ARP

To graduate, I would require the completion of an ‘Advanced Research Project’. I have done a project last year, and am currently working on another one. However, I would like to do another one next year, a mathematical project next year, probably self-proposed, as I want to do something in which I know what I am doing, I am sure of, have passion in, and can be proud of. I want to graduate knowing that I have completed the requirement with indubitable honesty, to be able to answer to my conscience, not in projects in which I constantly speculate its direction, in which half the time I blindly heed directions and brushing through task after task. I need a project meaningful to me. Nevertheless, I am going to complete my current project seriously. I am not going to abandon it halfway, or let me attention deviate from it to focus on unfledged plans. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I am fortunate to have those to encouraging me to pursue what I find is a deficiency in my academia, but what I find rather disappointing was the reasons some teachers gave to make me reconsider. If I take up a project next year, I might not have the time for it, as I ‘would have to prepare for APs’. I am dropping stats next year, giving me more time for other stuff. Still, what is this school’s obsession with APs? What is the big deal about APs, and so what if we have or not a perfect record of 5s? Not to mention, that the AP is not even an extremely challenging exam which marks the pinnacle of intelligence and learning.

Then I am told that if I do the project, I will not get to send it for any competitions anyway as it is too late to start. That annoyed me quite a bit, as competitions or not is not my concern. This is a field I am interested in and perhaps, even if i can’t put it on the top priority, I could work little by little in my spare time like a hobby, and see what I can come up with by the end of six months. If I can conjure a fully fledged project, good for me! If I can’t I still have my current ARP to back me up. (To be honest there is a little bit of me who is jealous of a certain someone (female) who got to do so many math projects. )

Let’s call it a field that I am keen to discover more about on my own, rather than a project which so many negative connotations. And I am thus told that it would be unfair to the teacher who guides me should I not put this new ‘project’ on a high priority.

Of course I am not saying that I won’t put it on high priority, above the more important things like…wait I’m not taking APs, and I’m doing better than many others in exams (not being arrogant, just stating truth), well what else, the only thing I can think of is my senior recital, and I don't even think the school takes music as seriously as their math and science. How hard could it be to not find time for something that I like?

But to say that it is unfair to the teacher who would mentor me is akin to saying that it is the quintessential desecration of music committed by those who play the piano as a mode to relax. I must reiterate that I am not doing this because I want more projects showing up on my transcript!

Although teachers hope the best for the students by not wanting them to overstress themselves and wanting the best for their transcript, I find it rather disappointing that many times they focus too much on the end result that they neglect the process of learning, or the ultimate objective of education of becoming an independent learner. The way things are done are not only not encouraging students to learn for passion, but also killing whatever desire for learning that students have when it comes.

All these, SSEF, Olympiads, APs; I’m sick with this obsession with ‘whatever is good for your transcript’. I have a passion in something, only to be run down by realistic expectations set by others.

Year 5–Part 2

One of the greatest challenges I had through the year, especially in Semester 2, was the chamber recital the music majors had to put after the exams. It was the source of immense stress on and inhibited my concerns for my grades in other subjects. In semester one, we rarely got anything done every week when we met. We would propose many ideas each session, but none of them solidified. Each session would almost end up with the rest watching performances on youtube, and despite how I did not like it as that was the most unfruitful thing that could possibly be done on a meeting, I did not know what to do in order to get us up and start practicing together as a group. It was not until the group of us were severely chided for our unproductivity we started to take a different approach. By then it was already close to the middle of the year, and the paucity of our accomplishments were appalling. We had a lot of catching up to do and that is when I started to feel the weight of it. I realised that the only way we could get things done more efficiently was for us to play from a proper score, so I had to take the initiative to arrange a piece of music for us to try out, whether the rest liked it. The first piece I ‘arranged’ was the Nocturne, hours spent in front of the computer trying to dictate the notes played by each instrument from a recording and entering them into the computer cumbersomely. When we met the first time during the holidays to try it out, we nailed it on the first few tries, and the beginner’s success felt wonderful. Then we moved on the the minuet and other stuff. But a lot more was in the way.

Differing musical tastes led to dissension for the choice of repertoire. I felt rather unhappy when some kept complaining how boring classical music is and that the audience would much prefer it if we played familiar tunes. Sometimes I feel that the obsession with having less classical pieces in a programme in order to captivate an audience has gone too far and tipped the balance to the other extreme. Although I wouldn’t mind if we did not play as many classical pieces, I felt indignant that I was the one sacrificing my time doing all the arranging, and it was easier to just do the talking and not try arranging. Now that I think about it I shouldn’t have got so unhappy over that, but rather tried to talk things through. Communication is of utmost importance when working in a group.

When school reopened, it seemed as if we have almost settled our whole repertoire. What I did not expect, was that the stuff accomplished over the holidays was only less than a third of what was about to come. As we practiced the pieces, we realised that quite a few of them had to be scrapped, and many new pieces had to be added in. with only 2 months left to go, it seemed like we were never going to make it in time, unless we practiced frequently enough. The problem was that everyone of us had varying commitment levels to music. I put music above all my other subjects because it is the subject I take that stands out from the rest, being in math and science school. To me this module is not just a mere enrichment module, as some others have put it. To me it is the essence of being a music major, to make music. We are expected to put up a performance and it is unlike exams in which if we screw up the only thing we will be grades. I felt that we had to live up to the expectation of being a music major. I did not want to run the risk of failing it and disappointing our teacher, much less undermine what others schoolmates expect from us, or maybe even disallowed from continuing music as a track. From this perspective, the only reason why chamber music is designated an enrichment module rather than a core is that it is so crucial that it deserves to be graded more than just by numbers and letter names.

However, it seemed that my teammates were caught up in other aspects of their lives. Some were frequently away from school, some had the constant need to revise for tests and quizzes and others were frequently busy with ARP. I was quite mad that none of them seems to be feeling the urgency and importance that should be given to chamber music, but I had no means of motivating them. The madness turned into hopelessness and I became rather upset that no one was treating this seriously. Maybe now that it is over, perhaps I need to be more understanding of others who aren’t as privileged as I am to be able to put music first on their priorities. There came a point where I could no longer visualise putting up a successful performance. When I had nothing to do, chamber music will creep into my mind and I would feel the urge to make hypothetical plans of practice schedules in a desperate attempt to do something related to chamber music even when the rest are not free to meet.

As the date drew nearer, I found that I started to look at things more openly. Perhaps it is because the burden of schoolwork after exams have been lifted. I started to see potential once again of salvaging this performance, if only we could practice more often now. But once again, the same upset feeling returned when even our post exam schedules could not find much common timeslot for us to practice to meet. I thought, if I could give up studying for my chemistry exam and physics exams, why couldn’t some of us push back their ARP for a week or so; it is only that week till the chamber recital. I got over is soon enough when we got together practicing in the orchestra room. It was one of the few times when we could practice together, chat and make music without having the urgent need to rush off to study for an upcoming test. It was a time when we could focus and savour the present. No matter how different our commitments, abilities and attitudes are, music brings us together because it means something to us. When we sat down and talked, I could feel the bonds between us much stronger after much dissension over the years. I found it reassuring that even after the up and downs of my school year, at least I could feel myself in the presence of people then who remotely cared for me. What a sad person I must have been.

I realised that I was not carrying my attitude I have towards exams to this – there is only so much one can study. In this case, although maximum practice would be ideal, too much of it, especially when we are all enervated from the hassles of school, would not yield much more productivity. I reminded myself that it is okay for us not to be perfect, we are merely high school students trying to put up a performance, it should be fun and not become a chore, which is what I have been treating it as all the year. I never thought that I would miss this ordeal, but as the final days of our practice passed, I thought about how much I would miss chamber music. After all the hard work, it is hard to imagine that everything would be over soon.

When the recital was over, things felt more normal than I expected it to feel. The normality of it all felt strange enough. I expected a huge relieve for myself, or an internal celebration within me, but none of that was present. Frankly, I was a bit disappointed that it had to be over, and also that when it was over I didn’t feel that it wasn’t a big deal, neither did too many others as I had hoped. I really wished I could have more friends I could share my life with.

After this experience, I learnt when democracy is not possible, someone must be there to start telling people what to do. Anarchy will only lead to aimless wanderings and nothing will be done, most probably due to everyone else thinking that someone else is going to take the initiative. Why not let the person be oneself?

I also learnt that we cannot force a fish to learn to climb a tree. Rather than making people who can barely play the violin play the viola just to fill up the parts of a piece, we should employ the merits of a person to maximize efficiency. After much trial and error, we finally managed to come up with a combination of instruments which best suit our abilities. Another instance of forcing a fish to climb a tree is when I tried to make the violin’s and clarinet’s lower register play the bass line. That is flagrantly ineffective and the instruments can be put to much better use instead of playing something that it is not meant for. Considering that most of our instruments are soprano, we should turn this into our advantage by having multiple interactions between melodies and counter melodies, while letting the piano play a heavier role in the bass line.

After the recital there was Grade 8 music theory exam. I didn’t really like the way music theory was taught – too much like the math and sciences. We were never given the chance how the Neapolitan sixth modulations sounded like, or how the augmented chords sound like when played in a progression. Rather, we were told to memorize them. Nevertheless, really thankful to having absolute pitch and the ability to hear the notes in my mind, preferably not more than three lines at the time, learning grade 8 theory was not as hard as I had expected it to be.

Which as a digression, I still find it frustrating how I am unable to compose beautiful melodies without it turning out sounding pop. To me the difference between classical music and pop music is that in classical music, something new lies around each corner, like telling a story, while pop songs are mostly a ride around the merry-go-round.

The final frontier to cross would be the senior recital, considering that our batch has already completed the year 6 music modules this year. That is one of the reasons I am looking forward to next year, and I hope that the experience will be enjoyable. Now being in year 5, I still remember that in year 1, I have already decided that I want to be a music major, and so went up to Dr Wong and told her, who was obviously unable to take me seriously, as would any other person having a child standing 1.4 m go up to him or her telling about his ambitions. But some parts of me haven’t changed at all. I am in a math and science school, and I wanted to be someone more than just scientific logic; I wanted to be a balanced individual and take something else on the other extreme of the spectrum. More importantly, music was part of my childhood and is still part of me. I love it and want to play it for others to listen, and whether I play it good or bad, I wanted to make that effort.

I did not always feel that way though. There were times this year where the stress was so intense that I started to doubt my choice in having taken music as a major, but I’m glad that I ploughed through chamber music and did not give up on music. It is also this year that I finally started to enjoy practicing my violin. It all owes to my experience taking the diploma exam for violin. I knew had to stop playing through my pieces and focus more on small segments if I wanted to improve. I started to take it slow, and it is through this I manage to feel the mellifluous vibrations of the string reach into me; I realised that even single notes, played unwaveringly, with care put into feeling the vibration of the whole individual as an instrument, can make the most beautiful music…It was the reason I have disliked practicing the violin all these years, I played so fast and hastily all along that I did not take time to feel the music. To practice means just more than to play the notes, it means to play them such that every single one is music. I find my own definition of music I formulated in class staring right back at me – music is only there if there is intention to make music.

Not only do I feel that I have learnt how to make music better, I also feel like I enjoy listening to it even more now. Many times this year, when my mood was in the pits, I listened to music, not happy music in an attempt to lift my spirits, but to let it cry along with me, or what ever emotion I was feeling. Like I have said I dislike having to made to feel some other emotion that I am not feeling. So, I let music embrace it, rather than to counter it. And sometimes when I listen to certain pieces, memories are invoked, and whether happy or sad, those memories are missed by me…

To be continued…

Year 5–Part 1

Living in hostel is a totally different experience from living at home. I still remember the first few days of this year when I was excited about living in hostel. It felt like living in a holiday chalet. Now whenever I use the meleleuca shampoo and body soap I started using during those days, those feelings of excitement and adventure come rushing back. I remember the first few weeks, when everything we did was exciting, because everything was a new experience. Waking up at six in the morning to go for a morning run was something that we would do with enthusiasm. Then we would have breakfast in the peaceful atmosphere of the canteen, while little people were in school. In between lessons, being able to return ‘home’ to rest was a luxury which I find extraordinarily gratifying. But after time, the lethargy started to set in and the initial hype about hostel life drained away. I started sleeping in as long as I could, and life didn’t seem so fresh anymore. I started ‘getting used’ to how things work around here. I would have preferred if I didn’t at the expense of the enthusiasm I used to carry to school on a daily basis. I ponder, what would it be like if we could do something extraordinary on a regular basis, and to live life as if everyday were an adventure?

Living independently is something quite new for me. I had to do many things on my own I didn’t have to do in the past.

I used to have a free flow of clothing to wear, but now I had to send my clothes to the FREE laundry service every alternate day. And I had to wash my own underwear, if one is allowed to classify soaking them in dynamo water and stirring it as washing. Then I started getting bored of climbing the stairs to the laundry room and filling up the form so I sent my laundry less and less frequent, accumulating many dirty clothes in my room. I stopped folding my clothes and there was no distinct pile between the clean and the used. Anything that didn’t smell bad was considered clean to me then, and sometimes I used loose pieces of clothing as bath towels if I have exhausted my dry supply of them. And to think I used to wonder why people could not fold their clothes. I try to do it regularly and now I know why some people do not see the point of it

I also tried to keep my room clean and tidy. It was fine at the beginning, perhaps even fun and satisfying when I lay back down on my bed to admire my masterpiece. It still is, but throughout the hectic school year, many times I could not find spare time to focus on cleaning up. I was shocked to find how fast dust settles on a surface and how bad stray food crumbs are for one’s table. I didn’t think it was a big issue before. Over the year I found myself owning a big lizard, a couple of bite-sized ones, this slimy slug like thing residing behind my laptop, and a colony of white fungus draping over my bowl which looked a lot like cobwebs, or white candy floss, or the shredded stuffing you find in soft toys. Now that I have tidied up again, I all of a sudden feel the difference between a clean and tidy, and a dirty and messy room, a change that used to transit so gradually I was unable to do so.

Another thing is food. Food was a big problem. The hostel vegetarian food did not taste that bad initially, but as time passed, I realised that the only reason I did not find the food bad was that I am not used to consuming such bad food, and I thought it was only a matter of getting used to. I tried cooking, but the furthest I got to was cooking plain noodles and dumping spaghetti sauce onto it. Or heating up tofu, which I still find the most convenient source of palatable food. Sometimes I would go out of dinner, but I liked it better if I had someone to eat with. Well, there was a rather emotional period when I liked to go out for dinner on my own, when I would bring my laptop and listen to peaceful music on the bus and type stuff, while immersing myself in self-pity for my lack of food and companionship. But I didn’t always like eating with people. Sometimes I just liked waiting alone at a table in hope of meeting someone I liked at the dinner table without anyone else to interfere, or have quiet moments pondering over my life.

And many other things just got worse as time passed, just like I have described in my post new hostel semester. Recall how I told myself that I would do my best in semester two. This is a continuation of that post and here is how it went. Frankly I am no match for my own workload. Whatever I have resolved to do my best and not slack off utterly failed. There comes a breaking point when too much stress stops giving the drive to carry on, and one just crumbles under its weight. I had to start shedding some weight. There were so many points when I felt that everything was hopeless.

First major difficulty which came was my violin exam. Being on the 27th of July, I had not more than a month to prepare for it, with technical mistakes still prevalent throughout my pieces. This was an exam I was most unprepared for, and my impression was that the standards would be pretty high for a diploma exam. Technical proficiency would then be nothing but fundamental. I neglected my homework and started to seize every opportunity I had, in between lessons, free periods, to practice any short passages. I still remember how terribly I played on a student’s recital a few days just before the exam, and I was so panicked that I woke up the next day at 6 am to start practicing before school started. During the exam itself, the moment I screwed up a set of four notes, I kept on thinking about those few notes, and lost focus on the present. Thus I started making more mistakes, and the more I made the more I thought about them till a point when I started thinking about how I should start preparing to retake the exam. My weakness is concentration, and I cannot sustain the initial energy and emotion I always have at the beginning of a piece till the end. When my violin exam was over, I could finally start catching up on my work.

Then there was TIP as well. I had no idea where this project was going, and with all the things I was handling, such as fitting my ARP into my packed schedule, and chamber music, was too enervated to bother thinking about how to salvage it. This was the first thing I abandoned when I realised that there was only so much I could handle. I was prepared to fail it for lack of contribution.

Modern Physics. This was a module in which I never understood any of the lessons, superficially even if I could claim I did. The attempts to understand it always ended up in vain and I was initially unwilling to write a term paper for a topic that I did not understand, as I felt that I would be cheating myself, so I left it till after the exams, and wrote the whole paper off my knowledge without much research. It wasn’t too bad, for the amount of time I put into it. I had to move on to other matters. Oh yea and assignment 4 was in only after the final results were keyed in.

I think it is only fair to say that this semester, above all, the module which I put in real effort and hard work into is chamber music. I fretted over it and constantly thought of ways to pull the chamber recital off, regardless if those ways will be actually put into action. When my mind was empty, only two things would creep in, either chamber music, or her.

After a typical day at school, I would return to my room, and the first thing I would do is lie down on the bed and try to reorientate my mind into the right direction and think about all the stuff I have to complete, and ordering them based on priority. I would then fall asleep and narrow down the list to one or two crucial things I have to complete, and sometimes those things aren’t even on the list I created for myself, such as an organic chemistry quiz the next day. I will then feel hopeless and unaccomplished and take a break, going up to my friends’ room to chat, sometimes even up past midnight, and I believe it not to be a timewaster but a necessity to maintain my sanity.

I then decided that making any plans were no longer going to work, and my plan reduced to a pathetic ‘do work when I feel like it has to be done’. I got past assignment over assignment, without much of a big picture of what I was supposed to accomplish but a plethora of assignments yet to be completed still.

By the way, where does running and exercising come into the picture this semester? Come on don’t be ridiculous.

Lying beneath all the work I have to do is yet another layer of hardship and impedance - emotional burden. To try to work feeling so despondent about one’s relationships with others is a real challenge, most of it coming from getting out of bed and stop thinking about the source of despondency itself, especially with little people around to encourage me.

But it is through the crazily stressful circumstances I have been in that have initiated a few paradigm shifts in me and gave me vastly different outlooks on life.

To be continued…

28th October

I woke up from my nap at 6 pm today feeling utterly confused. The time says 18 00, translating to 6 o’clock. I was disconcerted at the fact that the sky out of my window was far brighter than what it should have been at dawn. I redid the subtraction of 1200 from 1800 over and over again, but getting the same result of 6 o’clock. Deciding the something is horribly wrong with this reality, I lay back down, and only realised that it wasn’t morning. It must have been a very deep sleep to have made me believe I have woken up on the next day in my hypnopompic state.

It was the 28th of October today, and that is special for two reasons:

1) It is her birthday
2) Its the end of the month; many are checking out of boarding school, marking an end to their year 5 boarding life.

But fortunately, my closer friends and I are not checking out just yet, until the end of November, so we won’t have to say goodbye so soon. Nevertheless, life without the familiarities I have been with for close to a year will be rather different.

On the 28th of October, although I felt quite disappointed that the life I have been used to for a year will be going to be over so soon, I felt considerably accomplished at the same time. I have overcome many obstacles over the year and conquered difficulties that I could not imagine having done so.

1) I submitted my relativity term paper
2) We pulled off the chamber recital to a rather presentable extent
3) I failed my violin diploma exam, but only the quick study section. I was happy enough that I passed my recital and viva voce, though the recital was the section I most expected myself to fail.
4) And on the 28th of October, I explicitly confessed

Over the past few days, I have been frantic about getting a present for her that she would like and appreciate. Although my initial idea had been to get her a configuration puzzle, I changed my mind upon realising that her attention span on it would not last on it for more than a few weeks, and it is one of those easy objects that goes into the storage box. So I got a watch, and simple as it may sound, the effort I went to get it is many-fold its cost price as I judge myself, whether it is time, mental agony, or sacrificing my dinner and rest. And I did my ultimate best to get her that and I’m proud of it.

Awake from a Dream

Just realised that this post have been left unposted for quite sometime.

I just woke up from the weirdest dream. It was stunningly vivid, and it reflected my real life so appositely.

I was living in some sort of boarding school, but we had entire apartments to ourselves. 6 people to an apartment. It was quite big, but as I remember it, it was also rather dark and musty, with old equipment stacked everywhere, sort of like in a storeroom. The six people living in the apartment were my Dad (who did not appear throughout most of the time other than the time he annoyed me by acting all weird and calling back right in front of me when he saw a missed called from me right in front of my face. It turned out that he called the wrong number in the end and the person on the other end of the line probably received his ridiculous voice.) There was also TRF and some other boarding stuff. And the other two were her, some other female, and me.

One night, she was being quite kind and friendly to me. We were talking just outside the door about life. She was all sweet and giggling all the while. Somehow, we managed to start discussing about furniture arrangement within our apartment And then, she said: "Oh Oh! I know! Maybe next time, at this spot, you can put all your naked wives here!" She also said another statement that, combined with the previous one, would imply that she would be together with me, but I forgot what it was, and it, stand alone, didn't mean much unfortunately. (I forgot what that statement was) And what I strongly felt like replying at that time was: Hey you've to be careful of your words, because I'm sure you do not want to be naked standing there in a few years time.

The scene changes. The boarding mentor approached me with a really anxious face and said to me: what is going on? I slowly found out that I was in some kind of trouble at moelc. It seems that she has been using the computer at the bookshop with her internet account when she was supposed to be printing her assignment, and really failed and doing a google search of a few of a friends names, thus resulting in a plethora of search requests, jamming the server. And because of that she was also in doubt of having misused another's account when she should have been using her own ( I don't know the relationship). And since I have slight affiliations with her, I was accused of being her accomplice.

No wonder I recalled having seen a teacher at MOELC filling up some form with her name on on the computer as I walked past the staff room. Must have been a document of offense.

Then I checked my phone, there were quite a few smses from her saying about that, and that she was sorry she caused me to get into trouble as well. She sounded really sad. And I wanted to call her down to talk, and tell her that its okay. We get into trouble TOGETHER. A good chance to comfort her and get into her better books. I wanted to call her down to talk ( I think she was upstairs. The apartment was normal sized, but it had 12 stories just like the hostel. I never saw the other floors in the dream. ) but it was about to be dinner soon. But I had a sudden realisation at that time, I started being paranoid once again about perhaps because she feels that she owes me, that she started being so nice. I was really dreading that, I wanted her genuine feelings.

And then I had a really bad cold, such that I had difficulty breathing. Hurberg called to ask me about a math test, but i brushed him off, for I was getting short of breath.

First, the storeroom-like depiction was an accurate reflection of the conditions I went to sleep in, my messed up room with rubbish strewn all over the floor. Her treatment to me was probably a saccharine aftereffect of her actually asking me to teach her stuff for the first time the day before. However, my paranoia in my dream stems from a possible innate worry that she is only being nice to me when she needs my help, something which of course, I wouldn't want. And then I just had math test before I went to sleep, and believe it or not, I dreamt about before the math test.

Weekend at School

As orchestra camp drew to a close on Sunday, I must admit that the camp was a rather good one, and that it had not been condescendingly labelled as a waste of time, unlike its council-organized counterparts. Such a disposition on camps has been a rare one, and I was pleasured enough to have taken part in one such camp, only to further astonish myself later upon realising how I detect faint traces of nostalgia after the camp. I could no longer refuse the appellation of 'enjoyable', even someone as critical as me, who has always had high expectations of everything.

When we returned from the concert on Friday, we went to wash up. Haochun borrowed my toilet in hostel to wash up. Having to stay back on a weekend feels extraordinarily different from a weekday. It is wonderfully peaceful without my roommates around, and I could reside in solitude without the interference from them. Sadly enough we were obviously not allowed to sleep in our rooms, but rather in the classrooms at school. I had not brought any sleeping materials, but it was a fortunately convenience that I was sleeping in 502 classroom, the classroom of pillows. In the middle of the night however, we were rudely awakened to be gathered outside the hall. It was reported that a couple of people were spotted by the public climbing over the gate of our school. The police was present. Me, in my hypnopompic mode, cared like it was something slightly different from other days, but no further than that, despite the potential gravity of the situation. A while later we were sent back to sleep, and I woke up at 6am with freezing feet, desperately waiting for time to past, as I did not know what time it should be before we were allowed to leave the room. At half past six I could no longer tolerate the cold wind from the air-conditioning and lying on the stone hard floor, I returned to my hostel room for a while before reporting at the canteen a while later.

The activities were minimally fresh to me, with tinges of originality, if not fun, or totally apposite for some. The very first activity on a Saturday morning, preparing breakfast, astounded me with its metaphorical relevance to our orchestra hiding beneath its superficially boring, ostensible purpose of filling one's stomach. So many breakfasts, yet only one teacher.

Morning activities could not be more simple than they were. They were, creating 30 second rhythm, painting a group flag and carrying a bucket of water with string. These were exactly the kind of activities which would drain me of my enthusiasm in any other circumstance, but it did not then. It was partly because we were in small groups, which encouraged greater interaction and mingling amongst us, and I had the biased confidence that the orchestra exco was capable of organizing meaningful stuff, proved to be true later.

We had orchestra practice in the afternoon at the concourse. The sweltering heat, together with the dry air, made me feel like I am still in bed, not to mention that I have yet to bathe and was still in my sweat stained sleeping attire. Nevertheless, 3 hours passed faster than I thought I would, which rekindled the idea that having orchestra on the weekends should be a consideration.

In the evening, we heard that we were going to watch a movie, as the night games were not approved by the estate management. It was apparently given away when the announcement was made with a giggly tone. Sure enough, halfway through the movie, the colour on the screen suddenly turned negative, and for a moment I couldn’t tell, and thought that the programme hanged and redirected the movie to its title screen. I was puzzled as to why everyone was screaming, until words started materializing on the screen, claiming to be typed by a spirit who has infected the computer, and through it gives us instructions on the tasks that have to be completed. It was not that frightening, but I have to admit it was rather freaky, especially with everyone around screaming at the peak of their lungs. It was reassuring that I still had Amanda beside me to talk to, without her being preoccupied with screaming. It was sheer madness within the theaterette.

Following that, we went around school in our groups complete stations and solving riddles. I was rather frightened by all the sporadic screaming initially; in fact the screaming was worse than the atmosphere itself, as countless false alarms are raised, only to later realise that people were screaming for nothing. Frankly I thought it was not the best idea to play such games during the seventh month. I was hoping that we could just remain in the theaterette and continue watching that movie instead. Nonetheless, as we worked through more stations, the level of fear subsided and it became quite interesting. The first station, situated in a classroom, was Belinda’s, and her make up and acting skills made the station one of the creepiest. Some others, however, were not that good; they could not quite get into the role, and comically alternated between their real self and their role. In one of the stations, we had to go into the toilets shrouded in darkness searching for puzzle pieces. First time I got to enter a female toilet :P.The station master got owned a few times. First we found something under the sink which we were not supposed to take. Then, Amanda notice a piece of paper stuck high up on the wall, and so I jumped to take it down. It turned out to be covering the motion sensor, and all the lights came on at once.

In another station we had to go around searching for objects while singing lullabies to a ‘sleeping girl’; it was quite nerve-wrecking to think of the next songs to sing while having to recall the notes and lyrics of the song we were singing. In another we were blindfolded and had to look for each other while avoiding a monster which made jingling sounds. They were activities which I would consider quite creative and original, but unfortunately we had to pack up before completing all the stations.Then it was back to my most dreaded part of the camp. Sleep time. I was so sleepy that I guessed I had fallen asleep in less than five minutes on my makeshift bed from cushions, from how I realised that I did not know the outcome of the chess game Haochun was playing. My bed fell apart in the middle of the night and my sleep got much worst than that on the first day. I woke up before sunrise again and returned to my room for a little rest on my bed. Before I knew it I was asleep, but fortunately woke up just on time to report at the canteen.

After breakfast, we had the amazing race. Speaking of amazing races, I really missed those amazing races we had in lower secondary that were out of school. It is so much fun racing and exploring at the same time. Anyway, there were clues after each station to an action that would have to be performed at the next station. Some of those riddles were quite ingenious. Flying Vitruvian Man – Star Jump. This weapon plays music – Bow.

The first activity we had was quite a common one, but it was unexpectedly engaging. Blind folding ourselves and forming shapes with a piece of long string. It was a small variation from the typical ones done by council, and for some indescribable reason I found this more rapport building; maybe it was not the activity, but the people around, or the time.

In another activity, some team members had to guess words acted out by someone, similar to charades, except that the someone was a puppet, controlled by puppeteers who are the only ones given the words to be guessed. It was quite entertaining to be controlling the puppet from the floor above, feeling hopeless at the inability to make the puppet carry out the desired actions, but yet a sense of wondrous accomplishment when our team members could guess the word.

Aside from the accommodation, I must re-emphasize that the camp was enjoyable. This also triggers me wondering why council and the school in general never stops organizing hackneyed activities. Is it because of the smaller group, such that it is easier to manage, or is there something different about these people who make up the different organizing committees? I would like to believe otherwise, but unfortunately I cannot help but perceiving that there exists differing group cultures. 

I went back to my room seeing my roommate again. It was time to swing back into reality and rejoin the bromidic cycle of hostel and school life.

New Hostel Semester

Ever since I moved into boarding, I never found time to write. That is mainly because I did not want to find time to write, as I thought that it was a pain to do so, a feeling rather freshly encountered. To a bystander, living in hostel should have ameliorated my life, with an astronomical reduction in travelling time and more time to spend with friends; however it had only done so less than I expected.

Before I entered boarding, school life and home life were pretty detached. I wake up in the morning, prepare for school, fall asleep in the MRT and when I wake up, I enter into a whole new realm. Not anymore; I feel like I have became a full time student, and the burden of having to cope with so many aspects of my life in such a scholastic environment upsets my sanity.

It started all well at first, but that is easy for many. The hard thing is to sustain one's energy and keep their morale throughout 6 months. I started becoming more messy over time and there were nights when I started sleeping without a mattress cover. I stopped running in mornings, and I stopped drinking water regularly. I couldn't be bothered to replace my drinking cups. Then I stopped sleeping early, and stayed up into dawns to complete work that should have been done with the time I spent wondering how I should spend the time. And I started doing badly (by my standards at least) for tests, and got kicked out of Chem O this semester (Along with many others of course, who didn't hit the mark)

I decided that I want to be in top form in the imminent semester. I have decided such things many times already. "Next semester, I'm going to do my best in every subject" "Next semester, I'm going to run every day" But none of it worked. It is only after the semester is ending, I see how much I have slackened and how much more I could have achieved. And then I become determined again and the cyclic process continues.

But something is different this semester. It is the busiest one I am about to encounter. I will have my violin to practice, so many math and science modules to handle, my music course, attachment project at DSO and my regular consumption and not to mention production of English essays. Hopefully, this additional stress will make a difference in me by warning me that there is definitely no time to slack off this semester. I want to unleash my true prowess and show myself (and perhaps others)what I'm capable of.

To come back to the topic of why I find writing a pain; before boarding, I found writing as an outlet for my thoughts and feelings, so that I can better organize them. However, due to reasons that cannot be expressed laconically within this phrase, and will thus be put off into a later post probably at the end of the year, thoughts alone, without being penned down, overwhelm me. I can't even control the maelstorm of unchained ideas and fragmented thoughts within my mind, let alone pen them down. With the complexities of having to juggle and manipulate the unique, yet intertwining aspects of my life, from my academics, musical practice, daily life and not to mention relationships (important note here), there is little brainpower left for me to allow words flow across the page.

That is why writing has turned into a pain. I will have to upgrade my personal RAM first.

I hope by the end of boarding, I will be able to get my mind to think straighter, and conjure a full fledged account of all the things I have always been wanting to mention.

Coming out of boarding during this holiday has allowed me to change my paradigm of many things. I realised that in the hostel, there is this ubiquitous feeling of imprisonment, which leads to depression, but its not immediately apparent. Like a hocrux, or for non Harry Potter readers, a malignant tumour, or a frog in boiling water, residing within and gradually devouring one, without one noticing at all until one feels the extreme difference by escaping from that place.

Whenever I can, I would like to go have a run from school to commonwealth for dinner. I get exercise, time away from that hocrux of a boarding school (elaboration in my year end post), and better food. Three birds with one stone!

By the way, I am considering whether to appeal for chem o. It might be too much for me to handle, but to think of giving up of an opportunity to learn more feels like a waste. And there is also the factor of seeing some people too often.

Dreaming Returns - Counterstrike in a Castle

It had been a long time since I last had a lucid dream, let alone one that I could control. Back in primary school, my days (or nights) were deluged with such remote adventures and fantasies, that sleeping became but a different life beginning. However, yesterday, I had a dream, similar in style, which repeated in two episodes. It wasn't a dream I could control (To do so one would first have to know that one is in a dream), but nevertheless, the amount of details I could capture was overwhelming. It it was thrilling too...

I was on a school trip to a castle. Let us assume Hogwarts Castle. It was not one of those grey and dull stone castles depicted in shows, where knights in rusty armour trudge around. It was one with florid decorations; the floor was extensively carpetted and chandeliers dangled from the ceiling. But it was not an abandoned castle. It was private property, and there were anachronistic security guards and information counter, sort of the type of setting one will expect in a shopping mall.

We followed the leader, in one large group to make our way through the castle, although split into cliques within. As in a typical field trip through a one-way trail at the botanic gardens, some were faster while others were slower. I happened to be with one group, which did not put too much effort into keeping sight of the rest, and we reached a T junction, walls faced with medieval portraits. They took the right turn, and I followed behind. Within sight was a door with striking resemblance to one of those wide and massive auditorium doors at school with the huge longitudinal handle. There was a hint in the way the door was designed that told me it was an emergency exit, not to be used unnecessarily.

I shouted for them not to open the door, but it was too late. They pushed the door open, and in an instant, retreated, for a loud wailing siren echoed through the corridors of the castle. They ran to the left prong of the T junction, not before pulling me along. We were greeted by stairs, followed by a typical wooden door with a rectangular window often associated with staff rooms. We entered a small, yet spacious room made from marble, our every footstep reverberating loudly. Further ahead were similar stairs made from marble and another wooden door that led out of the room.

Just as we were halfway across the room, both doors from either side exploded open, with police officers accompanied by special forces, counterstrike character lookalikes; many of them wore gas masks and held tactical shields. "Don't move!" they shouted. "We noticed someone open the emergency exit."

Thereafter, we were held in detainment in this royal-looking chamber which was as usual, surrounded by portraits. The floor was fully carpetted too, with intricate designs. I was scared, because guns were everywhere. And guns means death. I was worried that the slightest movement might make the policecshoot. Then, while the police were having their break, someone from the group stood up and told us that everyone was too make a run later when the police returned, or he will shoot whoever does not. That sounded ludicrous, but he clarified that it was because he was going to shoot the wooden door ahead, so everyone has to get out of the way.

I was in a dilemma, the police were likely to shoot should they see us running away. When it happened, all of us ran for the back door. What happened next was unclear.

The next thing the entered the scene was me lying on the ground, with the police applying some excruciating ointment on my back, although I do not remember myself getting injured at all. Then, more forces suddenly burst through the door and told us to keep our bodies down and shake our heads and wrists ridiculously if we did not want to be shot.

The adventure more or less ended here.

'Round two' was in a similar setting, but now we got information that there were terrorists roaming about in the castle. We rushed towards the security post to make a police report, but they retorted, "Then why did you come to us? We are not the police." We asked them where we could find the police and they told us that they were sunbathing at the poolside on the first floor. Our next challenge would be to get to the first floor without being shot first. The idea of 'sides' and 'teams' seem to have faded away in this castle. Friendly fire was going to be a likely occurrence, thus we had to be very careful. I can't remember anything beyond the security post.

That's about all of my adventure in the castle. Later I somehow dreamt that a couple of year 5 drama club members joined orchestra, but I never saw their faces because they were away at a camp.