a thought that i reconsidered

after one year in Singapore, the thought once again rose up from the deepest of my mind.

"do you want to be a national player?" good question from Zong Ren, a 19-year-old national player. yes, i DID. but it was years ago. as Mr. Lim said, in the sports arena, there is only one champion. but in academy, there could be a lot of top students. there are so many people in the national team, how are we gonna fight with other players? the worst thing is, if u couldn't be a good player in the team and you have neglected your studies, then what could you be in the future? moreover, if you couldn't be a good player, what you would be doing in the team would just be feeding the other players, you won't gain any benefit. that's what we call in cantonese: 炮灰。

i have cleared this thought from my mind for years but now what made me hesitate to answer? even though at last my answer was what i have insisted for years but my mind was really a mess. isn't it good also if i could be a Singapore national player? but hey remember, i am here to study, so maybe i should throw away this impractical dream?

nevermind, i still have 3 more years to think about this clearly and carefully. hopefully until then, this question will not be a question anymore.

*those who viewed my blogpost, i look forward to your valuable suggestions.

a night to remember

- went pasar atum

- bought a lot of stuff, mostly key chains or gifts for host and friends

- took pictures using the machine

- photos are in my facebook under "OIP 2009, Surabaya, Indonesia II"

this was the last night before we left indonesia, most of the host and their families all came together and organized a farewell dinner for us. we really appreciated that. =D

i also took a lot of photos with friends. *same thing :) the photos are available in my facebook under "OIP 2009, Surabaya, Indonesia II"*

i also received a lot of gifts like cap (luckily i didn't buy one beforehand), key chains, towels and shirt. thank you guys =D

the activity was damn fun. that night was reallly the most fun one throughout my trip in indonesia.

we were paired up: one as make-up person and the other was model. haha i was the no. 1 model :D what we had to do were:

firstly, used two table clothes given as clothes (see how well could the make-up person dress you up).

then, borrowed ladies shoes and aunties' handbags (walao! my partner borrowed a pair of high-heeled shoes! ==lll)

next, we had to do cat walk! (well, i thought since we were being so close already and this was the last night, so the usually introvert cheng yuen decided to 豁出去.. as a result i got the first place... ==lll)

paiseh :/

haha :\

tonight is a night to remember...

last day at PPLH

so fast! it was the last day of the camp!

honestly, even though we did have fun here, i wanted to leave for Surabaya as soon as possible. no reason for why i felt this way. :)

but before my wish came true, we trekked in the forest, sort of climbing the mountain (freaking tired), to reach Jolotunda temple. it was a Hindu temple. i couldn't really remember the background of this temple as i wasn't paying full attention while the tour guide was telling us the story behind it. i only know that the pool is divided into left and right. left side is for female and right side is for male, to bathe. according to the legend, those who longed for fertility would bathe here. another thing is, the stone sculpture, where the water comes out, in the middle of the pool is actually a tomb of a king. i wonder if the body still there... chill..

the tour guide was explaining the background of this temple

on the way back (there was actually a main road leading back to the campus =="), something unpleasant happened. i am not gonna write it here as i don't want to remember it. some people said that it was a deed of "the invisible". well, who knows? we were in the forest and mountain....

actually, started from this very morning, some kind of weird feelings suddenly filled my mind: i was being left out by my friends... well, this was just some kind of emoing stuff again... it was like: at the beginning of an activity, i can integrate into the circle of my friends. we joke, we laugh, we play together. but gradually, i will be alone again. like they have abandoned me... oww... what a strange feeling...

at night, we went TP. at first i wanted to buy some new clothes but then none of the shirts i saw was not my cup of tea so i left 'matahari' with both hands empty. then, we spent hours in the food court chatting, until the shopping mall was closing. haha, what a waste of time... XD

the really fun day in PPLH, Trawas

this was the second day in PPLH. let me just write down every single detail that i can remember for today:

-o-~ gotta wake up at 5am, guess what, for morning exercise. i just didn't have the mood to do as that was damn early in the morning even though the sky was bright as if it was 8am. after that, we spent about an hour or more for icebreakers! the icebreakers were damn lame but fun when you saw people being punished. XP

morning exercise ==lll

icebreaker - squirrels and trees

then, the fun journey was going to begin! we went to the paddy field, as in really went into the muddy paddy field, bare-footed. yucks! my first reaction... :D we helped to plant the seedlings into the field but i think the farmers would do it all over again afterward if not they sure would not have enough food or income. XD even though we got damn dirty and muddy, it was really fun.

hey guys! don't mess up the paddy field! XD

later, we set off to our dreamland: river. if i am not mistaken, the river was 1km long. thanks Ivone for keeping my shoes otherwise my shoes would be soaked. the water current was quite strong. Irsyad's slippers kept being washed down by the current but luckily we managed to get them before they were washed to the downstream. i kena once too haha XD i was with the usual gang ( i guess? ) : Christina, Ivone, Danish, Idris and who else?? Putri?? i can't remember.. tsk tsk.. we spent time splashing water at each other. damn fun. :D

have fun splashing water!!! =D

yeah!!!

the lunch at the river was damn nice! =d

at night, we prepared for our talent show. we sang 'down' and 'beautiful' together with some actions.

"baby are you down down down down down

downnnnn, downnnn......"

"...you're so beautiful

so damn beautiful

said your so beautiful

so damn beautiful......"

for the preparation, Mr Lim said that it was not bad. sadly no video.

preparation for the talent night - at first we thought we were going to perform here but after that the venue changed.

it was finally time for the talent show! IX A, B, C and D took turn to perform their items and half way through the show, Rafflesians performed our songs. 当时的气氛实在是沸腾到了极点！(i guess? XD) really admire one student from IX C whose dancing was really imba.

the performance

the last activity of the day: Fright Night (is this what it was called?) or Nightwalk. 5 in a group, we had to walk into the forest without torchlight. i tell you, it was damn dark that you couldn't see anything. on the way, we would meet some, so called, dead bodies (mayat) and we had to give passcode and pesan to continue. we had to say 'mayat' and they would reply 'hidup'. if so, we had to give them the pesan (i don't know what is pesan in english). see whether i still can remember the pesan:

"... ... ...

telah mati kecelakaan

wajahnya mirip wajahku

... ... ...

... ... ...

... ... ...

... ... ..."

*most part missing* XP

my group (consisted of Firdaus, Christina, Putri, me and someone who i didn't know her name XP) was the first group to reach the finishing line. afterward then i knew the place we walked through was a graveyard... chill...

today was just.... fun :D

camping

- travel to PPLH, Trawas

- for learning camp

- 3 days 2 nights

- not bad, at least i got to know Fadhli and Firdaus betterr

- and also made friends with some indonesians like William, Wilsin and Putri

- that's all for today XP

arriving at PPLH

visiting local Javanese village

presentation - this was my kelompok

new thing to learn for geography

first thing in school today: teaching small kids. we conducted a lesson for students if 11 and 12 years old, who are form another school. therefore, we held the responsibility in deciding the "future" of SMP YPPI-II because if we didn't do well, the students may not enroll in this school in the future.

the OIP team was divided into Fitri- and Bhargav-group. Fitri-group was further broken down into 2 groups. i was in the first group and our group was in charge of the Hangman activity. the comment from the other group on our performance was quite good as the core facilitator wanted everything to be organized, but this could turn out to be one of the weaknesses as we had to bear in mind that we were teaching primary school kids; we shouldn't be too serious.

hangman activity

personal comment: i think the presence of OIP students was quite redundant as the students were actually not listening to us. only the core facilitator was controlling the situation.

Fitri-group II was in charge of long short words activity. i think that they had gained a big success, thanks to Fadhli as he managed to engage the students. he played with the students instead of paying all the attention in conducting the lesson, making the atmosphere to be very lively.

long short words activity

however, one great issue was raised by Mr Koh. he was asking what was our main objective. was it to let them learn? or give them an assessment? as we did not think that the students had learnt anything today.

tutors and tutees

later, we went to Kenjeran Beach. it was amazing as we really stood in the middle of the sea. as a geography student, i really want to know how could a sand isle be formed in the middle of the sea and not being washed away? according to my friend, he said it is a spit. when we visit the sand isle, it was high tide so the isle was underwater.

group pic in the middle of the sea

at night, we went to "food festival". of course, we went there to eat la! but i had dinner before that so didn't eat much. actually eating wasn't really the purpose, we just wanted to interact with each other, go out with friends.

even though we just went there to have a meal, i was still happy because i got more closer to the new friends.

free day in indonesia

today is holiday! no school, no training! (school, as in SMP YPPI-II)

at first i thought of going out with RIBT because due to OIP i had missed a lot of fun and precious time with them. this was the last sunday they would be here anyway. so i arranged with my host and shijie's host to meet RIBT in supermall. but sadly they went to TP (tunjungan plaza) at the last minute due to Mr Ho's invitation.

we reached supermall at about 12pm. actually i guess we could have many things to do la. but in the end we only had our lunch and wasted about 2 hours at the department store. it was 4pm then. no choice la. movie was full, exhibition was full (stomachs were also full), everything was full. the only thing that could be called as quite fun was karaoke.

we spent 2 hours there. for me, it was kinda unpleasant la. not because of the people but because of my voice la. damn low pitch sia. #>3># i realized no matter how hard i tried, my voice was so low-pitched!!! ==lll really sucked. unlike Amzar, he was not bad sia.

even though today was quite meaningless, but at least i got the chance to know more people. like amzar.

over-lively atmosphere

today, we followed the geography field trip to visit two caves. that was a learning trip but in my opinion, that was totally a waste of time. caves, as in really just caves, have nothing special. the teacher didn't explain anything like how the cave is formed etc etc which are worth learning. we went there just, seriously, walk around inside the caves and sayonara.

exit of the first gua

but at least there were still something worth seeing in the second cave we visited, Maharani Cave. we could see stalagmites and stalactites there, including some beautiful, oddly formed rocks.

stalactites and stalagmites in Maharani Cave

crystals

*more photos in my facebook :D*

we also visited Maharani Zoo, which is just outside the Maharani Cave, and Wisata Bahari Lamongan (a theme park).

let's bring my point back to the atmosphere in the bus. i would just keep this short as it was an emoing thing that the least i would want to recall.

the atmosphere in the bus was REALLY lively, too lively. i mean that was a bit "over-lively". the sound made by the students was deafening. the was going to explode. the SMP YPPI-II students and RI students 打成一片，简直是疯了。 but that was a good sign. how i wish i could be one of them too. however the reality is, i would never be in that kind of situation. i realized...

starting of OIP

this was the first day the OIP team visited SMP YPPI-II. the first thing that i was surprised was that almost (i think is all) all students are indonesian chinese. that's... well... kinda weird, isn't it? i mean... (i think) the real (i mean really real that kind of real) indonesians are the majority, then why is it that this school contains only indonesian chinese?

later, we went to the classes which we were arranged at respectively. when i joined IX C, they were having art lesson. the lesson was he same as what i learnt in malaysia: teacher asked the students to copy down notes which are only used for examination.

however, one thing that was different from what i saw in malaysia or even RI in singapore was the attitude of the students towards foreigners (exchange students).

in RI, if there are exchange students visiting our classes, only a few (maybe not even one) students will approach them. others will just mind their own business, as though the guests are invisible. but today when we walked into the classroom, one student automatically come to greet us and brought us to our seats. the friendliness of other students, if not all, were shown. some even had the initiative to talk to us.

now just to sum up the our activities before school ended. we were taught to play two kinds of musical instruments: gamelan and kulintang. that was quite fun but if you kept repeating the same thing it would get quite boring.

Gamelan (that's Izzat)

Kulintang

ps: if i didn't mix these two instruments up... XP

the most fun thing today was of course the modern dance la haha. this was my second time dancing with a girl (the first time was when i was p5). i am an idiot in anything related to music so the ballroom dance was not as satisfying as expected. my partner was Christina - Shi Jie's host.

ballroom dancing :)

in the evening, all of us with our host went to Galaxy Mall. at first i thought the girl wanted to go shopping but later it ended up all staying in Time Zone until i went off. the point here is, i quite admire Danish for his socialization skill. now he is a friend of almost all the girls. i hope i could be like him too but i just know that i am not a Danish-ish person. i know i start to emo la but it's okay. just let me be. it will be alright after a while. really...

touched

good news! i recovered from fever in one day!

in the afternoon, i finally can step into the court again. today's programme was...... GAMEPLAY! there's nothing to be happy about. i just recovered form sickness so i couldn't guarantee that i could play well.

true enough, i played damn slow and once again became the "King of Mistakes". drop in stamina was really obvious. even so, i still managed to win him by rubber set. this match had nearly drained all my heart energy. i was wandering near the boundary of life and death.

bad news! finally, the time to leave the team had come. tonight, i would be staying with my host family. they are not as rich as i expected but it was enough to let me stay comfortably. undeniably, they are really really really nice but 美中不足 was that the host is indeed a 过动儿. she asked me, "why are u so quiet?..." (sorry la, i know i am a bit introvert) "...can you ask me questions?" i was like, "what the hell?!" 顺道一提, my host's name is Ardeliah Tjiptawan. (even though i said it was 美中不足 at first, i felt blessed to be able to stay with her at last... really)

my host, Ardeliah, and me

Ardeliah's sisters

ps: during that period when i fell sick, i was thinking that i am just a nobody, no one cares if i am sick. ( i know i was being pessimistic but i just couldn't stop feeling like this.) but later i received 'cares' from many people like jeyren, tzeherng and even daryl tham (even though it was just a very simple 'are you okay'). i felt really touched and, of course, happy.

ps2: 哭笑不得. my host told me that her friends said that i am handsome (i know this is true XP XP). they all want to know me. =D / ==lll

Indonesia Trip

finally, i set my foot on the land of the fourth country i visit - Indonesia. the temperature here is really high - 30 degree Celsius. what a hot country man! the air-con in the hotel is not functioning properly ( or the coolest is the normal temperature in Singapore? ) thinking that i still have to stay here for another 12 days, i wonder how am i going to survive.

after 4 days staying with the team, our relationship has become one step closer. i believe that if i can stay with them together throughout the whole training trip, the team can really be bonded.

sadly, i am leaving for OIP tomorrow. after the stay with the team, i really don't feel like going for OIP anymore. i kept asking my teacher, "can i not going for OIP?" of course, my dream could never come true.

even though i may still go back for training, training together and staying together have a really big difference. staying together is more fun and the team bonding is there. oh really! i don't feel like going for OIP anymore!

i fell sick today. that was just so annoying! i missed the chance to stay with my team for the whole day! and today could be my last day staying with them!

damn you "timely" fever!

can you see what's strange about the room number?

we received warm welcome from the players too

Little bro alone in Malaysia

this is the first day my sister came singapore to work. don't know why, i suddenly thought about how would my home in msia be like now. three out of four children have gone overseas for either studies or work, leaving my little brother at home. somehow, i was thinking whether my parents or my little bro would feel lonely without us accompanying them.

my eldest sis flew to nz years ago ( i couldn't remember how old was i ). finally she graduated last year and now she was working as a ?? (paiseh... can't remember, but i am sure that it has something to do with marketing.. ^^")

then i am the second child in my family who went overseas for studies. i am currently studying sec3 in raffles institution. it is a prestigious school and does sound good... until i realized how much troubles i have got into... jk jk :P it is really a good school la just somehow to other ppl this school is kinda weird to them. but honestly, i never thought that i would get into so much troubles after i came to singapore, especially in the area related to badminton. at first i thought i could escape the political issue in perak but unexpectedly singapore is even more chaotic than perak... sigh

and now, my another sister came to singapore... she just stays opposite of my school. very near. can always go there during weekends haha..

anyway, just somehow i felt kinda pitiful towards my little bro... and of course, my parents... don't know whether they will feel lonely. after all, the house is even more silent than before.. and my little bro does not have any companion... sigh

ps: i went out with my sis and realized that the malay sentence written in the mrt is wrong! "pintu kecemasan terletak di KEDUA hujung keretapi".. 呵呵~paiseh...小弟马来文的造诣并不是很高，但至少懂得正确的句子应该是: "pintu kecemasan terletak di KEDUA-DUA hujung keretapi" 呵呵~ 至少比"Malaysian Makanan"好很多了。。呵呵~

Promethean Flame - the flame of pride

"according to the legend, once there was a titan named Prometheus. he loved the mankind so much that he gave the fire to the mankind..." with this, the Prometheum Day had a story-telling kick start.

Prometheus passed the fire to the mankind, just like today, the outcoming leaders would pass their respective CCA symbols to their successors.

"when Stamford Raffles held the torch, that cast Promethean Flame..." like the institution anthem mentioned...

waiting to be called on stage.. hey! see! see! can u see the symbol? i didn't manage to take a photo of it...

i received the symbol from jeysng, waiting for the words that would never come out from his mouth. "i know you for not more than a year, but i know you are a good captain. *i can see from the respect the team has given you, even mr guna said so. so don't say you are not.* i don't know if i can be as good as you, but i will definitely do my best..." this is what i said when i received the symbol from him. (sentences within * refer to the sentences that i didn't manage to say.) i showed my not-obvious-gratitude for what he had done to me, no other reason, just felt grateful...

waiting for a series of things to happen. with the shirts tucked in, really unglam... :(

the head prefect and deputy head prefect had also passed on their duties to their successors, ryan chan as the new head prefect and naishad as the new deputy head prefect. the speech delivered by master ryan chan had shown the rafflesian spirit, including how the three former rafflesians mentioned are still successful despite their own difficulties. i especially like the "each one, give one"...

with the spiritual unite cheer (even though mr teo said we had done it to fast :p), the day full of ccals' pride had come to an end...

the day was full of pride of the new ccals, the new hopes and wishes from the teachers, the new spiritual vision of our new hp. i must also clear all the emotional thoughts in my mind, start my new life, do what i am supposed to do. gambakteh!! like i said, "i don't know if i can be as good, but i will definitely do my best..."

ps: i received congratz from the teachers... scroll down..

a congratulations sms from mrs tan:

congratulations to you! i am sure you will be a responsible and efficient capital.

a chocolate from ms patricia nathan

chocolate and wish from mr paul lim