, it was high time for buying uniform sets. Shame really, I brought only enough money to buy one set of uniform and PE attire for now, so I gotta get more during the next uniform sale day.

Then it was the moment everything expected. The release of the subject combination results. I got into the 4H2 course - Biology, Chemistry, Economics and Mathematics. If I had gone to TPJC they wouldn't have allowed me to take such an ambitious course - with an L1R5 of 15, TPJC would've shunned me away from this chance because their prerequisite was a minimum score of 12, so in a way I thank God for putting me in SRJC.

That being said though, the news that I was now to stick to SRJC came as a "duh!" thing to me way beforehand already - I just felt the peace of God in my heart where I was supposed to be naturally disappointed over not being able to go into a well-recognised JC.

Yes indeed, that inner peace was what I still cannot understand yet, and probably never will.

SRJC Orientation - Day 3 and 4

Missed out one day of blogging, so here goes.

Day 3: Orientation today consisted of handing in the verification slips for the subject combinations, as well as an early release for breaktime, so there were we, OG D6 being the first group to be released to break at 8.30am, whereas everyone else went out at 9am. After breaktime, everyone was to go back to the hall for the college dance. Before that, we received a tip-off that we were to dance with a partner of the opposite gender, and I got quite a rude shock as well as rumbling guts - I never danced with girls before! What if I did the wrong step and made the other fella fall? What if I didn't dance as well as my partner? What if...

Hell, everyone was dancing, so after the dance I found that my fears were uncalled for - everyone was at least making minor mistakes during the dance, and everyone was freshmen. Freshmen who didn't know shit about dance as well as professional-looking dancer freshmen, still freshmen. Heck, I had a hard time getting over myself before I could set myself dancing at ease. Still, Jane was quite a sport and we danced for the first round before switching partners with other people. Danced with Renee, and halfway through the dance with her I actually stepped over her bag without knowing it, which explained her sudden change in expression during the dance. Nasty feeling came all over - I felt helpless and embarrassed. But then again there wasn't enough bag room for everyone at the side of the hall, so her bag just happened to be put near the dancing area, and in doing so this thing happened, so...

Well, I'm just glad it's over and done with - no more embarrassment for me today.

Day 4 - today. Introductory lectures throughout the day, starting from the morning till afternoon. Had General Paper(GP) lecture, and we were all made to write an argumentative essay as a diagnostic test on our grammatical abilities. After GP was Economics, which the lecturer, Mr Tan, spoke really loud over the mike. The only relief for the Economics lecture was that his lectures contained a bit of jokes here and there to spice it up, unlike the Maths lecture we had, during which everyone was already doing the fundamentals of some short-cut methods of solving partial fractions in the first introductory lecture. Looks like college life's gonna be full of tough shit from now on - but then again, whoever said that life would be a bed of roses?

After being dismissed, we were told to stay back for an OG lunch but what the heck, everyone went about their own businesses so I decided to leave too, because later on we were told that our OG Leaders couldn't make it for the lunch. Having a tough day at college meant that everyone was sapped dry of their energy use and thus naturally, everyone called the OG lunch off and postponed it to tomorrow. Yawn...

SRJC Orientation - Day 2

So, how was it for the second day? Things are getting a little bit warmer, but still - the air-conditioning is probably malfunctioning because it's way too cold for me to take it today. Hey, take a morning shower in the midst of cold dawn air, get blown in the face on your journey to the bus interchange and sit on a seat with blasting air-con at your head in the bus. Right now I've got a mild blast of flu thanks to maximum exposure to air-con. Lesson learnt - appreciate the sun whenever you have it!

Things are getting warmer not because of the air-con, but mainly because of what's going on among my OG. Finally, I overcame my own insecurity barrier - I stood out and started mingling with the seniors, as well as the boys in my OG, where previously yesterday I was sitting there at the corner "stoning" and nobody was actually talking to each other except for those around Rachel. The one hour passed by quickly, and with a newfound friend, Adam, I ended the day at college.

Even when reaching home I had my fair share of woes as well - which subject combinations to choose? I had a tough time choosing, but at the back of my mind I told myself "No, enough of Physics for me." So, I took all the combinations with Economics, Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics, which was easier for me to choose, rather than wasting the time trying to decide between Physics and Biology, since Chemistry was the prerequisite for going into university for a Medicine course.

Serangoon JC - Day 1

So, what's all this hoo-hah about? I got into Serangoon JC, so that's a fact. At first glance Serangoon JC might not sound good, but after attending today's orientation I find it hard to make a choice over whether to continue with my appeals for Meridian JC and Tampines JC, or to stick with Serangoon JC.

Not wanting to be late for the first day of college, I got up at 5am, washed up and ate breakfast. Got out of the house at 5.30am, got on bus 81 at 6. I was one of the early birds - I reached school at around 6.30am - way before the usual time I usually report to Anglican High at. Went around to look for this thing called House D6, only to realise later upon asking a senior that there wasn't a literal house D6, but just another name for an orientation group(OG), which I was assigned to be in. After all the admin mumbo-jumbo, they proceeded on to talk about the Serangoon JC's GCE(Global Classroom Experience), which took up most of the day.

Met a couple of Anglican High people who suffer similar fates as me, ending up in Serangoon JC as well. To my surprise I saw Roy at Serangoon JC as well. Hell, all along I thought Roy was much better in studies than me, so however he came here, I don't know. Later on, I met Young Yee and Derrick(I hope I spelt their names correctly), as well as Frederick, and we gathered together for the one-hour break before they continued in their GCE talk.

Now, few would allow for a second lunch break right after the first, but the GCE presentation ended and the whole cohort was to take a college tour to find various places, and for logistical convenience they sent a whole bunch of us to have lunch, at 11-plus, right after our previous break which ended at 10.45am. Now, anyone in their right mind wouldn't have enough room to stomach another meal, yea? So I didn't eat. Not until 5-plus when I wolfed down a Subway Italian BMT.

Orientation went on, straight into the lecture theatres, where various festivities are being showcased. Yun Jie(pardon for any spelling error), a new acquaintance in the same OG, later told me that Serangoon JC seemed like a party school, which probably meant the people don't really put much effort in studying. The impression indeed seemed that way for me too, but still, I have to take my hat off to them for advertising their college so well.

Facilities-wise, I think that Tampines JC might lose out to Serangoon JC, but still I'm keeping my appeals until one of them calls up to call me to report to their college. Even if they don't call up, I'll still be content to be in Serangoon JC. After all, why not?