On the 27th of February, my school, Hwa Chong Institution organized a Chinese New Year celebration specially for scholars. This event allows foreign scholars who did not have the chance to return home during Chinese New Year to gather together and celebrate the Lunar New Year. Although I went back to Malaysia during Chinese New Year, I still participated in this event as I had to perform in two performances. They are the singing of two Chinese New Year songs, "大地回春" and "恭喜恭喜".
Before the event, the teachers had organized several practice sessions for us. My friends and I worked very hard to memorize the lyrics of the songs and to sing harmoniously. After going through all the practice sessions, we were all very glad with our performance and awaited the day of the event with much excitement.
On that day, I woke up 7:45 a.m. in the morning, brushed my teeth, changed into bright coloured clothes, and rushed to the high school drama centre which is just conveniently seated next to my boarding school. After having a final rehearsal, the event started at 10:00 a.m. There were lots of performances, such as plays, dances, soloists, Chinese riddles, game sessions and many more. Although all of this were of high standard, I was certainly most fascinated by the wushu performance by our school's award winning wushu team. There were three of them, each using different weapons. First up was the swordsman. He displayed wonderful poise and balance as he performed several heart-pounding tricks in the air. Next up was the senior holding an old Chinese favourite, the long spear. He was also brilliant in his performance and was exceptionally quick. The speed at which he moved his spear was so quick that I believe he could simultaneously take down numerous opponents in a matter of seconds, truly amazing and spectacular! The last performer relied barely on both his fists and feet. He was very flexible and displayed several high-standard gymnastic stunts. In all, they were simply exquisite.
After the performance ended at 12 noon, everybody who attended the event was treated to lunch. Before we started to eat, we first had the traditional Chinese New Year dish that simply cannot be left out of any celebrations, the prosperous dish - ‘鱼生’. This is a dish that contains lots of ingredients mixed together such as, carrot and reddish strips, crispy crumbs and some sliced fish. A variety of sauces is then added to the dish and everything is mixed together. We then use chopsticks to toss the ‘鱼生’ high up in the air. This is done so as Chinese believe that the higher the ‘鱼生’ is tossed, the more prosperity you will get in that year. Putting aside religious beliefs, it was also very tasty as the perfect combination of everything simply made it irresistible.
The lunch was not half bad, with a variety of dishes. The fact that we were able to gather together with our friends in such a soothing environment and have lunch with them just makes me feel joy and happiness, while helping me set aside the loneliness felt being away from my family.
Overall, I feel that this year's CNY@HCI was a major success and I hope to see more of such events in the future.
Well, this is all I have to share about the party. Hope you have enjoyed this post and please feel free to comment. Goodbye for now and stay on the lookout for further updates.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Beach Cleaning CIP
Yesterday, I participated in a CIP (community involvement program) organised by my school, Hwa Chong Institution, ProEd consortium. In this CIP, I took up the role of a student leader along with 7 others to help supervise and guide the secondary one ProEdians in their beach cleaning experience. The motive of this CIP is to instill a sense of environmental awareness in the minds of the Sec 1s as well as to help clean the beaches of Changi and Sembawang.
Early in the morning, we gathered in the high school drama centre. First, two Sec4 seniors gave a brief introduction on the schedule as well as the do s and don't s. After that, we were honored to have a member from the Singapore Wildlife Conservation (PS: or at least something like that because I don't remember too well) to deliver a presentation on Singapore's nature reserves. Lastly, the seniors helped spilt the four Sec1 classes into two, whereby two classes would be cleaning one beach. Result, I was assigned to the Sembawang beach with 1P3 and 1P4, along with 3 other seniors.
At 9.45 in the morning, we reached the wonderful beach of Sembawang. I was quite shocked when I first saw the condition of the beach as it was much cleaner than I had expected. There was minimum litter on the surface of the beach but the sea was of the complete opposite. Rubbish such as plastic bags, soft drink cans, Styrofoam containers and many more scattered across the deep blue sea. Apart from that, it was just another cooling and beautiful day at the sea where some families were having picnics and some others fishing. All in all, it was a typical Saturday beach.
After assigning the Sec1 s into groups of two and handing them garbage bags and gloves, we officially declared the start of the beach cleaning process and our juniors raced off towards the beach. Some students struggled to pick up the litter in the water and some even got wet due to the oncoming tides. A few smarter students used long wooden branches to grab the rubbish and soon almost everyone was picking up branches as if the CIP was a “Hunt for Branches”.
At 11.45 a.m, the beach cleaning process ended and the beach had attained a whole new look. It now looked cleaner than ever thanks to the hard work and effort put in by the Sec1 s. The Sec1 s managed to pick up lots of garbage and even found three gigantic tyres! After that, we boarded a bus and returned back to school.
I feel that this CIP was a great success as we managed to raise awareness of the conditions of the beaches in Singapore. I really appreciated the cooporation and enthusiasm shown by the Sec1 s as this was what made the event so successful. I enjoyed myself a lot in this CIP and I hope there will be moore opportunities for me to serve the society and have fun doing it.
Early in the morning, we gathered in the high school drama centre. First, two Sec4 seniors gave a brief introduction on the schedule as well as the do s and don't s. After that, we were honored to have a member from the Singapore Wildlife Conservation (PS: or at least something like that because I don't remember too well) to deliver a presentation on Singapore's nature reserves. Lastly, the seniors helped spilt the four Sec1 classes into two, whereby two classes would be cleaning one beach. Result, I was assigned to the Sembawang beach with 1P3 and 1P4, along with 3 other seniors.
At 9.45 in the morning, we reached the wonderful beach of Sembawang. I was quite shocked when I first saw the condition of the beach as it was much cleaner than I had expected. There was minimum litter on the surface of the beach but the sea was of the complete opposite. Rubbish such as plastic bags, soft drink cans, Styrofoam containers and many more scattered across the deep blue sea. Apart from that, it was just another cooling and beautiful day at the sea where some families were having picnics and some others fishing. All in all, it was a typical Saturday beach.
After assigning the Sec1 s into groups of two and handing them garbage bags and gloves, we officially declared the start of the beach cleaning process and our juniors raced off towards the beach. Some students struggled to pick up the litter in the water and some even got wet due to the oncoming tides. A few smarter students used long wooden branches to grab the rubbish and soon almost everyone was picking up branches as if the CIP was a “Hunt for Branches”.
At 11.45 a.m, the beach cleaning process ended and the beach had attained a whole new look. It now looked cleaner than ever thanks to the hard work and effort put in by the Sec1 s. The Sec1 s managed to pick up lots of garbage and even found three gigantic tyres! After that, we boarded a bus and returned back to school.
I feel that this CIP was a great success as we managed to raise awareness of the conditions of the beaches in Singapore. I really appreciated the cooporation and enthusiasm shown by the Sec1 s as this was what made the event so successful. I enjoyed myself a lot in this CIP and I hope there will be moore opportunities for me to serve the society and have fun doing it.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
New year, New Syllabus, New Teaching Methods, New...New...New
(: It has been 3 weeks into the New Year already and I am already extremely stressed. Since I am in the Pilot Program (Future School Program) this year, I have had to much more independent studies as compared to last year. In this program, students are required to do their own research on the upcoming topics at home. After that, the teachers would start a class discussion in school so that the students can exchange ideas as well as clarify their thoughts with the teacher. I feel that to be in such a program, one must possess high responsibility or discipline. If a student does not do his research at home, he would have no understanding on the discussion topic and thus unable to engage in the discussion, thus meaning that he would be simply wasting his time :)
I feel that the subject with the most significant change this year has to be History. Mr Ho, my history teacher, has put in a lot of effort in thinking of ways to engage us in independent learning. This year, we have a new IT component, Classjump, an online discussion board that we can discuss and exchange views on certain topics, as well as provide feedback to the teacher. I feel that this is a wonderful inclusion to our learning it has really helped me a lot in my independent studying.
Other than that, my Language Arts class has also of adopted some new ways teaching. For starters, we have a lecture period of an hour every week in which 3-4 classes are joined together and given a mass lecture. With this, students will be able to experience a different teaching method and I believe this will prove very useful in the later stages of their studies as most colleges or universities adopt the lecture system of teaching.
This year in Language Arts, we are reading the award-winning one-hit novel by Harper Lee, "To Kill A Mocking Bird". It is an interesting book which highlights the situation of segregation between the whites and blacks as well as numerous social problems through the daily lives of a young girl, Scout.,who lives in the town of Maycomb.
Hope you have enjoyed this more academic wise post, until my next post, goodbye for now.
I feel that the subject with the most significant change this year has to be History. Mr Ho, my history teacher, has put in a lot of effort in thinking of ways to engage us in independent learning. This year, we have a new IT component, Classjump, an online discussion board that we can discuss and exchange views on certain topics, as well as provide feedback to the teacher. I feel that this is a wonderful inclusion to our learning it has really helped me a lot in my independent studying.
Other than that, my Language Arts class has also of adopted some new ways teaching. For starters, we have a lecture period of an hour every week in which 3-4 classes are joined together and given a mass lecture. With this, students will be able to experience a different teaching method and I believe this will prove very useful in the later stages of their studies as most colleges or universities adopt the lecture system of teaching.
This year in Language Arts, we are reading the award-winning one-hit novel by Harper Lee, "To Kill A Mocking Bird". It is an interesting book which highlights the situation of segregation between the whites and blacks as well as numerous social problems through the daily lives of a young girl, Scout.,who lives in the town of Maycomb.
Hope you have enjoyed this more academic wise post, until my next post, goodbye for now.
