Thursday, November 13, 2008

Welcome back.

Well, so it's finally over.

The secondary school stage of my life has passed.
There are so many things I want to say, but I'm not sure if I can finish writing them all here, or if I'll even have the patience to. Also, since this is my 100th post, it will be dedicated to my secondary school life experience.


Secondary 1:

I entered Ngee Ann Secondary, not knowing what to expect. I joined not because I chose the school, but because I was too unconcerned about my choice of school at that period of time. So my parents chose NAS for me.

I can still remember the first day of sec 1. There I was, a lonely boy in an unfamiliar, alien environment. I remember wondering where there heck I was supposed to go. I can still recall that there was a large board at the drop-off area, indicating which class we had been allocated to. It read that I had been placed in class 1R7. Well, I thought, that seems fine.

The memories are flooding back now. In fact, it was raining on that day, wasn't it? That was why our form teacher was late on the first day of school. Ah... Mr Fong. The so-called 'dreaded' form teacher. As far as I know, that was the only time he was ever late. So I entered the class, and saw only one familiar face. For some reason, I didn't miss my old friends at all during that day. Not one bit.

So, the sec 1 orientation camp. For me, it was quite 'memorable'. Mainly because I learnt one thing about the school the hard way: the fact that toilet paper was not provided in the school toilets. Wtf! This resulted in me getting stuck in the toilet for over one hour...

However, it was also during the orientation that I made my first few friends (by talking about Final Fantasy, of all things!). So maybe it wasn't that bad after all.

And then there were the lessons. Who could forget our first english teacher.. *coughfailurecough*. Luckily our next one recitfied that. And Ms Gan talking about bugs and bags in a vain attempt to educate us on DNA... and our 'super' history teacher with her obession with the Black-Eyed Peas. Mr Fong with his insistence on punctuality and perfect (and nerdy) attire. The end of reccess would cue the start of a race to see whether we could get back to class faster than Mr Fong. And we were a 'racist' class... lol...

My circle of friends didn't really grow much. The initial count of some 3-4 good friends eventually grew into a group of ten: Justin, Wei Jian, Tan An, Jia Hao, Ranon, Bing Hong, Perry, Eng Leong, Tian Qi and of course me! We did some really stupid things (well it was mostly ranon and jia hao) I recall that ranon once stood up and walked around the class during CME when we were supposed to be reading the useless 'textbook'. The best thing was, Mr Fong was in the room, sitting at the desk. But he was so focused on his marking of scripts, he didn't even notice!Sigh.. those were the times.


Secondary 2:

Not really that different from sec 1. We got a new form teacher (Mdm Goh!!! :D) who was actually really nice to our class. And Mr Chee, who helped all our Math grades improve tremendously. Unfortuanately, we weren't so lucky on the english side. This had to be a record, we had, what, 4 english teachers for this year alone? :O!!!!

And then there was Mr Lim as our history teacher. I remember he was always sweating like mad (lol no offence) and the first time he taught, justin, miki, wanyi and I were counting the number of 'k's that he said. Barely half an hour later, the number had swelled to over 100. And looking around made me realise that we weren't the only group that was doing this. Just about the whole class was doing it lolololol!!!

However, this was the year that I was terrified that I would not get promoted to Secondary 3. Because I practically slacked for the entire year. Looking at my end-of-year results:
English - A2
Chinese - C6
Mathematics - A2
Science - C5
Geography - B4
History - B3
Literature - B4
D&T - B3
Home Economics - B3
Art - C5
I realise that they sucked, big time. But at least my fears of being retained in sec 2 didn't come true.



Secondary 3:

The first day we got back, we were all laughing at how idiotic we looked in long pants. Haha. Mr Lim became our form teacher in sec 3. Taught much better :)

But the biggest change would have to be the splitting of 2R7 into the various classes. Most of us went into either 3R1 or 3R4(yay).

I have to admit, I didn't have a very good impression of 3R4 at first. My thoughts the first few days of sec 3 was 'why is this class so noisy' and 'I want 2R7 back!!!'

Things got slightly better during the sec 3 camp. I believe that was the only time that our class was truely united. That camp sure was fun. The night walk (not really that scary), the limited shower facilities (lol), the food (wasn't that bad tbh), the PMS-ing instructor... all of it. It was really great. We were the only class that managed to make a working raft and sail it. It's no wonder that we got the 'best class award' for that camp.

Do you still remember our two instructors singing 'Can't smile without you' and crying? I do.

I felt a little lost in this class, as though I was attending classes with people who were no more than strangers.
My grades took a real beating too. My english remained about the same (A2), chinese and D&T (B4), but the rest were all Cs.

That is not to say that there weren't some memorable times too.

Who could forget 'Mr Muscle' and his attempts to teach our class A.Math, resulting in almost all of us failing the subject in the mid-year examinations?
And Mrs Teh, a fantastic chemistry teacher. Always nagging at us, but actually liking our class.
And the lessons after the end-of-year examinations. So relaxed, so carefree. Can wake up slightly later and go to mac for breakfast.



Secondary 4:

This was a totally unexpected year. Many twists and turns, all of them leading to different things. The main thing would, of course, be the studying.
Before the start of Secondary 4, I always felt a little unstressed. As in, I was never really too concerned about my studies. I mean, sure, I did want good results, but I just didn't work hard to achieve those grades. I was always leaving work unfinished, lazy to do assignments, etc.

So when the 'O' level year got here, I knew that I had to buck up and quit dreaming. 'Cause things don't just happen without effort. So I started to put in more effort (at least I think I did). Hmm, let's see. I always used to score terribly for my subjects, getting an average of C5-6 in Chemistry, and ALWAYS failing A.Math. It became much better this year.

Design & Technology is a subject worth mentioning. I remember, in Secondary 3, I promised myself that I would NOT drag my portfolio till the last minute. However, I ended up dragging my feet till I realised that I simply could not procrastinate any longer. It's a good thing that I woke up too that, otherwise, who knows? I might have not completed my project at all.

While the results aren't quite what I had in mind (preferably straight A1s), I think I've done the best I could. Isn't that what matters? And the 'O' level results are more important, so I'll just wait for that.


During Sec 1-3, I was pretty much happy. I didn't know what 'emo' was and was never pissed off at people. When Mr Lim showed us what some of us might go through this year (cue pictures of emo people), I didn't think much of it. However, a few months later, I felt sad. Yes, I actually felt SAD for the first time in the whole of my secondary school life. That was over a trivial incident, and I quickly got over it. Unfortunately, the emo feeling didn't end there. It came back to haunt me in later months.

Looking back, I realised that I only starting to feel so-called 'emo' after I set up this blog. I guess it was caused by a feeling of inferiority. I saw people having fun with their friends, and it made me think, why don't I have friends to have fun with as well? Maybe the loss of friends after 2R7 split up had finally caught up to me. Or maybe, I was just wallowing in self-pity.

So, as it stands, I still have two close friends in this class and one from another. Oh, and I also received my first ever birthday present from one of those friends. Yes, you might find it unbelievable that it was my first, but I'm not a social butterfly, 'kay?

And yep, this was the year that I had a minor crush on someone. In fact, Teck Li got it right back then, in the D&T workshop way back in the first few months of the year, when we were working on our D&T projects. So there was some truth in those constant jokes about me liking her. Sometimes, I wondered whether to tell her, but then decided against it. 'Cause, like, last few months already, tell for what? Later depressed then cannot focus on exams. I don't have much to say about this, except that it was an on-off feeling kind of thing, and it's pretty much gone now.

Although there have been some unpleasant experiences, given a choice, I would still go through the whole secondary school life again exactly as it was. 'Cuz memories are priceless.

There were a ton of other things that I wanted to type, but I can't seem to recall them at the moment. And if I were to post every single memorable incident here, this post would take several weeks to type out. So I'll just end it here.

So what will you guys be doing after we have disbanded?
P.S. I wonder who still reads this blog.

Posted by Kelvin at 9:00 AM