27 Jan 2011

Today was the first day of the east zone badminton tournament. Even though my school, Victoria School, was not going to play any matches today, we still had to leave my class at 1.05pm to set up the courts. Four schools in our group came to our school for their east zone matches. The four schools were Broadrick Secondary, East Spring Secondary, Greenview Secondary and St. Hildas Secondary. We would have to win three out of the four schools to be able to advance to the second round.

Next Monday, our school would be playing with Broadrick Secondary so we went to observe their match with Greenview Secondary. Their standard was not bad but I have confidence that our school would be able to beat them since we were training very hard from last year. Today, Greenview won Broadrick but I did not watch the other match as I was too engrossed in the Broadrick versus Greenview match. However, I heard from some of my other friends that the other two schools would be no problem to defeat too. Our strongest opponents would be Greenview so we observed their play today and  I gauged that winning them would not be too difficult.

This year I have confidence that our C division group would be able to meet up to our principal's expectations to emerge as the top four positions in the east zone. We have trained so hard last year and I know that this year our efforts would be rewarded. Today, I also learnt a lot about the skills of other schools and it is great too because it is a good experience to witness a competition up close.

26 Jan 2011

Today, I went to City Square Mall with my family. The mall is located opposite my house so it is just took a minute of walking to reach the mall. My sister had tuition today, but we went there earlier to explore the mall since my sister and I completed all our homework for that day. We went there for our lunch first. We decided to go to KOPITIAM located on the fourth floor of the mall.

The KOPITIAM was very big. The ceiling was very high. Since it is in the afternoon, light can enter from the side of the KOPITIAM. This is probably City Square Mall trying to continue its name as Singapore's first eco-mall. With the light entering from the side they can switch on less lights than normal. After finishing my scrumptious lunch, our family headed downstairs towards Timezone, an arcade in the mall.

We decided to walk slowly down the escalators to let our food be digested. On the way we walked past Comics Connection. The shop sells not only a wide variety of comics but also cards, toys, collectibles and a lot of other things! Sometimes, I would buy a comic for myself from the shop.

When we reached basement two, we walked past POPULAR bookstore. Like other POPULAR bookstores, this store sells a wide variety of books, from assessment books to fairy tales. During the days before the exams, I would go to the bookstore and read the assessment books to get study notes for free! Therefore I like POPULAR a lot since it always let me get high marks for my exams.

Finally, I reached Timezone, the fun-filled arcade. Even though this Timezone arcade would be considered as small to the other Timezone arcades it is still full of fun and exciting games. One of my favorite games is the roller coaster ride. It is located at the entrance of the arcade and it is very fun. The ride will feel like a real roller coaster and you would be able to feel the wind rushing at your face.

After that, my sister had to go for her tuition. It was such a fun and exciting day with my family and I hope that we could have more of such family trips as it would be able to strengthen our family bonds.   

25 Jan 2011

 

During physical education lesson today, we did the high jump. Register one to twenty of the class had to participate and the others went to play floorball. Our teacher, Mr Lee, arranged a few thick mattresses on the floor and two poles with a bar across to prepare for the high jump. He put some cones on the left side and some on the right side. Those students whose last leg that leaves the ground is the left leg, had to start on the right side. Those whose last leg that leaves the ground is the right leg had to start on the left side.

So we started by a warm up. When it was my turn, I felt very nervous. I ran and jumped as hard as I could but ended up failing. Peals of laughter erupted. I felt very embarrassed. However on the first trial which is counted, I managed to jump over the pole. A lot of my class mates clapped since I failed the first time but passed the second time. Half of the people passed the first trial.

During the second trial, the height of the pole increased to about 1.15 metres. I thought I would fail since I failed during the warm up. However, I told myself I could do it. I failed during the first try but actually passed during the second try! I felt very happy and excited, since only three people passed the second trial. 

During the third trial, the height was raised to about 1.3 metres. This time, the pole was really high. I thought it was impossible. Register number 4, Zhi Jun, started before me. He jumped very high but still did not pass. I also failed since the pole was very high. Register number 16, Justin, also did not manage to get over the pole. No one passed during the second try either. however on the third try, I managed to jump over the pole! I was delighted, the applause was like music to my ears. 

At the end only Justin and I passed the three trials. I was very happy and proud of myself. I learnt that next time I will believe in myself to achieve the best results. 

24 Jan 2011

Today, I got home economics class in school. I was very excited because home economics classes were always very fun. Today, we were supposed to make queen cupcakes. Miss Chan, my home economics teacher taught us how to make the queen cupcakes. My home economics partner, Shang Rong and I did not really pay attention to Miss Chan's explanation and that was what probably caused the problem I encountered today.

When Miss Chan completed her explanation, we started to try and make the cupcakes ourselves. Since both of use did not pay attention to what Miss Chan said, we had to look at how other classmates made the cakes.Firstly, we sifted the flour and the baking powder. Then, we whisked the butter. We continued our steps and just when we were about to put the cupcakes into the oven, we realized that we forgot to add sugar!

We started to panic. However we just put the sugar into our cupcakes because we had no other choice. We we cure that our cupcakes were going to taste horrible, so we cleaned the table until it was very clean, washed all the plates and bowls and put them back at the teacher's table.

After 20 minutes, we took out the cupcakes from the oven and let Miss Chan mark our work but our cupcakes turned out just fine. We even got full marks from Miss Chan because of the cleanliness of our table and equipment. However, I learnt an important lesson today. That was to listen to the teacher when he or she is giving us instructions so we would encounter little or even no problems during our assignments.

23 Jan 2011

During this afternoon, I went to Fu Lu Shou Complex for my tuition. My father brought me there in his car. He parked his car at a nearby car park instead off dropping me off at the complex because he said that the complex would be very crowded. Indeed, the traffic was unusually heavy today. I guess it must be because of the oncoming Lunar New Year and many people were there to buy Chinese goodies. 

I walked past Rochor center and I saw a lot of stalls selling Chinese new year decorations with a lot of rabbits while squeezing through the crowd. Those decorations were very cheap and there were a lot of people buying them.

As I continued walking to the complex, I walked past Albert hawker center. The hawker center was bustling with people of all ages. Luckily I already ate at home so I did not need to go to the hawker center to eat or else I would not have been able to find an available seat. The second floor of the hawker center has many stalls selling dried food such as dried scallop, sea cucumber and abalone. I know it must have been even more crowded than the first floor even though I did not go there. There was also a stage where some people were singing Chinese new year songs near the hawker center. 

It is always my parents buying all these Chinese goodies so I feel that it was a great experience to see how busy and excited Chinese people are when its near the festival. Maybe I will go there and buy the food with my parents next year to feel the true excitement of Lunar New Year.