Hey everyone
Friday, July 24, 2009 @ 8:24 pm.
So, the Blogger layout bug has finally been fixed ^^. I might as well talk about both Thursday and Friday.
Thursday
Before School/Assembly/Before Founder's Day Rehearsal
After spending the night doing research for HACACS, Eleanor, Felicia and I were sitting around testing each other on capitals of countries. I think the first one was Maldives (Male). We didn't have any Assembly except for announcements and devotions for which we dutifully stood up anyway. We had to wait until 08 10 before the Founder's Day Rehearsal started, so Eleanor pulled out notes on the world leaders of countries, which I remember almost nothing from.
Founder's Day Rehearsal
Spent about an hour standing outside 3T watching the Girl Guides and Girls' Brigade, and waiting through the endless moments of silence trying not to explode. Jerusha is pretty good as a commander. I think Stephanie and Li Cheng were commenting on how Sheralyn should have been commander of the Guides like she was last year, because she was one of the only people that takes marching seriously.
Then we filed into the audi and sat in order of register number, which was a little confusing at first because so many people were involved in Founder's Day and thus absent. I think there were officially 13 people in our class not involved (less than half) though people were not in school.
Miss Lau told the class that we were to be sent back to class after we were seated but Mrs Chew only sent us back after the GB and Girl Guides had sat down.
Miss Tan and Mr Liu were both involved in the Founders' Day Rehearsal so from about nine fifteen till eleven we had an extended free period. Mrs Ng wanted to screen a video titled "Auschwitz"(?), but the sound didn't work, so she left.
Eleanor, Felicia and I resumed testing each other on capitals. I think by now I can safely say that Eleanor knows the capital of Ghana is Accra and I also think that five years from now she will still be able to remember that the capital of Ghana is Accra. I tested her five times over ten minutes, after testing her three times over half an hour. I think Steph should know what the capital of Ghana is too.
Interesting Capitals:
Maldives - Male
Switzerland - Bern
New Zealand - Wellington
Yemen - Sanaa
Mexico - Mexico City
Germany - Berlin (used to be Munich)
Felicia was on the other side of the class with Jerusha learning about the Cold War.
Somehow an arm wrestling competition erupted on my side of the classroom. Alison beat Liz Chan at left-hand arm wrestling (both left-handed, but Alison plays tennis and Liz plays softball, and Liz won easily at right-hand arm wrestling).
!
Didn't bother going down for recess since I was leaving at 12 20 with Eleanor and Felicia. Went to the library and wandered around for a while, then came back and went through the capitals again.
Higher Chinese
Advertisement presentations. Lao shi must be rather pissed at me now, because I missed my group's presentation while Felicia and Eleanor didn't. Basically we only had twenty minutes of lesson for the entire day.
Had a small plate of chicken rice for lunch. We all packed into a taxi with Mrs Ng and discussed JC and career choices.
(The three of us agreed that even if they didn't ask any questions on capitals it was still fun to know)
HACACS
Trekked through Hwa Chong to the exact same LT that we had YAWP! in. It made me feel nostalgic. Even though we were sitting on the opposite side of the LT that we did during the competition itself, but it was the same section where we were sleeping and eating teething rusks (and giving Iskandar teething rusks) while others were rehearsing. Peaceful.
NJC was sitting behind us; I realised MGS must have been the only school just to send one team. According to Mrs Ng, it's because it was during the OBS period.
For the Prelim round we were in the same room as RGS, and I met Hannah there again ^^. Neither of us expected the other to be there, apparently. And also, neither of us had prepared much. Seemed like RI and HCI were the most
kiasu.
The preliminary round was nasty. I'm not going to touch on the thirteen questions that were gone through during a waiting period in the final round later, so I'll describe one now:
Palestinian representative at the UN (opinions, views on voting):
I was so pissed at myself during this period, because there had been a rep. at HRC, and it was referred to as the "Palestinian National Authority" but it could be Palestinian Liberation Organisation as well since it was in my notes that I vaguely remember. ARGH!
(Ooh, the PLO represents.)
Answer: None. Palestine cannot vote.
Evil.
After the Prelim Round, we all walked out and went through answers together; Eleanor and I had so many similar answers (Eleanor: "I'm convinced that we have some sort of telepathy or something.")
Refreshments were nice. I mostly ate the sugar donuts and potato pies. Passed by the RI team. Jarret was there. Every time we see each other it's kind of like an awkward, silent Hi. Because our parents are from the same cell group. Felicia said she'd be sick if Jarret ever did that to her.
Talk about the UNAS after announcement of finalists.
Final Round: ALL the RI teams got in. One HCI team got in. The announcers were trying to arrange the announcements so it didn't have RI in one big block, but it didn't really help.
The final round was
freaking hilarious. Felicia and I were trying to hold back our laughter. I don't think Eleanor was as affected because she wasn't familiar with the RMUN inside jokes. The NJC teams must hate us now.
From one of the RI presentations:
"The Palestines took their knives and stabbed Israel, and Israel took their helicopters and blew up their poor little village."
I still can't get over that. Ask Felicia for more quotes from the Final Round.
Speed Round was, if that's even possible, even more hilarious, mostly due to the announcer, whose antics I will not describe here because words would not do it justice. Despite the fact that it was mostly verbal.
Jarret's team knew most of the answers while doing the ten-second MCQ round, but for one question they were actually shuffling the paper placards mahjong-style then held one up... and they were correct.
Announcer: "Which is [one of (?)] the countries that withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?"
Felicia: "RI had this on their selection test!"
Member from RI Team: "United States." (Option C)
The audience laughs.
Announcer: And the answer is.... A! North Korea!
All the RI teams have raised their A placards. Except the HCI team. They raised C.
During the open-ended question round, the HCI team got one question wrong and thus were left with -10 points. Then they got one back, and were back to 0 points. Then they got a question wrong again. Then they got another one correct.
Prize Presentation. The results were changed about three times.
Announcer: Third runner-up - Hwa Chong Institution, Team 24!
Someone runs up onto the stage.
Announcer: Excuse me.
They confer.
Announcer: Excuse us.
They confer.
Announcer: Okay, STILL third runner-up, Hwa Chong Institution, Team 24!
RI Team 4 (Jarret, Ben Mak and Adil, I think) were the undisputed winners.
Whee!
FRIDAY
Before School
Went into the classroom and discovered that someone (Lau, said Vi Chien) had drawn illustrations for 2PM (a clock reading the appropriate time), DBSK (a heart with four hands in it, the four characters written on them), FT Island (ABCDE(?)G + T-shirt + a picture of an island), SHINee (a shining gem thing with an e on it), and Super Junior (thirteen stickmen with a speech bubble that said "Sorry sorry sorry sorry")
When I enquired why Big Bang was not included, Vi Chien steadfastly replied, "We don't like Big Bang."
I enquired where Rain was. I drew a raincloud on the board.
Played UNO with Wendy and Glenda, then made flimsy card houses that kept falling down.
Founder's Day Parade
Xiu Qi, Alison and I all brought books along and left them by the side of the corridor during the parade. I think the marching was more synchronised than the rehearsal though I THINK there was a fumble somewhere...
Not much to say really.
Mrs Chitra says to pass on the following updates:
EL Common Test on Tuesday. Classes will end (hopefully) by 2 pm. 2.30pm in the Audi.
DRAMA ON WEDNESDAY ENDS AT 5.30 PM. This is due to the National Day performance. I think. Sigh.
Founder's Day Service
The usual. I ended up sleeping, just a little. But I was awake during the prize presentations, which seem to have grown shorter in my mind over the years although they have always been the same length. In primary school they screened a video during the presentations.
Ms June Tan was announcing the awards. The winner of one of them was obviously one of her students.
Ms Tan: And the Ellice Handy Medallist is... NATALIE ____ ____ ____ [name left out for privacy's sake, just in case]!
Alison wonders why she said her name like that.
Ms Tan: Natalie scored NINE A-ONES... and one B4
Natalie cracks up on screen. We all kinda crack up.
Ms Tan: She is a ROLE MODEL for her classmates...
I wonder why she can get away with this.
Ms Tan: ...and is CERTAINLY a DESERVING RECIPIENT of this HIGHEST AWARD IN MGS.
I guess she can't.
I'm getting kinda tired, so I shall not elaborate further. Nothing much happened.
The Time Traveler's Wife has been borrowed again, this time by Alison. My, it's becoming a popular book.