~The Road Less Taken~

Saturday, November 1, 2008

my gpa hasn't been totally up to scratch, but given that there are people who have scored much lower than me, we'll leave that.

instead let's talk about the things (simple things really) which made me feel so much better over this period.

let's start from last wednesday shall we? returning of scripts and house meeting.

maths paper was first period. nothing to say, still floundering in the ra context but doing pretty well compared to rp, which i guess is the only difference i can use to comfort myself.

paper 1 was fine. didn't get the extra 1 mark, and maybe it would have changed my gpa, but i don't really care now. it's over, so let's leave it at that.

paper 2 was much better of course, but again it's painful to have that "9" as your unit digit in that overall math score.

twice.

and another two times for bio and english, but my feeling is that 1 mark here and there for the eoy wouldn't have changed anything.

simply put, my effort wasn't consistent enough, and it showed in the ca mark, which rightfully has a higher weightage than the eoys, so no complaints, no bitching.

and most of all no sulking over it in front of people who didn't get as high as me. that's just nasty.

academic-related stuff ends here.

on wednesday there was the returning of lit scripts, but it wasn't so much the results, but more of the gathering of the lit people which made the day.

the little play put up by the teachers was a really nice departure from the "normal way" of going through the scripts too.

poor ms kuo - she suanned the people with poor grammar and all, but in the end she wrote "this ideas are interesting!" for one guy's paper. really funny incident that.

house meeting came next, and being the hardworking exco we were we got a really special treat from the incoming exco! thanks for the mug you guys. hullett ftw (next year)! =)

haha and while next year's exco was busy going through the admin stuff with the house the 9 of us were backstage having a ball of a time.

great stuff.

oh there was also the matter of the rinspire interview with the rinspire team, shanzhi, kristian and mr tan about rjc becoming rijc. yeah don't really agree with the merger and all, but i guess in the end it SHOULD work itself out fine.

thursday was slightly different - a few teachers came in late and some didn't come at all for the r&r, so we had lots of free time.

but amidst all of that i'm really glad i didn't blindly take the time off to go sleep in the library or fool around somewhere.

i have free periods when the rest of the class is having bio, but this time for bio r&r i decided to stay in class instead.

and it was a good one hour.

mrs foo read "half a haycorn pie" to the class (it's part of a winnie the pooh series) and i guess that's the kind of thing that just makes you feel good inside. a return to the good old days before studying in ri (or studying anywhere in general, for that matter) and you had your parents to read you to sleep every night or at your own fancy.

it may have been rather childish in the book, but sometimes it's that kind of simplicity which is so hard for adult writers to put across.

and it had a good lesson behind it (sustainability!) which made it pretty satisfying.

then again i think i just have weird tastes.

but once again, it was just a few hours ago when i was watching scooby-doo on the new okto (yay for okto!) and it really reminded me of the times when i used to watch it every afternoon on cartoon network in anticipation of the next mystery they were going to solve.

it almost feels good being a child without a care again.

thursday afternoon was rs rehersals, and when mrs smith dropped by it was a very interesting time indeed. we talked about almost everything - from jc subject combos to apcg to some "more personal" matters.

it was really an eye-opener, and she's one of the reasons why my lit is where it is today (a small fry among the big fish who are the lit ra people - some kind of guardians, stalwarts, defenders of literature perhaps? but meanwhile the lesser beings such as me can only dream of being as humanist as they are.) so for that i can't thank her enough.

she's a really good lady, even if the school seems to have a different idea.

friday was more r&r, and i guess what made it more meaningful was that it was the last lessons we were going to have in ri.

math was pretty good i guess. got to talk with mr kwa (something that doesn't happen every day) a bit about some jc and school stuff which is always nice.

chinese was almost too good. mdm cai (i believe that's the first time i'm calling her that) was pretty nice to everyone - no scolding or shouting - and i guess it was a good way to end the year after all the resentment the class harbours towards her.

she can be nice if she wants to.

bio (ra) was after recess and mrs low talked about evolutionary intelligence and that famous last lecture by randy pausch. reflective stuff, that one.

and finally was chem with ms low.

it was quite sad how the class went off to their own games with ms low there all by herself, seemingly. she's been such a wonderful teacher, and any student who knows and is taught by her is one fortunate boy, and i guess the least we could have done was to show some appreciation for that.

and she was nice enough to play the games with us (and get suanned by us at some times) and have a photo with the class which is nice to remember us by i hope.

and of course friday night was rs finals, which was a tremendous success (aarongoh and interleches ftw!), and all credit goes to the people behind the scenes too.

but it's been personally a bit of a letdown - i haven't been able to find the passion which i seemed to have in such abundance last year and at the beginning of this one. and of course that translated into a very superficial contribution to this year's rs.

maybe a bit of a recharge is in order.

but not as soon as my head tells me.

and looking out at the audience, feeling the sense of accomplishment at pulling this performance off during the voting sessions made me realise one thing:

i haven't been able to sit down as a normal student and enjoy events like this for almost 2 years now.

it's almost all been behind-the-scenes work, then executing it as part of the team, and the cycle repeats itself for the next event that drops by.

that is quite a big realisation, come to think of it.

oh meeting the apcg people (chris, liangzi, juan, jeanhui, chngyan - hellohello! xD sorry if i missed anyone out!) who dropped by was really great too! met some of them during the post-eoy period as well in rjc which was also really EXCITE. =D

and now wandering about the house, looking for something to do (other than revise for chinese) is getting to be rather boring.

i need to go outttt!

I stopped to rest at 12:49 PM

Two roads diverged,and I-
took the one less taken...