A reflective day

Why I started a blog
Today, i shall start my first blog post. Why did i want to start a blog? I met Mr Teo today and we discussed about the university programme i wanted to take. Then, he asked me what is the biggest obstacle for me getting into a programme i want. It is the interview. So he told me to start reflecting on my strengths, weaknesses and my daily life. It is good that i start a blog because it will help me express out my thoughts more often. So i made up my mind to start a blog. But there is also another reason why i made this decision. I have been facing with lots of problems and stress over the past 2 years and writing a blog will ensure that my sorrow will not be hidden within me. My blog post will be mainly on my JC life as my memory fails easily so i won't be able to remember clearly what happened more than 2 years ago.

Joining VJC
The first issue I want to address is why did i go to VJC. The first reason i thought of is that my english cannot make it so i might risk getting kicked out of RJC after the first 3 months. But another reason is that i don't want to face so much competition in RJC. Also, most of my friends are choosing VJC, so i will definitely have company if i go to VJC although it will be a very long journey from home to marine parade. 1 hour bus ride on bus 13 indeed. So i am in VJC on January 2 2007.

First days in VJC
On the first day of orientation, i felt very weird. After all, i have been in a all-boys school for 10 years. A monk they call. I found it very difficult to talk to a girl, considering that i do not have any female friends before i went to JC. It was made tougher for me as my orientation group consists of only 2 other guys and they were not the active kind. So i was bored and was a bit of an introvert at that time. But the games brought out the best out of me and i "opened up" eventually.

To join track or not to join
My next concern was whether to join track. I was having a real headache as i had a bad "fault" problem for my jumps. It stole the belief i had in myself that i will do well in track and qualify into the top 8 of nationals, which is extremely prestigious for me. I thought i was no longer good enough so i will not be able to stand a chance to represent VJC in track as they had a history of a strong track team. However, the teacher in charge managed to dissuade me to join track. I didn't have any other options also. It is my passion to jump. I have jumped around since young and i will continue jumping in my JC life.

My Class
I was amazed, truely amazed that i was put into an IP class. But i thought that i should just accept it as life is always about knowing new people. My classmate, a non IP student, thought that it was weird and wanted to switch class to join her friends. But i managed to persuade her to stay on and it was not a decision to regret.
My class is extremely lively, especially the guys. We will "bastard" anyone even though it may spoil our reputation. The term "bastard" is used in different ways. The first way is when someone makes a bad slip and says something wrong, we will keep repeating it. The victim of this "bastardation" can be a student from other class or even a teacher. The second way is as follows. Most of my class guys are associated with a girl he like, even though it might not be true. I am a victim of this "bastardation" too, but mine is true. I like someone. Whenever we see a girl our classmate likes, we will start making funny noises and signal to the guy. This will make the guy feel embarrassed. Another unique character of my class is that we treat our teachers like friends. This is because they are also victims of our "bastardation", in both ways of "bastardation".
My classmate, Justin, introduces several inspiring words in my class like flaccid (to describe lousy), lucid (vulgar), etc. This makes it a very fun and entertaining class. My class is also full of smart people and we have a very muscular PRC classmate Zhao Chen. He does a lot of funny things like setting alarm during the recent GP paper. It was a terrible slip which we "bastarded" after the exam.

O' Levels results
I got my O' levels results and was somewhat happy. Happy that i got 8 A1s and somewhat dissatisfied that i got 8 points as my english was B3 and my higher chinese an astonishing D7. However, i got on with life as usual. My parents had asked me to consider going to RJC if my results are good. But i told them that i would like to stay at VJC for my friends and the fun. My dilemma was gone after the results came out as D7 for higher chinese left me with little chance of switching school to RJC. So i decided not to switch school and stayed at VJC. But i decided to re-take chinese as H1 subject as i wasn't satisfied with D7.

Earthwatch
I joined Earthwatch as a CCA in term 2. This was mainly because most of the trackers were in earthwatch. After a while, i came to realise that it was actually a great CCA. The mission is to save the earth and we had the task of influencing our schoolmates to be more environmentally-pro. I took up the position of project head and this has developed me as a person. I became more independent. My job was to implement projects for the school and these projects will help develop pro-environmental mindsets in our schoolmates.
I organised activities for the Recycling Week last year and the green quiz was a success. This is despite the fact that very few people signed up initially. I didn't want to give up and my preseverance paid off as some enthusiastic house-comm people took part as they are attracted by the reward of house points.
This year, i organised activities for the Earth Day. It further developed my leadership abilities, innovative skills as well as my capability to deal with stress. I wrote the proposal for Earth Day and it consists of a flea market, video screening in the canteen, talk for JC1s by an external speaker and a standing exhibition in the concourse. However, everything didn't seem right at first. No one bothered to sign up for the flea market except for the president Shiang Nee's enthusiastic TSD friends. Our advertising efforts were also "flaccid". We had to forego the standing exhibits in the concourse as we didn't have the time to look for the posters. I was in charge of looking for videos to screen in the canteen on Earth Day. Unfortunately, i downloaded the videos in the wrong format and realised this late at night. This means that i didn't have the time to download all the videos i intended to screen. The next day was Earth Day. The external speaker was to give a speech for JC1s during their CT session. Before that, i had to screen a video to entertain the JC1s in the PT. But i had a hard time saving the videos in the laptop i borrowed from the school and arrived at the PT late. This built up a lot of stress in me and it was terrible considering that i had back pain on that day. After that i had to screen the videos in the canteen. Due to technical problems, the videos couldn't appear on the screen. But i didn't give up and try again later in the afternoon. At last, it appeared on the screen. At this time, several students have already left school and didn't have the chance of watching the videos. Nevertheless, i felt a sense of satisfaction and it demonstrated my never-say-die attitude. As for the flea market, it was a success.
Now, i have already stepped down from my post in Earthwatch and passed my duty on to my junior. I seriously hope that they will do a great job in developing VJC environmental efforts. Joining Earthwatch has not only strengthened my knowledge of the earth, it has also developed me as a person.

JC results
So far, my results in JC are relatively satisfying. I realised that to cope well in JC, we have to be independent and follow our work frequently. The most important thing is to do our tutorials as it is the best way to understand the topic you are studying. However, GP is my main worry and i have been doing my best to improve it, going for tuition and reading the newspaper frequently to update myself of current affairs. Maths, Chemistry and Physics are all As in mid-year, promos and CT1. Economics has been fluctuating from E to D to E. But i think i will screw up CT2 this time. Chemistry and Physics papers were way beyond students' abilities and certainly unexpected. Even if one were to study for the whole holiday, he or she will not be able to do well either. Nevertheless, i still hope for good results. I have very high expectations of myself. I strongly believe in the saying that if you aim high, you will achieve even greater things.

OCIP
I signed up for OCIP to gain the experience of living a different life. OCIP was at Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was a village located on top of a mountain. We had to interact with the villagers as well as assist in building a library for them. The living conditions was vastly different. The guys and to live in a hut beside a pig sty with spiders on top of the ceilings. This was actually the house of one of the villagers. Imagine living with the spiders and listening to the grunts of the pigs daily. This will be unthinkable for most of us. But we were extremely thankful to the villager who gave up their house to accomodate us. Next, we had to bathe in the open in cold water and at freezing temperature. At home, most of us will have water heater in our toilets and are showered with warmth and love. This is definitely a change and i developed the allowance for the difference in standards of living between countries. At the time of our visit, the country was celebrating Loy Krathong and this showed that every country has an extremely rich culture.
The villagers there were very friendly while the kids were welcoming and carefree-looking. In my opinion, you will never see such faces in my country due to the high level of competition we are facing which accumulates stress in us. I had joy in playing with them and seeing them smile even though we were not connected by language. The village life had a relaxing environment, an alternative to the fast-paced urban life. It was conducive in encouraging true friendship and relationships between people due to the simplicity of life. I learned to treasure the work of people like the bangladesh in my country too. We had to make cement and build the library and it was a tough task even though there was a large number of us.
Overall, OCIP was a memorable experience for me. I learned several lessons and became more independent after that.

A' Level results
My A' levels results have been very disappointing so far. My Chinese H1 was a B and i had expected an A. Nevertheless, i was somewhat satisfied as my grade improved from O' levels higher chinese D7 to A' levels chinese H1 B.
However, the worst was to come. My project work H1 got a C. I was shocked, stunned, traumatized. The overall grade for my group was B. Blame it on luck or blame it on my lack of ability, i had the worst grade in my class! I was so sad that i cried. I was inconsolable at that point of time. I didn't expect myself to fail so badly. It robbed me of my self-belief. It took me a few days before i got over this "thrashing". I would have to thank my classmates and teacher Miss Chiam who played a part in consoling me at that time. All was not over yet. I still have 1 H1, 4 H2 and 1 H3 subject which they believe i would definitely do well in. My best friend Han Wei told me that it was always good to try falling now rather than later in life when it gets tougher to pick myself up. I would have to absorb the blow now and get on with life as usual. My other friend Li Hwa told me that i am an over-achiever. Everything will be fine soon and the reason why i'm feeling this way is that i have never tasted failure. She gave me the assurance that i will eventually do well in A' levels.
All these helped me discover a new lease of life. I told myself that this is a wake-up call. Instead of feeling sour over this "thumping" and get emotional, I must now do my best in improving my communication skills which is weak at times. I will make this an extra motivation to succeed. I promise myself that i must not fail again. I must not be a slacker anymore and cruise my life away.

Track
Back to track now. So i decided to join track. It was all going well. For the first time in years, i have a jump coach. My long jump was improving and i could finally jump beyond 6m. I had the aim to improve by 30cm every year so my target was 6.2m last year. I was signed up for 200m for nationals too as there were not enough sprinters. A few weeks before nationals, i strained my hamstring. I had just finished my sprints training and missed jumping. So i decided to go to the long jump pit alone to have a jump or two. My muscles were already cooled down at that point of time and thus, the unfortunate incident happened. It was a small strain but i didn't want to risk any injury. So i stopped training and immediately did a lot of stretching to relieve the strain. 2 days before my event, my season effectively ended. The strain on my hamstring was still there. As i prepared for the last jump of my training, i was thinking about the majestic atmosphere at the nationals when i jump in 2 days' time. Then, i started my run-up and took off. I pulled my hamstring. Good game. But i didn't want to give up and immediately went for acupuncture that day. 2 days later, i went for the competition, limped to the finishing line of my 200m race and then reported for my long jump event. I told myself that i must do this but i couldn't even take off. I was quite sad at that time. I could have easily qualified for top 8 for nationals as my "fault" problem was solved. Never mind, there is still next year. I consoled myself.
This year, injury after injury strikes me. I really don't understand why i am getting injured so frequently. I had been injury-free in secondary school. First, i have heel pain. I went for acupuncture and did a very good jump at the all-comers in April. I had my personal best. The actual distance was 6.3m but i stepped one foot under-board and the registered distance is 6.0m. After a while, the heel problem came back again and subsequent competitions were bad. I went to heal it again. Just when everything seems right, a new injury came. The back pain. I'm turning old. It has troubled me for a month and the competition i took part recently had not yielded satisfactory results. I still have the back pain now but i think i should just bear with it during nationals. After all, it is still possible to jump, not like last year. As the saying goes, if you think too much about your injury, you will find it hard to recover. So i should stop thinking that something bad will happen when it actually will not happen, as said by my friend Li Hwa.
Today, the track team had a team talk. My coach Miss Yu gave an inspiring speech. She said that if your first jump is bad, don't be discouraged. Continue believing that you will do well and your jump will be great. This has enlightened me. During Secondary 3 & 4, i had a constant "fault" problem. This is because i always got nervous and disappointed when my first jump is "faulted". Through the guidance of my coach, i hope to achieve greater heights. I wish that i will get a medal this year to award her for the hard work she put in me.