Happiest Day In Life

Today is my happiest day in life because Wijaya and Komal came back from Malaysia and brought back a lot of souvenirs.

We watched "The Hunchback Of The Notre Dame" together, it was a heartrending story. Everyone is sure that the mean, evil, disgusting and black-hearted archdeacon Frollo would be cursed in his afterlife. Komal cried when she saw La Esmeralda died on the gibbet and Kuasimodo went with her. Sometimes it is true that fortune will play a joke on you and all the joy and sorrowness will have an incredible flip-flop, just like the destiny of La Esmeralda. If she did not cry out the becursed name "Phoebus", the cruel archer would never find out her and she would never end in that miserable way. Wijaya was quite composed all the time in the show since she had read the book, thus the ending was expected.

I am extremely happy when the black-hearted archdeacon got his revenge and both himself and his brother were mercilessly destroyed by the most valliant Kuasimodo. When he dropped from the high tower of the Notre Dameand crushed to death, we all cheered as loud as we could...... Indeed, all evil-doing will be punished in the end. To the irony of the story, Frollo himself was an archdeacon yet he was cursed to death in his own Notre Dame. Isn't that marvellous?

Though this was a tragedy, it did not affect our emotion to enjoy this historical moment of reunion. It has been four months since Wijaya and Komal went away and now we have our backbone again. I am sure the life of our cluster will be full of sunshine soon.

To my another unspeakable happiness, tomorrow we are having a class outing! 302 has an interesting mixture of people and I am sure we will have an interesting gethering tomorrow. Term 4 is coming, and then will be the Sec 4 life. How time flies. I know too well that when it comes to the graduation year you cannot help mourning at the elapse of time, but I am sure with my dear Wijaya and Komal our future life can only be greater and greater.

Thank you dear for helping me make this discovery;)

Goodbye Beijing, Hello London

The 16-day Games finally came to an end with China topping at the medal tally with 51 golds and 100 medals. It has helped so many countries and individuals to achieve their pursuits and realise their dreams, making the Games a unforgettable one. Michael Phelps realised his 8-medal promise, Team Singapore got its first Olympic medal in 48 years--a Silver in female table-tennis, and numerous Chinese athletes who were unknown to the world before the Games dazzled the world with their can-do attitude and consummate sporting skills. A column writer of LianHe ZaoBao wrote that "every athlete is Superman, X-Man..." Indeed! What they have gone through is not only a challenge of their abilities, but also a challenge of their minds. The pressure they feel, the courage they take, the long path they go through are far more than what we can perceive. When they reach the finishing line with a lightening speed, dive from 3-meter board with a beautiful arch, jump down the balance-beam with a spectacular stretch of body, we shout, we marvel, we roar. Within themselves, there was far more than the pride and glory, it is a long way that they have determined to go years before and a long way they will keep going on in future.

One incident which have caused a lot of anguish to millions of Chinese was Liu Xiang's quitting from the 110-meter hurdle race. The tendon injury which has plague him for years made it impossible for him to complete the race, even in the preliminary round... even in the heat-up. A lot of netizens blamed him for not being able to live up to the reputation of "Flying Man" and even regarded this as a sign of the collapse of his career. While feeling sorry for him, I really understand his agony and the pressure he was taking. I understand his sorrow when he realised this race was no longer a sure-win one. I understand his courage to hold on and take the last stake. I understand his fear when he was welcomed by the audience with applause and cheers when he stepped into the stadium. I believe he will prove to the world again that his quitting will not be a stigma in his career but a stepping stone to the greater glory.

Another event to note was the table-tennis final between China and Singapore. I know from the massive media coverage that the whole Singaporeans are waiting for this moment to come. I also know that all Chinese are sure that women's table-tennis team will not fail to get this gold. Then I was in the dilemma because I could not give either team complete support or cheer either team without feeling pity for the other. The next day was Physics CT2, yet I was in front of the computer on time to capture this historical match. The online remarks were on and I became one of the "passerbys". The majority of the critics were Chinese since it was a Chinese website, however I observed that quite a lot of Chinese did not blame Team Singapore for using Chinese players to gain the glory. Though they feel sour by seeing Liu Guodong being the coach of Team Singapore while his brother Liu Guoliang trains Team China, they are able to overcome the blind nationalism and promote the spirits of the Games. It was a touching moment when a critic left the message "Cheer for both China and Singapore, both of them are winners."

The Games ended in a cheerful way though it was less impressive than the Opening Ceremony. In this grand party, mayor of Beijing handed over the Olympic flag to the London counterpart. The double-deck bus brought London into the stage of Olympics and Beckham's football became the symbollization of "invitation from London".

Now, it is time to say "goodbye" to Beijing and "hello" to London. We anticipate a successful 2012 London Games that will create more miracles.

Library&Rain&Speech

Today I went to the Jurong East Library to do the Chinese Comprehension Project with Kheng Yee, Yu Lin and Yan Jun. Though the air-conditioner made the library so cold and the air was a little bit stale( I am sure the oxygen concentration was very low, but actually I did not need to worry because in case any emergency happens, these SJAB people will come into rescue:), we managed to finish almost everything, that is, except the 20min presentation, which we were determined to impromptu with YouTube slips. We dined at KFC with some junk food and MRTed home--on three different lines. Ah Kheng went by red line heading for Gombak, Yu Lin headed for Boon Lay, Yan Jun by her parent's car, and I headed for Clementi which cannot be more familiar.

It rained heavily on the way that I could see the scratches of the downpour on the windows of the train. These days the spirits residing in the sky are always very sad that they cry all the day, occasionally letting out a threatening roar that can make the bravest shudder. Yesterday I was going to Kranji Secondary School to attend the National Bilingual Speech Competition when the sky began to hurl raindrops at me. I barely reached the busstop when the darkening of the sky heralded the upcoming of the downpour. Although I opened my unbrella in time, it was impossible to fend off the rain, which was scattering everywhere, reinforced by the heavy wind. I was soon drenched all over and my shoes were filled with water.(I am sure there was mud, too)It was like going through the muddy river when I was in Integrated Trip, yet I was not going to take an adventure! So, while waiting for the 96 Bus, I took of my shoes and tilted them over. That was when I found that both my shoes and my socks were soaked. It took a lot of efforts to squeeze the water out and in despair, I decided to go through with those soaked shoes.

I was not at all familiar with the landscape of Choa Chu Kang, but with the help of the warm-hearted 302 bus driver, I was able to reach Kranji Sec Sch on time. The receptionists were very pretty and friendly. They alleviated my nervousness almost immediately. But when I saw those competitors from other schools who were also very well-prepared, I began to tell myself: just do your best, and do not bother about the prize. I was the 13th to deliver my speech and before me, many competitors stumbled over or lost their words.

Fortunately, I did all I had prepared in these three days after the common test and it was quite a good job, though there were a lot of competent contestants from other schools. 6 out of 26 would get into the Final Round and I did not put in too much hope, so the result was expected, the six schools in Final were Raffles Institution, Victoria Junior College, River Valley, LinJing Sec, Kranji Sec and a CHIJ school(cannot remember the name) The Final will be on 30th Aug, by that time, I will be one of the spectators.

Wish all contestants show us their best performances and see you then.

"Twitch"

I am trapped in the common test 2, eight down, and two to go...

Everyday this week seemed to follow the same routine, that is, the common test routine: getting up early in the morning, dressing and washing with self-encouragement, eating very little for breakfast as part of weight-losing scheme, marching to the school along the beautiful lane with a Chem text or Bio text or A-Maths text or E-Maths text or SS text or Hist text or whatever, and hoping earnestly to have more time to do the last-minute revision. After the "honing" at the parade square, we are immersed into the solemn national anthem and school song, and then I grab up the whatever text to read and absorb and digest during the "attire check period", desperately dreaming to memorise something of use. Then is the marching up to the fourth floor, finding a nice place to thump your school bag and scooping out everything you need: calculator, curve ruler, long ruler, refill of pens, "reserve" of highlighter, "reserve" of correction tape and "reserve" of brain cells in case they cannot function properly...

1.5h of torture or 2.0h of ordeal...

Rushing up, speeding up and accelerating to the maximum velocity to finish every paper and do the check-up, during which I can feel obviously that my blood pressure falls drastically and the "snooze on" function of the brain is working very well. Oblivious of the results and not wanting to be conscious of them, people merrily switch into their usual mode and everything is fine then...

That "mode" is changed soon when we reach home. What follows are hours of insane studying ("mugging"). Yet I always have to force myself to go to bed by 11:30. As for actually going to sleep, it is another kind of story...

Wake up the next day again, and dress and wash with self-encouragement...

Now I am embracing my first weekend after the four days of CT Routine. However, the Chinese Literature makes it doomed that these days will not be easy. Physics may not be too big a problem but the tons and tons of CL are more than enough to drive me nuts...

MY MOST BELOVED PERSON IS LEAVING TOMORROW!

All the best for your long journey, and take my best wishes with you.

Goodbye~~~@-@

Happy Birthday Singapore

Happy 43rd Birthday to You!

Make A Wish.....

Wow! China Dazzles!

Last night in Beijing's iconic "Bird's Nest" National Stadium, the 29th Olympic Games was declared open in the spectacular opening ceremony. As early as 7:oo p.m, our hostel was abuzz with patriotic students scurrying around the corridors busy preparing for the celebration. By 7:50 p.m, all China students gathered at the TV room waiting for the adrenalin-pumping moment to arrive. Mickey, Lisa, Nana and Jie Yi's faced were painted with red word"I love China" and several assets of Olympic mascot Fu Wa were solemnly put in place, even a China's flag was brought up to cheer the magnificent event.


It was a night filled with joy and tears. We yelled and screamed for almost everything: the arrival of China's flag carried by 56 children wearing the traditional costumes of our country's 56 ethnic groups, the uniformity shown when our soldiers sent the flag to the flagpole, the Tai Ji pattern formed by thousands of dancers and Tai Ji performers, and the spectacular globe stage with acrobatics performers. When the national anthem was played, we all stood up to sing yet almost could not, because we were all immersed in tears and sheer jubilation. It was a dream that we have dreamed for centuries, and it finally came into reality depite of all odds.


The fireworks were bursting out from the stadium and actually the whole Beijing city. In the beginning, we saw the fireworks made into the shapes of footprints leading to the Bird's Nest and we began to cry. Every step we had made was so hard and yet we had come so far! It was a thing that not only makes us feel proud, but also people from other countries feel pround of us from the bottom of their hearts. Imagine how we became a half-colonised country and was tramples by western invaders, how we had suffered the torture of imperialism and how we rose up again as a country with absolute and complete sovereignty and dignity. It is not only about love and loyalty, but about the deepest pride that could make every Chinese thrill in ecstasy.


The "Four Ancient Inventions of China" were smartly incorporated in the whole 3-hour ceremony by our first-class filmmaker Zhang Yimou. After watching the show, we could do nothing but to let out a heartfelt acclaim, "the man is a genius!" The ceremony actually showed every parts of the grand Chinese culture and condensed the whole 5000 years of Chinese history in one night. Chinese scroll painting with "ink men", women in different ancient dynasties marching between the featuring moving columns, Hua Biao in Chinese, oaks made into the boat sailed by Zheng He in Ming Dynasty, symbolising the rise of China in global stage, and the most magnificent "printing show" of "Huo Zi Yin Shua Shu" invented by Bi Sheng hundreds of years ago as a spearhead invention. Zhang IS a genius! It is hard to imagine how to organise so many people on the stage, with such high demand on performers sense of orientation and discipline. When the Tai Ji pattern changed swiftly from longitudinal to horizontal and then to longitudinal within a blink's of time, the roar from the TV room could awaken the dead.

The character "HE", and the flying pigeon illustrated the essence of Olympic Games, that is "global harmony" in sporting arenas. IOC president Jacques Rogge echoed our hopes for the Olympics with his speech. "May these Olympic Games bring you joy, hope and pride. You have chosen as the theme fo these Games 'One World, One Dream', that is what we are tonight!"

Our talented table tennis player Zhang Yining was the representative to take the oath and Li Ning, our treasured gymnasts who had won numerous gold medals for China, ended the ceremony with the lighting of Olympic cauldron.He rose form the ground and flied like a saint across the scroll. The burst of fireworks emanated everybody's feelings at the end of the show, that were, joy and pride.


Singapore was the 188th to march in among the 204 nations taking part in this Game, we cheered for the red and white with shout and yell as Li Jiawei led the team across the field. The emotion reached another all-time high. The march ended with Yao Ming leading China's team and that was the time when all of us wished all the athletes a good performance in the upcoming competitions.

All the best to all the competitors, and have fun!

Countdown to the "Games"

08/08 2008 will be an unusual day for the 1.3 billion people in China as well as all the overseas Chinese since the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics 2008 will officially start the grandest sports games which are hold every four years. Chinese people's blood began to boil when the Chairman of IOC declared the host city of 2008 Olympics, that is, a name cannot be more familiar, Beijing. It was 2001 then, when my age just changed into a two-digit number. At that time, I thought, seven years later, I will be in Senior High School Year 2 and will be old enough to travel to Beijing to see the Olympics. That proved to be an unachievable dream now since I am in Sec3 in an island instead of in High School Year 2 in mainland.

The first Olympic Games I watched was 2000 Sydney Olympics. I still rememberd one day when I was having afternoon lessons in Primary 3, the school radio asked us to switch on the class TV and watch the Games. It was acrobatics, one part of the opening ceremony. Since we were of the different time zone as Sydney, so we could watch the night performance in the afternoon. However, the 2000 Games did not impress me a lot, majorly because at that time I did not have so much passion in sports. Primary 3 was still a time when I trained in Choir everyday after school and indulged myself in the endless TV drama series every night after dinner. Actions, strength and velocity did not attract me as much as actors and actresses did.

The situation drastically changed when the 2002 World Cup began. It was when I began to take an interest in World Cup and then, all sports. In summer, 2002, I bought countless football magazines and could not remember how many soccer stars I marked with a heart to show my affection. Brazil won, that was for certain, yet I began to search more stars in other sporting arenas. Unfortunately, in 2004, when I felt obliged to watch the whole Athens Olympics, my ambition faltered as I stepped into Junior High School and was "compelled" to attend the usual military training. The training was hold in a secret military base in another town and lasted for one whole week, the week during which the Games were going on in excitement. We had no media access, so we sadly spent the time in the training camp, unable to find out how many times Chinese national anthem was sounded in the Athens Stadium.

03/o8/2003, the amblem of 08 Beijing Olympic Games was revealed at Tian Tan（天坛）, Beijing. It was a character "京" making into a running man, symbolising the Olympic spirits: higher, swifter, stronger. Deng Yaping（邓亚萍） and Cheng Long（成龙）officially disclosed the amblem; the blood of Chinese people was boiling again, including mine. It was really an exciting moment to see a country rising up as a "power", especially when you are well aware of ancient Chinese history, during which humiliation, struggle and backwardness dominated the whole nation.

Now, we are standing at the point which I have antipated seven years ago. Two days later, the dream of 1.3 billlion will come true. The Games will not be tarnished by any negative reports or turmoils happened in the previous months, because only we know how far we have come through, how many changed we have made. We know that it is such an honour to host the Game, and it is such a big challenge to organise it smoothly in such a tunultuous time. And we managed to do it well. That is what makes us feel so viscerally heartened.

MILESTONE

 1st Anniversary of: officially becoming a member of Nan Hua family

The Adorable Eccentrics

I love my cluster!

3B is my hostel cluster, though it is not the place where I originally live in. My first night on 5th November 2007 was spent in 2B Room 2 Bed 1. Then two days later we moved up to 7B (07-06, Bed 1)and lived next to our Boarding Assistant of Level Seven, Tang Yang, a Chinese lady studying Economics in NUS. She is a tough person, always reminding us to clear those errant strands of hair either in the washroom sink or on the bathroom floor. Yet as our co-roommate, she is always linient to us during weekly room check, whereas I could always hear her incessant tirades when she carried out the unwelcome weekly routine in other rooms. There is a little door seperating her room and ours to protect Boarding Assistants' privacy, so whenever the door opens with a freaky creak, my nerves would be tuned up and my ears pricked up.

She is a nice person despite of her rigorosity. I remember the first time I went beyond the door and into her room, I was made to sit on her bloody red sofa and was treated with a cup of hot and extremely concentrated MELO. Music was blasting in her nest and she was busy putting up a movie poster. She is a hardcore movie-goer, and I was dazzled at her supernatural ability of memorising the lines in the movies, not a word more, not a word less. Later our former cluster 7B went through many memorable events, like Lisa's birthday party, crazy cluster performance in the canteen and a movie outing to the Golden Village to watch "Golden Compass".

One thing to add on, the laundry room for female creatures is at 7B, thus at that time going to the laundry room was like strolling to the next-door room. However, this privilege was deprived of when we moved down to Level 3 (03-02,Bed 1)at the beginning of the new term.

The change of altitude was proved to be unadaptable at the very beginning. As we were going to mix with scholars from different schools, we were supposed to live with people of different coutries and races, that is, to live with those people whom I later recognise as "adorable eccentrics".

The first 3B-er I met was Alfathi Arzaini (Alfa), I encountered her on the lift when I was transferring piles of my books from Level 7 to Level 3 using a trailer. She is very mused and reticent Indonesian who later lived with Victoria. Then I began my secret observation of my new neighbours. Since I no longer lived with BA, the door separating two compartments no longer exists. To my great relief, both my co-roommates are very friendly. Nitcharee Nitinavakorn( I pity her for having to write such a long name every time she takes an exam) is a Thai(she is called as Nani) and Ha Ngoc Huong Lien( known for short as Lien) is a Vietnamese. They proved to be my very joy of living in 3B!

"Nani" means "What" in Japanese. So every time we want to utter out an exclamation we shout out "Nani the hell is....", followed by an explosion of gaffaw. Nani can remind you of the well-advertised slogan of Thai Airline. "Smooth as silk." She has a Filipino look with an India complexion and wears a Mexican hairstyle. Her low and hoarse voice has certain charisma that is irresistable, I gazed at her eyelash in awe every time she deliveries a speech. She is a tomboy yet when she recently changed her dressing style I could not deny that she is actually very sweet and lady-like. One night before Mid-Year Examination, she stood on the chair in the pantry and waved a broom shouting, "I am a superwoman!" I ran out of my room like a lightening to see what the accident was about and resulted in laughing to half-death. The aftermath of the laugh, which was a spasmic stomach disposition, plagued me the next day when I was sitting for my SS Paper. However I did not blame this adorable eccentric at all.

Lien is another loveable person, though she is not as dramatic as Nani(the hell:). She is very hard-working so we share some mutual hobbies, that is, reading and writing. When I used to occupy the pantry as my personal reading place, she took over the outdoor bench and transformed it into her own Eden. (The bench then served as a superb place for me to practice elementary Yoga). She has a lovely handwriting known as "Modern round character" and once I even longed to learn Vietnamese. She is our dutiful cluster IC and is indeed exceeding responsible. I secretly admire her as a role model. A very amusing thing happened today was that I went into the pantry and was struck by the sketch on the whiteboard, it was a----------well-labelled TRANSVERSE VIEW OF ARTERY. It did not take time for me to make out who drew this as soon as I saw the "Modern round character".

I love 3B!

MILESTONE

1st Anniversary of: meeting members from Nan Hua Family