True to Throughtrain?

Today during Biology lesson with the most amazing, wonderful, capable, great, Mrs Tan Lai Lin (which in my opinion is one of the coolest and best bio teachers in RI) brought out a very good point.

Is the throughtrain programme effective?

The Throughtrain is this new implementation set two years ago to allow students of a particular school to enter into their affliated Junior College without the need to take O-levels, citing high stress levels and more effective learning as the reasons for this implementation.

Mrs Tan brought out a very good point, after handing out the bio assignments, that if we fail our A-levels or don’t do well, we only have a PSLE cert to show for it.

The thought horrified me. Of course I had always known that the PSLE cert thing would be a downside to throughtrain; if I failed my A-levels (touchwood) then I would drop straight down to P6 level. The thought reminded me of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The O-levels were a 32,000 safecheck, but now it’s been taken away. It’s definitely a con, but a pro would be at least we need not stress over the O-levels unneccesarily.

Or is it?

Mrs Tan commented that this was a gamble we had to take. The teachers in RI were all worried, because a lot of the students were getting complacent, and that they could get into RJC without a worry, so they need not do well in lower sec. This gamble was risky, and we needed to understand the risks. If we lost the blackjack, we would lose everything.

All or nothing. Could we make it?

I am very sure that not everyone can make it. It is a gamble that cannot support everyone, and a gamble that some students are sure to lose.

The question was, How many students would lose?

If more students lose every year, and more lose than gain, then we have to question ourselves, Is the throughtrain effective?

I have known friends who think the throughtrain programme has only good, not bad.

“My friends are all taking O-levels, but I can slack, so shiok!”

But then, your friends would have a backing to protect themselves in case anything went wrong. An O-level cert would still qualify for polytechnic courses.

Does the Ministry of Education have implementations that would give us some form of protection and immunity that we could use to at least make it past A-levels?

I am very certain that this education game, this gamble, is not one to be taken lightly, and if anything went wrong it would certainly be a gamble I could not afford.

True to ThroughTrain?

That is the question. Can we accept this new implementation, but with it, the sureness of complacency and arrogance and laziness, but without it, the added burden of stress and migraines, but also a protection and immunity that is worth more than lowered levels of blood pressure?

This is more than a case of lowered stress levels and lowered levels of systolic pressure over diastolic pressure… this is a case of whether we should choose the new programme because it brings new risks… new risks which may not spell GOOD.

Comments, anyone?

Bitchin’ about Trippin’

Drama Feste 2006 has finally ended!

Not that I’m not sad or anything, but 3 months of after-school pressure has finally ended, and it is TOTAL HALLELUJAH!

Okay, so you might say I’m heartless.

So I shall commemorate some moments of Drama Feste. And not that ones that make it all worthwhile. Im gonna commemorate moments that made me wish the drama thing was over ASAP.

1) On the day itself, yesterday, I tripped over Shailesh and fuckin’ fell. For the record, it was Shailesh’s fault. I was thinking about it in the cab on the way home, and I realized that if it were any other person that had been behind me I would not have tripped. Think about it lah. I stepped back, and pushed against his leg. I nudged twice, thinking it was a box, expecting it to move. To my horror it pushed back (a resultant force) and I tripped! I tried to stagger my feet, get my balance, but that irritating leg refused to budge! Without any space to stagger my feet, I fell backwards, landed on my BUM with a THUMP!

Like, OMG!

So, I conclude that the real person without stage presence is Shailesh. He was BEHIND me, he could see where he was going and where I was. And yet he didn’t move. His excuse, “I’m the ensemble, I’m supposed to be rigid! It’s your fault for not looking where you’re going!”

Exsqueeze me? (Pun completely intended – only people who watched Drama Feste would know) If he was that good an ensemble he said he should have acted better during the show. Trust him to blame me for my trippin’. If it was Seng Henk or any one else, he would have moved his feet away after the first nudge, or at least pulled away after I was about to fall for me to get my balance. Oh no. Tall, thin idiot had to choose to be a ‘good’ ensemble just at the point I was about to fall.

2) So I was nominated for Best Actor. Very exhilarating, very proud, but that just reminded me why I didn’t win… I tripped. And also, Ye Wei won the prize. I guess they had to give Buckley SOMETHING.

3) The emcees sucked. Sucked BIG-time. I never knew suckier emcees. One of them was Ravi, I didn’t know the other. I didn’t know who was who. But there was this one guy I recognized as the librarian, and he was this loser emcee who was SO lousy at being an emcee that I wanted to plain PUKE. He was moving his hands in this awkward way, and he looked so gangly and out-of-place like Jessica Alba in Singapore Idol. He had about NO sense of humor and timing, and everything that was said was lost on him. Good lord, they SUCKED.

4) I tripped in FRONT OF MY FRIENDS! That means I so un-glamorously landed on my butt in front of Mingzhe, Alaric, Ting Zhang, Hanfei, BC, Louis, Ye Wei, Yao Guang, Aaron, Brandon, Mark, Seth, Jasper, Auyong, Hwee Leong, Joseph, Charles, Zhi Yang, Daniel, Walter, Boon Ping, Nabil, Anish, Rahul…. And those are just the MALE friends! ARRGH! At least Wang Ling wasn;t there to see it.

5) Wang Ling didn’t watch the Night show. Actually it’s a good thing.

6) Now I have to return the wonderful blazer-coat Fendi hot piece of cloth thing back to Jun Wei. Oh, no, why ME????!

7) Now I have so much more stuff, like homework and projects to complete and so many more things to do. Drama Feste, FYI, to all future participants, eats up time like Cookie Monster eats cookies. No reference to Morrison house here.

I missed the Singapore Idol show rerun on Channel 5 as I was acting for the Night show! I remember while I was bantering with Wen Jun, the only thing my mind could think of was Emilee on the TV screen singing Making Whoopi, her swan song. And I was wondering why I wasn’t at home SMSing to Mediacorp and seeing her reply my questions on the scrollbar thing on the screen. And why I wasn’t reminscing about her wonderful performances.

9) I had to be acting in the funniest play. Of all the houses Morrison was the funniest one and incorporated the most humor. Come on, we had a funny pig scene, a crazy-bitchy-slutty playboy vs. his girls scene, and I had to be acting in it. I was remembering how much I wanted to be in the audience and laughing out loud like everyone else. In fact, during the matinee I believed I smiled a little.

10) I hate hypocrites.

2006 is over. Not that I’m Bitchin’ about Trippin, but poetic justice, really.

Singapore Idol Week 3: Jazz Classics

Singapore Idol Week 3
Jazz Classics

Ranking and Comments (in order of lousiest to best):

Note: Jazz is not my thing so I don’t know who sang all of these! Like who am I, Mr. Radio DJ who enjoys jazzy fazzy crap?!

10. Jasmine Tye
Sang: ‘Almost Like Being In Love’ – Frank Sinatra
The WORST performance I’ve ever heard. Painful and made me feel like being at Crazy Frog’s jazz-version concert!!!!

9. Joakim Gomez
Sang: ‘You Sent Me’ – Sam Cook
UGH! Not nice, not good, not jazz. Enough said?

8. Jay Lim
Sang: ‘Have You Met Miss Jones?’ – Robbie Williams
Jay should just jump in a pot of hot boiling oil after singing that song. It was totally embarrassing for him. Maybe in the vat of oil he’ll find Miss, freakin, Jones!

7. Nurul Maideen
Sang: ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ – Frank Sinatra
Oh, she definitely shouldn’t have sat on that chair! She should have jumped into the pot of oil after Jay!

6. Jonathan Leong
Sang: ‘Kissing A Fool’
Someone shoot that spasming, twitching, contorting creature on my TV please! I think one of the chimpanzees from Mandai got loose and is howling all over my TV screen!

5. Emilee Kang
Sang: ‘Making Whoopi’ – Like, how would I KNOW? Whoopi Goldberg?
Oh my GOODNESS! Amazingly beautiful. Sultry, sexy and very very hot. That cane just made her jazz image spazz up. Nice moves, nice dancing, nice slinky walk, nice shake, nice performance. Hit those notes right and brought the jazz to an all-new high. Emilee was amazing, in my opinion, definitely one of the best.

4. Rahima Rahim
Sang: ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’
Did someone say dream? I’m sorry, I thought you meant nightmare. Cause that sure was one.

3. Hady Mirza
Sang: ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ – Frank Sinatra
Well, you’ve got under my skin. Meaning, irritated me to ENDLESS DEPTHS OF TORTUROUS TONE-DEAD PITCHING!

2. Paul Twohill
Sang: ‘Moondance’ – The Berenstein Bears
Yeah, yeah, dance in the moonlight, flick your hair here and there, start adding more eyeliner, whatever. Like we care what you do to your rubbish-bin face. And do that OFF my TV screen please.

1. Mathilda D’ Silva
Sang: ‘Feeling Good’ – Michael Buble
Okay, so this was relatively good. Relatively powerhouse. That is, if you cut out all the cabaret crap, tone down the slapshtick shaking, the eccentric eyes, the whole wobble-de-butt dance routine. The voice is good, but those eyes still creep me out as much as Ja’s cleavage. And that’s saying a lot.

Who will go: Jay Lim
Who went: Emilee Kang
Score for my all-seeing eye: 2/3

Postnote:
WHAT?! WHAT?! WHAAAAT?! EMILEE IS OUT?! WHAT THE FUCK? OH MY GOD! NO! NO! MISTAKE! TECHNICAL GLITCH! AYYYYYYAH!!! HOW COME?!

P.S I tell you, I smell something real fishy. Something tells me Channel 5 is rigging all the results. Emilee really didn’t get lowest votes, it’s just that Channel 5 had already pre-picked all the people to go, and then wait until people vote liao, then use what ‘lowest votes’ excuse to rid Idol of MY FAVORITE CONTESTANT EVER!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

The 300th post!!!!!

Ahhhh! What an amazing thing!

MY 300th POST!

Amazing, isn’t it?

Two months after the celebration of my blog’s birthday and one month after my birthday I am pleased to note that my blog has reached its 300th post! (Speaking of my birthday I am owed a lot of birthday presents ah… Nah, Dean…etc)

300th post!

And what shall I post?

Okay, I know.

I feel that every one should have a blog to express his or her emotions and feelings with everyone else. A blog is public, so if you were planning to go down to People’s Park or something and talk to the masses about crap, might as well type it out on your blog and let people read it!

A blog is really a wonderful thing, where you can post up happy memories of your friends, in the form of pictures or words. You can say anything (well, nearly anything) you want, and if you feel down on some day or happy or sad or depressed or wacky you can post something up and let others feel what you are feeling!

Plus, for me, I type in perfect English (as close as it gets here in Singapore) and hence it’s a good opportunity to practise compo writing!

See? Good benefits or what?

So we should all blog. Blog not only about your life, but about others’ lives too, and what you feel. Because we all need to let out those emotions once in a while, and words are the best way to do so.

300th post! Come and tag, all!

P.S I’m typing this from my fixed notebook, which is like, THANK, GOD! because I finally got my dearest, favorite, wonderful, greatest piece of machinery back again! However now I gotta go and try to restore all I lost in the past 2 years… SOB SOB…

P.P.S Watch Drama Feste 2006! Morrison is so kick-ass this year lah. Although now I’m coming down with sore throat. I got this cool video of Morrison DF 2006 cast and crew, which I will put up in the next week. Eyes out, all of you fan blogders!

Singapore Idol Week 2: Number Ones

Singapore Idol
Week 2: Number One Hits

Ranking and comments (in order of lousiest to best):

11. Joakim Gomez
Sang: ‘Lonely No More’ – Rob Thomas
The worst of the night, Joakim totally destroyed Lonely No More. His performances so far have been lacklustre and without power. Very likely to be in bottom 3.

10. Gayle Nerva
Sang: ‘Leave (Get Out)’ – JoJo
One of the lousier performances, Gayle put up a very inconsistent performance this week. Rather flat, and very varied throughout. A far cry from her great show last week.

9. Jasmine Tye
Sang: ‘There You’ll Be’ – Faith Hill
She began the song very weakly, and continued the song without fluctuation or strength. Lacked a lot of the power to sustain the tune. Cannot do power songs like Faith Hill. That said, however, she pulled off quite an impressive ending.

8. Paul Twohill
Sang: ‘My Sacrifice’ – Creed
This week was his worst so far. Very very messy, all over the place, and could not balance stage choreography with holding a tune. Pulled his vocal cords too much to fit the tune of Creed. Overall a rather wrong song choice. Could have chosen more generic rock.

7. Jay Lim
Sang: ‘If You’re Not The One’ – Daniel Bedingfield
This time he showed a much more strong performance, displaying vocal chops that were technically the competition’s best. However, though he improved from last week, he was unable to convey the right emotion for this rather sad song. Also lost a few notes here and there.

6. Hady Mirza
Sang: ‘Maria Maria’ – Carlos Santana
This was one of Hady’s weakest performances, however still rather good. Problem was with diction; could not hear the lyrics properly, as well as the lack of fluctuation, making the tune blurred and unclear.

5. Emilee Kang
Sang: ‘Just Like A Pill’ – Pink
Emilee has improved by leaps and bounds since her piano show where she sang ‘You’re Still The One’ with such a strong nasal vibrato. Now she is a fully-fledged performer with amazing vocal control. Pulled off this performance with energy and force; however, could do better in the future with a wider vocal range.

4. Nurul Maideen
Sang: ‘Torn’ – Natalie Imbruglia
A dark horse, Nurul came from behind to steal the limelight for one of the best performances this week. Showed amazing song control and tone balance, and yet displayed phenomenal emotions and stage presence. Extremely well-done.

3. Mathilda D’ Silva
Sang: ‘Bootylicious’ – Destiny’s Child
Brought the house down completely with her hot vocal chops and wonderful performance. Balanced the stage well, and showed off tons of attitude and personality, at the same time having enormous fun on stage. Could have done better with a song that showed off more of the powerhouse side of her voice.

2. Jonathan Leong
Sang: ‘Smooth’ – Carlos Santana feat. Rob Thomas
I think he tied with Mathilda for 2nd spot this week. That said, however, Jon made a much better song choice, choosing a song comfortable to his vocal range and making the song completely his own. Excellently done, though a lot more could have been done about his odd dancing moves and stage slickness.

1. Rahima Rahim
Sang: ‘I’m With You’ – Avril Lavigne
Completed the night with Avril Lavigne. She did particularly well, and held her position as best performer of the week. The song was very strong, conveying beautiful emotions, and along with Rahima’s very beautiful and angsty voice, created a rock performance worthy of the Rock Princess herself. She shows that she has what it takes to go all the way to the finals.

Who will go: Gayle. Joakim has far too huge a fan base.
Who went: Gayle.
Score for the All-Seeing Eye: 2/2

Singapore Idol Week 1: Parents’ Choice

Singapore Idol
Week One: Parents’ Choice

Rankings and Comments (in order of lousiest to best):

12. Norman Then
Sang: ‘High and Dry’ – Radiohead
Completely blew it. Made the performance a living hell. Lost notes and ruined the tone. The worst of eveyone.

11. Jay Lim
Sang: ‘My Funny Valentine’ – Chet Baker
Jay should not do jazz. Jazz is meant to be crystalline and very clear-tuned but still interesting and captivating. Jay made the entire thing horribly boring and a yawn.

10. Nurul Huda Maideen
Sang: ‘Don’t You Worry About A Thing’ – Stevie Wonder
Wrong song. Good effort to make it sound good, but fell short. The performance itself was lacking punch and energy. Nurul could not control the song, and ended up making the performance cracky.

9. Jasmine Tye
Sang: ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ – Diana Ross
Originally did by Marvin Gaye, the thing about this song is that, quote 8 Days, ‘Unless you’re a huge, black diva with an out-of-control Afro, you don’t attempt’, and I cannot possibly agree more. Jasmine lost the whole song and made it really strained.

8. Joakim Gomez
Sang: ‘How Deep Is Your Love’ – The BeeGees
So-so. The song was sung average-ly, but the thing that makes it slightly bad was the lack of energy. Sure, it’s BeeGees, but something could have been done to up the energy level from sleepy to ‘whoa-zah!’ And he sang it a little too cute.

7. Emilee Kang
Sang: ‘Believe’ – Cher
The energy level shot high, skyrocketed, and the performance was good, able to get people on their feet and shake their booties but the thing that pulled it down was the lacklustre singing. Vocals could have been stronger to match the quick dance tune.

6. Gayle Nerva
Sang: ‘I Feel The Earth Move’ – Carole King
Gayle did Carole proud by making this song really good. Energetic and sung well, Gayle put up a fantastic performance. But not as good as some of her fellow contestants.

5. Jonathan Leong
Sang: ‘Wherever You Will Go’ – The Calling
Not one of his best performances. In fact it was rather one of his worst. Went off-tune in a few places and although the mike stand control thing was good, the energy dipped toward the end of the song. Could do better. Still, one of this week’s best.

4. Mathilda D’ Silva
Sang: ‘Goldfinger’
‘Goldfinger’ was one of the lousier song choices Mathilda made, but it was overall executed very well. A little on the too-old side, but she pulled it off and made it her own.

3. Hady Mirza
Sang: ‘Rock DJ’ – Robbie Williams
Energetic, full of punch, exciting, riveting, and he managed to hit every single note of that song. However he was still lacking the ‘It’ factor, that extra ‘oomph’ to make the song truly stand out from all the rest of the 11.

2. Paul Twohill
Sang: ‘Superman’ – Five For Fighting
Another fantastic, mind-blowing, wonderful performance. Catching, gentle yet real, with marvelous voice and controlled tones, he made this song his own and totally kicked butt. Good rock-star in the making, and very well-done overall. His best by far.

1. Rahima Rahim
Sang: ‘Perhaps’ – Cake
Her ‘Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps’ was perhaps (pun TOTALLY intended) the most memorable thing of the entire night, and it was done in a sultry, sexy, flirtatious voice that brought out a more charming Rahima. She lost a few notes toward the end, but the entire energy level and tone of the performance made up for it, and some. Best of the night!

Who Will Go: Norman
Who Went: Norman
Score for my all-seeing eye: 1/1

Depressed again

I’m so depressed again…

Depresseddepresseddepressed.

I feel like such crap, and that life is just nothing but work work and more work, with no meaning.

It’s odd really, because life is supposed to have meaning.

But recently all I’ve been doing is studying, working, studying, coming home, sleeping, doing projects, getting pressurised, studying some more, attending classes, going out once in a while… I’ve almost lost that smile on my face.

Friends like Shawn and Bryan and Andrew have ALREADY lost their smiles.

Plus my parents, who ARE PROBABLY READING MY BLOG NOW (shame on them lol!) are just on my case 24/7, refusing to back off for a while.

It’s a bad time for all of us, I guess. Everything’s going down and we’re all so busy, clogged down with stuff, that it’s just not a good time to do anything else.

The next few months are going to be worse.

And the odd part is, I’m actually feeling a sense of happiness in all this. But the morose part is, I’m not supposed to.

When I find out the hidden cause of this depression I’ll tell you guys.