Some things recently have been irking me and I have this urge to shout all those out. Instead I decided to (kind of) calm myself down and type this post.
The recent confession pages of schools are annoying me, and really, they tarnish the reputations of schools that I thought were reputable. I shall leave that aside. It is too personal to share.
One thing that I am really unhappy about is the recent 55th Grammy Awards 2013. The Grammy Awards Ceremony was set up to honour musical accomplishments by performers. As the years go by, I don't really think that is relevant.
Firstly, they do not honour all musical accomplishments at the same level. During the show telecast, only a few awards are given out: Record of the year, Album of the year, Song of the year, and a few of the more acceptable and popular genres: Rock, pop, rap and country. The other awards are given out during the Pre-telecast. I am a hard rock fan, and got interested in this whole Grammy Awards thing because I heard Halestorm was nominated (they won the best hard rock/metal performance). Another artist in a more popular genre winning a Grammy would be in a much different situation. They both won a Grammy, they both are good artists, but just because one chose the more popular genre, their award is given out during the live show while the other has their award given out during the pre-telecast. I don't find this at all fair. It's an out right discrimination for all the less popular genres. I think all awards should be given out during the Grammy Awards Ceremony. At least give these artists the fame they rightfully deserve.
Out of the four Rock awards, one was to Halestorm, while the other three, best Rock performance, best Rock song and best Rock album was won by the same artist, The Black Keys. I listened to their famous song "Lonely Boys". Personally, although the song is good, I don't think it deserves two Grammy awards. I started wondering how exactly are artists nominated, and how these awards are won.
After recording companies or individuals submit their recordings, more than 150 experts in the recording industry review and ensure that nominees are in the correct category and are eligible. The list is then given to the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) members to vote in general field and no more than 9 out of 30 of the other fields. The top 5 are the nominees for the award. The final voting ballots are sent to the Recording Academy members for voting. NARAS members are required to vote based on quality alone, and are encouraged, not not required, to vote only in their field of expertise. Doesn't this question the reliability of voters? and P.S. They don't receive nominated recordings.
Reading the criticism received portion is pretty entertaining. It has been criticised for generally awarding and nominating more commercially successful albums instead of critically successful ones. Justin Vernon of the indie band Bon Iver said on stage, "It's also hard to accept because you know, when I started to make songs I
did it for the inherent reward of making songs, so I'm a little bit
uncomfortable up here." Some also said many awards are dropped on one singer and his/her breakthrough album. There was also two reasons stated for the Grammy awards to be detached from the original: 1, the pursuit of making it a popular show and 2, the "disrespect of cultural shifts as being viable and artistic".
I hope to have faith in mainstream and socially acceptable music once again.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Giving Thanks for What Always Has Been There
I guess it's the tendency of people to take for granted things that's always been there. It becomes common until a point where you assume it'll be there the whole time.
When asked for an event I was grateful for in class, some of them laughed when I said it was getting my first calculator. I don't blame them, it sounded stupid to me too. The calculator is one of many things we take for granted in life. In a math exam, you'll use it to do arithmetic calculations. It saves us a lot of hassle from doing the actual calculations ourselves.
I've always been a careless and "blur" person. A few of my more notable arithmetic failures are "3+3=9" and "16-8=12". It takes awhile for my brain to detect the error in it. Without a calculator, I can't even imagine how many mistakes I'll make in that.
Pardon this weird and disorganised post. My brain's pretty drained from a long week.
In any case my main point is that, we take simple things in life for granted, and we only realise its importance when its gone. Like losing a teddy bear while walking on a long and winding road, you'll only realise the pain of losing things that have been there for you the whole time, there and then.
And the answer is not as simple as walking back to retrieve it.
Once it's gone, it's gone.
You can't turn back the clock.
When asked for an event I was grateful for in class, some of them laughed when I said it was getting my first calculator. I don't blame them, it sounded stupid to me too. The calculator is one of many things we take for granted in life. In a math exam, you'll use it to do arithmetic calculations. It saves us a lot of hassle from doing the actual calculations ourselves.
I've always been a careless and "blur" person. A few of my more notable arithmetic failures are "3+3=9" and "16-8=12". It takes awhile for my brain to detect the error in it. Without a calculator, I can't even imagine how many mistakes I'll make in that.
Pardon this weird and disorganised post. My brain's pretty drained from a long week.
In any case my main point is that, we take simple things in life for granted, and we only realise its importance when its gone. Like losing a teddy bear while walking on a long and winding road, you'll only realise the pain of losing things that have been there for you the whole time, there and then.
And the answer is not as simple as walking back to retrieve it.
Once it's gone, it's gone.
You can't turn back the clock.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Anime isn't a complete waste of time
Recently, more specifically five days ago, I started watching this Japanese anime, Gundam Seed. Unfortunately I decided to pick this "hobby" up when the holidays was about to end, and I doubt I'll have the time to finish watching it when school starts. Anyway I've watched it before many years back, and this is just to remind me of what happened (because I almost completely forgot).
To set things in context, the whole series is based on a war between two sides: The Naturals, who are pure humans; and the Coordinators, who are genetically modified humans. Coordinators, being modified to be smarter and faster, obviously pilot mobile suits better than the Naturals, so the Naturals are already at a disadvantage from the start. There are also forces, The Naturals are represented by the Earth forces, the Coordinators by ZAFT forces, and there's Orb who claims to be neutral.
The more I look at it, the more it doesn't seem like science fiction, and could very well be the problem we face generations down the road. All you need is one dare-devil to challenge the way life is made and you can spark a worldwide war. The question that came to my mind was, if this were to really happen, which side would I take? Would I side with the Naturals, as the reason stated by the government in the anime to "restore a blue and pure world", with the Coordinators, to embrace new technologies, or with the Orb to sit on the fence? I honestly don't know, and I don't wish to comment.
There were civilians who were with the Earth forces to help them when they were desperate for people, and when given the chance to go back to their family, they chose not to. They made a very good point. Even though they get to go to Orb, a neutral state where it is safe and not participating in the war, it is not as if a war isn't going on. Just because you don't see something happening doesn't mean it isn't happening. "We don't just disappear just because your eyes are shut" ("From Heads Unworthy", Rise Against).
There's another issue that was brought up. The Orb, emphasis again on a neutral state not participating in the war, apparently helped the Earth forces build weapons and machinery. Their stand was, "The machinery are for our own uses. When we are attacked, this is the only way we can protect ourselves and chase them out of this nation." That's ironic, considering that you're also participating in the war yourself. And when you attack them, they make more machinery with the excuse to "protect themselves". It'll never end.
The most lasting issue that I learned from the series is about victory. If you go by this philosophy that no one can win a war until one side wipes out the other, then the war will never end. If you kill someone, his friends/family will hate you and want to avenge them. They will then attempt to kill you, making your friends/family hate them, and this vicious cycle just continues on. When will it stop? In my opinion, a war will only stop when everyone single one of one side is eliminated, when one side surrender, or when there's consensus agreement. People don't fight a war to lose. They put so much effort into it, sacrificed so much, and all the want is victory. Just because you are victorious now doesn't mean you will be victorious later. We can't sustain victory forever.
In conclusion, after spending 12 hours watching anime (and I'm only about halfway done), it was worth my time.
If this were to happen, which side would you take? If you could escape, would you?
If you had hope, why would you stop fighting?
To set things in context, the whole series is based on a war between two sides: The Naturals, who are pure humans; and the Coordinators, who are genetically modified humans. Coordinators, being modified to be smarter and faster, obviously pilot mobile suits better than the Naturals, so the Naturals are already at a disadvantage from the start. There are also forces, The Naturals are represented by the Earth forces, the Coordinators by ZAFT forces, and there's Orb who claims to be neutral.
The more I look at it, the more it doesn't seem like science fiction, and could very well be the problem we face generations down the road. All you need is one dare-devil to challenge the way life is made and you can spark a worldwide war. The question that came to my mind was, if this were to really happen, which side would I take? Would I side with the Naturals, as the reason stated by the government in the anime to "restore a blue and pure world", with the Coordinators, to embrace new technologies, or with the Orb to sit on the fence? I honestly don't know, and I don't wish to comment.
 |
| What if, beyond this peaceful sky, there's a war going on? |
There's another issue that was brought up. The Orb, emphasis again on a neutral state not participating in the war, apparently helped the Earth forces build weapons and machinery. Their stand was, "The machinery are for our own uses. When we are attacked, this is the only way we can protect ourselves and chase them out of this nation." That's ironic, considering that you're also participating in the war yourself. And when you attack them, they make more machinery with the excuse to "protect themselves". It'll never end.
The most lasting issue that I learned from the series is about victory. If you go by this philosophy that no one can win a war until one side wipes out the other, then the war will never end. If you kill someone, his friends/family will hate you and want to avenge them. They will then attempt to kill you, making your friends/family hate them, and this vicious cycle just continues on. When will it stop? In my opinion, a war will only stop when everyone single one of one side is eliminated, when one side surrender, or when there's consensus agreement. People don't fight a war to lose. They put so much effort into it, sacrificed so much, and all the want is victory. Just because you are victorious now doesn't mean you will be victorious later. We can't sustain victory forever.
In conclusion, after spending 12 hours watching anime (and I'm only about halfway done), it was worth my time.
If this were to happen, which side would you take? If you could escape, would you?
If you had hope, why would you stop fighting?
Saturday, December 22, 2012
The Apocalypse That Didn't Happen
Almost everyone made a big deal of the "21 Dec 2012", when the world was supposed to end. If you actually read about facts, you'll realise that the world won't actually end, at least not on that day.
The Mayans were the people who supposedly predicted the end of the world. However, 21 Dec 2012 was just a day in their calendar, which happened to mark significance because it is the end of a calender, and start of a new one. Historians believe that the day when the calendar first started was some sort of dooms day, thus conveniently assumed that the world would have some catastrophic disaster when the calendar ends/starts.
In a documentary I watched, they said that the Mayans scripted messages on stones. And for some reason, turned it around so that when the stones were made to form the structures, it won't be seen. I'm not sure how people found out about it though. It's not like they could remove a precious stone from the Mayan monuments. The commentator implied that they wanted to hide some secret from others around. He then went on to say, "could they be hiding some knowledge of a catastrophic event from people so it would not cause global panic"? My guess is that the Mayans didn't want that important message on the stone to suffer wear and tear from environmental factors so made it face inside to protect it as long as they can before someone finds it and protects it. Just a guess.
Another documentary depicted the possible scenes of disasters of the supposed "End of the World", like major earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, cosmic collision, famine and so on. I laughed when I watched it on the 22nd Dec haha.
In Nostradamus' predictions, he mentioned something that resembled an Earthquake, with a slight hint, adding the phrase "new city" into it, implying a catastrophic earthquake would happen at "new city". Apparently, according to American historians, they linked "new city" to the USA, and thought: Since Yellowstone has an active volcano, "new city" probably referred to Yellowstone. I don't know how they arrived at this conclusion (though I believed it was biased; Well whatever it just means that if it's true, they'll die first), but I'll associate "new city" to New York, which I doubt has active volcanoes so meh.
"Doomsday Preppers", as they call themselves, make preparations for the supposed apocalypse. For example buying an underground capsule which would provide them oxygen, food and water to survive and things like that. While some might think it's stupid to waste money on it, I guess it's good that they're prepared for the worst.
In any case, it was evident that the world didn't end.
If an apocalypse were to happen, I'll bet on December 2016 though. There's a huge asteroid that's suppose to collide with Earth then, but scientists are trying to knock it out of its orbit. They have the next 4 years to work things out, so I won't fret about it :).
The Mayans were the people who supposedly predicted the end of the world. However, 21 Dec 2012 was just a day in their calendar, which happened to mark significance because it is the end of a calender, and start of a new one. Historians believe that the day when the calendar first started was some sort of dooms day, thus conveniently assumed that the world would have some catastrophic disaster when the calendar ends/starts.
In a documentary I watched, they said that the Mayans scripted messages on stones. And for some reason, turned it around so that when the stones were made to form the structures, it won't be seen. I'm not sure how people found out about it though. It's not like they could remove a precious stone from the Mayan monuments. The commentator implied that they wanted to hide some secret from others around. He then went on to say, "could they be hiding some knowledge of a catastrophic event from people so it would not cause global panic"? My guess is that the Mayans didn't want that important message on the stone to suffer wear and tear from environmental factors so made it face inside to protect it as long as they can before someone finds it and protects it. Just a guess.
Another documentary depicted the possible scenes of disasters of the supposed "End of the World", like major earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, cosmic collision, famine and so on. I laughed when I watched it on the 22nd Dec haha.
In Nostradamus' predictions, he mentioned something that resembled an Earthquake, with a slight hint, adding the phrase "new city" into it, implying a catastrophic earthquake would happen at "new city". Apparently, according to American historians, they linked "new city" to the USA, and thought: Since Yellowstone has an active volcano, "new city" probably referred to Yellowstone. I don't know how they arrived at this conclusion (though I believed it was biased; Well whatever it just means that if it's true, they'll die first), but I'll associate "new city" to New York, which I doubt has active volcanoes so meh.
"Doomsday Preppers", as they call themselves, make preparations for the supposed apocalypse. For example buying an underground capsule which would provide them oxygen, food and water to survive and things like that. While some might think it's stupid to waste money on it, I guess it's good that they're prepared for the worst.
In any case, it was evident that the world didn't end.
If an apocalypse were to happen, I'll bet on December 2016 though. There's a huge asteroid that's suppose to collide with Earth then, but scientists are trying to knock it out of its orbit. They have the next 4 years to work things out, so I won't fret about it :).
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| http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/6501/smileyfacek.jpg |
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Music
There's just something interesting, bewildering, about music. Somehow, it just takes your mind off the current situation you're in, and takes you to another world, which most of the time is imaginary. Music isn't always good. Some music makes you calm, happy and relaxed; Others, makes you sad, angered and more depressed. It basically depends on the genre of music that you're listening to. Oh and more importantly, the memories tagged along to them.
I find it weird how we tagged a certain memory with the song. Based on experience, the image I have in my head while hearing the song, usually tags with what I saw when hearing the song for the first time. For example, I first heard most of Soda Green's songs during the concert. Thus when I hear those song, I remember that concert atmosphere and his lame jokes, and that's how I just smile and laugh to myself. Sometimes, the lyrics of the song is just too relatable that we become happy.
On other occasions, when hearing a song, you tag a person, instead of an image, to it. I don't like it when it happens. It's not fair to ruin a perfectly good, and favourite, song, just because of a sudden hatred towards the person tagged along with it. Take my advice, try to block this tendency as far as possible. I can't believe I stopped listening to Westlife.
Rock genre. Who actually listens to it? Wait let me correct that. Who actually appreciates rock? Alternative rock is pretty acceptable to most, maybe because there are melodies that are easy to follow. Metal rock is all the way at the other end with people screaming. Rise Against is pretty much the only Punk Rock band I hear. In some songs, you can sense their rebellious tendencies in their music. This might sound weird, but when I listen to rock music, it just calms me down. That's when I thought I finally understood rock.
I actually prefer rock towards pop. Pop songs are easy to follow and likable, but most don't have a meaning to their lyrics, or they're just simply "I'm deep in love" or "I can't get over him/her" kind of songs. Punk rock bands like Rise Against have much deeper meaning that they convey through their songs. They wrote songs about stopping bullying (Make It Stop), how messed up the world is (Life Less Frightening), being hopeful with life (Swing Life Away), refugees (Prayer of the Refugee, one of my favourite :)), the world's messed up lifestyle (Re-Education), and war (Hero Of War, another favourite :)). They are good people too. Labelled as the "political punks", they are also human and animal rights activists, and activists in anti-bullying projects.
Vino Alan from X Factor USA 2012 is another example. By judging him by his cover, with the tattoos all over his body, he gives the impression of a messed up, rebellious adult. His story says so much more. On Thanksgiving week of the competition, he dedicated the song "God Bless The USA" to the U.S. military. His family has connections with the military, and he plays music for them to lift their spirits. His singing was sincere and touching. I've always admired people in the military, and anyone working in the civil service.
In short, music is powerful. They mess with your emotions and feelings in ways you can never understand or comprehend. Treat it with caution.
I find it weird how we tagged a certain memory with the song. Based on experience, the image I have in my head while hearing the song, usually tags with what I saw when hearing the song for the first time. For example, I first heard most of Soda Green's songs during the concert. Thus when I hear those song, I remember that concert atmosphere and his lame jokes, and that's how I just smile and laugh to myself. Sometimes, the lyrics of the song is just too relatable that we become happy.
On other occasions, when hearing a song, you tag a person, instead of an image, to it. I don't like it when it happens. It's not fair to ruin a perfectly good, and favourite, song, just because of a sudden hatred towards the person tagged along with it. Take my advice, try to block this tendency as far as possible. I can't believe I stopped listening to Westlife.
Rock genre. Who actually listens to it? Wait let me correct that. Who actually appreciates rock? Alternative rock is pretty acceptable to most, maybe because there are melodies that are easy to follow. Metal rock is all the way at the other end with people screaming. Rise Against is pretty much the only Punk Rock band I hear. In some songs, you can sense their rebellious tendencies in their music. This might sound weird, but when I listen to rock music, it just calms me down. That's when I thought I finally understood rock.
I actually prefer rock towards pop. Pop songs are easy to follow and likable, but most don't have a meaning to their lyrics, or they're just simply "I'm deep in love" or "I can't get over him/her" kind of songs. Punk rock bands like Rise Against have much deeper meaning that they convey through their songs. They wrote songs about stopping bullying (Make It Stop), how messed up the world is (Life Less Frightening), being hopeful with life (Swing Life Away), refugees (Prayer of the Refugee, one of my favourite :)), the world's messed up lifestyle (Re-Education), and war (Hero Of War, another favourite :)). They are good people too. Labelled as the "political punks", they are also human and animal rights activists, and activists in anti-bullying projects.
Vino Alan from X Factor USA 2012 is another example. By judging him by his cover, with the tattoos all over his body, he gives the impression of a messed up, rebellious adult. His story says so much more. On Thanksgiving week of the competition, he dedicated the song "God Bless The USA" to the U.S. military. His family has connections with the military, and he plays music for them to lift their spirits. His singing was sincere and touching. I've always admired people in the military, and anyone working in the civil service.
In short, music is powerful. They mess with your emotions and feelings in ways you can never understand or comprehend. Treat it with caution.
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| Music can make you sad, or happy. And in some funny moments, make you feel both. |
Friday, November 30, 2012
Beijing
From 18 to 27 November 2012, I went to Beijing, China. It was a really memorable trip. My senior was right, you'll look back on it and say "I miss the trip and kids so much...".
18 November
At the airport was the time I first saw some of the people I was going to be with over the next 9-10 days. There were 5 Pei Hwa kids (1 P3, 1 P4 and 3 P5; and of which two are siblings), 1 De La Salle kid, and three "seniors", from Sec 2, 3 and 4. It was pretty awkward, and we started off trying to remember people's names and faces, especially when there were some siblings who look much alike. There was a mother and grandma who followed on the trip too.
During the midnight flight on SIA, I was in the middle of the two seniors. One of which I trained with on Saturdays (She's my roommate), and the other was a guy I never saw. SIA decided to wake us up from our sleep at 4.30am for breakfast, just when we were tired and about to sleep.
For the rest of the day, we just visited the Olympic stadium, checked into the Beijing ShiChaHai Sports School (北京什刹海体育运动学校) and its hostel. We spent the afternoon catching up on our sleep. It was great.
At night we went to some street near the school to walk around and just feel the atmosphere. The lake was brightly lighted, with many pubs that had their own live music each which slightly ruined the happiness. Just imagine how conflicting music sounds. I don't know why, but I felt this sudden surge of happiness when I saw the lake. In the midst of the chaotic and bustling streets of Beijing, there was a sense of calmness in the water. On our way, we bought candy floss (which is seriously huge), and we saw people trying to sell fried starfishes, seahorses, scorpions and other insects I can't identify. Apparently it's a norm there.
19 November
It's Day 1 of our Wushu training. In the morning we went to the hall at 8.30am. There's two full wushu carpets at that hall alone. If you count the other two wushu halls that makes... Eight carpets. Their carpet rolling skills aren't that perfect (neither is ours), but they have the space for that margin of error. We started our warm-up, and our coach came at 9am. She's nice to us, not like my impression of a typical china coach, which shouts at students and uses a cudgel/sword cover to make sure you kick or jump higher. Well I saw that coach later on the trip. We did an hour of basics (基本功), which is just kicking and jumping, followed by an hour of routines.
At 11am when morning training ended, it was time for lunch. We had about three hours to slack before going for afternoon training at 3-5.30pm. I spent my time sleeping more (aside from the 8-9 hours of sleep I get at night), watching TV, writing reflections or writing some math/science thing that came to my mind. Yes, I'm weird.
Afternoon training was more fun, because we get to train with the Beijing kids. They are good, especially the 队长 and other big kids. There are girls from Indonesia and Russia, and the guys look 17-18, but are in fact only 14. Six of them can do no-handed cartwheel, which is pretty freaky. Their competitiveness and energy was really interesting. They shout abit during warm-ups and 基本功, which is meant to drive the energy for the training. In general, the whole afternoon training was doing 基本功.
The teacher that went with us decided to punish us with each sentence of English we spoke daily. After dinner, we had to climb up and down the stairs as punishment. Perfect timing for the punishment, right after 4 hours of training that pretty much killed our legs.
That night, we took a stroll around the school. We found this on their "wall of fame", featuring students from the school that did well, which I found pretty funny. I don't know if it had any significant meaning, but 丁宁's name was next to it, which says champion instead of second.
20 November
The day went exactly the same, except that I didn't get punished (oh yes) and we didn't do anything in the evening. The only difference to the training was that my legs ached so badly. I couldn't even lift my right leg up, so I did all the kicks with my left leg, which was weird.
21 November
It was a good break for us from training. We went to climb the Great Wall of China that day. We started from an entrance (慕田峪) where most tourists don't enter from. It took us 30 minutes to climb up to get to the Great Wall. We started at the 8th watch tower, and walked to the 15th one.
At the 15th watch tower, we were able to climb up to the top of it. The view was amazing and breathtaking. Well it was breathtaking literally, considering how many steps there was to climb. We did some jump shots there. Up there, everyone closed our eyes and made a wish. We shouted out some of our wishes like some weirdos, and the Sec 2 guy shouted a confession of his love to some girl in Singapore. It was the most adorable thing to see a P5 kid lecturing a Sec 2 guy, about how he should not get involved in relationships. Somewhere along the way down, these Pei Hwa primary school kids started calling me 小妹妹, even though I'm at least 4 years older than them. I ended up calling two of them 哥哥 wow.
In the late afternoon, we visited some film training school. It's basically a place with an old china setting used for filming shows that need those. We heard people shouting and fighting while walking. I started off disturbed and scared because you can hear the victim moaning and being punched. Then I realised it was some fighting scene being filmed.
22 November
It was Day 3 of training. My aches recovered (well mostly) and I was able to do wushu like normal again. During the break before afternoon training, we visited another wushu group and see them train. They're the youth elites of the school, 少年专业队. There were people from Russia and Ukraine training too. The were obviously very good, with everyone, being able to do no-handed cartwheel. Their coach was a world champion in sword, and of course, strict. She shouts at the kids to go faster, and swings a cudgel below their legs when jumping. If they get hit, it means they didn't jump high enough. I didn't really like the 队长 though.
That night, we went 王府井 to shop. It was boring, except for those things that we saw along the way. I don't mean to offend anyone, but those are funny. That night was really, really cold. Even with the 5 layers I wore, I was shivering. The wind slowed us down and blew my hoodie down countless times when going against us, and propelled us forward when it went with us. No matter how cold it was, it is always a good time to eat ice-cream. With one hand holding on to my hood, and the other holding the vanilla cone, I smiled as I enjoyed every bite of it :).
23 November
Another consecutive day of double training, and I was still able to survive and kick. In the afternoon before our second training of the day, I was bored so decided to walk around and explore the school. I saw the young elites outside at the track running. That day happened to be their physical training. They were running at a speed that I'll use to finish a 400m race. Then I realised they ran for 30 minutes wow. I went to the Basement where I saw the third wushu hall (I don't really understand the logic of having a hall in the basement), where the young elites (female team) were doing strength training too.
Actually that day, was our last afternoon training, and last time training with the Beijing people. Over the days I made friends with the Beijing people we trained with. One of the girls there hit her right hand too much during Wushu that it bled. I realised it is rather painful after getting that myself, but mine wasn't as bad. I learned that they train for many years, ranging from 4-7.
That night, we went to some place to shop again. Considering I can't even remember the name of that place, it wasn't that important. What was fun, though, was the ride there in Beijing's public transport. They also had the Ez-link card system. The only difference was that they have 3-4 doors on the bus so we weren't really sure which door to exit from.
24 November
After so many days in Beijing, we finally had our morning run. It was about -3 to 0 degrees in the morning, so we couldn't run at 6am like we were originally supposed to. We started our run at 8.30am to Jing Shan park. It was about 15 minutes of jogging before we couldn't take it. Breathing the cold air was just weird and we couldn't take the sudden coldness. At the park, we could see the view of the Forbidden City and Tian An Men square. It was pretty cool... Too bad I didn't bring my camera along (Who brings a camera along when jogging anyway?). The cool thing there was that in the morning, people do some loud shout to start their energy or something, like "HA" and "HU". Apparently it's perfectly normal as we saw and heard many along the way who did that. Then we tried it for ourselves, and we had many people staring at us. Awkward.
After coming back, we watched the elites of the school train. They're the older bunch of people training Wushu there. They don't do any international routines, simply because those are too easy for them, so they create their own routines, with many crazy jumps. This girl with the cudgel throws it up, do a forward roll, then stand up and catch it. The guy with the spear bent it like it was nothing. The guy with the sword did the jump twist perfectly. It was some jaw-dropping experience.
Then was when the primary school kids decided to explore my camera's functions. They loved the squeak sound my camera makes (finally people who can appreciate it) and played with the fish eye effect. Well they're already adorable enough and that effect just made everything funnier. We all had a good laugh.
In the evening, we watched a kungfu performance put up by students in the school. Some pandas were walking around the theater before the performance, and we took pictures with them. Then we also punched (lightly of course) them in the stomach cheekily, and they whacked us back. The performance was great. We recognised some of the faces and routines we saw earlier today.
The finale was... Retarted. All the performers gathered on stage, with people in panda costumes in front. Suddenly, everyone started dancing to the most overused song ever. Just imagine... Pandas dancing to gangnam style haha. I broke out into uncontrollable laughter.
25 November
It was another day of touring Beijing. I think over the days the primary school kids get more and more tired. Static was also starting to take effect on their hair haha. We had a buddy system where the older kid is paired with a smaller kid and we "take care" of them. Hong Jiun was my buddy and it was pretty fun.
We went to Tian An Men square first. Usually tourists were able to walk on the actual square itself, but on that day there was some huge marathon. There were many police and soldiers on duty. Some of the runners had cute animal hats, like of pandas, elephants and dogs.
The Forbidden City is a really magnificent place. It's a complicated maze that you'll never find your way out of, not that those living in there could go out anyway. Some of the palaces are out of bound for tourists to enter, but they can stay outside and look in. There were so many people pushing to get a view of the emperor's chair or resting area (I don't know what's so interesting about it anyway). We couldn't see the small kids who got pushed to the front, so we started shouting their names until we found them.
For lunch we went to KFC. After getting some all shrimp burger, I laughed at my stupidity for buying shrimp from a place famous for its chicken. At the carpark waiting for the mini bus to bring us to our next stop, I saw this reflection I thought was rather interesting.
Our next stop was Tian Tan. It's a place where emperors used to go to make prayers for good harvest, weather, etc. The echo wall is pretty cool. You, supposedly, can shout into a wall, and someone at the other side can hear it. Due to the need for historical preservation, of course they're not letting us hooligans try it. The top of some part in Tian Tan has a center, the first circle is split into 9 parts, the second into 18 parts and so on. The 9th circle theoretically should have 81 parts, so out of boredom, I walked around the outer and counted the number of parts. True enough there were 81 parts.
On the bus ride back, which was about an hour, I was just listening to these primary school kids complaining about things that happen, and how upset they are about the possibility of the school getting rid of their Wushu cca. It was great to know that even small kids could strongly believe in something, and stood up for their beliefs. All they need now is a group trophy at the 2013 competition to prove themselves. I believe they can do it :).
At night, we finally had Peking duck. It was at a restaurant at the basement 2 of one of the school buildings (how funny). It tasted heavenly, and we even had a certificate and a number tag for the duck we ate.
26 November
It was our last training in the morning. Our last training was the first training for the Meridian JC team which just joined. We laughed at the thought of these newbies and how horribly they'll ache and suffer tomorrow. We cherished the last two hours of training in Beijing, and for our last greeting to our coach, we shouted and gave our all.
In the afternoon after lunch, we had sooo much free time, so we decided to walk along the same streets we did in the morning. I saw an ice-cream shop and got instantly attracted to it. I asked the rest of the group to wait for me for awhile while I went to buy ice-cream. It ended up with 6 other people buying ice-cream cones haha. I started having a stronger liking towards Vanilla. It's just looks plain and simple, but its tastes tells a different story. We saw a stamp shop along the way. It had a small statue of a young boy outside, and erm, basically one P5 kid tried to do something with it. Let's not go there.
We had so much more free time that at 4pm, we decided to go back to the same old wushu hall, and watch their afternoon training. It was a time where I finally got the chance to video and take pictures of them. After looking through the videos I took, I realised I was pretty biased towards the older group, as I kept taking videos of them haha. This, I thought, is the coolest video I took there. I thought back, and I couldn't believe it was only a week ago that I knew these people. During their break, they talked to us like we were old friends, and asked us if we were coming again next year. Sitting here and typing this blog post, I realised I miss them. I can remember each of the big kids' facial expressions, smile and the way they do their jumps and kicks. Oh, and their accents are cute and funny too :).
After our very last dinner there, we had more free time. Yelani, her mum and I went to the Starbucks right beside the school. I got some latte I think. When I got back to Singapore and did the conversion, I realised China's Starbucks coffee is slightly cheaper than Singapore's. I hogged their wifi for awhile, and weirdly, the first thing I did was check my email.
At night, we made our way to the Beijing airport, as we enjoyed and reminisced our last few hours there. The boarding time was 11.35pm, where we entered on time, only to realise that the plane was schedules to leave at 1.20am.
On the plane, after I got sick of trying to fall asleep, I started watching the comedy programmes like Big Bang Theory and Ted the movie. They were hilarious, and Ted is the most retarded and illogical movie I've ever watched.
And here, ends my Beijing trip.
Subsequently, after the plane landed at 6.40am, I rushed home to dump my luggage, quickly changed, and rushed to school where I reached at 8.45am.
18 November
At the airport was the time I first saw some of the people I was going to be with over the next 9-10 days. There were 5 Pei Hwa kids (1 P3, 1 P4 and 3 P5; and of which two are siblings), 1 De La Salle kid, and three "seniors", from Sec 2, 3 and 4. It was pretty awkward, and we started off trying to remember people's names and faces, especially when there were some siblings who look much alike. There was a mother and grandma who followed on the trip too.
During the midnight flight on SIA, I was in the middle of the two seniors. One of which I trained with on Saturdays (She's my roommate), and the other was a guy I never saw. SIA decided to wake us up from our sleep at 4.30am for breakfast, just when we were tired and about to sleep.
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| Quite a long school name.. Took me awhile to remember it. |
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| The night lights. All that's missing is tranquility. |
19 November
It's Day 1 of our Wushu training. In the morning we went to the hall at 8.30am. There's two full wushu carpets at that hall alone. If you count the other two wushu halls that makes... Eight carpets. Their carpet rolling skills aren't that perfect (neither is ours), but they have the space for that margin of error. We started our warm-up, and our coach came at 9am. She's nice to us, not like my impression of a typical china coach, which shouts at students and uses a cudgel/sword cover to make sure you kick or jump higher. Well I saw that coach later on the trip. We did an hour of basics (基本功), which is just kicking and jumping, followed by an hour of routines.
At 11am when morning training ended, it was time for lunch. We had about three hours to slack before going for afternoon training at 3-5.30pm. I spent my time sleeping more (aside from the 8-9 hours of sleep I get at night), watching TV, writing reflections or writing some math/science thing that came to my mind. Yes, I'm weird.
Afternoon training was more fun, because we get to train with the Beijing kids. They are good, especially the 队长 and other big kids. There are girls from Indonesia and Russia, and the guys look 17-18, but are in fact only 14. Six of them can do no-handed cartwheel, which is pretty freaky. Their competitiveness and energy was really interesting. They shout abit during warm-ups and 基本功, which is meant to drive the energy for the training. In general, the whole afternoon training was doing 基本功.
The teacher that went with us decided to punish us with each sentence of English we spoke daily. After dinner, we had to climb up and down the stairs as punishment. Perfect timing for the punishment, right after 4 hours of training that pretty much killed our legs.
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| One of Singapore's table tennis players came from here |
20 November
The day went exactly the same, except that I didn't get punished (oh yes) and we didn't do anything in the evening. The only difference to the training was that my legs ached so badly. I couldn't even lift my right leg up, so I did all the kicks with my left leg, which was weird.
21 November
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| Reflection of bamboo trees on a wall |
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| The start of a great journey full of ups and downs |
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| Failed jump shot of Hong Jiun (left) and Tze Sean (right) |
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| Actors bored on set. Yes yes, back in olden China people had smart phones. |
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| Sunset |
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| The moon |
At 4pm, there was both the sun and moon. Two contrasting things that you don't usually see together. I looked at the people I was with in the trip and thought, What's the odds of knowing them? What's the odds of coming to Beijing? What if at that point of time I said "no" and never joined that Wushu place in the first place? I snapped myself out of those thoughts and continued walking. Sometimes I just need myself to wake myself up.
22 November
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| The Wushu hall with the springier and cooler carpet |
23 November
Another consecutive day of double training, and I was still able to survive and kick. In the afternoon before our second training of the day, I was bored so decided to walk around and explore the school. I saw the young elites outside at the track running. That day happened to be their physical training. They were running at a speed that I'll use to finish a 400m race. Then I realised they ran for 30 minutes wow. I went to the Basement where I saw the third wushu hall (I don't really understand the logic of having a hall in the basement), where the young elites (female team) were doing strength training too.
Actually that day, was our last afternoon training, and last time training with the Beijing people. Over the days I made friends with the Beijing people we trained with. One of the girls there hit her right hand too much during Wushu that it bled. I realised it is rather painful after getting that myself, but mine wasn't as bad. I learned that they train for many years, ranging from 4-7.
That night, we went to some place to shop again. Considering I can't even remember the name of that place, it wasn't that important. What was fun, though, was the ride there in Beijing's public transport. They also had the Ez-link card system. The only difference was that they have 3-4 doors on the bus so we weren't really sure which door to exit from.
24 November
After so many days in Beijing, we finally had our morning run. It was about -3 to 0 degrees in the morning, so we couldn't run at 6am like we were originally supposed to. We started our run at 8.30am to Jing Shan park. It was about 15 minutes of jogging before we couldn't take it. Breathing the cold air was just weird and we couldn't take the sudden coldness. At the park, we could see the view of the Forbidden City and Tian An Men square. It was pretty cool... Too bad I didn't bring my camera along (Who brings a camera along when jogging anyway?). The cool thing there was that in the morning, people do some loud shout to start their energy or something, like "HA" and "HU". Apparently it's perfectly normal as we saw and heard many along the way who did that. Then we tried it for ourselves, and we had many people staring at us. Awkward.
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| Someone in 专业队 with a cudgel |
Then was when the primary school kids decided to explore my camera's functions. They loved the squeak sound my camera makes (finally people who can appreciate it) and played with the fish eye effect. Well they're already adorable enough and that effect just made everything funnier. We all had a good laugh.
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| Pandas looking creepily at us. |
The finale was... Retarted. All the performers gathered on stage, with people in panda costumes in front. Suddenly, everyone started dancing to the most overused song ever. Just imagine... Pandas dancing to gangnam style haha. I broke out into uncontrollable laughter.
25 November
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| Hong Jiun, who I call 小弟弟. |
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| Just a small part of the whole marathon |
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| West (I think) entrance of the Forbidden City |
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| Reflection of a Winter tree |
On the bus ride back, which was about an hour, I was just listening to these primary school kids complaining about things that happen, and how upset they are about the possibility of the school getting rid of their Wushu cca. It was great to know that even small kids could strongly believe in something, and stood up for their beliefs. All they need now is a group trophy at the 2013 competition to prove themselves. I believe they can do it :).
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| Such a cute chopsticks holder |
26 November
It was our last training in the morning. Our last training was the first training for the Meridian JC team which just joined. We laughed at the thought of these newbies and how horribly they'll ache and suffer tomorrow. We cherished the last two hours of training in Beijing, and for our last greeting to our coach, we shouted and gave our all.
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| I took this picture when we walked past it earlier in the day. |
At night, we made our way to the Beijing airport, as we enjoyed and reminisced our last few hours there. The boarding time was 11.35pm, where we entered on time, only to realise that the plane was schedules to leave at 1.20am.
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| You can never imagine what lies in that vast distance. |
And here, ends my Beijing trip.
Subsequently, after the plane landed at 6.40am, I rushed home to dump my luggage, quickly changed, and rushed to school where I reached at 8.45am.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Today was my primary school's fiesta, where the current SAPS students (Or as I like to call them, kids) set up booths to raise yearly funds. Booths are also given to affiliated schools like St Pat's and St Theresa, and some students are invited back to help out. It was a huge event with many people participating, and the guest of honour was Dr Amy Koh.
As I left my house this morning, I thought to myself: Wait a minute, how do I walk to school...? I walked to the bus stop before taking a left turn down the familiar route. I looked at the bus stop. We took the bus every school morning back then, and we knew the timings that the bus would come like the back of our hands. I waited at the bus stop with the same few people every morning, kids of different levels. I remembered all their faces, but I had no clue what their name was, or who they were. It's something like an unexplainable, silent friendship.
I continued walking down the familiar route. Here, our old 6-1 gang will walk from school to the MRT. We talked about any random thing we can think of. I remember when we used to discuss diabolic plans to "make trouble" for the teachers after PSLE. We just ended up laughing a lot, and even though we were the top and supposedly most competitive class, our bond was there ;).
As I walked closer to school, I saw many people walking towards the school gate, and the loud cheers from inside the school. I recognised the same old security guard. I smiled to the him as I walked in, bearing in mind that he was that same guard who chased us out of school during the countless times we tried to go back in and see our teachers. Ahh, people don't change.
I walked towards the canteen, where I saw the familiar room (I think it's called E space?). For 3 months of our lives in P6, we spent every school day in school until 5pm (Which was late for primary school) to finish up our script and props for the Odyssey of the Mind competition in April 2009. We were allowed to enter that room and use the computers to do our scripting, while others admire in awe that we have access to it. It was a really fun experience, and although we got 5th, it was good for a school like us, considering the first 4 places were dominated by kids from schools who established their reputation.
I remember when we used to complain about the Band CCA next door. We could hear them practicing and repeating the same song daily, and we were sick of hearing it. But now, I miss those melodies.
At the canteen, I finally met people I knew. I saw Chin Fan, Russell and Hubert there. They brought along two of their SJI friends. How cool, all 4 guys are SJI prefects. Over time, many more people came and went. I really appreciate their efforts to come, especially when there's someone who's heading off to Sabah for some OBS trip in the afternoon.
Nevertheless, the same response I get when seeing an old friend is this: Wait, I thought you were taller?
Along the way through many stations and games, our group got bigger, adding Wei Quan, Wasi and Xavier in it. Although not all are in 6-1, we had "fond" memories with 6-2 too :).
Upon seeing St Pat's and St Theresa's booths, Russell shouted "Hey no fair, why don't we get a booth?. He's just this comedian who's super hyper and funny. It was today that I got to know that he's apparently the head prefect, and Hubert's the deputy head prefect. Wow.
I had a few rounds of games, challenging an old friend to basketball, hitting marbles into the containers, and catapult. I think we were pretty tied haha. I miss the nonsensical squabbles we had, and how we ended up laughing at every one of them.
We spent some time looking at the school pond. It was beautiful, with many plants and fishes. What I enjoyed most was looking into the water, to see the reflection of the clouds above.
We camped in the carpark because we didn't know what else to do. We just stood there in a circle, just talking. Two of the guys brought DSLRs. Surprisingly, it's mostly the guys who camwhore haha. We hear cheers from the other side of the carpark, so decided to head there. Turns out, our 6-1 form teacher was about to get dunked. She was up on the chair shouting, come on, you can do better than that. Of course, she finally got dunked. Among the crowd, I spotted my old teacher, Ms Goh. After talking to her for awhile, she said, "Where's Ben Ben?". Haha, nicknames never get old.
With so many games my brother played, he went to redeem this huge yellow, fluffy duck. At first glance, Russell screamed, snatched it away, took out his phone and camwhored with it. We all started laughing, bringing back the old laughter we had 3 years back... It's that uncontrollable laughter where everyone sounds and looks retarded, but we just enjoyed ourselves.
Today was really insightful. It was a long time ago since I went back there.
This was a trip down memory lane, reminiscence of the old times, reliving the old memories, and creating new ones.
As I left my house this morning, I thought to myself: Wait a minute, how do I walk to school...? I walked to the bus stop before taking a left turn down the familiar route. I looked at the bus stop. We took the bus every school morning back then, and we knew the timings that the bus would come like the back of our hands. I waited at the bus stop with the same few people every morning, kids of different levels. I remembered all their faces, but I had no clue what their name was, or who they were. It's something like an unexplainable, silent friendship.
I continued walking down the familiar route. Here, our old 6-1 gang will walk from school to the MRT. We talked about any random thing we can think of. I remember when we used to discuss diabolic plans to "make trouble" for the teachers after PSLE. We just ended up laughing a lot, and even though we were the top and supposedly most competitive class, our bond was there ;).
As I walked closer to school, I saw many people walking towards the school gate, and the loud cheers from inside the school. I recognised the same old security guard. I smiled to the him as I walked in, bearing in mind that he was that same guard who chased us out of school during the countless times we tried to go back in and see our teachers. Ahh, people don't change.
I walked towards the canteen, where I saw the familiar room (I think it's called E space?). For 3 months of our lives in P6, we spent every school day in school until 5pm (Which was late for primary school) to finish up our script and props for the Odyssey of the Mind competition in April 2009. We were allowed to enter that room and use the computers to do our scripting, while others admire in awe that we have access to it. It was a really fun experience, and although we got 5th, it was good for a school like us, considering the first 4 places were dominated by kids from schools who established their reputation.
I remember when we used to complain about the Band CCA next door. We could hear them practicing and repeating the same song daily, and we were sick of hearing it. But now, I miss those melodies.
At the canteen, I finally met people I knew. I saw Chin Fan, Russell and Hubert there. They brought along two of their SJI friends. How cool, all 4 guys are SJI prefects. Over time, many more people came and went. I really appreciate their efforts to come, especially when there's someone who's heading off to Sabah for some OBS trip in the afternoon.
Nevertheless, the same response I get when seeing an old friend is this: Wait, I thought you were taller?
Along the way through many stations and games, our group got bigger, adding Wei Quan, Wasi and Xavier in it. Although not all are in 6-1, we had "fond" memories with 6-2 too :).
Upon seeing St Pat's and St Theresa's booths, Russell shouted "Hey no fair, why don't we get a booth?. He's just this comedian who's super hyper and funny. It was today that I got to know that he's apparently the head prefect, and Hubert's the deputy head prefect. Wow.
I had a few rounds of games, challenging an old friend to basketball, hitting marbles into the containers, and catapult. I think we were pretty tied haha. I miss the nonsensical squabbles we had, and how we ended up laughing at every one of them.
We spent some time looking at the school pond. It was beautiful, with many plants and fishes. What I enjoyed most was looking into the water, to see the reflection of the clouds above.
We camped in the carpark because we didn't know what else to do. We just stood there in a circle, just talking. Two of the guys brought DSLRs. Surprisingly, it's mostly the guys who camwhore haha. We hear cheers from the other side of the carpark, so decided to head there. Turns out, our 6-1 form teacher was about to get dunked. She was up on the chair shouting, come on, you can do better than that. Of course, she finally got dunked. Among the crowd, I spotted my old teacher, Ms Goh. After talking to her for awhile, she said, "Where's Ben Ben?". Haha, nicknames never get old.
With so many games my brother played, he went to redeem this huge yellow, fluffy duck. At first glance, Russell screamed, snatched it away, took out his phone and camwhored with it. We all started laughing, bringing back the old laughter we had 3 years back... It's that uncontrollable laughter where everyone sounds and looks retarded, but we just enjoyed ourselves.
Today was really insightful. It was a long time ago since I went back there.
This was a trip down memory lane, reminiscence of the old times, reliving the old memories, and creating new ones.
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Crescit Eundo, Growing as we advance.
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