Modelling job?

woooh! Today i got a real shock of my life! Nevertheless a pleasant shock, but not something i would like to happen again ...

This afternoon i turned on my handphone to find a message saying i missed a call. So i made a call back to that number, totally clueless of who it is.

Person on line: hello! i am (cannot hear). can i help u?

Me: Hi im john. someone called my handphone using this number... u noe who it is?

Person on line: er.. hold on arh.. John isit? (shouts to the other ppl) anyone here looking for John?

few seconds later...
Lydia: Hi, John. could you come down for interview?

Me: err.. may i noe who is this?

Lydia: Im Lydia.

Me: ... from???

Lydia: the modelling agency
(i was very confused... cant be true.. but it seemd so real. wow! i am being offered a modelling job! thats so cool! and i half believed it.)

me: huh? modelling agency?

Lydia: um... yyess...

Me: you mean u want me to be a model??
(we both started laughing in a giggling manner.)

Lydia: u mean, you dont know about this?

Me: no... nobody told me anything about this.. and i didnt apply for a modelling job either.

Lydia: none of our staff approached u or anything?

Me: i dont think so.. (didnt say no cos i dont know who are their staff. but still nobody told me anything about modelling jobs)

Lydia: oh.. then maybe i must have called the wrong number...

Me: so u wanted to call another John and mistakenly called me? so coincidence arh?

Lydia: ya i guess so... so youre not interested in the job?

Me: heh. sorry... got other things to do.

Lydia: alright then. thx.

Me: bye...

Sheesh. got me excited for nothing. just a stupid hoax.. or rather mistake. If i was truely offered a modelling job and i had nothing else to do, i might just take it up. haha.

3 possible explainations for this incident: first, pure coincidence. well.. my name is such a popular name, its not too surprising that theres another John everywhere. Second, some joker tried to play a prank on me, for whatever reason. Third (but which probably isnt the case), someone out there really appreciates my charm and recommended me to the modelling agency! wahahaha!!!

I really wonder how would others respond if the same thing should happen to them. heh heh

Well.. it was a heartening moment when i first heard it. Cos being offered a modelling job is equivalent to being attractive. and then the disappointment when i knew its just a hoax. But anyway, not being offered a modelling job doesnt mean youre not attractive! haha!

Serve - Season Finale

Yesterday was the last day of my serve programme. Now my weekdays are all free again. Previously i had not enough free time to relax. Now i im gonan have too much free time that it becomes boring like it was before serve. I hope that i can get into JC so i can start school soon, and not wait a few more months till poly starts. I dun wanna find a job anymore.

Everyone in serve was told to wear more formal on the last day of serve.. and i went in one of my most formal outfits, and i was very extra cos only a few were as formal as me, the rest just smart casual. Anyways, alot of ppl brought their camera to take some final pics with each other as momentos.. and i forgot to bring mine.

We had holy communion and the wine n bread was passed among the group. and i was the last person to have it. so actually i could finish all the bread n wine (which was alot when it came to me) then they sudenly change - the wine n bread is brought in front, free for all to take. so since i was behind those bloodthirsty front seaters crowded around n finished it all.

AFter we were released i went with my group to suntec city. I was told we were gonna have dinner together, so that means theres much activity in mind alr. but it turned out that we just wandered around looking for things to do, and alot of time wasted, very boring.

we had lunch at secret recipe and the stuff there is so damn expensive. i ordered fish n chips $12. Then the orders of the other ppl came fast, but even after they finished, my fish n chip havent come yet.so we go check and they said it did not get registered! Stupid screwed up register caused me to wait so long and they didnt even offer any compensation. 4 of us actually. 2 of them ordered some irish dish, and there was some commotion between the ppl and the waiter.. i heard they cancelled so i tot it applies to mine also. Then the person beside me (who cancelled his order) went to buy a piece of cake and i also followed. Then i went back to sit while waiting. And suddenly 2 fish and chips arrived (1 for me) and i panicked. Only the irish thing got cancelled, the fish and chips was not! I quickly rush to the cake corner and i was just in time. the person was about to cut the cake and i shouted "XCUSE ME! STOP! HELLO.. CANCEL!!" Its like he didnt hear me until a few seconds later. Lucky he didnt cut the cake. Phew.And so me n the other fish n chip guy ate while those who finished eating long ago just watched us eat. quite embarrassing. all their fault. but i didnt ask for compensation anyway.

After lunch, a few people went home already, so our group was quite small. We went to the cinema.. look around.. say wanna watch this or that.. deely dally... and in the end we didnt watch anything. Then we went bowling.. look around.. ask the counter on whatever stuff.. watch ppl play.. discuss wanna play anot.. then in the end never bowl. Then we went to the arcade. Look around the whole place, and finally we did something. We bought a few tokens and used it all on one machine. Some lame game where u just keep banging the color buttons.

After that we had no other plan in mind alr. i guess they would just wander around again. i very sian alr so i went home, together with 2 others. We went down to the mrt track there alr then i realised that upstairs got direct bus home! too late alr. i tap the card alr. if i exit maybe gotta pay also. and the mrt is more expensive, plus the nearest station is so far from my home. gotta take bus from there, but my card no more money after mrt ride. and my wallet only got 50 cents. so pathetic.

When i alighted the mrt, it was raining outside. i had no choice but to walk home in the rain, wearing formal attire. It can be refreshing walking home in rain in singlet, shorts n slippers, but its really awful with formal attire. The rain started to get really heavy halfway, and i had to hide under a flat for some time before the rain became lighter and i walked to church.There was actually some stuff to do in church, but when i reached they just finished it and could go home alr. but they stayed on for some reason. nothing to do.. so i went home.
It was a rather interesting day, up to the time i reached home.

General update 19/2

A happy belated valentines day and happy chinese new year to all!
I think vals day is purposely put just before cny so that some lovesick ppl can spend a memorable day together before they are separated for the chinese new year celebrations.

From 12 to 16 feb i was away from home the whole time, doing community outreach as part of the serve programme and staying over at one of my group mate's (shannon) house.
Heres the things we did during those 5 days, sparing details to save time.

Monday, 12 feb

early morn - got up early to make a long trip from home to simei mrt, scheduled to meet at 8.15
met the group of ppl who didnt stay over and had breakfast at bk.

morn - met up with the rest and made our way to Simei care centre. (SCC) We had our briefing and intros at conference room

late morn - adjourned to counselling room to have a lecture on some mental illnesses. (SCC is a place for recovering mental patients.)

anoon - had lunch at canteen. (lunch for all 5 days were free.) free time till 2
then had another short lecture

early evening - went to hall for some cny celebration with the patients

evening - went back to shan's house for a moment of free time and then dinner of prawn mee.

late evening - shan's dad chauffered us all to SJSM to attend a sermon by clement wong the drama mama.

night - made our way back and went to jes's house for planning next day item.

Slept at 1+ after washing up and whatever stuff we had to do.

Tuesday 13 feb

early morn - woke at 6+, wash up, had american breakfast and met up with the girls to go to SCC. (guys stay at shan's place, girls at jes's)

morn - had a briefing about the place and some info about the patients lasted till noon.

early anoon- lunch at same place. this time only can choose mee rebus or mee soto. i chose mee soto and it had damn lot of black pepper n grated chilli. those who ate it got red in the face, tears in their eyes and rushed to get a drink, which isnt free. many gave up halfway.

anoon - had quite some time to do our own stuff. the rest went to do music pract while i stayed in the counselling room alone to think over my choice of poly courses.

late anoon - conducted telematch session for the patients to have fun.

evening - had debrief

late evening - had dinner at some coffeeshop at tampines mall. chicken rice. shannon and sarah left for the airport instead to send a fren off.

night - waited a long time at the playground outside shan's house for him to return from airport.
i had to use shan's comp to submit the JAE form before i joined the rest.
we practiced our *specially composed love song* and then went to jes's place for planning for next day chapel.

slept at around 1 again. yet another night of insufficient sleep.

Wednesday 14 feb

early morn - some of the guys went for morning walk, but i chose to sleep longer, so woke up at 7+. No breakfast provided, so we meet up with the girls to have it at tampines mall.

morn - went to st andrews community hospital (SACH) . This is some kind of old folks home, where the not- so- serious- ailment patients are sent over from CGH. We had a briefing about the place and the stuff they do and info on the patients.

late morn - had wheelchair training.

anoon - lunch at canteen. can order rice, 2 veg n 1 meat. Then we went back SCC hall to practice and make whatever preparations for chapel later.

late anoon - conducted chapel session for the mental patients. We did songs, skit and games.

evening - debrief at counselling room.

late evening - dinner at some food court. had curry chicken noodles. Then went to shan's house for a while

night - spent the whole time sitiing by the pool while most of the others went swimming and suana at jes's condo.

late night - made our way back to shan's and then did reflections on the past 3 days stuff

slept at about 1 again. accumulated lack of sleep.

Thursday 15 feb

early morn - woke at 7, had breakfast at tampines mall again, and went to SACH.

morn - lectures

anoon - lunch at canteen. after that we visited patients in pairs to bring them greetings and chat with them.

late anoon - helped to wheel the patients down to chapel for hokkien service.

evening - debrief

late evening - big dinner at shan's house. got DIY pohpiah and 2 low-hays. (1 of which was bought by us, as a gift for shan's parents.) later on also got choc cake dessert.

night - planning next day item at jes's house. took a long time planning. got so bored and started reading a name dictionary. (and made some interesting finds like the meaning of Claudia. hehe)

Yet again, slept at 1. surprisingly i didnt fall sick during the whole time.

Friday 16 feb

early morn - first programme starts abit later, so i could wake up at 8. had american breakfast again, but this time with taiwan sausage.

morn - time for Orange Blessings. We went around the whole hospital giving 2 oranges and a red packet to patients, nurses, office workers, cleaners and all other staff. the red packets contain a card with verses on it

late morn - did our item for the patients at day rehab centre, then lunch at canteen.

anoon - visited patients again, supposedly to followup on yesterday, and bring closure. I finished visiting those in my cubicle (all females), so i went up to another cubicle for males to visit.
I find theres much more affinity between the old and young if theyr same gender.

late anoon - final debrief, reflections, and summary of outreach.
== community outreach officially ended ==

evening - back to shan's house to pack up, get our belongings and head home. Shan's dad gave each of us a red packet.. and it contained $10. big amt to give sum1 he hardly knows.

late evening - spent on a long trip home by bus. bus 12 to city hall, then 174 to home. reached home about 2 hours after departure. Spent $2.30 on bus fare.

ok thats all for the community outreach. but just after that comes chinese new year!

17 feb - new years eve. paternal relatives came over for big feast.

18 feb - visit maternal relatives in afternoon, then paternal grandparents house at night.

19 feb - visited a rich colleague of my mum for dinner. but he gave no hongbao. =(

20 feb - at the time of writing, im about to head for pine grove soon for cell gathering. cyaall!

The Great Revelation

Rrroooooaaarrrrrrrrrrrr!!!! Im really frustrated. For no aparent reason actually.

Today, the time came at last, when after 3 long months of waiting and anticipation, the O level results are revealed to me and the many others also in my plight. Its so true a saying that the 'scariest' time is not during o lvls, not after getting the results, but the time between, waiting for results. And the pressure builds up as the date draws nearer. As for me, i kept cool all the while until yesterday, and from then it went uphill fast.

Today i went to serve as usual. nobody took leave just cos its collection day. maybe to take their minds off thinking about their result? i duno. Some left earlier at 12+. but i stayed on till it finished, at 1.10. I had 1h 20min to have my lunch, take 2 buses and walk a distance to the school. I went to the SAS canteen for my favt meal there - yong tau foo. i looked at it and started to get emo, thinking: this is my last meal before my fate is revealed; i should enjoy it well. But then i took notice of the time constraint and that stopped me from enjoying. Then i took a quick sidetrack to the toilet in the old building and the whole place is all deserted. its like as if theres a large incoming explosion and evry1 is rushing home or to their schools as shelter. and i was still loitering in that forsaken building.

The first bus came at abt 1.45 and alighted at 2. walked a short dist to another bus stop and took the 2nd bus which came shortly after reaching. Alighted at 2nd destination at 2.20. So in 10 mins i have to walk from there to CWSS. at first i tot, no problem. but i underestimated the distance and time went by quicker than expected. I had to go a big round to get to the school gate, and meanwhile i heard announcement being made and i panicked. i tot i was gonna get left behind n miss my turn for collection. I ran all the way to the hall and regretted it cos there was a boring talk until ard 3.

So the emcee (or whatever u call it) announced the top students. 1 7A student and then the 5A's. A few from neighbouring classes, and then it skipped my class! Nobody in my class got 5A! My heart really sank. There goes my chances of getting into ACJC, my 1st choice school. cos even if i got 4As, the min pt is 10. too high for ACJC.

Then the index no1 girl in my class went first to collect her results. she was sitting just in front of me. she came back squealing delightfully, "i passed! i passed! can go poly!" her L1R4 result was 21. Not at all fantastic in my opinion. She's got the gift of contentment that i didnt.
So one by one the consequent anxious classmates went forward to look into the crystal ball. That is, to have their fate revealed. O level results do direct your fate to an extent. And when i went up, my form teacher was saying i did well, but well compared to my class average is nothing compared to islandwide average. So it didnt comfort me a bit.

He gave me a stack of booklets and stuff, and the result slip was in between. purposely 1.
I slowly drew it out.
Looked at the first result.
Ouch! first blood! 3 points alr.
I expected an A for that one...
Looked at the next one below...
Ouch! another 3! Double the pain!
And the more i looked the 'wounds' deepened.
Cos as i add up my results, my score gets worse.
This is unlike PSLE, where more is better.
In total, there was 15 points.
Yet another heartsinking moment cos i dont qualify for ANY of my choiced JCs.
But, i found it really weird.

Heres my results.
ENGLISH - B3
PRINCIPLE OF ACCOUNTS - B3
COMBINED SCIENCE - A1
COMBINED HUMANITIES - A2
MATHEMATICS - A2
FOOD & NUTRITION - B4

I was in total disbelief. I expected an A for both english and F&N, maybe accounts too. Science wasnt much of a surprise, but humans and maths were. a pleasant surprise.
When my parents saw the results, they said to each other, "are we looking at the correct result slip anot?"
heres a quick look back at my prelim result and a comparison.

english - a2 (-1)
POA - b3 (0)
F&N - b3 (-1)
science - b4 (+3)
maths - d7 (+5)
humans - e8 (+6)

So heres the ranking from best to worst comparison
PRELIM ...........O LVL
1. english ..........science
2. POA ..............humanities
3. F&N ..............maths
4. science ..........POA
5. maths ............english
6. humanities ...F&N

Its totally out, la! a complete shuffle! im kinda at loss of words at that.

The best explaination for my results...
English compo wrote out of point in the first half. the compre.. was quite hard.
Accounts.. i tot still got time, so i do carefully and keep checking. Then i found i made a big mstake and gotta do serious correction. wasted alot of time. then not enough time to do section B. At least 15 marks worth of qns went down the drain, totally blank. And i could do them!!!
Humanities ... i didnt know how to really do source based for SS until after prelims. And i didnt complete studying my geog syllabus until after prelims also.
The science papers were easy cos alot of ppl did well. so.. may not imply that im good at science.
F&N - must be the coursework! Im conifdent for the theory paper. coursework must have been real bad. blame my teacher for submitting mine without letting me make amendments.
Maths ... God helped me. haha.

So anyway, evry1 was saying my results were either 'not bad', 'good' or 'very good'. But to myself its under satisfactory. Im not the only one. Some girl got 12, better than me by 3, but she was crying really sorrowfully as she talked to sum1 on the phone, cos she wanted to go NJC.

The first ppl i showed my results to were Quack and smallboy, aka sumsong. Then i dwelled among a crowd of enthu result-comparers. Some sec4s also crowded around to take a glance at their senior's results. Then i went to a corner to call my mom, then i smsed my results to a special 3 people who smsed me earlier expressing their concern and encouragement.

I looked at the results of one of my classmates who used to be my good fren. His first 3 subjects all scored a C6. Upon seeing that, i jokingly told him, "wah, 666 sia. satanic results. haha."
He usually takes that kind of jokes well, but he just told me to shut up. i guess the results werent satisfactory to him either. (L1R4 - 20 points)

I didnt stay long to compare results or wadever. On the way out, my humanities teacher (who always liked to pick on me) asked me how i did for humans. I showed her my result slip, reminded her how badly i did for prelims, and told her, "i remember u told the class b4, for those who dont do well in prelims humans, theres no way they can suddenly do well in o lvls. Now because of me, u cant tell that to your future students anymore! (sarcastic laugh)" Then she replied, "well, i did say there were a few occasional miracle cases which proved me wrong."
Wow. that means im a miracle case. haha

I left with my 2 frens to go KFC at clementi. There it was packed with a large bunch of Nan Hua students. They all talked among themselves rather cheerfully. Lucky them. must have all got good grades, i guess. 2 of the girls played with water at the sink just next to our table, and accidentally splashed some soapy water into Quack's shrooms burger. And poor him had a phobia of eating soggy bread. haha.

I reached home at about 5. I felt so exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally. But after a short 20min rest, i was suddenly OK again. I went online MSN and the moment i logged on i was asked on my results. So i talked to quite a number of ppl... those who asked my result, older ones whom i seeked advice on how to continue from, and continued comparing results with those i didnt get to see earlier.

My results arent satisfactory and that was quite a big blow to me, but God gave me a strong spirit such that after the dampening, i was still able to stay cheerful during the time in the school and a while after i left and came home. But as the day went by i somehow had this progressive depression and by night i felt really frustrated, lousy and kinda depressed. A weird feeling. And then my cell leader called and spent quite a long phone call patiently talking to me about my results, JCs and stuff. And it made me feel better. I thank God for people like her, actually.

At 11+, there was call for dota game. unusually late time to do so, but we got the game started anyway. And while waiting for players, jeremy blurted out that i got 15 points... that left me confused cos i did not tell him. So i asked who told him, he said Kaimin. And I didnt tell Kaimin either! So i guess... it must have been joanne told kaimin. But whats so interesting about my score that ppl want to spread it?...

Anyway, for now ill just dont think so much, try for CJC, and if i dont and even an appeal doesnt work, then i know that God wants me to go poly. Hard thing to swallow, but i will be alright wherever i go.

Racial Harmony!

Check this out. i took this photo during one of my exploration trips. initially i wanted to take photo because of the pigeons. then i realised the whole scene could actually portray some kind of racial harmony. It could be used as a poster for some 'living harmoniously' campaign, or for picture conversation in english oral exams. hahaha.
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The picture shows 4 ppl - a middle age indian man, young chinese girl, old chinese man and a malay man. The girl is holding some funny orange object, like a toy, and seem quite interested by it. The old man is pointing to the object and talking to the indian man. the indian man is giving his attention to the 2 of them. All 3 are smiling and enjoying each other's company. The malay man is sleeping, just next to the chinese.

1. the picture portrays inter-racial harmony, cos the major races are there, except ang mohs, who wont stay in these kind of place. There are 2 chinese ppl to symbolise their majority status. Haha.

2. The picture portrays harmony and interaction among the different age groups. Despite the age differences, the ppl can still take interest in a common thing. (heck care the malay)

3. The malay man may seem bochup about interaction cos hes sleeping, but that could alternatively show that the community is so peaceful u could just fall asleep beside all kinds of people.

4. The pigeons show that even the animals live harmoniously with humans!

5. The feeding of pigeons signify a simple life. Cos they have nothing better to do. --> they dont have a good job --> prolly cause of poor education. --> chances are, they dont speak a common language well. Even if they are retired n the girl got no school, if they had a good job, they will have money --> they wont stay in such lousy estates. So... ppl can live harmoniously even though they cant communicate well!

And.. ppl stereotype poor communities as high crime rate, but hey... these simple ppl are harmonious with each other! Lets rejoice in the peace we have in our nation!