Friday, May 30, 2008 2:55 PM
Guess whos back ; )
I,d say Pre-U sem was a success.
I got to meet many new , different kinds of people.
I also got exposed to many different styles of thinking.
Anyway. Ima blog about the events the took place during this 5 day absence.
The first day was kinda boring.
Or maybe i should say the check-in was kinda boring..
Soon , the CJC gang of 26 was split-up into 26 different groups.
I was allocated to group 9.
There i met people from different schools and backgrounds.
The JCs and Polytechnics.
You see , there is this mentality floating around which i adopted prior to Pre-U seminar.
ACJC = Stuck up
IJC = mat school
VJC males are gay
NJC = hao lian
RJC = hao lian
JJC = boring
Ya thats about it. Of course its just a mere generalization and one cant assume that every one from ACJC is stuck up and every one in JJC is boring ya?
Anyway , during the 5 days, i was privileged enough to engage some of my groupmates in a private conversation about their school.
I talked to Daryl from ACJC.
He told me that there were many cliches in ACJC. But still , the people there are cool. Its quite sorrowful ( my lit teacher told me never to use the words sad/happy) though that if you arent in any cliche , you,re considered as invisible. He confirmed my suspicion that there ARE actually people who feel downright lousy in ACJC because no one talks to them. Well , Daryl is in rugby so he hangs out with the Rugby guys. However , he tells me that while most of them are cool , some can be rather insensitive about things. Well , thats ACJC for you..
I spoke to Dawn about YJC.
She tells me that YJC is actually a pretty Rojak school. This is because theyre one of those schools whom remain at a 17-20ish cutoff point for the sake of student cohort size. She herself is J2 this year taking er.. i forgot. But she knows SHING! Martin Shing! my buddy from Maris Stella whom i havent seen for a long time. Anyway, one unique thing about YJC , is that there are actually around 200 retainees! OMG! Which JC actually retains 200 people? In CJC, we have about 20 retainees. That is because those who cant make a certain cut are forced to leave the school. She says that retainees are actually quite cool though because of their experience in JC life! (Mind you i was a retainee like twice...in secondary school)
I had Justina tell me about PJC. Now. Justina is cool because shes in basketball = )
Yea. But i still find her way too softspoken for a basketball player.
I was interested to know more about PJC's culture seeing that Xinyi and Peiwen came from there. Well, according to Justina, PJC was sorta regular. You had the mugger side of PJ whilst you had the hooligans too. She told me that initially there was some divide between the students seeing that 60% of PJCs actually came from Bukit Panjang Gov Sec ( Yirun's sec school ).
I talked to Santiya about NJC. Contrary to what i believed , i think i misjudged NJC. Santiya is amazing. Shes a J2 in NJC. Vice-president of the student council , secretary of the debate club and a H3 econs student with H2 bio , chem , math. H3 is just crazy stuff. Well i would like to take H3 econs/hist next year but see my grades first lor... Anyway. I always had the impression that NJC was muggerific and stuckup about it. But it doesnt seem so. Santiya is really nice and she tells me that while it is true that NJC mugs like hell, the environment there is rather supportive. If you have questions , you can approach just about anyone for help since everyone knows everything...
I,d say Pre-U sem was a success.
I got to meet many new , different kinds of people.
I also got exposed to many different styles of thinking.
Anyway. Ima blog about the events the took place during this 5 day absence.
The first day was kinda boring.
Or maybe i should say the check-in was kinda boring..
Soon , the CJC gang of 26 was split-up into 26 different groups.
I was allocated to group 9.
There i met people from different schools and backgrounds.
The JCs and Polytechnics.
You see , there is this mentality floating around which i adopted prior to Pre-U seminar.
ACJC = Stuck up
IJC = mat school
VJC males are gay
NJC = hao lian
RJC = hao lian
JJC = boring
Ya thats about it. Of course its just a mere generalization and one cant assume that every one from ACJC is stuck up and every one in JJC is boring ya?
Anyway , during the 5 days, i was privileged enough to engage some of my groupmates in a private conversation about their school.
I talked to Daryl from ACJC.
He told me that there were many cliches in ACJC. But still , the people there are cool. Its quite sorrowful ( my lit teacher told me never to use the words sad/happy) though that if you arent in any cliche , you,re considered as invisible. He confirmed my suspicion that there ARE actually people who feel downright lousy in ACJC because no one talks to them. Well , Daryl is in rugby so he hangs out with the Rugby guys. However , he tells me that while most of them are cool , some can be rather insensitive about things. Well , thats ACJC for you..
I spoke to Dawn about YJC.
She tells me that YJC is actually a pretty Rojak school. This is because theyre one of those schools whom remain at a 17-20ish cutoff point for the sake of student cohort size. She herself is J2 this year taking er.. i forgot. But she knows SHING! Martin Shing! my buddy from Maris Stella whom i havent seen for a long time. Anyway, one unique thing about YJC , is that there are actually around 200 retainees! OMG! Which JC actually retains 200 people? In CJC, we have about 20 retainees. That is because those who cant make a certain cut are forced to leave the school. She says that retainees are actually quite cool though because of their experience in JC life! (Mind you i was a retainee like twice...in secondary school)
I had Justina tell me about PJC. Now. Justina is cool because shes in basketball = )
Yea. But i still find her way too softspoken for a basketball player.
I was interested to know more about PJC's culture seeing that Xinyi and Peiwen came from there. Well, according to Justina, PJC was sorta regular. You had the mugger side of PJ whilst you had the hooligans too. She told me that initially there was some divide between the students seeing that 60% of PJCs actually came from Bukit Panjang Gov Sec ( Yirun's sec school ).
I talked to Santiya about NJC. Contrary to what i believed , i think i misjudged NJC. Santiya is amazing. Shes a J2 in NJC. Vice-president of the student council , secretary of the debate club and a H3 econs student with H2 bio , chem , math. H3 is just crazy stuff. Well i would like to take H3 econs/hist next year but see my grades first lor... Anyway. I always had the impression that NJC was muggerific and stuckup about it. But it doesnt seem so. Santiya is really nice and she tells me that while it is true that NJC mugs like hell, the environment there is rather supportive. If you have questions , you can approach just about anyone for help since everyone knows everything...
I actually talked to DAI ( yes his name is DAILIsomething (indian name) but short form = DAI )
Lol Do As Infinity.
Lol Do As Infinity.
---------------------
Ok anyway. Enough about Schools. I want to talk about people.
Pre-U Sem really opened my eyes. Down here , i,m meeting some really intelligent people, Some really sociable people and the classic RJCian which everyone kinda hates =(
Anyway, let me bitch about RJCians.
Each school had to prepare a presentation.
CJC's WAS AWESOME. WE PWNED THE WHOLE LECTURE THEATRE AHAHA.
No SHIT. After the presentation people were like coming up to CJCians saying that our presentation was really good AND funny = )
Yea. CJC is a fun school. No doubt about that.
KK anyway , I felt RJC's presentation was really good. No it was plain presentation with no creativity. But the speakers were articulate and presented well.
You see, During Pre-U seminar.
We have parellel presentations, panel discussions and Special activities.
After the parellel presentations and panel discussions , there would be a formal Q&A session with whoever was presenting. So people would have to queue up at the mike to pose questions to the presenters.
All in all , during these 5 days , i attented 13 presentations. There are this bunch of irritating RJC people.. After every presentation , when the Q&A session opened , they would rush to the mike like wild animals after meat. "Hi i,m Abagail Kang from Raffles Junior College " my god. I'm sick of hearing that...But you know , the questions they ask are insightful and valid. Theres one problem though , It is a formal Q&A session. You are wearing formal attire with blazer and pants. You have to abide by the code of conduct. State your name and institiution, pose your question , wait for your answer and leave. The reason? there is limited time for Q&A session so its not polite to hog the microphone. My god. The RJC people were so aggresive as if they were fighting for their lives. They would pose a question to the presenters and basically debate with them...After which theyd constantly shoot multiple questions and all. I think its rather embarrasing that the facilitators of the Q&A sessions had to constantly remind RJC to keep their questions short and not argue back. Occasionally cutting off some RJCians before their questions were fully answered cuz they were wasting others time.
During the panel discussions , ministers , Head of Departments from Universities and chief journalists were invited to hold a discussion with us. My god the RJCians have no shame. They,re like basically arguing with the people mentioned above for a full 10 minutes...
kk anyway , i think i might suffer from a variation of stage fright. You see, usually ACJC , RJC , TJC and VJC would hog the mike for Q&A sessions. However, i dare testify that this year's batch of CJCians were rather different/unique. I do respect every single of the 26 CJCians whom participated for Pre-U seminar as i feel that theyre all really capable.
Thus , this year , CJC was fighting for the mike too. Due to limited Lecture hall size in NTU , we had to break the 26 groups into 3 divisions. During the Q&A sessions , for my division , Sherrie, Debra and I were the more active ones whom participated in the Q&A session.
The presenters were located at the front. The microphones were located on the second tier or along the central steps. Its rather un-nerving to ask a question , disagree or comment on whatever issue was being discussed. ( i doubt its scary for the RJCians since theyre so thicked skinned. ) For people like me , especially us CJCians , we would actually consult each other about our questions to see if what we were bringing up was valid to the presentation and whether we were stupid enough to overlook anything. I was rather confident about speaking to the panel/presenters. Thus, i rose from my seat and went to the microphone quite a few times. However, when it was my turn , i would speak fluently and clearly but my body especially my legs would not stop shivering.
Its kinda like doing a guitar solo in front of a huge crowd. Well , its different because the chances of screwing up a guitar solo (depending on difficulty) is much higher than the chances of asking a well prepared question wrongly...
Ya anyway, this shivering wouldnt stop even after my question was answered and i returned to my seat. Its not like i,m afraid of speaking to a large group. I mean , i do it to my class all the time... Well , nevertheless this "stage fright" is something i,ll have to work on.
May i comment that the ministers well not all but the higher ranked ones are actually very intelligent. No, they are definitely not old fools. They tackled every question/comment skillfully and it really impressed me.
Pre-U sem is actually really fun!
While everyone here is deemed "cream of the crop" , the cream of the crop is actually a rather retarded bunch.
I mentioned earlier that there were " special programmes "
Well , the special programmes were a sandcastle challenge at east coast , An asian film festival where my division watched a filipino film about a gay boy (yes it was very insightful) and a digital chase which was a sorta high tech amazing race where we ran around NTU.
Everynight , during our free time , we would play dare and dare.
My god. The top students from the pre-U schools can be really funny and retarded at times.
Dare's like flirting with the vending machine , Dancing on the canteen table , pretending to be a Thai prostitute all that shit.
ALSO , during this 5 days , my group did about 7 tau poks , 1 throw all the males into the sea and 1 smash the cake on birthday boy's face.
Yes. These are the people that are scoring straight As.
Its scary because i,m meeting people who are really intelligent and i dont just mean academic smarts.
We watched movies at night and our hostel sucked so we crashed the Student Liason Officers ( SLO ) 's bunks (they have aircon) and did stupid things.
I,m going for Night cycling with my class soon so i have to end here.
But first some interesting pictures of myself.
Thus , this year , CJC was fighting for the mike too. Due to limited Lecture hall size in NTU , we had to break the 26 groups into 3 divisions. During the Q&A sessions , for my division , Sherrie, Debra and I were the more active ones whom participated in the Q&A session.
The presenters were located at the front. The microphones were located on the second tier or along the central steps. Its rather un-nerving to ask a question , disagree or comment on whatever issue was being discussed. ( i doubt its scary for the RJCians since theyre so thicked skinned. ) For people like me , especially us CJCians , we would actually consult each other about our questions to see if what we were bringing up was valid to the presentation and whether we were stupid enough to overlook anything. I was rather confident about speaking to the panel/presenters. Thus, i rose from my seat and went to the microphone quite a few times. However, when it was my turn , i would speak fluently and clearly but my body especially my legs would not stop shivering.
Its kinda like doing a guitar solo in front of a huge crowd. Well , its different because the chances of screwing up a guitar solo (depending on difficulty) is much higher than the chances of asking a well prepared question wrongly...
Ya anyway, this shivering wouldnt stop even after my question was answered and i returned to my seat. Its not like i,m afraid of speaking to a large group. I mean , i do it to my class all the time... Well , nevertheless this "stage fright" is something i,ll have to work on.
May i comment that the ministers well not all but the higher ranked ones are actually very intelligent. No, they are definitely not old fools. They tackled every question/comment skillfully and it really impressed me.
Pre-U sem is actually really fun!
While everyone here is deemed "cream of the crop" , the cream of the crop is actually a rather retarded bunch.
I mentioned earlier that there were " special programmes "
Well , the special programmes were a sandcastle challenge at east coast , An asian film festival where my division watched a filipino film about a gay boy (yes it was very insightful) and a digital chase which was a sorta high tech amazing race where we ran around NTU.
Everynight , during our free time , we would play dare and dare.
My god. The top students from the pre-U schools can be really funny and retarded at times.
Dare's like flirting with the vending machine , Dancing on the canteen table , pretending to be a Thai prostitute all that shit.
ALSO , during this 5 days , my group did about 7 tau poks , 1 throw all the males into the sea and 1 smash the cake on birthday boy's face.
Yes. These are the people that are scoring straight As.
Its scary because i,m meeting people who are really intelligent and i dont just mean academic smarts.
We watched movies at night and our hostel sucked so we crashed the Student Liason Officers ( SLO ) 's bunks (they have aircon) and did stupid things.
I,m going for Night cycling with my class soon so i have to end here.
But first some interesting pictures of myself.
I,m so sorry. You have to turn your heads.
I am well sought after. Lots of JCs want me = )
Some of the blazers are really tight.
Yea...female blazers...
Tim Innova JC
HWA CHONG HWA CHONG.
Tim Meridian JC (basketball)
Tim National JC
Tim Temasek JC.
SAJC!
Pioneer JC
HWA CHONG HWACHONG again
