Orientation 2 (Day Two)

Only two weeks ago, a second round of Orientation took place in my school to welcome the second batch of Junior College (High School) students into the school (ever since God knows when till this year there have been two seperate admissions exercises to stream students into the various junior colleges in Singapore: JAE, Joint admissions Exercise, which took place mid-February this year in contrast to previous years when it would be in April, and PAE, dunno what it stands for, which took place on the 27th of December last year and which was how I got into Meridian Junior College) took place, and the days that me and my fellow Orientation Group Leaders have been preparing and hyping up for during OGL camp have finally dawned on us.

Being the leader that I am, during the three days of orientation I had to get up by 4 and be in school by 6.45. As I found out on the first morning, the PAE batch has had a major reshuffling of houses (classes too, since most people have decided to change their subject combinations. I exchanged China Studies for Literature), and even though I was an OGL under Atlas, my former house, I have been shifted to a class belonging to another house, Callisto (for the curious, our five houses are named Atlas, Callisto, Miranda, Phobos and Triton - Moons of the outer rim planets). At least the girl I like is in the same house. ^_^

We got to meet new friends, some of them PAE students like me who chose to pass the opportunity to be an OGL, a handful of them former classmates, one cheerful bugger who eventually got put into the same class as me (only cos my class has KI, a Philosophy-esque subject), most of them fresh faces from the JAE batch, and one daft punk (pun not intended) named Syahabuddin (Malay) who calls himself Sam and proclaims to do Yoga, and intends to transfer himself out and go to a polytechnic instead.

The first day was all about icebreakers and teaching them our school's Mass Dances. (I should think all Junior Colleges in Singapore have their own; I gatecrashed Temasek Junior College's Orientation a few days prior to mine and found out that they were even planning to display theirs to the public by getting the freshmen to perform it at Suntec City.) (Theirs were tremendously inferior to ours, I should say.) (I should also add that they even get their freshmen to do community service during the orientation by folding paper stars for charity or something. How awesomely stupendously fun.) (At least I got to see this really cool half-Japanese tennis-playing chick. Woowee.) The first day was also the day I forgot to charge the batteries of my camera, so I gots no footage at the end of it all. T_T

The second day was all about MMM, Meridian's Magnificent Marathon, that Amazing-Race-ish game we played and I documented in OGL Camp where we would run around like mad in the Central District, play games and find ice-cream sticks (it's a quest thing).
This was at our first station at Read Bridge.


The fellows had to forfeit this memory game and duck-walk down the bridge:

This was at a card-arranging game at Fort Canning park:

Every station has this game of Chance Cards. Pick a card, end up wasting your time or a game or two if you're unlucky, or immediately set out and find the ice-cream stick before proceeding to the next station.

At Vivocity.

For this year's MMM the organizers have decided to integrate the Amazing Race's Yield element of the game, so we ended up get yielded at one of our 'pit stops' at Somerset train station. We didn't feel to bad about it though, it only gave us more time to rest and enjoy the air-con.

As you can see, it takes a lot of appeasing to satisfy our station in-charges when they're not. Mostly it's just clapping and cheering.

We take every opportunity we can for group photos:

I had to stand on the bus bay to take this one.

Congralutions, go find your ice-cream stick, scram, and don't tell me I suck at English.

Nice shoes.

amidst all that action in the hall, I found a Triiton sign peacefully resting.

a familiar face; The in-charge of Orientation 2 at the mikea gain with his usual skywards-gazing look.

Yeah, you probably saw this guy bouncing around the hall stage during OGL camp.

This is what you look like whenever you type 'LOL'. Now tell me, are you really laughing out loud or not?

Only the Miranda and Callisto OGLs were free enough for a group photo at the end of day two. In the end I never got to take Atlas, Phobos and Triton's.


Here's Atlas' unofficial mascot, Salta (actually a friend's Zinc bag. Yes, it's a bag, shaped like a bunny. I gave him the idea of drawing the face Rayman-Bunny style, but he wasn't much of an artist after all).

The reason I chose Companion^3 as my shirt name was cos I was addicted to Portals at that time, and I knew perfectly well that a lot of people were gonna ask me what that means, since Portals isn't very popular among them. I also knew perfectly well that the token few people who do know about Portls would be very impressed by it, too.


Since I'm tired of dumping my whole gallery here and am aware that not everybody who visits me uses Broadband or is interested in each and every picture I take, I'll just link you to my photobucket account and you can find out what happens on day 3 (pages 1 to 3, by the way. A lot of things happened, I might dump that into another post).

I should also seriously consider if I should put my comments above or below their corresponding pictures too. I get the feeling above won't work very well...

And yes, I also need to find out how I can improve on my camera's image quality. You can see for yourself how... Um, imperfect it is. I think it's got something to do with ISO, can a camera-versed person help me out here?

And on a last note, is there anybody out there hyped up about Iron Man? (Thought I forgot about my first picture, didn't you?) I'll be blogging about that soon.

School, Advertising, and Thanks for the Hits!

Hey guys, I know it's been a last time since the last post (which I don't doubt had you Rickrolled), and now that the brief March holidays are here I thought I'd add a few updates on my IRL situation. JC life's been going smoothly so far, I'm having no problems coping with homework as of yet (I'm in fact starting to develop a liking for doing schoolwork which I deem relatively easy).

Meridian Junior College is starting to become a sort of second home for me, these days. I find myself staying back in school more frequently, whether it's to watch soccer matches on the synthetic soccer field from the grandstands at the sports gallery, pump some iron at the gym, finish up work assignments in the 2nd level of the library, the quietest air-conditioned place in the college, rent and watch movies for free in the Audio room, or simply chill out at the canteen, a bowl of Gyuudon from the school's Sakae Sushi outlet beside my laptop, blasting Daft Punk in my earphones to mask the sound of the pouring rain outside, while playing a casual game of Single-Player Risk on the lappie while friends spectate and offer strategies, like what I am doing right now. Now this is the life. The best part is, they offer free wireless Internet too (only when it's working, of course).

My peers are the most motivating people I know. (Almost) everybody aspires to be a leader, like what the school encourages us to be, initiating social activities like celebrating birthdays and going out for lunches together. They are keen on helping out in schoolwork whenever I need assistance. They offer comments about how I do things, comments that are positive and constructive. They encourage me in whatever I set out to do. Most of all, they are honest and won't try to put someone down for the fun of it. There's nothing more I can ask for :D.
My new school uniform, stiff as it still is up to now, is actually really refreshing to wear. I simply love the colour (sky blue if you still don't know). It dries off quickly after I sweat. I can wear one set for two consecutive days since it doesn't crease very much. And it does not give off any smell. (^_^)

The teachers here are great too. they're sporty, outgoing, fun-loving, have good senses of humour, and are always there to lend a helping hand. We have hunky man teachers who not necessarily teach PE who are willing to offer a tip or two about bodybuilding and woman teachers with high-pitched 16 year-oldish voices that schoolboys here take a liking to (my gorgeous Physics teacher for example). Our principal is outspoken, charismatic, understanding and likeable. What more can I say?

Alright, enough of the shameless school advertising. I'd now like to direct your attention to the Advertising section of my blog. As you might have noticed (nor mostly likely have not), since December last year there had existed something called Google ads on my blog. I had actually hoped to drum up some pocket money to support myself (I'd hate to break this to you, but my family's currently financially strapped at the moment), so I thought I'd give Google a bit of advertising space. As of now my Google Adsense earnings make up a grand total of $0.00 :P. I really do hope that if you see something interesting being advertised on this site, just take the time to click on it and browse through for a moment, it won't take a lot.

Pretty soon I'll be putting up another ad, this time to promote a place called doingfine.org, a really neat-looking place where you can tell everybody how wonderful your day went, instead of bitching and going emo about everything bad that happens in your life, which is what LiveJournal is basically for. I might just consider being there myself, seeing how things in my life are going at the moment. I hope you'll take the time to check it out too when the ad comes out. you guys will be doing me a wonderful favour, and I am eternally grateful.

I am, in fact, already grateful for the fact that you have taken your time to come and read my blog. A recent check on Feedburner ensures that I get hits every day, from a minimum of 14 to a maximum of 42, with all sorts of browsers, all around the world, speaking all sorts of tongues, using all sorts of Operating systems and screen resolutions. I know it's not a lot of hits comparatively, but I simply can't ask for more, as this is already good enough for me :D. while I understand that most of you come by hoping I'd post something Otaku once in a while, I must apologize that it hasn't been very frequent of late due to time constraints and IRL business. However, I do promise that my next post will be very very soon. I'll do my very best to please, in return for your kindness and time.

Also, here's just to remind you that comments are still open to the public, and that anybody can speak their mind. I'm open to all sorts of comments, and I'd be more than happy to reply to them. I can already see a small but definite rising trend of increasing comments on my blog, and I'm very thankful for that.

well, till next time. For the Clannad fans with 1200 X 800, this one's for you: