Recetly, I've been feeling quite sour. One key reason would be because of a newspaper article I read a few days ago. It was about an girl who used to be from RGS, she won the top ci in literature for her poem and she was supposed to have won the 2004 commonwealth essay. I read her essay. It was good, however and this is a big however, I felt that I could write better. Then I start remembering how my offer for core literature was rejected even though I can really go into analysis of every bloody word in a book, then I remember how I was told that taking two humanities would slaughter me when by the end of sec3, I was a top humanities student and I wonder abut what happened to the commonwealth essay I sent to Raphael Ong. I don't it got selected as I would have been told of it.

After all these thoughts, I became quite as to the fact that no one seems to think I write exceptionally well with the obvious exceptions. I decided then that I would put my commonwealth essay entry on my blog. The topic, by the way, was "Blue".

So here it is:

He still remembered how the rain felt, touching every part of his body and wetting every square inch of clothing he had on. How sometimes the droplets fell heavily on him, like an entire weight crashed on him or how sometimes he could barely feel them coming down on him.

            The children sat around listening to his tales of his home of a long time ago, where the oceans were vast, buildings scaled the skyline like giants imposing their shadow on the world and nobody was ever alone and disconnected from anyone else.

            There was just no such thing as a blue planet, the adults told their children, they were just stories of an old senile fool.

            Jared had come to expect such responses but he ignored them. Let them talk, he thought, I was there and I knew what happened.

            The children loved Jared and treasured his stories of his home planet dearly but he knew that there would come a day when they would grow “sensible” and learn to ignore him just like those before them.

            He looked out the window and gazed at the sky, the cloudless yellow sky and wished that maybe one day it would rain.

            “Grandpa Jared,” a small voice squeaked, “could you please tell us about why you came here?”

            Jared turned towards the source of the tiny voice and saw that it came from little Cameron. Five-year old Cameron was one of his favourites. He was a good listener and never interrupted him in the middle of the story, but questions were expected from him as soon the story ended. He especially enjoyed the story of how they came to this planet.

            “Well, ok,” Jared smiled as started to think back.

            “A long time ago, when I was a kid a bit older than you, Cameron, I lived on a great big blue planet and this planet was home to many people. It was home to close to a million billion gazillion quadrillion bazillion people and all these people were divided into several groups called countries. Some were as small as this city of Solum—yes what is it Jenny?”

            “Um, isn’t Solum quite a big city?” the inquisitive girl asked.

            Jared paused for awhile as he thought back to how Jenny’s mother used to be so much like her. A bit unsure and somewhat naïve. But then, she too changed.

            “Grandpa Jared,” Jenny awoke him from his thoughts.

            “No, no. Of course not. Solum would be hardly about the size of a small town,” the old man dismissed the question.

            “As I was saying, there would be other cities bigger than even the mega polis city of Jupiter. Now each country had a leader and the leaders were supposed to look after their people. But some leaders wanted to take other people’s countries an—“

            “Why did they want other people’s country?” Little Timothy asked. Jared had expected this. Whenever Timothy was involved, so were a bag of queries.

            “Because they thought other leaders wanted to take over their country or other countries had some stuff they wanted like some shiny rocks or money,” came the annoyed reply.

            “Then why did they thought that other leaders wanted their country?” came the next question. Jared noted at the boy’s bad grammar.

            “Because they thought that other people thought the same thing as them,” Jared answered exasperatedly.

            “Why? Don’t everyone think differently?” Timothy was still asking.

            “It’s ‘doesn’t everyone’ and yes that’s right, they do think differently but kids grow up into adults to become ‘smart’ when they actually become stupid and it’s usually until they grow really old that they realise how stupid they’ve become.”

            “You mean the leaders were grown-ups?”

            “Yes, Timothy. They were adults,” Jared sighed the last answer out and paused for a while waiting for any questions from the kids. Silence ensued.

            “Now where was… oh! That’s right, the leaders who wanted other leaders’ countries were afraid they would lose their country so they created something monstrous.” He paused for effect, though he knew most have heard the story before.

            “They created weapons that could annihilate entire cities and created enough to destroy the world ten times over. Everyone was scared. But the leaders who created these monstrosities were the most afraid, because now they were scared that someone else would learn how to make these monsters. And others did. The leaders all grew so afraid with each other that they ganged up with other countries and formed their own gang of countries and eventually the gangs all fought each other.”

            “So the leaders all fought each other?” Timothy asked.

            “No, they made the people of the countries fight each other.”

            “Why did the people fight?”

            “Because they thought it was about stuff like ‘national pride’ and ‘greater good’, when actually, nothing became of all the fighting.”

            “What’s national pride?”

            “It’s being proud of living in the same country.”

            “You mean being proud because of living on the same land? But that’s dumb!”

            “Didn’t I just say that the adults were dumb?”

            That kept Timothy quiet. Honestly, if Timothy continued asking questions like these, he would become one irritatingly smart guy.

            “So because of the fighting, many people died even though the leaders didn’t use any of the monstrosities for fear of other leaders using it. But the human race was dying off. Luckily, there were some smart adults—“

“I thought you said the adults were dumb,” Timothy prodded. Jared felt himself twitching at the boy’s audacity.

“There are always exceptions, not to mention that all the fighting made some adults smarter.”

 “Now then, so all these smart people came together and built a ship. It was the fastest and biggest ship ever made and they brought their families and friends on board and left the blue planet, never to return again.”

            The children kept quiet for a while as Jared remembered of the time when his parents took him aboard the ship away from all the genocide. He remembered hiding behind his broken cabinet during the fighting. He remembered the people falling one by one onto the ground with petals of crimson forming on their chests. He remembered the searing heat of the explosions, his skin flaking off like cereal as a result. He remembered how he loved the rain falling on his hot flesh, how it felt like he could wipe away the old him and be born anew.

            He chuckled as he thought of how the leaders had made weapons more advanced only to make war messier.

            Suddenly, he heard the clock’s alarm, signalling the return of the parents. They came and picked up their children without saying a word to him.

            “Mummy! Mummy! Guess what I learnt today,” Jenny’s voice sounded outside.

            “A load of lies I bet. Don’t listen to anything that senile old man says,” her mother hastily answered back, with a hint of reproach.

            The irony of it all. They trusted their children with a man they called crazy and unsound. Jared knew that they believed him, it was just the fact that there was a whole planet before theirs that they couldn’t accept. But deep in their hearts, in a place unreachable any means of logic, they respected him greatly, if only because of the fact that he was the last one who was born on the planet called Earth.

            All the others in his generation had died, his children’s generation were half-gone though they openly respected him, and his grandchildren’s generation thought he was a senile old kook and he knew that his great grandchildren’s would surely one day think so too. If he lived long enough.

            At this thought, Jared felt his entire 113 years weigh down on him. He remembered the vast greenery of the mountains and the animals in them. He remembered how people held parties together to celebrate victories, the dancing, the lights, the music. He remembered the busy highways connecting the cities together, weaving in and out, up and down, like the beautiful webs of the spiders.

           This formless brown planet could never be his home. With its disjointed lakes and flat hills and mounds, he found too unearthly. He longed for blue sky and rain. But he knew that to the younger generations, this was home and no place could be better.

            He couldn’t agree more. They needed a home, away from all the danger. He wouldn’t even be surprised if Earth was already a desolate planet.

            Jared gave a mighty yawn. He had been feeling unusually tired the whole day. He needed a long rest. He got up from his red armchair. It was his favourite chair. Partly because it was his father’s and partly because it was made from the cotton of Earth.

            He made his way to his bed and lay down on it. As he started to drift off into sleep, he knew that this was indeed going to be a long sleep.

Jared smiled, knowing the dream he would have.

            Outside Jared’s quaint wooden house, the people were all gasping as they looked to the sky. As if out of nowhere, dark clouds had formed. Giants were to be heard stomping while streaks of light came searing down. Everyone was frightened; none had seen such a phenomenon before. It was as the people were starting to scramble for a safe place that droplets of water fell from the heavens.

            First, it fell lightly onto the people, relieving them with the sudden realisation that it was water. Then, it fell more heavily, soaking them, washing away their entire beings. The people rejoiced at the gift of rain and when it was over, they felt a sinful purity.

            They looked up to the heavens and saw the blue sky.

Ok. That was my essay. Mr Ee marked i and I got a 23/30. I felt quite disappointed with the mark. I thought I should have gotten higher.

Anyway, I'd like to thank Robert A. Heinlen for inspiring me. He wrote a book about a whole city population living in a spaceship and how nobody knew what the sky was as so many generations had passed since the lauch of the ship. They had literally formed their own society. Cool. Read it, it's good.

Well, on that note, I leave you guys with these words," The real universe is always one step away from logic."

                                               

Wonderful, 9 days to my prelims.

I originally wanted to try and bitch about time management, emphasis on the word try. But after sleeping over it, I found that I'm really largely to blame.

Why?

Is it because I don't make a concious effort? Is it because I don't fully utilise my time?

No, as Mr Khoo would call it, those were just L3/7 answers. On a b-type question.

Here's my L5/11-13 take on it:

It begins with the system. Long have students wondered, why do we do this? Why study all these irrelevant topics? Is the school trying to drown us in an information overload? Simply put, the answer is yes.

The entire point of school is for the student to continously go through a set routine of demoralisation, working hard and eventually become conforming, predictable and manageable. They play on our primal fears of not measuring up to society's needs. They make seem as if our current grasp on any situation is both limited and foolish and the only way to do it right is if we do it their way.

This sounds very hippie to me but really that's what its trying to do.

Since Sec 1, I had already notice that immediately, those that cause trouble and make noise are singled out. One that does not conform is automatically ridiculed until they either conform or they just give up on making a lot of noise. It's all about taking the same mindset.

However, Victoria School is really something different. Thanks to the supportive teachers. The teachers support our unpredictablity and more often than not, they somewhat hope it comes through for us in exams, competitions or just in plain conversation. Some do it with a vague idea of what's going on, while others do it, knowing the situation much better than myself. We have these people to thank that at the end of the day, we can still say that we are who we wanted to be.

It also helps that we an all-boys school, half of society is no longer represented, thereby allowing people to withstand social pressure better, cause really, social pressure is not from individuals but a collective and with half the social norm gone, so is half the pressure.

I have also noted that in all my conversations with JC students or even poly students for that matter, the non-VS ones always can tell if the guy is from VS. He usually talks a lot of "crap", is quite slack, loves doing stuff last-minute and still doing well, walks with an unusually straight back and just laughs a lot. Generally.

Indeed, I feel grateful to my teachers for not forcing us to be manageable. It's really as if they were trying to mass produce worker bees. We need people who are unpredictable.

I recently read an article in Broader Perspectives. Usually, I flip through it cause most of it is crap but I found an article on why Singaporean teenagers are getting depressed. It was because they don't have anything to stand up for. They feel as if they study, work and die. That's why unpredictability and unmanageability is important. Without them, no one would stir things up, cause some chaos and wreak havoc, which is a good thing sometimes. Sometimes.

An unknown factor must be in people's lives or it won't worth living something you could predict. So here's the advice, be unpredictable, cause trouble and chaos or as my OM says be incorrigible.

That's what life is all about.

 

two nights ago, VS held its biannual Evening of Music and Drama and I am proud to call it a great success.

EMD was really a disaster in the making, especially with all the last-minute work. It was terribly hectic but I'm very relieved it is finally over. Judging from previous rehearsals, I could imagine the crash course EMD was taking, with actors forgetting lines, stage crew STOMPING AROUND LIKE GIAGANTIC ELEPHANTS, horrible music from all our music groups and props falling over on stage and looking absolutely fugly. I mean, what kind of Japanese roof has gold lining on its tiles? Freaking stupid idea.

But somehow, even in all the catastrophe I could still find a bit of solace in that the best work of Victorians is somehow mostly last-minute and I wasn't let down. I know I didn't contribute to the organisation of EMD as much as others like Li Zhi, Linus and Glen, but at the least I stayed back and helped in every small way I could, be it releasing more CFCs into the atmosphere by means of sawing styrofoam, accompanying on trips to get paint and stuff and painting a ship made out of cardboard. And even though those were small contributions, it was greatly rewarding to see that the people I know and not know were enjoying the performance. It was fun acting in EMD two years ago, but it was ten times more rewarding to help organise it.

Its much more meaningful to tell my grandchildren that I helped organised a major school event than telling them I planted a tree.

My only regret would be that EMD didn't last long enough. It was one of those things that made me feel like a senior, not like the "I have long pants" senior, but more like the "student leader" senior, as if I was part of something bigger. Not that I'm not big enough already.

Oh yeah, I just remembered a second regret: the sec 4s couldn't watch it because they had 'O' levels the next day!!!!

I wished they did, then they would see that the sec 3s are capable of keeping the flags unfurled, be it Choir, ELDDS, CO or CB.

Ok, enough reflection, don't want to get too private. Let's move on to what happened the nght itself.

I'm not sure how armchair critic performed, I was in the choir room preparing for the choir's performance. But judging from what I heard, the cats at my void deck sound better when they screech.Madman on the roof IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE COMICAL!!!! But somehow, that was what happened, the audience thought that spinning actors representing flashbacks, was comical.

That was sarcasm just to let the idiots who probably aren't reading this know.

Well, can't say I wasn't expecting this. Madman on the roof wasn't exactly going to be a great success but hey at least the audience found it funny, which it wasn't supposed to be.

Next up was the choir's performance. God, it was awesome. Once again, VS Choir rose to the occassion, partly thanks to Shukri's pseudo-inspirational pre-performance speech. After the entire night, I called Chun Yong for his opinion.

[Me] So, how was the choir?

[Chun Yong] It was scary.

[Me] What?

[Chun Yong] It was so good, it was scary.

Good job to the entire choir, I'd say. Including me. *pats own back*

After that was the Crescent girls' performance. It was about love and by the end of it, I could imagine how Mr. Pang wooed his wife.

[Maths geek] If you were sin^2 and I was cos^2, then together, we would be 1.

Had to explain the joke to the juniors who have yet to face the horror of A maths.

Then, I met quite a few faces. Saw RO with his gf, saw a couple of IP boys come back, met about half the class, met Euniceand was reminded I still owed her money.

After intermission was the CO performance, the quintet wasn't that good especially the erhu, but when they combined with the rest of the group, it was perfect. Really made the song less emo.

The next one was an adaptation of Twelfth Night, to which there is only one way to describe.

After a nearly 2 year hiatus, I'm posting again. Can't believe it at all. I decided to google my name and the first result was this dead and forgotten blog. I suddenly got the urge to blog after reading my past posts, but now I just can't think what to write....

A lot of time has past, now I've finished sec 3 with a modest L1R5 of 16, I'm back in Tenor again and the only leadership position I have is treasurer of the ELDDS, which I know is just to take up space, one of my more useful traits according to linus. I was a bit depressed when in my report book comments, I was only a "respected member" while others like Linus and even Kay Fong, who is getting retained, had comments about their chairmanships and so on. Life's funny that way.

Why am I posting? It's not like anyone wants me to post or like anyone checks up on this blog regularly to see if I updated. No one would know that I posted unless I told them.

Ah, heck lah, just felt like writing something. Too bored I guess.