The hidden story behind the AHS Guitar Ensemble Farewell Chalet 2008

Just thought that if I kept this any longer in my heart I might burst anytime, so time for some serious ranting, yea? That being said though, if I have offended anyone by name or reference, I apologise in advance. So yeah, I'll go ahead with this...

When I was told of this Guitar Ensemble Farewell Chalet meant for the Secondary Fours, I already knew who was gonna come and who wasn't. Daniel and Jonathan were feeling really down and dejected because they were rejected for the Harmony 2008 Concert, so I knew what they were going through. However, I still tried to persuade them to come and join the rest of the Ensemble, to no avail, obviously. Knowing Benedict's couldn't-care-less attitude, he wouldn't even bother to come even if I tried to get him to, and he didn't come.

Great, I've been with them bass boys for the past 3 years, being looked down by Mrs NC Koh, being seen as the boys who couldn't do anything of substance within the CCA group. I was the one down there doing their dirty job of annotating the scores so they could play the bass section of the pieces, and many times I fork out their lunches and snacks out of my own pockets. This is what I got for 4 years of service in the CCA.

Thank God He sent Jacob to come for this chalet - at least I know there's someone out there who still cares for this socially-challenged senior of his.

During the first day of that farewell chalet, I was told that there wasn't any barbecue on that day itself, but rather on the next day. Of course, I was really angry at that time because it meant that I couldn't attend that barbecue due to my hip-hop dance item training and practice for the Christmas Dinner 2008 starting at 8pm the day after. The "today no barbecue" quote was already turning my stomach upside down the moment I heard it.

I was just recovering from this disappointment as the day went on, until the rest of the Secondary Four batch went for the movies without me. Hell, nobody even told me that they were wearing the batch tees and they just up and went for the movie marathon without asking me along at all! So naturally, being the only Secondary Four boy among the entire girl-dominated batch there, I felt left out. What to do while they were out at the movies? I stayed with the juniors, playing cards and behaving immaturely just to fit in.


The next day, after hitting Li Pin's mouth with the "ball", which was actually a soap bar, by mistake due to some rough Captain's Ball playing, I felt really bad. I actually injured a girl, and the guilt made the day worse, and after being told off by her I stayed my distance from Li Pin, just so that she might feel better with my brief absence. Hell, if you guys performed friendly fire in the middle of a rough game, you'd understand why I did that.

After buying drinks for a parched Guitar Ensemble, a familiar voice shouted out from the crowd: "Aaron, I forgive you!" That forgiveness made me ponder about some things much later. However at that moment I dared not look back at her. I just didn't dare to - I didn't, and still don't know why.

Despite being forgiven I still felt lousy for the day - and the rain had to spoil early barbecue. Two ladies were cooking at our pit just before the rains came - I wrote about this before in the previous posts. And I was later called back to the Secondary Fours' room in the chalet and told about some admin issues the Secondary Three committee were lacking on and mistakes they made, and I was to be there for a, supposedly, Secondary Four batch photo.

Apparently I don't think I was supposed to be part of it from the start. I was about to join in the photo-taking, but one of them said it was only for the girls, so what was I to do, being the sole minority there? I stood as I watched them take some photos and decided this wasn't getting anywhere, so I got out of that place.

Good riddance, I thought. I didn't belong there anyway. Uncle Steven came at the right time - at 7.30pm. The rain was so heavy that day that the barbecue failed anyway, so in a way I was delivered from a situation whereby everything looked really bad and hopeless, to a community who was working towards one common goal - to spread His name to the rest of a portion of the Singaporean community and to raise funds for the church building in the name of Jesus, via doing our part in preparing an English Congregation dance item for "Peerless Name Jesus" Christmas Dinner 2008.

After all of that was over, I sat back in the room to think about why all that happened, still bearing hidden grudges and things. She might have said that just to make me feel better at that moment, but if she can forgive me for what I did to her, why can't I do the same to those around me, just like how Christ has forgiven those who believe in Him?

Yeah, maybe it's time to just put aside all that ostracism and get on with life, as it is with Jesus around.

To put it in a dramatic sense, God delivered me out of all that anger and frustration and changed all that into devotion and concentration in the item. And there I found my solace - no more loneliness in Him, no more need for needless explosions of anger. And I'm still holding onto His promise that He will never leave nor forsake me. come hell or high water.

AHS Guitar Ensemble Farewell Chalet 2008 Day 2

It was a short chalet time for me, because I had to set off for practice for the hip-hop dance item for Christmas Nite 2008 fundraising dinner for My Saviour's Church. In other words, I didn't have time to stay for the barbecue.

First things first, I overslept while at the same time telling the juniors that I'd be there at around 7am in the morning. In the end I reached Aranda at around 9.30am. Along the way, I was thinking, since I hadn't had any breakfast yet, I might as well drop by the Mr Bean store and grab some pancakes there before the activities, namely an Amazing Race, was to begin at 10.30am. Along the way I bumped into the rest of the Sec 4s who stayed overnight, and they were heading for McDonalds anyway, so I just tagged along. Yay, good chance for me to use Wi-Fi in public places.

It turned out that before you could use Wi-Fi service provided by McDonalds and other fast-food chains, you had to register for a Wireless@SG account and log in. Having 2 sets of wireless Internet access, one being the Wireless@SG one and another provided by Downtown East, I used the Downtown East one instead, since there wasn't any prerequisite required to use it anyway. It worked, obviously. Yay, another job done to ensure continual Internet access outdoors.

Ate a simple breakfast of tea and Sausage McMuffin, while the others ate stuff like Big Breakfast. Nothing against McDonalds food, but it's a tried-and-tested experience that when you eat Big Breakfast, especially the scrambled eggs, you begin to start to want to go to the toilet for the big business. Not a good idea to start the day when you're in a hurry to let the games begin. Anyways, we continued on, with the rest of the girls making beelines to the toilets while I headed off to the chalet to unpack entertainment machinery there.

Alas, nobody was opening the door despite button-mashing the doorbell button and smacking the door like nobody's business. It can't possibly mean they're all outside the chalet - the slippers were all outside the door. Fruitless banging and the building up of steam meant that I waited outside like some desperate guy. Ah, but at least Wei Xiang came just at the right moment and, man, she is literally EXPLOSIVE and blew the door open with her brief rant and smacking of the door.

Um, I guess that's girl power, so to speak?

After getting in, I hung around with the juniors who were there, playing poker cards, a couple of rounds of Tai Ti, got acquainted to this game called Bridge, and the games started. It was Captain's Ball, but with a little rough twist - they used apples and Lux soap dipped in a Softlan laundry softener and flour mixture so that it's very slippery and hard to catch. It didn't turn out to be a good idea - the right lens of my spectacles dropped off the frame, some people got hit hard by the hard soap, and I accidentally hit Li Pin's mouth with the soap during the game. Of course, that made her pissed at me - who wouldn't, when her mouth is bleeding at the lip?

We decided to leave the games alone, and check on Li Pin, to make sure no tooth damage has been done. It didn't hit the teeth out of position, I reckon, so phew for me.
Lessons to learn from this rough and dirty game:

1. NEVER use hard stuff like soap or apples for Captain's Ball, Monkey, or any other game that involves throwing the stuff to a teammate, to avoid friendly fire.
2. NEVER use Lux soap or Softlan laundry softener - Alicia's arm turned red after washing the stuff off with tap water, and it's probably because she has sensitive skin and does not really know it until it turned red.
3. ALWAYS play dirty games in an area near the toilets. We had to take a walk for 5 minutes before we could reach the nearest toilet, which pissed a good lot of us off as we went there to wash up.

Terrible experience. Apart from some other clichéd games, we were exposed to the sun for quite long, and had an eating competition for 2 teams. The other team won, mainly because they had Zhi Tao, who's a big eater. And wow, Wanting sure can eat, and she apparently gorged herself full of the food, and I was told that she threw up later at the chalet.

We ended up not having the Amazing Race that we used to have every year, because there was just too little people attending this Farewell Chalet. Even so, the weather wasn't very good to us - we went indoors at around 2 plus, and there we stayed and hung around until 5 when it rained. Just before it rained, someone was using our barbecue pit just when we were about to start the barbecue. Thanks ladies, whoever you are, for using our barbecue pit just when we were about to use it... (sarcasm)

"Hey, that's our barbecue pit," someone yelled out to the ladies from the balcony. It just didn't make sense. We tried to get her to use some other barbecue pit, but we all we got was this answer: "Aiyah, it's only the numbers, what... Go use the other pits, lah."

Ahem. Barbecue pit 2313 is the one we paid for, not the others. And what's up with that lame excuse of the other barbecue pits being "too hot" when there's no burning charcoal put in the grills yet? "Whatever you are cooking, make it quick. We're gonna use the barbecue pits soon. Hurry up," I answered them. Of course, everyone was pissed when the rains came just when the inconsiderate ladies left with their pot of inedible crap half-cooked.

It rained, and stopped. And it rained again. How are we to barbecue? We waited and waited. By 6-plus the people were grumbling and becoming desperate for barbecue, so someone started the idea of starting the barbecue at the BALCONY, of all places. Nice place to have a barbecue, but what about the smoke signals? Luckily for us, we managed to stop them in time just before they opened the pack of firestarters.

The alumni seniors came to join us, all drenched in the rain and stuff, and still they lent us hands to start the fire at the pit, but it still ended up being a failure anyway - there was no fire, only more rain soaking through their clothes and wet umbrellas. I wished I could stay longer, but by 7.30pm I really had to go for practice because the next day's the full-dress rehearsal for the hip-hop dance. So, much to my own personal dismay I just "disappeared" from the chalet hungry until 10.30pm when the practice ended.

Ate a lot on the first day, starved on the second day, both emotionally and physically.

AHS Guitar Ensemble Farewell Chalet 2008 Day 1

Back, as usual, after a day out at the chalet that's meant for us Secondary Fours. After all the slogging, grilling at murderous guitar pieces for the performance at Harmony 2008 Concert at Victoria JC Auditorium, it is finally time to relax, have fun and, um, eat till your belly's gonna burst...?

When I got to Aranda Country Club lobby at 2.15pm, I had this hunch that that was definitely the wrong place to go to, because I didn't even know which chalet room we were to meet in. I checked the phone message sent by Wai Ping earlier yesterday, which confirmed that I was to go to Pasir Ris MRT Station instead, which proved my hunch right. Took a 10-minute walk back from Aranda to Pasir Ris MRT, and met Shawn, Zhi Tao and Genevieve, and later some more Sec 1s, before walking back to Aranda. Heh, talk about a little exercise of the feet, sand and mud...

Went to the lobby to wait for Yannis and some adult to check in for us before we could get into a chalet where we could unpack and play around in. After getting in, there was practically nothing much to do except some self-entertainment by playing poker cards and Uno, though of course, there weren't any monetary wagers involved at all.

A while later we ate instant noodles for late lunch. Soon after, they planned to go outdoors to play some messy games, those that involve putting chocolate into flour so that it looks like you-know-what, and probably either making you step and squish it or throwing them around, etc. Quite terribly, it began to rain, so we were stuck indoors and the games were cancelled. Instead, we went for dinner.

Wow, oookay... look at this, fellas. I just ate instant noodles at 5pm, ate some chocolate at 6pm, and now we're out for dinner at 7pm. Still, I ate sliced fish soup with rice, and a bowl of cheng tng
and surprisingly, I still managed to stomach them down. Dropped by KFC to buy a large box of popcorn chicken to munch on in the chalet, then later we resumed self-entertainment among ourselves - Shawn, Zhi Tao, some of the girls and I playing cards and occasionally, the PSP that I borrowed off Shang Bo but still have yet to return to him, and the girls playing tau pok(human pile) in their room, making such a din that for a while, we thought they were doing gang-rape inside.

Anyways, after an awful long time of boredom and joking around, Hai Long finally managed to come, with me meeting him on the way to the lobby and directing him back to the chalet. After his arrival, things soon became different - in a good way, of course. For one, he asked me to go hang around downtown so that he can explore around in this corner of Singapore, and also for him to withdraw some money from the ATM and buy Subway sandwiches for the girls upstairs at Aranda.

Look at this, people, LOOK AT THIS. Instant noodles at 5pm, 2 packs of chocolate at 6pm, sliced fish soup with rice and a bowl of cheng tng at 7pm, popcorn chicken at around 8pm, and now Subway at 9pm. Thanks, Hai Long, for bringing me to such a place to get tempted to eat like nobody's business out here...

In the end by 10pm I was stuffed. I just couldn't eat anymore for the day. After the heavy supper, I hung around for a while more before Uncle Kelvin called up and I had to leave the chalet to come back home, to keep everyone else updated about the happenings during this chalet.