time, snacks and oac investiture.

William Blake says:

"To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And enternity in an hour."

 

and this appears in my gp comprehension which we were supposed to read for AQ. the double period gp which seemed to drag on for so long, sheryl and i have decided that the last statement speaks so true of the lesson. 😛 And for me, wednesdays are like that too with non-stop lessons from the start of school till 3.40pm. It is scary isn’t it? restructured timtable is.

 

Anyway, the teachers have been happily piling on more work on us cause it is meant to help us. Which it definitely will, if we had more time to actually complete them before the tutorial periods! teck ian mispronounced "stacks" (of biology homework) yesterday as "snacks". it was quite funny really but the stacks of work is nothing close to being a snack, it is not bitesized, more like many main courses or 3-course meals. Burp* i will be full then. very,very full.

 

on a lighter note, yesterday was OAC investiture and handing over day. erm, not the sad, tearing ones which guides had in sec 4… besides jessie’s speech of course. And the briefing about our CAAL portfolios made the atmosphere more ‘frustrated, angry’ then happy or sad. The pinning of oac badges and exchanging of gifts was messy fr buloh but that’s how we really liked it to be! not the formal, line up in a row kinda thing but the more casual-friendly exchange. we gave the juniors milkbottles with their handwritten cards inside (each one of the buloh seniors wrote a personal msg to each of the juniors). And of course, we gave them Hello pandas packs like our seniors did. 🙂 they in return gave us customised buloh badges and being members of the buloh family, we all wore the badges (jnrs included coz they made badges for themselves too!).

then we had dinner and games and ‘award session’ and a nice walk down the candle-litted steps for a performance by the juniors at the pond. how innovative. 🙂 and of course… photo sessions at the atrium! 🙂  

 

erps. blur photo (due to bad lighting in the night.) but… this is the njoac batch 07’08 with our presents from the juniors. 🙂

 

 

Part of Buloh and proud of it!

 

the ‘pro’ poolers! 😛

 

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less school in a week?

the new restructured timetable hardly counts as a good break to let us study (and for me to finish my coursework)….

it is even more 1) taxing due to the very long three day, 2) a great new excuse for the teachers to pile up our workload, 3) gives more opportunities for mock exams and tests due to the illusion of having more time on the two days i ‘need not’ go to school. Truth is, i still need to go to school for consultations, coursework (this i am not complaining though.) and more mock exams and tests.

in the art room, sze’s space has been converted to a dartboard with the irritating smirking people ‘hurhur’, ‘hohoho’, ‘hah’ and that ‘moe guy who introduced a’levels’. it is really quite funny and we vent our anger on the poor helpless fellows. ohwells~ at least there’s an avenue to destress! 🙂

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THE caal portfolio

i think this subject actually deserves a blog posting afterall i have ditched my weekend (which was meant for studying and coursework) for it.

i really do not like the rigid caal portfolio. it is not even perfect. ask ANY njc-ian.

everyone is suffering and the msn nicknames are all "doing caal" or "reflecting" or whatever.

in short. no one likes the system.

AND everyone is wasting all that precious time doing it.

i know that teachers are probably thinking the same too as they are the ones that must specially go in to endorse a whole long list of activities. i wonder whether they even remember what we did. i feel sad for my pe teacher who is in charge of all the cca-related caal portfolio stuff.

and it is hard for everyone to recall what they did last year.

i guess i am lucky then to have a blog. which i actually update. it makes reflecting a lot easier. 🙂

 

they need a better system.

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Dingbats hovering for just two days.

 

WOAH! arts fest was a blast. firstly… we took forever to hang up this banner you see here.

like a whole hour ++ because of the patchwork (all that scrap cloth from the previous year’s doll-making) which made the banner so heavy! Had to thread through it as though we were sewing through the top so as to evenly distribute the weight. and our hands hurt from the twine after that! all my guides background of knots tying really came in useful and thankfully the knots were strong enough to sustain the banner for the duration of arts fest!

 

 

we also printed a whole lot of t-shirts (sze and i stayed back on wed to print the "dingbats" on the arts fest t-shirts) both for us and for sale. the "i fear not death for i have no life" tee conceptualised by sze and kaisheng was very popular and honghu’s design of the nj lion doing different ccas (ALL the ccas in NJ) was overwhelmingly welcomed by the njc population. we got several bulk orders for those and a possible collaboration with council for future shirts. besides the t-shirts, we sold jewellery, files and postcards!

 

 

 

and… performance art by the J1s was hilarious even though i did not manage to catch it due to the crowd in front of the art store. BUT… the guys parading their pink t-shirts around the canteen drew enough attention to be considered a performance art i guess.

 

 

and. the teachers had fun dressing up too. as… HIPPIES! and the teachers are always right: "MAKE ART NOT WAR". 🙂

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Chinese Wayang

passed a chinese wayang set-up in the middle of the stateland field near my place yesterday.
through the gaps in the hanging groundsheets, i could see the actors doing their make-up for the show admist the ordered mess of boxes containing their elaborate costumes.

 

the backstage can be such an interesting sight and it reminded me of a work by hendra gunawan. it talked of how the backstage was a strange atmosphere where the actors are juggling between their roles of a different character with their own human identities. In the backstage, they reprise their roles are individuals but as they head to the stage, their characters’ personalities takes over. i wished i had a camera with me.

 

Wayang is a dying trade in Singapore due to the bulk of the younger generation who are unable to speak and understand the chinese dilects in which the show is presented in. i am sad to say i am one of those youngsters who is unable to speak the language. never-the-less, i feel that every show is not just communicated through words rather, the choreography and visuals are equally important in conveying the message.
"the medium is the message" says Marshall McLuhan on mass media and technology. ironically however, the same can be applied to the arts of the past, even those without technology like Chinese wayang. You may not need to know the language to appreciate the show even though knowing it would definitely enhance its meaning.

 

(picture was taken by my father)

 

on a sidenote, i passed the run down house i photographed last weekend and it is in the midst of being rebuilt. i felt very lucky to get that last parting shot of 11 jalan kilat.

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Soba and friends.

Met up with jane, elaine and yok teng for dinner yesterday after school.

Ate at this fancy (not to mention price-y) Japanese restaurant in paragon. We had to meet early due to the dessert special they had before 5.30pm which was worth it. Ate interesting desserts like Cream Anmitsu which had soba balls (a bit like mochi), red bean paste, fruits, ice-cream and this very sweet maple syrup that you were meant to pour over. It was also the most expensive dessert on the menu but due to the special we got it at the same price as all the others plus it came with ocha (hot tea. I just realized that they called cold Japanese tea something else. Ahaha!)

 

 cream Anmitsu

 

 my pomelo jelly dessert in its fancy presentation!

 

Anyway, this restaurant supposed to be famous for their soba. So we had soba noodles for dinner! Yum! And I even took a sip of yokteng’s soba water (essentially what they use to wash the noodles in. haha. Like rice water kinda thing. But cleaner.) interesting.

 

The ambience was nice and quiet and I felt that we were probably the only ones talking in the entire restaurant, only nobody seemed to mind. It was as if we were in a bubble world of our own. Talked about Elaine (of course…) and how she is staying alone in an apartment in Melbourne. I can’t imagine doing that, and the thought is scary. She is very brave that way. And our school and all sorts of random (yet everything seemed relevant then) things. And ended up with stupid jokes! Haha. I loved elaine’s dumb blonde joke (even though it is incredibly stereotypical.) and jane’s pink panther joke! “dead ant, dead ant…..” the tune got stuck in our heads!

 

After dinner, we strolled to plaza sing coz Elaine said that there was a nice scapbooking store there. And we went up and down the escalators since she couldn’t remember where the store is! Eventually found the place and woah! It was worth the walk. We spent the whole time in the store gushing over the pretty paper, the buttons, and all the kind of things which we didn’t know existed until then! P-R-E-T-T-Y! I love the paper. But everything there is overpriced.

Dropped by a music store (for jane) and I had my first experience of stepping into a music store. I have never done that before. Felt lost. But the familiar scores were interesting to look at and I would get all excited when I saw a music score I knew. (like Andrew Lloyd Webber!)

 

 us, outside the music store.

 

it was fun. ((: and we will do it again in December when Elaine is back again.

 

 

 Jane gave me this cute totoro from Japan! 🙂

 

 

strangely, i have been watching the trailers for the korean show "daisy" which i first watched in our 414 classroom by playing enqi’s dvd on the school’s computer and projector. the whole class stayed back during recess to watch! it was after prelims. i think i like the show not just due to the storyline but also due to that experience of watching movie with 414-ners. 🙂 needless to say, we got scolded for wasting the school’s resources on ‘useless’ stuff. it was not ‘useless’ though. it bonded our class and provided me with beautiful memories.

 

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yinyang bunnies! <3

coursework has been occupying my days and extending them too.

have been doing nothing but knitting.

i m glad that i have finally started on my final but it seems that it is going to take forever.

meanwhile, huijun and i promised ourselves that we will do well not just for coursework but all the rest of our different subjects by A-levels. we will break the somewhat disturbing stereotype that art students do not do well for other subjects due to the lack of time! 🙂

i am surviving the week by doing work day-by-day. haha

friday is dinner with jane, elaine and yok teng. i can’t wait.
(but that will also mean another week gone and a week closer to deadline for coursework. zhiying is shocked that we are now in mid-July. it is scary how time flies.)

anyway… enjoy the picture i took of my rabbits below. like yin and yang!

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Art ‘K’lub camp

ahh. had art camp on friday and yesterday.

i think it was quite fun considering that we actually did not manage to do much.

played pictionary conducted by chris and knoing chris, the words she came up with were anything but easy. still… it was so amazingly fun as everyone still managed to draw something to try to represent the words (or phrases in my case). after a while we came up with strategies to represent certain things, like ‘opposite’ is a drawing with a cross, the letter "B" was represented by a image of a bee (and "A" was represented with __ in front of an image of a bee). it was hilarious!

then exco interviews in the DARK room. we didn’t throw all the really crazy questions that our senior gave us last year but still had a funny ending question (jiggle for art club..) so it was fun to tease the j1s. sorry.

and created assignments for the candidates so that we indirectly solve our problems of coming up with an interesting performance art for the coming art fest. haha. i was impressed with their proposals and we did a mini showcase so everyone knew how it was like. we all took part in it and had quite a fun time drawing stares from the mugging people in the canteen extension. i think longhao had a lot of fun. we know who will be definitely performing! 🙂

went up to the rooftop (njc crest) at 1am to admire the nigthscape with chris, val, jocelyn, jianhao and ms lu too. we realised that if you were to shout from there, there comes an echo from NYGH. cool! and the road is still busy at night.

and of course a spread of Indian food for dinner (aka nan, chapati, roti prata, a spread of sauces- dia, mutton curry, salad, black bean sauce….) at the rockwall area around a circle was fun anf filled our grumbling tummies. yum!

in the morning, we priced the jewellery to be sold too and with ms lu and linh, we started to learn a few vietnamese words for the numbers. i realised that vietnamese is so hard to learn since it has 6 different sounds (mandrin only has 4..) woahs.

besides the hard floor of ar21 and the blasting, cold shower near LT5, art club camp was incredible. 🙂

 

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look out for: ART FEST @ njc.

Preparation has just started for ART FEST’08. The theme is “DINGBATS”, we got the idea for the theme as we wanted a fun theme… so we wanted symbols %&%$#^ kinda like the unspeakable in comic books! But of course we cant have that in a school environment so we decided on the font “windings” which when typed would essentially give symbols!

Anyway, I was teaching the rest of the girls basic bead threading, linking, etc. we are making earrings and keychains for sale! I was initially unsure of what to teach afterall I really haven’t done this in ages, but after a while of being unsure, staring at the beads, I thought them the linking methods and got them to get creative. And I must say I was very impressed, everyone is just so creative and so I just suggested methods to them for certain endings, etc. I felt like a consultant of sorts. Haha! And yes, it was very very fun, going all excited (squeals*) over beads…haha

(and I know I was supposed to teach someone jewelry making for some time now but I never could find the time. So if you know who you are and you are still interested to learn, I promise I would teach after a-levels, ok?)

Linh really awed me with her innovation and her ‘never-waste-anything’ motto. It was amazing how something I would have so quickly thrown away was worked quickly into pieces of creativity in her hands. And her excitement was just infectious. ((:

And my work space has felt a lot of love in recent days… all the chatting about coursework, working on experimentations with huijun (who has unofficially moved to my space) and val and of course today’s mini workshop.

oh and i have been doing the most unlikely thing (it isn’t really, those who know me wouldn’t think so.) in school lately. i have been sewing. like some housewife or old lady who has nothing better to do. in my defence, many young people elsewhere, guys included, are sewing softtoys for sale ok! and i do have a lot of things to do not like an old lady. But it is for coursework so bear with me and my house-wife hobby for now. 😛

on a sidenote, i have been very happy to find a ‘new’ person i know on the bus each morning now that i have moved. i just met yinghui yesterday and i met her and yibing on the bus today. and jade too! and i have met carolyn and shuwei and yuxuan in the mornings too. plus taking bus home has became a crowded affair with my classmates, huihuan, shima, linfang, lusandra, jiaxin, gabriel, yanling, jinlai… taking the same buses! i feel happy. strangely, the person i most expected to take the same bus with hasn’t been seen at all!

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