Monday, December 31, 2007
For one thing, the computer lab is - once again, full to the brim. I am now using what is known as the print station. Today, we had a orientation day where we spent our day walking around Singapore's places of interests. Of course, those places of interests held no particular interest to us. Both April (my new room mate, in case you didn't know) and I were kind of nervous about the requirements for one to actually stay in the scholarship. I would, after all; be a complete embarrassment if was kicked out from the scholarship when I barely had it for a mere year. Not to mention the fact that we had to repeat Form 4 if we were. Anyway, April and I were more keen on poring over our books. Yeah, that's how scared I was. (You can tell from how out of character it might seem, but my father might say it's just my kiasu-ness)
So.... We took a bus around Singapore. Although I noticed a few interesting places here and there, I did NOT recognise roads; so do not expect me to be your free tour guide should you decide to visit Singapore. If you decide to pay, however; I might reconsider and start studying the map. (Of course, that would be after I receive an advance on my payment. And in Sing dollars, please.) As I was saying, the first place we landed was some weird shopping complex of which we managed to infiltrate, although that would be much later. We walked quite a distance, across some colourful many-storied old fashioned houses and it was quite a while later when we reached the Singapore river. While complaining about the many photos us poor newbies were forced to take, (poses here and there, really.) it rained. It wasn't the sort of pitter patter drizzle, but a full downpour. We took cover but our plans (well, not ours; actually) continued just as normal and we took the boat around anyway.
I forgot to mention, we got really large t-shirts as well. They were out of stock so my whole team got XXL, which reached to my knees and well past my elbows. Imagine how it looked on April, who is actually quite petite. You can compare her to Michelle's size I guess, but a bit taller. But there really is a girl who looks like Michelle, Camille, my roommate. And she even acts a little like her. It's a little scary. Other than Michelle and a guy who resembles my brother there isn't anyone else whom reminds me of home though. Everyone seems to be rather... unique. Even the annoying, hyperactive psycho ADHD+ADD twelve year olds.
My team consists of three China students, Grace, Jia Wei and Li something (we call him Chu - not the pig though) and then Zheng Dong, Jun Lin, April, Henry, Yau, Yee Ching and lastly, me.
We played really fun games, that I would normally call childish. By normal, I would mean Malaysia. It was like those hand games we played back in primary, but more interactive; I guess. But in this boarding school - it just seemed normal. I used to expect snobby girls with their teeny shorts and their larger than life attitudes strutting about the school. How wrong I was. All of them are friendly. Really, they truly are friends I haven't met. They tolerate my giberish in Chinese while we listen to their butchered English. You can really tell how hard they try. And even though their English wasn't that good, they took the effort to use it to speak to me; the one truly mandarin illiterate in the entire group. Yeah, well.
Anyway, this was written two days ago until I was interrupted by Bong, (a Xinmin senior, whom I infer must be a Malaysian as well) and asked to call all the students down to have a surprise birthday party for Yau - not that it was much of a surprise. His friends' definitely ruined it quite a lot for him. And then, I also met a few Indonesian students and a Cambodian that were going to Xinmin. The only difference that they were in class 301 along with Zheng Dong and Jun Lin. So meeting a lot of people is really refreshing. All totally different personalities.. I hope the feeling doesn't get old. It was quite fun. We got to communicate and stuff...
The next day began with the second day of my orientation, the games day. We were brought to the Hwa Chong basketball court, and I bet Wei Ann would really appreciate the view. You know what I mean... We played five games in a telematch sort of way and our team won two. All three games won were against the same team though. As both my team (team 7) and Joy (April's sister who looks like her twin)'s team (team 8) were the only ones with quite a few Secondary Ones and the shorter members (the shorter members include me, you better believe it.) so we were pitted together.
And later on, we had a water balloon fight. It was somewhat of a battalion area, converted from a small section of Hwa Chong's en-unbelivably-normous field. Each team had to crawl under two sets of benches about 50 cm high before we can aim at the t-shirts pasted to chairs on the other end. The ensuing water would then drip into pails put directly under the t-shirts. Our goal, was of course, getting the least water possible. I helped by passing water balloons through the section after the second bench. I got the wettest out of all my team members, though. I seem to always be unfortunately close to the targets of water guns and water balloons. Although there were also a few who played smart and poured an entire pail full of water over others. Of course, that included me as well. So I dripped all my way back... In the water balloon fight as well, our seniors asked us to gather so we could take a photo. Directly after we were organised, they poured bucket fulls of water on our heads. I missed that part. Later on, when I went to wash my feet (with shoes off, so as not to get mud on them - it was raining earlier, you see, and still drizzling as we played) and someone poured another bucket of water on me. The water wasn't the purest though. Jun Lin got a rash.
Even later on, we had a dance session that had practically exhausted every single one of my muscles. (the ones that still existed after the intense game of Captain Ball, which we lost, 2-4) It was a really cool dance, led by someone who reminded me remarkably of Jeshua (he's in JC) and Lakshimi, a student representative that took us around on our first day. Of course, our attempts were anything but cool. Next was our group practice session, in which we were supposed to practice out five minute performance. And guess what was next? Dancing! We were paired up to the boys... I felt sorry for one of the Indian nationals, (since quite a few of them were from Chinese schools, they were naturally quite prejudiced) and volunteered to partner up with him. He was a full head and shoulders taller than me. Then again, he was a full head, shoulders and arms taller than some of the girls. It was a bit awkward and all. And we have a semi-army member who was there to instruct us. Huh.
7:55 AM
