2 April 2012

Monday, first day of Qing Ming Jie, all local students and teachers were given a 3 days holiday which means only left our class studying for these 3 days. This was because Singapore does not celebrate this special day and lessons as usual. When I went up the stairs to level 5 for class, no sign of the local students, the whole teaching block was too quiet like a haunted mansion, just waiting for something paranormal to happen.

Today’s lesson was about collecting back our Common Test results and everyone was curious to know how good their score was. 

When I got mine, before I turned over the paper, I knew I would not score full marks and true enough my results were good. Everyone checked their papers if there was an error in marking but not. 

Then we passed in back to Mr. Lim and started doing tutorial 6 or either go back to dorm. I went back to dorm and slept till dinner time as I was tired.

When I woke up at 6.30pm, Chee Seng was in the room asking me to help him in completing our SOM project together by today and so we did it till 8pm.

For dinner, we were not sure what to eat so we decided to head for the nearby town and I ate bee hoon with duck blood and duck liver. My meal was good, the blood was like tofu and the liver’s texture was like salted egg yolk with duck meat taste.

I spent the rest of the night doing tutorial 6 as the questions were very long and time consuming.

1 April 2012

A Sunday, very Sunday. I was in dorm doing my work and washing my clothes as usual. Nothing interesting to do in school. I dried my clothes on the upper floor and resume dong my project work.

In the afternoon, after lunch, I checked my clothes that I hung and my shirt dropped on the floor when the strong wind blew it off the line but the others were dry.

 I went back to dorm and washed the shirt again, climbed up the stairs and dry once more and hoping it will not blow off for the second time.

 Lu Lu came up to my dorm to talk and get the photos from my com for last Friday’s performance, he got his thumb drive plugged in and also we taught him in creating a Facebook account but sadly he forgotten his email address.

In the late afternoon, Xiao Jie called us down for a game of table tennis. She taught us how to play and joined her friends in playing table tennis.

 We borrowed their racquets and started practicing; luckily I know a thing or two as I played before in Singapore and Malaysia. We compete in a competition where we see who can get 10 points first and the loser swaps with another opponent. We played until 6.30pm and time to go for dinner.

Unfortunately, only Lu Lu was free and Xiao Jie got something on. We went outside school to the nearby town for fish steamboat; it costs us about $16 Yuan for each person with unlimited flow of meat and vegetables, Fu Dian bought 2 bottles of sprite for us to drink as the soup was spicy.

 Shakir was the last one as he was still hungry while the rest of us were full, he kept asking for more fish and top up with vegetables. In the end when the bill came, we all treated Lu Lu to dinner.

31 March 2012 (Du Jiang Yan & Qing Chen Shan)

31 March 2012

In the morning, my breakfast was simple. I ate an orange and a banana before the tour to Du Jiang Yan and Qing Chen Shan. We met downstairs at 8am and got on the bus, it took us about 2 hours to reach Du Jiang Yan. When we got there, the weather was hot and everyone bought ice cream but very expensive. 

We walked along the river bank and reached the main dam about 20 minutes, it was built about 2000 years ago. 

It splits the river water in to two channels so as to prevent flooding to Chengdu floodplains. Down the river channel, a distributary was created to help divert the excessive river water to Yangtze River instead of the plains. It is for the high rainfall in June and July. 

This is because China is in the Tropical Monsoon Section where rainfall is not consistent like Singapore.

After that and our lunch, we went to Qing Chen Shan which is the birth place of Taoism. This mountain is not as cold as E’ Mei and no snow. The mountain is full of stairs; we walked first after passing through the entrance, next we climbed and climbed until we got to the cable car station. The wait is not that long compared to E’ Mei’s one.

 When we got up through the cable car, we were at the middle point of the mountain. Unfortunately, when we were at that point of time, it was already 4pm and we have to get back here at 5pm before the cable car station closes. 

We used the time to climb as high as we could with our stamina (not much energy left), we took a short rest when we reached another temple about 10 minutes. We took a few shots before we climb down and reached back to the entrance at 5.30pm.

Our dinner was near the mountain, the meal was good and for the first time the soup was the best tasting one yet! The rice was not sticky but just nice and the dishes were good.

We arrived around 9pm in school; all of us were tired from the 2 hour journey back.

30 March 2012

Today, Mr. Lim was teaching us Chapter 6 from start to finish. It is like Chapter 5 but more tedious but a short chapter, the similarity is drawing a circle, that’s all. He finished the lesson in 2 hours till 11am. The good news was that there was no lesson in the afternoon, YAY!!

 

 

At 5pm, Xiao Jie called me to help her with decorating the theatre where tonight there will be a performance at 7.30pm.

 When I got there, the local students were all over the place. Some were drawing and cutting, some blew up the balloons while the others hung the decorations.

 I helped Xiao Jie with taping the balloons on the handrails and walls. Next, I blew up some balloons to be tied with a string along with the other balloons. The last part was the laying of the big long red carpet on the floor.

At night, the show started with a song sung by the local students which was our Singapore National Day song (Home). There were small plays and even our side have dancers performing. 

The best part was that all Singapore students went on stage and sang (Where I Belong). 

There were even guitar solos by Ian and Dominic and Galen was the singer. His voice was good and smooth.

 When the party was over, everyone in the room stomped on the balloons and the area was noisy! 

When we left the place, it was already 10pm and it started to rain. We quickly dashed from the theatre to the dorm as fast as possible. What a night!!

29 March 2012

Common Test Day!!!

The morning was quiet, too quiet... This was because it was a revision class therefore the hallway was quiet, no one but me left for class and the first to be there.

20 minutes later, some students came and joined in with Mr. Lim and I to revise our work. There were around 8 students including me in class and when the China students were having their toilet break. They peeped into our class and wondered what in the world of that is holy will such a class exists. Nothing much to revise and I waited till the common test starts.

The common test started at 2pm and was easy but I hope I do not make careless mistakes in my test.
 I wish I can get a good result once Mr. Lim is done with marking our papers!

After the paper, rejoice! No more revising and studying like mad!

At 4.30pm, a soccer match began with a friendly match between local students and Singapore students. I would not say very friendly as the locals were aggressive and during the match two students of their team got red card from the referee. 
The match ended 6 to 2 and we lost to them but let’s not forget my friends who put out a good fight.

In the evening at 7.30pm, I entered Room 304 at the teaching block where there was an English Speech Competition. 
I sit beside Hakim and watch the competition. This competition has 10 competitors which were the local students, they choose a topic to talk about like “I love English” and “Sichuan Cuisine” and each was given 5 minutes to talk. 

After their speech there were questions given by the teachers (judges). When the judges were deciding who wins this competition, Vivian (English Corner Chairman) asked Hakim to dance on stage to entertain the crowd.

Once all that was over, all students were given an award from bronze to gold.

To sum it up, China students have a strong ability to learn like us but with bigger hopes and dreams. May their wishes be true and granted in the near future!

28 March 2012

1 day to Common Test.

 Today I finished 1 more common test paper where there are 3 papers for students to practice. After class, I took my lunch and skipped the afternoon revision class to do online e-tutorial and do the written tutorial 4 that I owed Mr. Lim. However, I got bored and slept for a few hours through. At 5pm, I handed both tutorial 4 and 5 to Mr. Lim who stayed just opposite my room.

During dinner time, Yat Ming, Fu Dian and I joined Feng Li and Meng Ling with another girl who I forgot her name at their kitchen area. I planned to give Xiao Jie a surprise when she arrive with Hakim, Shakir and Chee Seng when they were in another room but couldn’t find them as we three searched the entire place.

 This time, they bought century eggs with a dark spot inside and bitter gourd to fry with eggs.
 The same 2 guys came along and we ate at 7pm and ended at 8.30pm. While walking back to school, we 3 guys were with the 3 girls and decided to play pool with them.
 Fu Dian and Yat Ming got bored, went back to dorm and left me with the three girls. I treated them to eating ice-cream and brought them to my place as some never see our place before.

Suddenly, Dara spotted me from far when she caught me having 3 girls in my room. Dara then called a group of our classmates to come and disturb me. So embarassing when the three laugh along when hiding in my room!!