I cannot really remember much about what happened last week but I must mention about Saturday's performance and thank all those who went to support me. Actually only Andrew and Jeryl went. Well, I cannot blame the rest for not going since it was all the way at Jurong West and that a lot of them have a test on Monday. I quite enjoyed the performance other than the heat factor. It was quite hot and humid that evening for some reason, but I am very thankful that it did not rain. I also gained quite some experience in the process of the performance. I even had dinner with Mr Ng. In case you are wondering, he is the repair man. He shared quite a few of his experiences with me. I think I shall try out some of his tips when I have the time and money to do so. I also learnt from Linda, the other bass clarinetist, that there were such things as plastic bass clarinet reeds that can last for around a year. That is quite cool. Imagine that the plastic reeds are coloured. I really want to get my hands on one of those if possible.

I shall not write about anything else that happened last week as I think it is boring enough to be left out. I think I have written too many things in here that made it seem more like a boring list of what happened and what happened next. I shall try not to let that happen anymore.

I think I should sleep a little earlier tonight because after Wednesday, I will not be able to sleep before 12 am. I have a workshop at Jurong 0n Thursday and Friday night from 7.30 pm till 10 pm and after which, I will have to do all my tutorials. I forgot to mention that next Monday, my school will be running Friday's timetable, and on Friday, we will be having our cross country. I think I will really enjoy next week because my Monday timetable ends at 5pm and my Friday timetable ends at 12.45 pm. Vast difference. Anyway, I will end here and continue when I can find time again.

Anyway, quite a few interesting things happened this week. I might not be able to recall all, but I shall write on what I can remember. On Monday, there was band practice but I had PE till 5 pm. The PE session on Monday is super tough and tiring but I like it because it is challenging. So far, I have not been able to do what I am supposed to do, especially the leg raisers and the push ups. It is the first time ever that I could not help but put my knee down to support my weight when I'm in the push up position and first time that I gave up and just lay flat on the ground. I think the conditioning will do me good. Anyway, the other PE session on Friday is the one I enjoy more. We get to run to East Coast Park and back to school. I cannot help but talk about this China guy who is trying non-stop to show off. It's a pity that he could not maintain his speed for the sprint back to school or he would have been able to show off even more. I think I got my message across.

Tuesday I went for GP society. I did not expect to be in that CCA but I'm automatically in because I'm the GP representative. I think it doesn't seem very fun or interesting yet. Anyway, my GP teacher is getting freaky. We were having a discussion on some articles in class and there was this topic on sex and prostitution. He went on to give an example, using me, which went something like "If he's willing, and I have nothing to lose, we are both happy, so what is wrong?" I was totally freaked out. I hope that he is only using me as an example because I am the GP rep and not because he is interested in me. I feel like throwing up now.

Anyway, I do not really like my class. It seems that almost half of the class is not very interested in persuing education. More than half the class wanted to skip a Physics lecture so that they could leave early. What made things worse was that they were calling those who wanted to go for the lecture "AP". I shall not bother about it. I went to VJ because I wanted to get good results and I am not going to let that affect my attitude towards studying. Anyway, in the end most of them went for the lecture. I'm not sure whether all of them went, but I know that most of them went for it. Maybe they just do not dare to skip lessons and they were just trying to show how daring they are. Well, they did prove how daring they were when they went for the lecture in the end.

I have almost made up my mind to join Piano Ensemble. I think that it is quite fun to play duets on the piano but I am seriously in need of brushing up my playing. I couldn't even play a simple piece properly when I tried to play on Thursday afternoon. Somehow I feel that my standard has drastically dropped. The people there are such good pianists. I hope that I can become as good as them.

Okay, I shall talk about today now. I woke up only at 12 pm and went straight to get my hair cut even without brushing my teeth. I wonder why I was so eager to get my hair cut. Anyway, when I came home, I took a bath and had lunch before going to Bishan to buy some clothes. I think my sister is very lucky. Every time when my parents are supposed to buy something for me, they will always end up buying things for her as well. She got a new sweater even though she already has around two to three. Anyway, they finally bought me 2 tee shirts from Giodano. The only reason why I got that was because I have a performance next Saturday and I need a red polo tee and I don't have one, and that they were selling 2 tees for $35 and 1 for $22. I got a red one and an orange one. Besides that, my father bought bak kwa. Speaking of that, my mouth is beginning to water. I really feel like opening the packet to eat now. I miss the taste of it. I cannot wait for it to be opened. Maybe tomorrow I shall make them open the packet of bak kwa so that I can feast on it.

I'm getting tired and I have to go back to Anglican High tomorrow at 8 so I shall end here.

One thing good about school so far is that the canteen food is a lot cheaper. I can pay 30 cents for one cup of soya bean milk and $2.30 for a plate of fish and chips that has a larger serving than the $3 plate of fish and chips sold in Anglican High. Even the noodles selling at $1.60 is of a larger serving than the $2 bowl in Anglican High.

I do not really like my timetable though. I end only at 4.45 pm on Monday, with P.E. as the last lesson, and the lesson will drag on till 5 plus, and after which, there is band practice. Monday's band practice will start at 3.45 pm but I'm only dismissed at 5. Tuesday I'm dismissed only at 3.45 pm, and for Wednesday, I'm dismissed at 1.50 pm, after which I also have band practice. Thursday is once again 3.45 pm and Friday I can leave school at 12.40 pm. It is the only day I look forward to, but I just found out that there will be band practice on Friday as well. That means that I won't be able to go back to Anglican High very often. Furthermore, I think we will be having sectionals on Saturday as well.

So far, I have signed up for Band and got selected for the PA crew. I want to join the Piano Ensemble, but it seems that it will be on every Thursday, and that clashes with PA. I would rather give up PA than give up on Piano Ensemble. Judo seems to be fun but it's practices are on Thursdays as well. I suppose I can give that a miss, since I can pick up Judo at most community centres at quite a cheap rate as compared to Piano lessons, if I want to. I should stop here and not join any more CCAs already. I have more than enough to keep me busy for the whole week. Even if I have spare time, I think it would all be taken up by all the tutorial work and reading through lecture notes.

That is all I have to say about school. I am very tired already although it is only 9.50 pm now. If I can spare the time, I will update on my class and yesterday's barbeque.

I miss AHband...

Day two was slightly less boring, although it was still very boring. I cannot remember exactly what we did. There was an introduction to some of the school teachers and then we learnt another mass dance. I cannot recall what I did after that, but I left after lunch.

Day 3, I finally became a little more enthusiastic and enjoyed myself a little more. We also got our classes. I am in 05S42. I think my class is really boring and so far, I do not really like my class. I only know one person from Anglican High and the rest, I have never seen them before. What makes things worse is that almost the whole class is made up of sports people. I do not really like sports people. There is something about it that makes me hate them. I hope that these people are different from the sports class people in AHS. I like the learning of the school cheers although there was a lot of shouting and screaming going on. After that was quite boring. I stayed in school till 7 plus before going home. There was supposed to be an orientation group dinner at Suntec city but then, because they took their time to discuss the skit we had to put up the next day (5-7) more than half of the group went home. I was deciding whether to go home or to join the rest who left at parkway after I left the rest who were still in school. In the end, I went out with the band people to Bedok to have dinner before going home.

Day 4 was better than day 3 but I was already very tired. I guess when you are tired, everything seems boring. I cannot remember what happened already and I cannot be bothered to crack my brains to recall what happened. The day was supposed to end at 6 pm but even at 7 pm, we were still not yet dismissed. I was very bored and tired and decided to leave early. Actually, I also had something on, so I had to leave no matter what. Anyway, I heard that they were dismissed only at around 7.45 pm. We had CCA selection in the late morning and wet games in the afternoon. The CCA selection was quite boring. There were a few "fake CCAs" where some chosen people who signed up must do a forfeit on the stage. It is sort of a tradition in VJ to have these things. I think that the people who did the forfeit were very sporting, especially the two guys who had to exchange shorts on stage. Well, they had a raincoat to wear, and it wasn't easy to do it. The wet games were quite boring, although there were some things that were fun.

I feel that the most interesting day was day 5 where we went to East Coast Park. I really had a lot of fun. Maybe it is because I have gotten to know quite a few more people and I have a little more people to talk to. I liked the mass captain's ball game. Maybe it's because I can jump. That is beside the point. We also had a burial session where each team has to try to bury as many of its members from toe to neck as possible in 4 minutes. We were quite lucky that we weren't wet or all the sand would have stuck on to our clothes and skin. I shall stop here.

On the whole I feel that VJ is quite a fun place to be in but it might not seem so in my entry because I am very tired now. JC life is very tiring.

I shall write about the other things that happened another day. I am quite sick of typing at the keyboard already.

After finding Christie, Jeremy realised that on part of his bicycle had disappeared. It must have fallen off when Wei Theng flew off the bike when I made an unexpected turn. That sent Wei Theng and I back to Pasir Ris park to look for the missing piece. It wasn't that difficult to find. We only had to find the place where he fell to look for it. We didn't take very long to find it.

By the time we went back to the chalet, there was no more food. Couldn't they have saved some bit of food for me? We then looked around for a playground. We followed a sign but it ended up that the playground was a children's playground, and it was under renovation. Then we looked around for the pool. The entrance to it was closed as well. In the end, we went back to the chalet room just to find a whole group of people watching some horror movie and another group playing the x box. I decided to ask the people playing to stop playing and watch the recording of our concert and it worked more effectively than I thought it would. Most of the people watching the movie also came over to watch the recording. Maybe next time we should invest more in getting better recording devices. The video was not clear because the person did not know how to handle the video camera, and the sound was not clear because the microphone was an in-built mircophone. Maybe it was the television's speakers that were not good enough. Anyway, we had quite some fun watching the recording. After that most of us went back to the other room to watch "The Wisher". It wasn't scary at all, and I think that the storyline was quite immature. Any secondary student could have easily come out with a similar storyline. The show wasn't realistic either. It's always the same things happening and I got bored because it was so repetitive.

After the show, some people slept and some of them went out to play Twister. I was bored so I went cycling with Jeremy. There was not much fun cycling about. The place which was previously pitch dark was lit with so many street lamps, and there were no fun place to cycle at. In the end, we only cycled around Pasir Ris, stole a copy of The Straits Times, and went back to the chalet. I had to pay $1 to get into the chalet again. Maybe I shouldn't have gone cycling. By the time we got back, most of them were already sleeping soundly. I had a bath and read the newspapers. Most of it was on the tsunami and nothing else. I ended up sleeping on the newspapers for about an hour before it started to get very cold. I switched to squeezing on the bed beside Henry before Qi Qin woke up and let me have her place.

Later on was checking out and we checked out an hour late because the person who picked up the phone told us that we only had to check out at 12 when it was actually 10. After checking out, we went for breakfast and then again, some people went home while the rest went bowling. I followed the people who went bowling but I only played bridge with Andy. I think 2 player bridge is more fun than 4 player bridge. Anyway, after they have finished bowling, we all went home. I must thank all those people who helped me with my bags from the chalet to the bowling alley and Tingting for letting me put my bass clarinet in her house. I wonder how I would have gone home with all my stuff when I was already so tired.

I thought that I could have the whole house to myself when I was on the bus, going home but I was totally wrong. When I opened the door, I saw my sister and 2 of her friends using the computer. After a few minutes, my father and my sister came home. All my hopes to get some sleep were dashed. In the end, I used my computer until I had to go to my grandmother's house for dinner.

That was about all that happened on 30 December. I woke up at around 1 pm on 31 December, ate some breakfast and then went to Tingting's house to collect my bass clarinet home. By the time I reached home, it was already past 4pm. I used the computer until around 9pm before my parents finally allowed me to go to Hong Wei's house for the countdown to the New year. We did not really do much over there. We only played some games before switching to a Hong Kong channel to join in their countdown because there wasn't any live telecast on any Singapore channel. After that, we continued playing games and some mahjong. Before we knew it, it was already 6am. I managed to catch some sleep until Henry woke me up by passing me a bolster. I used it for a while before giving it up because Hong Wei's dog kept on holding on to the bolster. I was awakened again by Henry who suddenly jumped out of the mattress and said that the dog was doing something to the bolster. Anyway, I couldn't remember what happened after that. I only knew that I had to go home because I had to go somewhere with my parents in the morning.

After going out with my parents, I reached home at 1pm. I had a bath and then used the computer before my eyes became too tired and I took a nap till 5pm when I was awakened by my parents because they wanted to go to Takashimaya to shop. I got changed and we went there. I got an OP sling bag and 2 pairs of shorts. Actually, they wanted to buy a sling bag for my sister but I ended up with the bag because I quite liked the design and she was willing to change it with my grey sling bag. We reached home around 10.30 pm and I was already very tired by that time. I still used the computer till around 2 am before going to sleep.

I think this year is in for quite a good start. I am quite looking forward to going to VJC tomorrow, but I am not looking forward to leave ahband yet. Please let me stay in VJC and ahband.

Back to last year, where we had the band chalet. If I did not remember wrongly, I started the day off with $8 in my ez-link card. I took 21 all the way to Tampines before switching to 15 because I thought that I would be late if I had carried on on bus 21. Well, it turned out that more than half of the people who came were late. Anyway, we took another bus to Baoying's house where most of us left our bags before proceeding to start with the game. I tagged along Tingting's group and ended up in Harbour Front where they were made to get the phone numbers of 5 people. Wasted quite some time there before we went on to have lunch at Ngee Ann City and moved on to city link to count a lot of things.

After that, the group continued to Ikea while I went to meet the sec 4s who played in VJCSB for a movie at Plaza Singapura. I was on the same train as Suky and we were the first to reach the place. The strange thing was that the girls arrived before the guys, and the guys were very late. Anyway, they realised that they did not buy a ticket for me for the movie. That meant that if I wanted to watch it, I would either had to buy another ticket and sit separately, or gate crash. I managed to walk in with the rest without a ticket and watch The Phantom Of The Opera for free. It is a very nice show, but if you do not appreciate music, I think that you will be bored to death because almost every single word is sang out and not spoken.

After that, I went to watch MJC's concert at Victoria Concert Hall. It was the second time in 3 days that I am at VCH. The concert wasn't that great, but it some parts were quite nice. After that, Steffi and I went to Eunos to eat before going home. I think I missed out quite a lot of fun at the chalet all because I had a concert to put up the next day and I couldn't stay over.

The second morning, I had to carry my bag, two other carriers and my bass clarinet along with me to the chalet. I must thank Tingting and someone for helping me with the two other bags. I'm so sorry I cannot remember who the other person was, but I am really appreciate your help. We went cycling after breakfast. I went to Jeremy's uncle's house to get another bike so that I need not rent one since it wasn't worth paying $7 for one hour of cycling at Pasir Ris park.

On our way back to the chalet, we were playing with Poline's bag, or pouch. It was only then that I realised that I am still quite thin. The pouch can actually slide down all the way to my feet. I am so amazed. I actually thought at first, that I had to loosen the thing quite some bit before it can fit my waist, but it turned out to be loose.

After that, I had a bath and left for VCH again. This would be the third time in 4 days that I am at VCH and the second time I am performing. The concert was quite good but I think I did not play too well for my last soli for Impressions of Japan. After the concert, we went back to the chalet. They were playing whacko. I decided to join them in the game because there was no more food left from the barbeque. Luckily I bought a double cheeseburger before returning to the chalet, and there was a group of very kind and generous people who let us have their left over food which was enough to fill my stomach and many others' as well.

After that, Christie disappeaered. Wei Theng and I went to the park to look for her. We didn't manage to find her, but found out that her phone was in the chalet charging and that nobody knew where she went to. Then we went to the main road to look for her and on the way, we saw her walking somewhere near Escape theme park. Luckily nothing happened to her.

I don't think I will write any more for today. I still have a lot more to go. I have already typed for more than an hour and I'm not even done with the chalet. I'll continue tomorrow.

Happy New Year!