-random

todays post would be quite random.

i have just had 3 weeks of no lessons. 2 weeks holiday and this week is MST week. report to school for CA papers for each module then can go back home. so the tests are over now. hope i did well.


ok i thought of some extra phrases to add to ivan's 28th june post.
(read that post first if not u may not understand.)


I am Ivan's leg hair. Betcha never knew i existed!!

I am Henry's scalp. I wish i had a shelter from the elements.

I am David's brain. I take medecine everytime he studies.

I am Derrick's stomach. Im never contented with what i have.

I am Claudia's eyes. i close whenever she says no.

I am Jiayin's memory cell. Many of my siblings died before she could use them twice.

I am John's handphone. i suffer non-contagious leprosy.


I am Joel's hair. dont mess (with) me.


I am ivan's brain. i am subjected to endless hard labour.

=)


Last night i had a really strange dream. its so out of the blue.
I dreamt i became a girl and i was in st margs sec. sitting in the canteen, wearing the ugly polka dotted unifrom, lotsa similar looking girls walking around. i wasnt with anyone in particular. i was like a loner. then i went to Q to buy chee cheong fun. and i saw ppl like.. freebie and sien. i somehow didnt feel weird or out of place. random dream.


More news... Farrer court has been officially SOLD! no turning back. we gotta start finding a new home alr. actually we alr did, but no intention of buying yet. viewed places like holland hills, pine grove, heritage view and a few at bukit timah. my ideal would be cavendish park or the marbella just opposite my school. but theyre too expensive and apparently not on sale.


the sale of farrer court is one of the biggest enbloc sales in singapore history in terms of both size and price. it was sold for $1.3388 billion. purposely put that weird number cos it sounds auspicious. and thats below our asking price. but above the floor price anyway.




Last night a very interesting visitor came into my room.

Its a rather large beetle. was buzzing around the room and came to rest on the table. then tried to pick it up and it crawled onto my handphone. As you can see.. it looks very interesting and nice. The carapace is shiny luminous green colour, and the underside and legs looks just like copper; shiny maroon colour.

I wanted to preserve it as a souvenir at first, but then i didnt know how to. so just threw it outta the window. This is the good thing of a home with a considerable amount of nature just outside. once in a while interesting animal visitors wander in, or outside the window. after moving out, i dont think my new home would offer such opportunities anymore.

St James Bond camp - day 3

hm.. 10 days late but better dan never. nth much on day 3 anw.

woke up with my legs frosted. apparently the owner of the towel i used to cover my lower part took it away and my legs were exposed to the aircon. took me quite a while to get out of the bunk and defrost. i love cold but not when it frosts me up.

the wake up time was later this time.. for us to catch up on sleep which the night activities ate into. but without an alarm clock, i slept past the wake up time. i quickly washed up and went to the devotions place, where almost all my members were there alr. i had not read up on the passage so i was at loss of words. but same as yesterday, i arrowed others to read. this time the passage had more stuff to talk about than the previous, so the group was less quiet.

for breakfast, there was lots of leftover otah from yesterday. so there was plain bread to go with the otah, and condiments like kaya and peanut butter to choose from. the plain bread ran out so more french toast was brought in. but too much cos soon after, most ppl finished. so me and a few others were left with 2 whole plates of otah to finish. tastes good but a kind of taste that sickens when eaten too much.

the next hour or so was used to clear up the place. cleaning dirty stuff, shifting stuff back to original places, rearrangements, tidying up the place, and packing our belongings and bring them to outside the aquarium. my stuff were all over the place (in the bunks or outside, in the toilet, in the lounge, etc.) and i had a hard time gathering them.

then we gathered in the auditorium for a closing session with debrief and prize givings. my group got 5th place and a prize way smaller than the first. but it didnt matter anyway, cos most of my group members werent too keen on having their share. i donated a whole pringles tube to the jym lounge. but in addition i received a personal prize for having the most number of signatures they counted: 50/68. but i counted it again later to be 51. they missed out the denise signature that looked like normal text. and 68 includes 6 ppl who didnt come at all.

From then on the camp was closed and we dispersed. immediately about half went home. the others lingered a while more and then went out for lunch. i went upstairs to the bunks and thought... just an hour ago the place was bustling with activity, now its dark and silent. as there was nothing much left to do i left the church and made my journey home.

This camp was more of relaxing than meaningful. but i think i prefer this style. cos when its relaxing, it is easier and more conducive for ppl to bond. and that fulfills the purpose of this camp.

St James Bond Camp - Day 2

Brought to senses by people shuffling around. awoke feeling sticky and cold. water vapour condensed onto me as morning dew. even without much wind coming through the partially opened window, it still chills. could have been worse if i hadnt bathed the day before. dunno y that happens everytime i sleep without aircon during camps, but never at home.


it was slightly past 7, i went to wash up. many people were awake already, sitting around or in the toilet. there was a considerable amount of spare time before the first scheduled activity of the day, which was the morning devotions. Being the leader of the group meant that i had to lead the devotions too. so i spent the time reading the passage and prepare myself so i dont stare blankly later on. During the devotions, i discovered its actually quite nice being the leader. i get to arrow everyone else to read, pray or give opinions, and i just slack. haha. i only chipped in when they all went silent during the reflections part.


for breakfast theres some fried noodle. could be exchanged for beehoon. with lunchen meat, cabbage and fishcake slices. the noodle was rather oily and fattening. beehoon's the health conscious's choice.


in the auditorium, we had some time slotted in for God in the form of a worship session, folowed by briefing on the sentosa activity which supposed to last the whole day(but not night.) the bus took a while to come. meanwhile my group went to get their bags of spare clothes and towels, all to be dumped together into a thrash bag labelled with the group name. there was a bit of disarray when the bus came. my members were scattered, jonathan was held up by his dad, joycelyn wanted to stay awhile and go by the van.. so when i finally went up there was no more seat for me until darren went off to dunnowhere.


Upon alighting at sentosa, we took a stroll down to palawan beach. After settling down, we were told that our lunch will no longer be free & easy as planned. it will be ordered in bulk, with an additional cost of $4. a choice of either char siew or chicken rice + a choice drink. So other groups went easy on the order takers and ordered common drinks (in both contexts: easily found, and same among the group.) like coke. but my group's drink order was more sophisticated and i had to remember all the orders from my group then tell it to uncle henry. so it was like.. 1 root beer for joshua, 1 chin chow for enli, 2 green tea for joyce and sien, 3 lemon tea for david, gloria and joycelyn, 2 100+ for joel and jonathan... then i realised i was short of 1 order. got 10 ppl in the group but only 9 orders. so i asked aloud,

"hey.. 1 more boy havent ordered yet. who havn place order for drink ah? (after a pause) oh.. its me. haha!"

i ordered anything. weird combo, but all was able to be found anyway.



it was time for some beach games. there was a 3-leg captains ball, where the players excluding the ball catcher would be tied by 1 leg into pairs. this effectively causes us pain with each step we take and significantly reduces movement speed. the suffering was added on by the blazing sun and scorching sand. the sunlight also blinds us so cant shoot properly from some angles. this version of captains ball also has a free for all feature, with 4 teams playing at once. a good change, cos it allows a wider variety of tall ppl to block tall catchers.



Next game was a blindfolded dog and bone, which was called off because it was found to be quite dangerous after a bad collision occured. So we had quite some free time while waitin for the lunch to arrive. some went to play 2 leg captains ball, some like me just sit around n talk.



when lunch finally arrived, we had to send some ppl to collect the food. so we had to pass by some grass and plants to get to the van. then i saw this disgusting pile of dog shit with flies swarming it on the grass. when we were near it i told joanne who was behind me, "u go by that way"(pointing to the shit.) she got shocked and made a really funny long sound. haha. others around turned to look and asked like, "what happen? got lizard arh?" so now we noe jo is scared of lizards!

we had no proper place to eat. just gotta sit and eat on the sand. being a bit cleanliness conscious, i sat on the beach ball and didnt let my food or drinks touch the sand.



The free time continued after lunch. this time we went into the water, play with a floating ball. i went to the other side of the shore and found a dying fish that i later buried.



after some time we were called out of the waters. time to play water games. for this one we had to send 1 person at a time, roll on the sand and spin 5 rounds before entering the water and running back to squeeze whatever water collected in the clothes into a bottle. first group's bottle to be filled wins. the boys are much more efficient cos they can take out their shirt to wring. one group foul played and used 1 person wear 3 shirts to go in.



then for the final game, each group had 10 mins to fill up water bombs. supposedly 30 per grp, but it was much more. each grp had a dry person to sit in a small area. once then game starts some ppl would try to hit other group's dry person with waterbombs. can be defended by hitting an attacker with a water bomb, then they gotta return to base. but defense is quite futile. in the end everyone got wet. my pants were way too big so i couldnt run or it will drop. but i was able to hit 2 bases and 1 attacker.

the game ended rather quickly, just about 5 mins of intense action, then we had a massive cleanup operation part 1 on the beach, picking up all our litter and other's. and then part 2 in the shower area - wash off the sand and salt and get changed into dry clothes to go up the bus. i actually took a bath for my upper part of the body, but couldnt bathe the lower part cos the shower area was unisexual.

We gathered all our wet clothing and dumped them back into the thrash bag. the weight had very obviously increased. then we took the same coach back to church. the following hour or so was for setting up of the bbq pits and cooking the food, and free time for the rest. during this time joshua ge got chicken sauce all over his clothes and spent an hour in the toilet scrubbing at it. when he was finally happy with the look of it, he was so happy he left behind his ring. so i took it and passed it around so he din noe who it was with, but kept bugging me about it.

The bbq was quite efficient, with a constant supply, though not enough to meet the demand. the cooked foods came in little by little and hungry campers prowled around the food arrival point waiting to swipe up whatever that comes. there were stuff like sausages, chicken wings, wrapped fish, otah and squids. then i tried wrapping a chicken wing in foil and put it to bake. but when i went to collect it later, someone had taken it. prolly mistaken as a corn. soon after the crowd was satisifed, i had a good supply to myself and had my fill. still a lot of leftovers after the bbq.

Next up its movie time again. this time got 2 movies. first was ice age, an animation set in the ice age. but it jus focuses on 3 animals and a super-tough baby. not a very interesting storyline.

second show was night at the museum. where everything in it comes to life at night. including stone statues, mummies and a T-rex skeleton. it would seem like a horror show, but they somehow made everything into a comedy. its like u expect to see some horror suff happening next, then it twists into comedy. also a lot of lameness like the mini ppl and the pi xiu (chinese lion statue) walking around. then the warden in the end got all the museum stuff to go against his superiors who is supposedly the crooks. very entertaining show.

The shows ended late like past 12. i went to take another quick bath and this time slept in the aircon bunk, but on the stage. gets really cold later on, and lucky i was just next to a lot of towels, that i used as blanket.

St James Bond Camp - Day1

this shall be posted here since the cadcfoc is still not completed on the other blog. then after its done it can be shifted over.



On June 13 - 15 was the mid-year church camp. This one is focused just on fun, fellowship and bonding, like the name suggests. no sermons and altar calls. but theres still a bit of time reserved for God, such as a short time of worship and morning devotions. just the day before, i was called up to ask if i can be the group leader of one of the groups. i was quite puzzled so i asked who are the other leaders. i found, theyre all my age or younger, the youngest being lawrence. so i figured that they are sending the younger ones to the special roles, and found no reason to reject. i had my doubts though.

I woke up earlier on the morning of 13 june to catch a ride to church. i was there more than an hour earlier than the normal campers to have some briefing and also cos its not good for a leader to be later than his members. we got the camp booklet earlier. i was quite relieved when i saw that my team members r all not difficult people and my assistant is Joyce teo, who i recognise for leadership capabilites. so we hang around and watch the campers flow in as it neared the meeting time of 10pm.

When most of them had arrived, we gathered in the auditorium and were distributed into our groups. There were 6 groups: James, Metallic, Ionic, Covalent, atomic and Molecular Bond. i was leading molecular bond. I had 10 members : Gloria, Joyce, Enli, Sien, Joycelyn, Joel mak, Joshua, David lim, jonathan and lester, who didnt turn up for the whole camp. i was told that the new girl Enli was 12, and her brother 14. when i met them, they were not what i expected, and its seems their identities got mixed. Its more like he's 12 and she's 14, plus she isnt feminine; talks alot, likes to watch WWE, always finishes eating the first in the group (leaving little behind), quite sporty, doesnt wear dresses and gave me a very firm handshake. while he is soft spoken, quiet, reserved, keeps to himself and shy.

We had a speech by the camp commandant which was over in 10mins but scheduled to last 30mins. so the surplus time was used to bring our belongings to our sleeping areas - boys in old chapel and girls in new chapel. there was an autographs page for us to collect each other's signatures. the one with the most signatures would get a priaze at the end, but i guessed it would be just a lousy gift. still, i went around collecting signatures for fun. helps to break a bit of ice.

Then it was lunchtime. packeted food of half cooked kailan, glazed chicken wing, a piece of fishcake and rice cooked in insufficient water. i just took the ingredients.

Then we had a briefing of the amazing race. the campers were split to 3 category, 2 groups each. namely historical, city and traditional. historical would be places like old buildings and maybe museums, traditional being places liek chinatown, little india, etc. my group got city, and there were 8 destinations in total: Esplanade, padang, clarke quay, orchard, science centre, omnimax theatre, bukit timah nature reserve, and fort canning, which was swapped from the historicals with suntec city.

we plotted out all the destinations on a map and found that all the destinations are between jurong and the marina area, with the church somewhere in the middle. nothing on the north and east. so we planned to go orchard first, then fort canning, then the 3 places at marina, then science centre and omnimax, then bukit timah on the way back. time given is 5.5 hours starting 12.30. each group has 1 or 2 gamemasters following, mine being joycelyn and jon. when we reach a place, they will give us a envelope with information on what to do or find out at the destination. each task has different amount of points awarded.

our first destination, orchard, was the hardest of all, since the sub-destinations are all far apart and elusive. we had to find a specific book by clive clusser in borders. found the section with all his books, but not that one. we assumed it was outta stock and got the points. we had to find rabbit brand seafood delicacies. we tot its a product off a supermarket, but it was actually a small restuarant at a corner of far east plaza. we had to buy shisamo and eat it. by right its to be bouhgt from the rabbit brand, but we tot its from sakae sushi so we went there to buy $6.50 of it. we had to go to some forum at toys r us but since we alr spent more than an hour at orchard and its not on the way, we skipped it and moved on to fort canning.

we decided to run around instead of walk, but i think its a bad idea cos it hardly saves any time compared to the physical stress we incur. there was a team of malay ppl touring the place. i guess they were having their own 'a-malay-zing race'. haha. they shouted to us "hey! excuse me! where is sally fort?!" we just ignored them. we had to find a cannon and count the number of screws. done quickly. then there was the charles henry thing we couldnt find. at the cannon, i wanted to go left, but my group insisted on going right. so we searched high n low in futility. it was actually just somewhere down on the left side. but since they refused to follow their leader, we wasted 7 points. our score was really pathetic, with only 14 pts in about 2 hours.



Next up was clark quay. due to time constraint, my group wanted to skip the whole place. but they sought my decision and i decided we do it since its nearby. and good that we did, cos we got another 15 pts there in abt only half an hour. we were given a riddle ' where do aliens get their currency' and the ans was starbucks. we had to go there and count the number of lights. then count the number of fountains at some wet area, take photo of 2 ppl outside a toilet and something else.

next was padang. 1 task 12 pts: count the number of steps needed to reach from 1 end of it to the other. joshua went too far and had to reverse count.


next, the esplanade. find pictures, count planks of wood, find out cost of some show.

then moving across the island to jurong east, the science centre and omnimax. my group was very active at this point. completing tasks very quickly so it was over before i knew what it was. mostly finding stuff, and also fixing a puzzle and doing a balance beam.

lastly was the nature reserve. no need to go in. just find stuff in some wooden builidng and thats it. 15 pts.

now we were really running late, so we had to take cab back to church cos every 5 mins late is -2 pts penalty. there were 2 kids in the group, joel and enli. but the cabby didnt accept enli as a kid, so joel had to take the place so that 5 ppl can ride. but there was 5 of us remaining. but no choice, try to fit 5 in the next cab. the cabby said no at first, but relented when knowing its a short distance. He happened to be an ex teacher at victoria school, cedar girls, cresent girls, fajar and greenridge sec. he gave us a lecture and rattled about his discontentment with today's teens. he said stuff like "today's young ppl are spoilt. look at their pocket money. just take what they want from their parents then spend like theres no tomorow.", "back in the our time, we respect teachers even if they cant teach or beat us. today, little bit of punishment they rebel or complain to parents." , "teenagers come into my taxi all sweaty and dirty theni have to clean up later. also stuff used tissues into the sides of seats.", "i see teens at orchard road at night, i dun pick them up cos they make a lot of noise and scold vulgarities.", "i can continue teaching and earn much more money than now, but rather be free from the stress and troubles with the students." and something that quite pissed me off: "i go to neighbourhood schools like fajar and greenridge, the students there just snatch exercise books, have no respect for teachers. its all about upbringing. they are not brought up properly. go to cedar girls, they are very nice. give them exercise book they say thank you." myself being a neighbourhood school student, i really hate those who look down on us as inferior students.

We reached church last, but with our score we were 3rd position.

For dinner there was the same hardened rice, fried chicken wing and chilli veg. david gave me his chicken wing, the best part of the meal.

there was some free time between return from race and 8pm. most went to bathe but i didnt cos its very crowded.

at 8 it was movie time. in the auditorium, we watched 'music and lyrics'. a drama with some comedy. based on a true story, but i guess some parts like the indian style girl are made up.

after that was group time. supposed to do bonding activity but we just briefed the ppl on things to do for the next day, like packing clothes for the sentosa trip. then i went to bathe.

by the time i finished all my stuff and went to the bunk, it was lights out and everyone inside was sleeping. i found ivan sleeping on the spot i wanted, so i went outside to sleep. i slept on the comfortable sofas but without aircon. charis was so privileged to have the whole ex youth lounge to herself to sleep, with sofa and aircon. i slept fast, but those who also slept outside stayed awake a while longer.

Flashback Nov & Dec 2006

Premonition (11/11) - no news of a potential vietnamese bride. But.. another ESC coming up.

Happy days are here again! (20/11) - memories revived of that sudden transition from a stressed up and busy person to being free as a bird. My strong decision to go JC can be traced back to here. Another batch of O levellers will be arriving quite soon.

ROD night 1 (22/11) - a relaxing event just after the o lvls, but not so relaxing after i was tired out.

Vietnam visit (30/11) - memories of the trip revived. because of this i couldnt go mission trip. SB is organising a study tour to vietnam sometime around sept, this time longer and covering more places including the 2 i did here. may consider going.

Morningmares! (4/12) - its nice to read up again on recorded dreams... dreams are usually more interesting than life but forgotten easily.

ROD Day 2 (13/12) - somehow everything seems to settle down after a sleep and becomes peaceful again. That friend who went overseas bought me a box of chocolates there but havent given me until now.

Merry Christmas! (25/12) - i learnt that Xmas is actually ok to use. The X has some meaning in greek about christ. -the incident of my grandpa getting stuck is stil funny now. whenever he stays in the toilet for long, we think he got stuck again. haha. -i figured.. christmas celebrations are grander when there are more kids around. memories of destination where and christ and co revived. recollection account on that.. dun think it would be completed..