1 week break..

Has been a good one week break from work. Consciously made it a point not to touch any work for the whole of this week for the sake of my sanity. Did go back to school to pack my cupboard though. Heh.

While I was packing my cupboard...I decided that it's finally time for me to to discard some of the stuff that I'd kept for like what....3 years?? Hahah..I dug out loads of old worksheets... materials...namelists... Some of the namelists are of classes that have already graduated, and some were of the current sec4s when they were in Sec 1! Haha..it was so nostalgic...thinking back to the times when I was teaching this current batch of Sec4s when they were in Sec 1...and now they're already going to take Prelim 2.Class list of graduated students....
Mixed lists....some graduated..some current sec4s...
As I was rummaging through the stuff in my cupboard, suddenly saw this picture of me and some of other trainee teachers in 2004...the picture was taken at the end of our teaching practice at CHS. Think I looked so 'fresh' and ready to go at that time..haha...

ACJC 20th Anniversary Thanksgiving Service

Had stopped singing with the ACJ alumni choir since I think..2001..and I must say I really do miss singing in a choir. Was reeeeeeeeally tempted to commit to singing for this year's choir concert since it is the 20th anniversary since the choral excellence programme was started in college. But due to my heavy commitments to work, I just couldn't squeeze out the time for Saturday practices. Then recently there was an invitation for alumni to sing at the 20th anniversary thanksgiving service together with the college choir. The thanksgiving service is a christian service aimed at giving thanks to God for His favour and grace upon the choir over the last 20 years. And since the thanksgiving choir only required 2 practices, and best of all, it was in the June break, I jumped at the chance... :)

Great to be back in AC.. :)

At first I thought that we were only going to be singing about 4 songs, but lo and behold, it turned out that it was ELEVEN pieces of music!! Haha..I almost died. Thankfully I had previously sung 6 of the songs before....but during sectionals, I could hardly remember my alto line (which is the harmonising line to the main tune). I thought to myself "I'm so dead..."...but strangely, when we combined the sections together to sing as a choir, somehow my notes just came back to me, and I was able to sing all the notes right. VERY strange..haha...it's as if the notes were all embedded somewhere deep in my brain storage....

For the 2nd and final practice, the choir was introduced to Ms G and Ms R, the 2 main conductors of the choir during my time in college choir. They had since passed on the baton of conducting the choir to the younger conductors and so it was such a privilege to see them conducting again for the thanksgiving service. It was all so nostalgic....all my previous conductors and teachers, were all there at the same time. I felt transported back to the time when I was just a college student...

The morning of the actual event....warming up and getting ready for sound check..

The changing rooms in the new arts hub in ACJ...super cool...almost looks identical to the ones which are in the Esplanade....

Very formal and nicely done up reception table to receive guests who are coming for the event...almost looks like a wedding doesn't it? :)

The backdrop on stage throughout the service...

And so the service began, with one of the current choir teachers paying tribute to all the people who have contributed in one way or other to the choir....

The bible passage Psalm 1oo was the theme of the service..

"Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
Worship the LORD with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the LORD is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;

give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;

his faithfulness continues through all generations."

Towards the end of the service, messages and well-wishes of alumni choir members, who were unable to be present as they were abroad, were read out to the congregation. One common message ran through all the well-wishes and reflections, which was their admiration and deep appreciation of the choir teachers during their time in the choir. And I couldn't agree more with what was being read. The choir teachers taught us more than just vocal techniques, but also inculcated in us discipline, humility, and the passion for sharing music on stage, without ever mentioning the need to win a competition. They taught us.....what was true musicianship.

Hopefully in years to come, I can look back and say that I've also impacted the kids under my charge in some way, be it big or small.

Choir teachers past and present...the pillars of the choir.

What's a celebration without a huge huge cake? =)

My choir batchmates! Great to be singing together again :)

Couldn't resist taking a picture with my teachers.. :)

Yes, I love AC! :) Always have...and always will.

Sec 3 Camp 2008

AAaaaaah, it's the "holidays".



In inverted commas simply because there's so much to be done.. but at least it's not super fast-paced action like during term time. So no matter what, still thankful for the space and time to breathe and sorta recuperate from being on my toes all the time.







Sec 3 Camp



Started my term break with sec3 Adventure Camp at Taman Negara, which I consider as my June holiday trip, coz I'm not really sure if I'll be able to get away on my own holiday this June since the sec4s are taking their 2nd prelim in the 4th week. Friends and colleagues keep nagging at me when I say that coz they feel that I should go on a REAL break, like my own relaxing holiday elsewhere before Term 3 of school descends upon me...........well, I'll see how la.







Well, back to Sec 3 camp.



So this year I'm finally NOT doing the combination of Cycling-Trekking anymore. YAY!



Haha...been doing that combination for 2 years running...so was really glad when I was finally assigned to this year's combi of Caving-Trekking. Also was glad that the group had a large portion of students from my class, so was pretty fun doing the activities with them.











This year the camp started off on an "exciting" note! Haha...after the whole cohort had lunch together, we split up to our respective buses to move towards our respective campsites. Then lo and behold, one of the buses broke down on a FLYOVER. What better place to break down right.



So the poor busload of people had to split into 2 other buses, to later changeover back to another bus that would be sent to pick them up.

Counting to make sure that no sheep was lost during the changing of buses.. :)

After an almost full day of travelling, we FINALLY reached our campsite (that's after 2 failed attempts at finding our cave site :P).

Thought it was a pretty interesting site to camp in, and a well-sheltered one too. At least if it rained, there's still a shelter over our headds, so no chance of our tents flooding out ;) But due to space constraints, the tents were almost like side-by-side to each other.

Our first meal 'outdoors'. I always marvel at the fact that our campers get to eat catered food during their ADVENTURE camp outdoors..haha..what a luxury....

Our first night's activities saw us walking through the forest (on a proper road, not on soil and mud..haha...another luxury :P). What caught my attention immediately was the stars that I saw in the sky...it's been such a long time since I saw so many stars twinkling above me coz Singapore's too light-saturated/polluted/cloudy? It was such an beautiful sight...and I felt transported back to the time when I was in pri/secondary school...where such a sight could be seen by just peering out of my window on the 9th floor. And for the first time in my life, I also saw fireflies! Wooohoo...I'd always wanted to see them....very interesting little creatures. They just give out light in rhythm...'on-off-on-off-on-off...'..

The night's activities ended off with a night exploration of a cave, and then it's back to our tents for our powder bath and sleep. :)

Next morning after wash-up, some of my class boys offered to help me dismantle my tent. Always nice to have boys take the initiative to offer help with stuff without having to be asked. Thanks guys, really appreciate it :)

And these are my class boys...before we started doing our morning warm-ups in preparation for the day's activities : Caving, Climbing, Abseiling

Heh...just a funny pic I took...coz the car's number plate has the word CAR on it!! Hahah..as if afraid that people will mistake it for a trishaw :P

This the entrance to our cave...this little hole that requires us to manouvre on all fours....hehe...so fun... :)

As can be seen..the cave is actually pretty dark...if we had no torches..we'd be walking blindly and falling into cracks and holes...

After climbing up and down and jumping up and down... walking left and right and all...we reached this big open space in the cave which had an opening where trees were growing....very nice.. =)

My kids and me.. :)

From all the horror stories that we heard from previous caving groups...I was all geared up and prepared for truckloads of bat shit and pee raining down on me while caving.. But seems like this time round, the guides took us to a different cave from the previous years. One which required us to do much more body contortions in order to get through the cave, rather than just brave through lotsa bat shit and pee. Which I feel actually is so much more meaningful. And thus, this is the only bat that we saw in a cave.... a baby one, on the floor..which was fluttering a little helplessly...

An addition to this year's Caving activities was the natural rock climbing. Ever did natural rock climbing at Krabi before, and really enjoyed it. So was quite looking forward to the climbing...

Conquered my route in....mmm...8min + according to my kids who were TIMING me...haha..siao ding dong...
And this is a pic of our climbing instructors doing a lead climb up the wall to set up one of the routes. Quite amazed at how they do it actually...What do you think this little creature is?

. .

. . .

Monkey?

. . .

. . .

It's a baby squirrel!!

It apprarently fell down from its nest which was near one of our climbing routes...so pooooor thiiiiiiiiiiing........... :(

So after lunch we went for abseiling....one of the slowest moving activities coz there was only ONE abseiling line, and about 25 of us waiting.

I think my group had an afinity with squirrels or something...after our instructor gave us a briefing.....a squirrel fell down from a tree that was just about a metre and a half away from us. *SPLAT* on the forest ground..........struggled a little................and then died, with its eyes wide open :( Very sad...haiz...but I guess we have to accept the fact that accidents do happen...and that in the wild, this may just be a common occurence.

And this is one of my boys abseiling out of a hole in the cave...cool right??

Heh...too bad I didn't get a chance to coz there were simply too many people waiting and too little time... and since I'd already had quite a few abseiling opportunities before...I thought I'd just leave the chance to the boys.

At taman negara the next day, my 3rd time trekking. Quite enjoy it actually...and this is me along the bridge at the tree-top walk =)

Seems we have quite a few who have height phobia this year...but glad that most of them made it through the walk :)
And this is my attempt at being artistic...haha...
And this is my group and I along with S at the peak of our trekking route. I know I know, the picture is a little dark and I should photoshop it. Aiyah...lazy la.... :P

The name of our hill, Bukit Terisek. :)
One of the higlights of being at Taman Negara...the travelling about by the boats! :)

So the day at Taman Negara passed real quickly...and before we left the place to meet up with the rest of the camp, I spotted this beautiful cat sleeping on one of the tables....

It's like the SLEEPIEST CAT I've ever seen on planet earth. No matter how I tried to wake it by touching its ears repeatedly, it didn't even twitch. Haha...

For those of us who were or have ever been to Sec 3 camp...the WAIT for the trainride home must have been a deeply etched memory. Haha...all the boys and bags lined the waiting area..making us effectively look like refugees.. This year, we waited all the way from 12.45am till 3.30am for the train to arrive!!! Goodness me. Thankfully there was this small little coffee shop at the entrance to the station, where a lot of us sat to have a hot cup of drink in the cold cold morning while waiting for the train to arrive.

All in all, still an enjoyable trip, and a great start to my June break :)

Now it's back to my 20 000 stacks of TYS that I need to mark to return to my sec4s!

Super Sinseh diaries #5

YEeees! I think I'm gonna be able to finish my syllabus for the sec3s and 4s on time...or at least, according to what I have planned and made up for. *phew*

And guess what, I'm finally sick. On the verge of a mega flu...trying really hard to not let it blow up into a mega flu, can't afford to bring it to sec3 camp with me. I think it's a case of my body giving way after it senses that it doesn't need to be working at 110% anymore (been overworking for a couple of weeks..) Pleeeeeeeease, let me get well quick. And I'm convinced that flu panadol has zero effect on me. I've taken 8 already, and no signs of improvement. Hmm..shall switch to something else.

Well, this week there were 3 major events, CHMA auditions, Student Leaders Investiture, and my Land POP.

CHMA Auditions 2008

I would say, all went well, thanks to the efficiency and experienc of the IMedia crew. The results were announced on Friday morning. For the results of the auditions, refer to the CHMA Blog.

After the first meeting with finalists next Wed, it's gonna be non-stop action all the way till 19th July itself!! AAAAaaaaah!!! *breathe in breathe out*

CHS Student Investiture

It's like a super sense of dejavu...because I seem to vividly remember last year's investiture, and suddenly, it's time for the sec4s to step down.

This year's theme...set sail..
The outgoing sec4 excos....

I love the way the investiture is carried out..very grand..there's this very real sense of pride, and the passing on of the baton to the next batch signified by the passing on of the blazer from the outgoing exco to the incoming exco.
And there was the much anticipated dance item, which seem to have not gone on as smoothly as planned. But hey, sometimes, things don't happen the way we want it, and frankly I think given the time to learn the super complicated steps, it was already a good attempt. To my 2 chairs, am proud of you guys whatever the case ;)

NCC(Land) POP 2008

It's come to the time of the year again...where the new batch takes over the leadership of the unit. There's a feeling of anticipation and excitement as the Passing Out Parade (POP) approached, it's always exciting to see a whole new batch rise up to leadership and lead the unit to even greater heights. And yet at the same time, there's this tinge of sadness...coming from not being able to let go of the older boys who have served the unit well and have led the unit in this past one year.

The plaques for each of the sec4s to thank them for their service to the unit and to commemorate 4 good years of serving together in the unit..
The new leaders, waiting to take over the positions of Company Sergeant Major and Assistant Sergeant Major..
Getting ready to take over the unit.... The seniors were back to show their support!
The outgoing batch, standing proud at their last parade.

The official handing over of pace stick to the new blood of the unit.

Part Ds 2008, saying a final cheer at their graduation, one of the best I've heard them cheer. You can literally feel their pride and cameraderie as they cheered together.

Officially SENIORS :)

This is the batch that I've watched grow since they were in Sec 1. Cliche as it may sound, it seemed only like yesterday when I saw them as Part As. They joined the unit about the same time as I did...and now, they've gone one full cycle, to graduate to the rank of being Seniors. So to me, this is a special batch....also one of the most united batches I've come in contact with.

We'll miss you guys Part Ds :) Take care and all the best.