My heart is like a star...twinkling in the night sky. Distanced...providing that little bit of light....insignificant to all... When u look up in the sky and do not see stars, perhaps it's the bright lights that surround u, drowning out the stars in contrast...The neon lights, the street lamps, the plasma computer screen, all add up to make u blind...Till...one day...when u are alone in the dark, look up into the night sky and perhaps....u'll see stars....and perhaps....perhaps...u'll see my star twinkling.....and finally perhaps....u'll have faith...

Sorry ppl...not in the mood to go into narration today, will try tmr if i finish my tutorials...jx...ur link is down...

No one speaks chinese in RJC. Everyone communicates in English...somehow after 3 weeks, I begin to feel a distance forming between the college and me. haiz...Not that English is a lousy language or anything, it's just that English at times just sound so formal...so distant... I miss the time in RI when communication with friends was mainly in Chinese(contary to popular belief), though our chinese wasn't that great...but there was tht affection...tht special feeling that bonded us so strongly together. Perhaps this is the "farmerly" feeling they call it in HCJC. Yes, chinese at our level might sound crude...sometimes even obscene...but well...it's better than saying stuff in English that we do not mean. The lack of Chinese(as in the language) in RJ was so bad that even chinese CO members dun understand wat the conductor is talking about...I knoe that this elitist environment is crucial for my future, but is losing myself in the process worth it? Finally, I think I understood why TPH insisted that we learn the language proper and perhaps the reason shan took chinese A? “你是我最好的朋友”and "you are my best friend" just sound so different....

天高地厚
你累了没有 可否伸出双手 想拥抱 怎能握着拳头
我们还有很多梦没作 还有很多明天要走 要让世界听见我们的歌
准备好没有 时间不再回头 想要飞 不必任何理由
不管世界尽头多寂寞 你的身边一定有我 我们说过不管天高地厚
想飞到 那最高最远最洒脱 想拥抱 在最美丽的那一刻
想看见 陪我到最后谁是朋友 你是我最期待的那一个

可以一起闯祸一起沉默一起走 可以一起飞翔一起沦落
不管天高地厚陪着我 陪我一起大声狂吼
想飙到 那最高最远最辽阔 想唱完 那最感动的一首歌
没看见 那天高地厚不肯放手
因为我有我想要的朋友 你是我最想要的朋友

At the sidelines, alone, I stood watching as pained memories flashed one by one through my head. My heart was screaming....but u were too far...too frozen to hear... yet...because of your one smile, I have no regrets...

Food for thought
After my first GP lesson and a few econs lectures and tutorials, I learnt something new....

The following is an example of a positive statement:

"...Conversely for females, every 16pt increase in IQ meant a 40% drop in chance of getting married...." (taken from ST commentary section)

wah...the irony....

One week of lectures have passed...almost without impact...seemingly signifying the calm b4 the storm... Think it's time to settle down to start studying again for I'm sure JC workload is many times that of sec sch. The lectures went by almost routinely, me jotting down notes now and then while stoning for the rest of the time. 2 weeks ago, I was wishing that there was no orientation, ironically, now, I'm missing orientation when lessons start...

Tuesday was Zongjin's birthday. Went out after sch with him, xl, deng and zj's two other female friends. lol, wondered if he noticed that it was very bright...After lunch at S11, we went Swensens for ice-cream...After that, we went Popular as zj had to get some stuff. Saw a table lamp and the grp of us, excluding zj and the girls, was sort of drawing an analogy btw the lamp and our role in the outing...Sorry zongjin, if u ever blame us for ruining ur birthday. And just a reminder to zj and vin, we seem to owe someone in America a long overdue Christmas and birthday and if we drag longer, CNY present...

Wednesday, went for CO practice. I like the room, it has nice acoustics and the ppl there are all quite zai. The leadership hoo-ha thingy seems almost non-existent, think i can put my mind at ease about joining CO. The quality of music we produced on the first day of prac was pro, think can beat RICO already...So RICO, must work harder for SWF. From wat I've been hearing, RICO doesn't seem to be making progress towards the SWF gold...so ppl, pls buck up...i believe zj has already spoken to u all on this issue...

Friday was OG outing and it's covered in the Zev'feior blog, so go read there. Been blog-hopping just now and will share a few thoughts here. It is amazing to be able to see many perspectives of life through blog-hopping. How a person, whether familiar or strange, is doing and his thoughts and reflection...It is even more wonderful when reading blogs tugs at ur heartstrings, making u share the joy and the pain with the writer itself. I dun knoe about myself, whether this blog is adding to the diversity of perspectives out there, or just a stiff stereotypical journal page that is superficial. Yes, i admit that my innermost thoughts are not out here in the open, I drown them out with words, humour, sacarsm and analogys...But who doesn't treasure privacy? There will always be this fear that if u bare ur thoughts, they will be used against u in reality. And cases of such had happened b4, though not to me, but enough as a deterrent. Words are a double-edged knife, if u are not careful, u might cut urself unintentionally, but....the innocent and carefree side of me that is locked up still believes in sharing thoughts....and so, my innermost thoughts are in this blog, hidden between the lines...

"When words could do no more good, silence is the best"

lalala, I'm back after 5 days of absence....this time to bring you an amazing episode of my life, RJC orientation. Well...lets start from RJC moving ceremony, since I left it out the last time.

Prologue: RJC Moving Ceremony
Under the encouragement and appeals from Headmaster and Mrs Koh, I went down on 29 dec to witness the historical moment when RJC combines with RI to become one. lol, for an event of such magnitude, the school obviously had to make it a grand affair, so the students and staff of RJC set off early in the morning with their school colours from Mt Sinai, taking a non-stop train ride to Bishan, courtesy of SMRT. For the RI side, we formed a welcoming pathway all the way from the MRT station to the main entrance of the school. Well...the rest were rather boring, we went to the parade square of RJC where we were treated like second-class citizens, occupying the lower levels of the parade square. The band then played a re-arrangement of the school song which I think was arranged by Mr Oura. Well.... my impression was that it sounded rather violent then grand. Whatever, so after the whole ceremony, went back to RI to sit in RICO comm meeting. The efficiency of the comm seems to have dropped....rather worrying but nothing we can do. After lunch, played badminton with xq, ben ang, zj, marcus, jj, kb. Recalled Xunqi asking a question like why do songs like to have a climax, for pop songs, a chorus. Well...the only answer I can give is that to provoke a feeling, the music itself must be intense, just like in real life itself, only when we experience something intense, then will we be able to feel our emotions welling up. If u think about it, our emotions and feelings are nothing more than electrical signals no difference from those coming from ur electrical appliances, then why do humans put so much meaning into these electrical signals? I dunno, yet I dun wish to find out....

Orientation Day 1
Yay, I'm back to cover the first day again, now that I'm in a clearer state of mind after a 10 hrs sleep last night. The morning started off with my trying another route to school, taking bus 39 and changing to MRT at Khatib, with beloved Cedrick going to AJ. lolz, the traveling time was somewhat the same, yet it took an extra 45 cents out of my ez-link card, therefore decided against the route and stuck to the normal MRT route for the next 4 days. Reached school at around 7.10a.m. Went to the triangular hall and found my OGL, Wenxian. Checked my subject combi, no surprises there, got my first choice, pcme. Soon after, met the other OGL, shireen and the rest of the OG. Only knew Kiat Weng out of the 21 of them. Obviously being the all-so conservative ppl we all are, the Great Divide was knowingly formed. As reported by Mr. Hodge, 90% of the RJ J1 cohort came from single-sex school. Thus, the OGLs had the insurmountable task of bridging the Great Divide. Their futile but valiant attempts were to be applauded, yet most of them were rendered ineffective. The first day went by quickly enough with ice-breakers and some games, was rather tired upon reaching home so slept quite early....

Day 2
Day 2 was almost similar to Day 1, with us playing Cluedo in the morning. The highlight of the day was Silent Movie, a forfeit we had to do to get an extra clue. So we had Gautam and Orlanda as the leads of this movie whereby the male lead runs towards the female lead and proposes to her, after which the female lead would reject him. The catch was that the OG had to shout out the lines of both the leads so that everyone else could hear. It was a humorous sight, a definite classic memory. During lunchtime, the OG through RI to get to the music labs exit to go to S11. Walking down the driveway to RI and walking through the corridors was a nostalgic experience for me. The Junior block where I spent my lower sec years, the atrium where I've performed countless times with the orchestra, and the corridors which I've walked through many times before not knowing that 1 day I'll be walking through them not as an RI student. ...
The rest of the day was spent practicing dance, singing songs and cheering. The dance moves were quite cool, especially when executed together in a group. Unfortunately, as I do not have an flair for dancing, I ended up doing clumsy, awkward movements to fit in the beat of the music. But oh well...everything's worth a try, at least I've tried. The batch song was fantastic and well-composed. Lovely catchy tune with meaningful lyrics. Great Job! At night, went for OG dinner at Pastamania, was a quiet affair till, Wenxian and Shireen came and we went to macs to play lame games. And yes, we spent at least an entire hour playing lame games. Ended with most of us getting a brainmesh and start to limp around...

Day 3
Day 3 was amazing race, which supposed to be the the most exciting part of the whole orientation, yet it was rather disappointing due to some logistics problems. First, we went to the Singapore Expo and yes, on the train we started playing lame games again. It seems that our OG could never get enough of lame games. lol. at Expo, Wenxian "suddenly" went missing and we were supposed to look for him. After a few straightforward clues, we found him in hiding with a coffee cup containing "foam" as he calls it. The next stop was at Suntec City, where we were supposed to find the "empyrean meadows". Turn out to be the Sky Garden. So we went up there to have lunch. Ended up playing "Truth or Dare" with Huiling naming Gautam as the most attractive male of the OG, Mark shouting “I love you” from the top of the building and Shireen spending 15mins to decide on either truth or dare. She chose Truth initially but avoided questions like “Who’s the hottest guy in RJ?” with an unconvincing excuse that she never had a crush on anyone b4-.- lol, in the end did a dare, played “Honey, if u love me, pls do smile” with Hazwan. Another classic scene tht will remain in my memory for some time. After the hasty lunch, We rushed off to East Coast Park, which is the final stop of the race. However, when we reached there, we had to wait for quite some time before we could play the station due to some logistics problem. That delayed our return journey to RI and we ended up reaching school at 5pm when we were scheduled to come in at 4pm. Went out for dinner at S11 with zj, bjourn, deng and xl. Talked about quite a lot, the old days at RI and our experience thus far in RJ. The fact that we were no longer in RI finally sunk in…

Day 4
Early in the morning of Day 4, when I was still in half-asleep mode, I had a agreement with Shireen that if Alves won to make things a tie, she would have to treat me to ice-cream. When the story-line slowly revealed and war became a “all or nothing” situation, I changed my stance to a draw. My suspicions that the story-line was rigged caused both the OGLs to have undue worries. For that, I have to apologize, but to make clear on 1 fact, I was always very clear on my stance on orientation, I would fight for a lost cause just to gain the experience, just tot that u ppl should have more faith ….. War games were rather interesting, and some of them violent, like the territorial beacons. Got scratched by girls on the other k’vae… bleah… War ended and guess wat, I think I lost the bet and owe Shireen an ice-cream. Lolz, though it ended in a draw, I guess I missed out on the subtler message that the whole war was trying to bring across. Unity in diversity. In our differences, we can always find similarities, if we try hard enough. Draw strength from the past, look for hope in the future, but most importantly, treasure the present. K’predorus- the dimension of present, suspended elusively between the past and the future, is waiting for us… Carpe Diem. Seize the Day.

Day 5
Day 5 started off with faculty initiation, meaning that we were separated into our classes and we played station games again. Well…after spending 4 days with the OG, was thrown into a totally unfamiliar environment again. The whole thing passed quickly enough and we rejoined our OG for the fund-raising activity. My OG went down to Raffles Place to conduct the fund-raising and I was drafted into a pair with Junbo, turned out that it was his first time doing flag day. Hmm…we did a rather good job I must say though there were definite ups and downs. The low side of the whole event came early, while we were 15mins into the activity. A middle-aged man who wore blue shirt and black pants walked past us. Junbo courageously stopped him in his tracks, despite his attempts to side-step us. When we explained our mission and cause, he burst into unexpected fury.

“Where are u all from?”

“RJC”

“Now tell me, do u know the difference between a tidal wave and a tsunami?”

*Junbo tries to explain that there was no difference but was stopped by me.

“Sir, we do not know…”(Me trying to be diplomatic)

“I’m sick of u a*****es coming here claiming to be fund-raising for a disaster yet not knowing wat happened. You are from RJC, yet u know not the diff between between a tidal wave and a tsunami. A tidal wave is caused by tides as the name suggests, whereas a tsunami is caused by earthquakes, basically seismic movements. Blah…blah…blah…”
*note that he practically shouted this whole part in the middle of Raffles City.

“We’ll go back and read up on it Sir”

The above convo is purely my own recount of the event…..

Well…being a responsible person, I went home and read up on Tsunamis and tidal waves. From search results from google and yahoo, 9 in 10 respectable websites state that tidal waves basically had nothing to do with tides and that tsunami is the scientific name for it. Only 1 website chooses to differ. Well…the man might be rite after all…

After fund-raising was basically o night. Again I’m thrown into nostalgia whilst in the midst of merry making, especially when the k’zars sang the k’zar song, a silent tear welled up. Unknowingly, I have formed a bond with Zev’ Feior in 5 days and I think I’ll miss orientation. Just like in the thank you card or get well card for Wenxian,

5 days ago, we were like a pile of ashes, gathered from different parts of sg. Yet, through the unforgettable experience of orientation, Zev’ Feior is reborn, just like a phoenix, engulfed in flames. A magnificent phoenix that rose out of ashes, that weathered all trials and tribulations and is forever united. Though the Great Divide still stands today, it is only a physical barrier, no more a mental barrier, for we have bonded to become one. Zev’ Feior will continue to burn, till the very end of time…..

After o night, we had a final moment together at the k’cove where goodbye seems to be the hardest word to say. And yes, thank you Wenxian and Shireen, for making orientation successful and thank you, Zev’ Feior, for everything in the last 5 days.

Epilogue

“Don’t u think stars are beautiful? On a clear night even when the whole world seems to be ignoring u, they twinkle and blink at u innocently without fail.”

I wish upon a star tonite…. U ppl out there, take 5 secs out and look out into the night sky. Choose a star and wish upon it. With luck, we might wish upon the same star. Even if we dun, at least we saw the same moon…

RJC Orientation Day 1

juz realised tht i've missed out on RJC moving ceremony in my previous entry and my thousand apologies to jon jon for missing u out in the 2B list. lol, todae was the first day of JC for most 16 yr-olds. Fortunately and unfortunately, I happen to be in an elitist JC, where orientation is still carried out but it lacked something......
From the 1st minute the Great Divide was formed, it was never meant to be reconciled...despite valiant attempts by our K'zars to "bridge the gap". Perhaps we have survived in an elitist environment for too long, that we become too rationale. lol, is tht such thing? well, yes is the answer from me. We care too much, think too much, yet do too little. And yes, I'm guilty of every single charge above. ha, well...still have to give it up to the JC2s, who took great pains to plan this orientation, though perhaps they should fine-tune their logistics a little. Looking forward to 4 more days of orientation....Just realised that my entry might not be making sense, well...who cares...i've only had 3 hrs of sleep last night.....