My blog has been inactive for quite a long time. I wanted to update it after Camp NoMAD, but I was too lazy. So this is gonna be a really super long post. Haha. Let's see what I can remember. Oh, but before that, I should talk about Pre-University Seminar.
Pre-U Sem was held from 28 May to 1 June 2012. The preparation prior to the Seminar was tedious. We had to go through 2 rounds of selection. I ended up in the video group with Piriya, Benjamin and Eleanor. I had fun spamming photos on Piriya's DSLR haha :)
I had a great time at NTU, although we had to go for many many talks that I tried hard to not fall asleep at. There was DPM Teo Chee Hean's now-famous "What do you think? Whenever you ask me that question, I'll ask that right back at you". There was this honest student who said "I honestly don't know the answer." Haha :) I know DPM Teo was trying to not just provide answers, and trying to get students to think as well. He didn't really answer the questions directly, that's probably because the questions were sensitive, and he's a politician. There was also this TJ girl who asked if it's true that Arts stream students have no future, because the TJ principal showed them an article about it. Woah. I heard that after that, reporters tried looking for students in green blazers, but they only wrote a short article on that because the TJ students didn't want to offend their principal by saying too much. Haha people were discussing that the principal might get fired. That's the new principal of TJC: Ms Susan Leong from AJC. I heard she's really strict about stuff like greeting teachers and skirt lengths.
My roommate was originally Yun Ru, but I didn't spend a single night with her. She wanted to be roomies with Aria :/ so she asked me if I could switch with Aria. I said nope I don't want to, if you want to change, you can switch (because we were not supposed to, and I didn't want to get into trouble). Sorry I'm so straightforward. So in the end Li Xian became my roommie! :D And that's probably one of the best things that could have happened there. I soon found out that Genith is in her clique, a pleasant surprise. :) Li Xian taught me a few things, and I'm grateful for her. She kept playing this zombie game on her iPhone called "Zombies: The Last Stand" haha. I also had fun making props, eating chips and chatting into the night with Li Xian and Nia.
Another good friend I made is Chace. I only talked to him more the last few days of the Seminar. He's really talented. He knows a few instruments, and he's already earning money through financial stuff. I was quite overwhelmed, because I'm so far from that. And he said, "No choice, I'm the eldest." O.o I understand, but he's only 18... After the Seminar, he chatted with me on fb, and he said my personality is interesting. Haha, I'm just weird.
Our Seminar Group 4 had the chance to present our mini-musical to the VIP, Ms Sim Ann during the closing ceremony. I didn't act, I just held up the Downstairs sign, but it was still fun. :)
Camp NoMAD was from 1 (Fri) to 3 June (Sun). My group was called Happy 3 Friends, consisting of Sean Lim, Yang Zhi, Esther, Amanda, Preethee, Ian, Beng Kuan and I. Mr Zeng and sometimes Mdm Shelia followed us. Our group's coach was Anwaar.
On the 1st night, I joined a little later because I had Pre-U Sem. They gave us things to solve so we would know where to go the next day. Then we played a game.
On the 2nd day, we had to travel around Singapore and do weird tasks, like asking people to do push-ups with us, to conquer territories. We had to find things and take pictures with them. There were also stocks that we could 'purchase' by doing the task stated, but the stocks could be stable or unstable, fluctuating throughout the day. Super tiring day.
On the 3rd day, there was this stand-off thing that could happen on the 2nd or 3rd day when we were supposed be called back to gather in school if we were outside travelling around. We were split into 3 groups: politicians, physical, mental. Politicians had to face up to 2 coaches and keep talking, persuading and debating. Physical doing exercise. I was in the mental group. Haha, sounds funny when Ridtz called us the mental people. We had to do stuff like identifying songs from a mash-up of 3 secs from each song, looking for things in the newspaper, memorising profound words that we have never heard of. We had forgotten to use a card that would help us in the stand-off that we had acquired on the 1st night, until the later part of the stand-off and somebody suddenly remembered. Lesson learnt: sometimes we have the resources, but we forget to use them.
At night, we were supposed to dress up as what we want to be in the future, but I forgot to bring the clothes for that thing. So a few of us, including me, just wore our house t-shirts and were ready to say that we wanted to be PE teachers if we were asked, haha. Then came the biggest challenge of the camp. We had to write our aspirations and dreams on a sheet of paper and hold it up in front of us for ONE WHOLE HOUR. I had thought that was physically impossible, but if you really really really pushed yourself you could. I rested for a few seconds for a few times kekeke. It was a really tough struggle, because I saw no point in it. How did that link to realising our dreams? Then Matthew came over and told me if you can't even bear with this, don't even think about realising your dream. I wrote that I want to be a doctor, but I don't know what to specialise in yet, 2-storey house, become rich and get a BMW. But Matthew said, "Yes it's a noble profession. But do you know that doctors are overworked and underpaid? You can't get rich by becoming a doctor." Okay I wasn't thinking of becoming rich just by working as a doctor, I was thinking of investment, but then since doctors are overworked, I'll probably have no time, so I didn't tell him this. I just said as long as I can take care of my parents, that's enough. He said yep that's right. He also said, "It's very tough to get in NUS Med. It's not just enough to get straight A's. That's what I thought too, I studied every day, got my straight A's but I couldn't get into Medicine in Singapore (he's a Med student in Ireland). You have to show the interviewers that you have compassion. Doing CIP is not enough, did you organise any?" At that time, nope. :( I couldn't stop crying after he talked to me, even after the 1 hour was up, I was still crying. I'm not sure why. I think it was because I kept thinking of the pain that patients are suffering. Imagine how that hurts. After this torture session, Matthew called Ian (Ian wants to be a doctor too) and I outside, and talked to us a bit more about becoming a doctor. He said it's tough studying every day to become a doctor. He would ask himself why is he doing this, why is he studying day and night? And he said even studying day and night is not enough... When he got tired of studying, he would go to the hospital and remind himself of what he's studying for: he wants to help the patients there. I'm super thankful to Matthew for telling me all this. :)
It was quite high-tech ah, we needed phones with 3g dataplan and twitter accounts for each group. Ours was @happy3_friends. I thought it would be worse than SL camp when we went through lots of torture (even a Running Man race sort of thing where if we got caught while trying to find items, we had to do burpees), but it was a relax camp, so our shower time was quite long.
This post is getting tooooooooooooooooooooo long. I shall write about YJ and my BTI attachment soon. Goodnight it's 1.10am.
Pre-U Sem was held from 28 May to 1 June 2012. The preparation prior to the Seminar was tedious. We had to go through 2 rounds of selection. I ended up in the video group with Piriya, Benjamin and Eleanor. I had fun spamming photos on Piriya's DSLR haha :)
I had a great time at NTU, although we had to go for many many talks that I tried hard to not fall asleep at. There was DPM Teo Chee Hean's now-famous "What do you think? Whenever you ask me that question, I'll ask that right back at you". There was this honest student who said "I honestly don't know the answer." Haha :) I know DPM Teo was trying to not just provide answers, and trying to get students to think as well. He didn't really answer the questions directly, that's probably because the questions were sensitive, and he's a politician. There was also this TJ girl who asked if it's true that Arts stream students have no future, because the TJ principal showed them an article about it. Woah. I heard that after that, reporters tried looking for students in green blazers, but they only wrote a short article on that because the TJ students didn't want to offend their principal by saying too much. Haha people were discussing that the principal might get fired. That's the new principal of TJC: Ms Susan Leong from AJC. I heard she's really strict about stuff like greeting teachers and skirt lengths.
My roommate was originally Yun Ru, but I didn't spend a single night with her. She wanted to be roomies with Aria :/ so she asked me if I could switch with Aria. I said nope I don't want to, if you want to change, you can switch (because we were not supposed to, and I didn't want to get into trouble). Sorry I'm so straightforward. So in the end Li Xian became my roommie! :D And that's probably one of the best things that could have happened there. I soon found out that Genith is in her clique, a pleasant surprise. :) Li Xian taught me a few things, and I'm grateful for her. She kept playing this zombie game on her iPhone called "Zombies: The Last Stand" haha. I also had fun making props, eating chips and chatting into the night with Li Xian and Nia.
Another good friend I made is Chace. I only talked to him more the last few days of the Seminar. He's really talented. He knows a few instruments, and he's already earning money through financial stuff. I was quite overwhelmed, because I'm so far from that. And he said, "No choice, I'm the eldest." O.o I understand, but he's only 18... After the Seminar, he chatted with me on fb, and he said my personality is interesting. Haha, I'm just weird.
Our Seminar Group 4 had the chance to present our mini-musical to the VIP, Ms Sim Ann during the closing ceremony. I didn't act, I just held up the Downstairs sign, but it was still fun. :)
Camp NoMAD was from 1 (Fri) to 3 June (Sun). My group was called Happy 3 Friends, consisting of Sean Lim, Yang Zhi, Esther, Amanda, Preethee, Ian, Beng Kuan and I. Mr Zeng and sometimes Mdm Shelia followed us. Our group's coach was Anwaar.
On the 1st night, I joined a little later because I had Pre-U Sem. They gave us things to solve so we would know where to go the next day. Then we played a game.
On the 2nd day, we had to travel around Singapore and do weird tasks, like asking people to do push-ups with us, to conquer territories. We had to find things and take pictures with them. There were also stocks that we could 'purchase' by doing the task stated, but the stocks could be stable or unstable, fluctuating throughout the day. Super tiring day.
On the 3rd day, there was this stand-off thing that could happen on the 2nd or 3rd day when we were supposed be called back to gather in school if we were outside travelling around. We were split into 3 groups: politicians, physical, mental. Politicians had to face up to 2 coaches and keep talking, persuading and debating. Physical doing exercise. I was in the mental group. Haha, sounds funny when Ridtz called us the mental people. We had to do stuff like identifying songs from a mash-up of 3 secs from each song, looking for things in the newspaper, memorising profound words that we have never heard of. We had forgotten to use a card that would help us in the stand-off that we had acquired on the 1st night, until the later part of the stand-off and somebody suddenly remembered. Lesson learnt: sometimes we have the resources, but we forget to use them.
At night, we were supposed to dress up as what we want to be in the future, but I forgot to bring the clothes for that thing. So a few of us, including me, just wore our house t-shirts and were ready to say that we wanted to be PE teachers if we were asked, haha. Then came the biggest challenge of the camp. We had to write our aspirations and dreams on a sheet of paper and hold it up in front of us for ONE WHOLE HOUR. I had thought that was physically impossible, but if you really really really pushed yourself you could. I rested for a few seconds for a few times kekeke. It was a really tough struggle, because I saw no point in it. How did that link to realising our dreams? Then Matthew came over and told me if you can't even bear with this, don't even think about realising your dream. I wrote that I want to be a doctor, but I don't know what to specialise in yet, 2-storey house, become rich and get a BMW. But Matthew said, "Yes it's a noble profession. But do you know that doctors are overworked and underpaid? You can't get rich by becoming a doctor." Okay I wasn't thinking of becoming rich just by working as a doctor, I was thinking of investment, but then since doctors are overworked, I'll probably have no time, so I didn't tell him this. I just said as long as I can take care of my parents, that's enough. He said yep that's right. He also said, "It's very tough to get in NUS Med. It's not just enough to get straight A's. That's what I thought too, I studied every day, got my straight A's but I couldn't get into Medicine in Singapore (he's a Med student in Ireland). You have to show the interviewers that you have compassion. Doing CIP is not enough, did you organise any?" At that time, nope. :( I couldn't stop crying after he talked to me, even after the 1 hour was up, I was still crying. I'm not sure why. I think it was because I kept thinking of the pain that patients are suffering. Imagine how that hurts. After this torture session, Matthew called Ian (Ian wants to be a doctor too) and I outside, and talked to us a bit more about becoming a doctor. He said it's tough studying every day to become a doctor. He would ask himself why is he doing this, why is he studying day and night? And he said even studying day and night is not enough... When he got tired of studying, he would go to the hospital and remind himself of what he's studying for: he wants to help the patients there. I'm super thankful to Matthew for telling me all this. :)
It was quite high-tech ah, we needed phones with 3g dataplan and twitter accounts for each group. Ours was @happy3_friends. I thought it would be worse than SL camp when we went through lots of torture (even a Running Man race sort of thing where if we got caught while trying to find items, we had to do burpees), but it was a relax camp, so our shower time was quite long.
This post is getting tooooooooooooooooooooo long. I shall write about YJ and my BTI attachment soon. Goodnight it's 1.10am.
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