What lies beneath

Can't you all feel it? I can. I feel every day, every hour, every minute and every second slowly grinding away. Prelims are coming and despite this ghastly fact, there is absolutely no momentum within me. Everyday, I continue to go to school as if nothing is wrong, feeling as if there is a boundless security I can rely on. however, What lies beneath my school uniform is a mounting pressure. I don't think it would crack me like pressure release, nor would it cause bubbles in me to cavitate. It won't do anything, and neither would I.
Paradoxes appear every moment I live now with everything contradicting the one thing I am supposed to be doing. Sure, sure, friends all tell me: forget about the prelims, go for A level -- or -- don't worry, the geography department likes us-- or-- relax, you can mug like SEN at home. Let me remind you one small thing:

It is the admin's job to screw us up and it is our's to deal with that.

Surface Storage, and a tilted flag

Farewell Steph

Nick

The tiles of the room was cold. Nick rubbed the red linings of his shoes together in a futile attempt to obtain 'red heat'. The lesson was over, and the school is closed for the evening. Arching upon his heels, Nick slowly zipped up his school bag and opened his shoe bag. Yep, you compulsive-obsessive son of a gun; you got your umbrella ready.
Beneath the blue droops of his pants, he could feel that his shoe laces were untied. Bending over, he tried to reach for them but got distracted by a random crumb of eraser dust in between the tiles. What the hell- no harm tying them up later, unless I get caught in the rain that is.... which may most likely occur if I go to the station now... or I could stay and study in the helicon... or maybe the drama studio... or maybe heaven... but it is wet by the rain now--
The creaking door jolts Nick back to his schedule. Slowly, his feet moved slowly towards the exit. Drag it left... drag it right... It was wet outside. Behind him, the squeaking of Beverly's sneakers, pulled him momentarilly back, then he walked off.
Step by step, he traced down the narrow dark path of the void stairs. The shower is making everything so blur and dark. Outside, Harrision saw him. Want a lift from my dad to the station? No thanks, I'm waiting here.

Fool. Nick, you won't be studying today. Be realistic. what the hell are you staying back for? Kicking the floor, he walked into the hub as more rain specked across him. oh what do you know? There, in the white flourescent light of the clustered room, stood Beverly, Anna and Andrew. Andrew opened his constantly-enthusiastic mouth: 'want a lift in this weather? dad's coming' Anna and Bev are along for it. You 3 guys could squeeze in if you wish'
Like a slow motioned disaster tape, he agreed. Beverly grinded her new sneakers apprehensively along the floor before deciding to stay on. Nick just stuck to what he wanted to do. Go home. Andrew's car came and in went the Nick and Anna. Slowly, the white vehicle slugged against the precipitation saturated floor past the school gates.
Suddenly, Nick realised that he could have at the very least lent Bev his umbrella. Stumped, he resumed his slouch and counted the number of grids on the rubber floor mat.
He never looked up.

Turn Left, Turn Right

Trust your doctor.

Trust your doctor.
He'll always give you just enough medicine for your to function.
Today, I thought I would be a smart and I chugged down my medication along with additon panadol for cold with some panadol cold-warm rememdy. I have been knocked out ever since then. I woke up with new divine epiphany: I am not going 'out' enough. All I ever do is read notes in school and read more at home. A guy has his needs too. What about his movies? what about his shoppping (window preferably)? what about his ice-creams? AND what about his sushi outings? He needs to go out!!!
shutting myself down like this is like retaining too much water in the Glenn Canyone damn in 1983..... AAaaaaaaaaHHaSDFOMSDFCMERWTUSDFhappylalallalaASDASDFC

I noticed that I haven't been really 'blogging' blogging much lately. most have been photo-logs. I guess maybe its just the lack of words I can find to truly describe the emotions and feelings that define my surrounding. But I guess a lack of expression is better than false expression shown by others.

Guitar en-sem-ble went rather well I would say. Dree and I never expected a full house of audience. Not implying anything but I must say that the results were REALLY impressive considering the low-publicity the ensemble used. Dree and I were also quite into the swing, I would never have expected audrey to come up with so many lame lines. I guess we both had a lot of fun on this em-ceeing project :-), in fact the photographers asked if we were together and it kind of got me thinking. no wait, forget it. After the show, Tim, Dree, Bryan( dree's friend) and I went for supper at swensen's. Wooo, mad woman, she ordered an earthquake, 2 topless 5 and fries. That's like 18 scoops of heaven. I liked that. Thus concluding my thesis that young people of the world must go out more ! So What are YOU waiting for? Forget about the prelims and GO OUT!

:-)

One Final Flame

As we lit our farewell-council-room cake, I slowly recounted everything for one last time. Everything just seems to fit into places. Like a jigsaw puzzle that snaps together, our extallation was merely a phase for the installation of the 30ths to be possible.
Yesterday, our handover was completed at long last. We passed on our keys to our juniors. Despite our reluctance, we gave up eveything with dignity. It is time to let go. Ever since the very first nomination form was prepared, we have already set the stage for our exit. If there are any 29ths reading this right now, you must confess that we made it, God made it and they made it a grand exit.
As the many candles flickered in the dark, I smiled to myself. In no way were the random disorganised arrays of candle lights even close to how illuminating our passion, our spirit, our love (notice the singular forms), our fire has been. Our term wasn't 40 different shades of flicker, it was one bright year-long flare.
I am not good with good byes, I am not good with words, I am not good with expressions. But let me make one final conclusion; I love you all and I trust our future to the 30ths.

Happy Birthday 29ths

Rachel-to-Meixi

A (or 3) rainbow(s) for AC

(late blog)- 16-07-2005
A studying session in the heaven turned into a colourful spectrum and experience today. In my earphones, my ipod played on random. My pen scribbling against my hyrdo case studies notes. Next to me was Dree, Tim and Yong Xi. The Orange sun glared down upon the Barker Team playing against Springfield in the field. Slowly, I smelt a mild sensation of water in the air. Rain.
I hate such weathers. I am a person who marvels at extremities and naturally, I love rain storms. But today was different. Slowly, I felt rain drops splattering upon the back of my neck massaged by the Sun. I hate such naturally wild juxtapositions of rain and Sun. sometimes, I even feel as if God is unable to make up his mind what weather to have, resulting in this disgusting paradoxes.
As Tim and YX got hyped up shouting for the Barker team below, I tried to focus on the Aswan notes by glaring up the volume. Then I looked up. There, through the mix of rain and sun, I could see the rainbow.
Subtly at first, then the contast and spectrum sets in. A beautiful rainbow.Then 2. Then 3. It was so clear.
I could even see the foot of it ending in the Tennis courts. ( Tim and I even tried to look for leprechauns and the pot of gold but it all failed. Slick little green men, they were on to us)
I placed down my ear phones, and remembered how Yong Xi asked me eralier whether I wanted to host guitar ensemble concert next week with Dree. I looked at the rainbow and reflected.
My life has been going through a whole lot of rough weather lately. I have been confusing responsibilities with likings, duties and glories, obedience and defiance, friendship and love. I'm not really sure what happened. Maybe it was the time I spent in US that cleared my mind, maybe it was my absence that made things seem better, maybe it was you finding out my perspectives. I do not know what was it exactly that caused all these changes for the better, but I am glad for them. I treasure friendship.
As the orange Sun set into the evening, I thought about it all. The rainbow has long faded but its triple impression on me hasn't. I like my life as it is and I thank God for it and the rainbows, the rainstorms, the Sun, the annyoing-rain-and-sun and everything included in the package. Yeah, alrght. I don't mind emceeing for the concert.

Our favourite Man

Rain speckled Afternoon

AC

Memories: A Project, A Dream, A Succession

Within a short hour, it was all over. 11th July 2005. The 29th Students' Council of Anglo-Chinese Junior College was extalled. There was handshakes, fiery embraces. There were glimmering tears and gushing flow of cries. Within a short hour, it was all over.
A year's journey came to a subtle but conclusive destination. The same emotions that broken me down during June Camp started to weather upon me. I was ready, but not ready enough. It is not touching, it is not "sad", it is simply overwhelming. But THAT is not why I am here to blog about.
Today, is also the premiere of the long awaited 'Memory Project'. After 2 months of filming and another of editting and cutting, the 2-hours long movie was finally ready for its debut. In an attempt to dramatise the situation, the team decided to fake a postponement (its completion after the prelims), which was bought by most people. with so, the 29ths were at Karen's house::

Grace Chew :: "Hey guys, anyone wants to watch 'Mr. and Mrs Smith?"
Zhic :: "wait... Hey Yang-Shen, do you have any suggestions?"
YS :: "Yeah, err... how about the Memory Project?"

It took a while before everyone registered the implications. :-)

_____________
The Memory Project began as a dream. There were talks of 'oh'.. what if we actually had a movie that showed our year's progress? It began as words and jokes; yeah, (what if we ACTUALLY had a movie?)
But then, during our Final GM (After the showcase of the Orientaion 02 video), YS approached me with the proposal of a massive movie project. I guess it really was the significance of the O2 video marking our complete independence from outside filming asistance that really spurred us on.
Initially, I was daunted, intimidated. I had done plenty of movie projects, but they never exceeded 5 minutes each. (Where is the Love music video of Orientation 02 was already the stretch of my limits) Yet, a quiet voice told me, 'go ahead'. I knew that we (With God's help) could accomplish this impossible task. no more questions, we just went ahead.

The next 2 months were filled with interviews. YS and I interviewed every single councillor literally, all 40 of them. Endless days of staying back in school till 7 pm, sometimes even seeing how the school looked asleep. Upon my return home, I still had to upload all of the recordings into the computer before further processing. In other words, watching the interviews all over again. Here's the maths on average::

(40 councillors X 1/2 hour) X 2

Then came the june holidays and the last stetch. Quang, YS , Fionna and I bunked ourselves in the counci room for a 3 day marathon to complete the project. the end result was the most massive movie project I have seen in my life, too massive for even the laptops we were using to render. Then MRC's Jiamin offered his help. the MRC's treasured SUPER computer (customed designed for movie editting with the capability the play DOTA, CS some more games at the same time) was ours for the rendering. Despite this, we did the impossible. We hung the computer. Dishearted, we took a rest before breaking the hour long footage into chapters before buring it as a DVD with Zhic's help. Technical difficulties such as misallocated dubbings were solved slowly and patiently. Meanwhile, Daniel designed 2 covers both of which were somewhat inappropiate. He then merged the 2 together to show a 13-houred clock.

With teary eyes, I looked at he DVD late last night. Our legacy, our memories was a dream. It became a project and now a Succesion. It was not a handover, this extallation. It was a succession.Thank You everyone for making this possible.

Destination

Falls

Falls

Falls

Falls

Vineyard

Dam

Beauty

NYC

NYC

Ground Zero

NYC

Never Sleeps

NYC

Land of flowing honey

River of Endless chocolate

The Big Apple

Surpise Visit

OMGGG!!! Chi came to ACJC for a suprise visit today!
Seriously, I am soo fricking shocked. I mean, yeah, I know she's in S'pore but whoo! Didn't expect her to pop out of nowhere and 'whoosh'.
Wow... it has almost be 2 years already... Time has really flown by 'sista'. Oh wells, your A level might have ended, but mine would begin soon enough.
Dam-you pedro. Why are you always sleeping? then eating to wake up? then sleeping again?
I dont mind being fat. Just not lazy.

Passion AC

It is really amazing how sometimes, its the things we underestimates the most that winds up being the things that touches us the most. With this, I am refering to Passion AC. Being an usher on the behalf of council, I did not initially really view Passion AC as anything more as a normal duty. It was supposed to be just like ACJC idol, slightly draggy and "entertainin" at the same time. I was also taking photos with my dad's new DSLR on the behalf of the Adhoc. Honestly I didn't think much of it.
Ushering was really normal I must admit. Although having the dual-up my role as a photographer in between my ushering was a mad juggle ( I was about to pop while I had to anticipate Rev.Barnabus' arrival), ushering was fairly easy as compared to assignments earlier in my term. What was truly eye-opening was my photography experience.
Passion AC, was supposed to be an experience to touch the hearts of ACsians. It was supposed to bring light to those present and for them to pass on the flame of passion. Even though I was a photographer, indifferent to the crowd, Passion AC did its work in an profound unexpected way.
I HAVE to admit, PAsison AC was my most difficult photographic session. ever. Period. I have always been used taking photos during the day, in the open, where the sun gleamed into the picture in an abundant flush. Passion AC was in held in the hall, the dim lightings and other factors made the DSLR's auto focus functions go hay-wire. Three Quarters of my photos were in blur and many more simply "illiterately" profounding. This was perhaps not only due to the challenging nature of the task but also the incompatability of my tally lense to the dark hall.
In the midst of my frustation, this guy. this other photographer, Alwyn gave me a tip that my lense was not suited to the event. Ironically, I brushed off the comment, thinking it was snobbery act. haha. Later on, as I got more and more insane (yes, I was), Alwyn returned with this HUGE lense in his arms, passed it to me and just said 'try it'. Short simple words. I was shocked. so I did. AND MY... it had an internal stabiliser and stuff (things I dont know) that gave my shots so much more clarity. Soon, another photographer, a J1 kid called Keith from the AC photographic society came up to me and lent HIS lense to me too! That lense helped me capture the dark images of altar-call. so why blog this? just a public-seemingly-sincere "thank you"?
Passion AC was about the love of God that transcends to man, it was about the passion of the spirit was was passed on from one to anther. I did not sit back and watch the concert, but that was what I experienced, first-hand. Alwyn had nothing to gain from lending me that lense, and yet he did, out of kindness and that lit up a flame of awareness in me. What was more remarkable was how keith, seeing what happened, took the initiative to pass on the act of kindness. The fire spreading around the crowd came to me in an unsuspecting way too. I noticed another thing that God has placed in perspective to me. Alywn is my senior, Keith in my junior. I am learning from both a senior and junior, connecting to them in a simple action of sharing the lenses and advices.

Passion AC. You did you work. Thank you God for the crazy wild roller-coaster ride I went through. Thank You GOD. : )