Mentor or Friend?

If you really treat your mentee as a mentee, will the relationship continue to be of a mentor – mentee kind even at the end of the mentoring journey? Are we really a mentor to them? Or are they a burden to us?

If you do have a friend that is not responsive to you, most probably, that friend will just come and go and not touching our hearts. But for the case of our mentees, even if they are not receptive of us, we will still go out of the way for them sometimes. So are we treating them as mentees or friends? Perhaps many of us are bound by the word “duty”, no doubt. But is a relationship that is bound by “duty” going to be fruitful? If it is, why would there be so little people who are willing to take on the challenge of being a mentor again? Somehow I am puzzled. Yaocheng did again and again brought up the point and meaning of being a mentor. Are we supposed to befriend them and at the same time help them? Once again, do we start neglecting them at the end of the journey or will we start treating them as friends once the mentoring journey ends. For some perhaps the notion of friendship might also come to an end at the same juncture where our mentoring journey comes to a close.

Perhaps in the very first place the notion and the direction of a mentor is wrong entirely. Perhaps we should be known as “Friends of Clementi Student Care Service” In that way, perhaps even at the end of our “duty”, we will still be known as friends, to the teachers and our secondary school friends alike...

My very own 50 memories of Ngee Ann

Hey Guys...It's my own memories... So sorry if it doesn't remind you people of Ngee Ann...
Memories of NASS…

1.In NASS in the year 1995, There were only 2 batches, the Sec 1s and the Sec 2s

2.Posted to the Class 1C, found Sharin and SK strangely lookalike

3.Joined the Basketball Team, only to see the Sec 2s make up of a lot of “Jiang Hu Hao Jie” You can always refer to them as thugs and hooligans though. But they are really good in basketball.

4.Played soccer with people of 1F and 1E in the small plot of field behind the 1 and original basketball court.

5.Our only female coach (also known as Mouth of the east) of the East clash with PTI over the use of the court. PTI was also the coach of the volleyball team.

6.Interclass soccer finished second. But the real news was Timothy from 1E dribbling all the way from his penalty box to score the all important equalizer. However Ho Shuqiang did a R.Baggio in the shootout, and 1 E was eliminated.

7.We had Mr. Nipple Twister as our Technical Teacher. His favorite phrase: One Period gone, never to come back again.

8.Miss Liaw, the history teacher was the 1st teacher to discover 1C playing cards using the Little Bob dog playing Cards, since then nobody looked back.

9.Shortly after being warned by Miss Liaw, Playing cards became the rage among the Sec 1s of NASS.

10.Sec 2 in 1996, G League was born. I still remember I was the 1 who came up with this name.

11.Despite combining with 2B, the class of 2B/C couldn’t wrestle the soccer crown from 2P lead by Shaiful.

12.Inter School Basketball was a success, we finished 2nd in East Zone, though the Nationals was a disaster.

13.G league gets increasingly active, members from all over the Express Classes of the Sec 2s…

14.Sang Emil Chau’s “爱相随” with SK, Derek, and Sharin, and during 1 of the practice sessions, G League was nearly raided by the Vice Principal.

15.G League was finally raided. Honorary Chairman Dr Han rounds up all involved for meeting with Mrs Sundram. (Including Kok Feei, who claims he had only bet 50cents.)

16.The meeting turns out to be a fluke, Mrs Sundram, and the Principal was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the League( 40 plus people, including boys and girls) let us off after a warning.

17.G League continues….

18.Got the Best Project for literature, we made a very lousy model of the village in Rice w/o rain. Instead we got full marks because the village in the novel is supposed to be very rundown

19.The Project only took 1 day to make despite the members( SK, Sharin, Derek and me) meeting every week in the holidays. Guys, I hope you all remember what we did in Derek’s house… I certainly do.

20.We had “you ge” in the class, aka Lu Qing You. Dangerous Dynamite. Would blow off when people don’t talk to him or teachers asking him for his homework. Also known to be a Stalker!

21.Who could forget TARAM SINGH and that guy (forgot his name) who M in Class!

22.Auntie who sold drinks had always a foul expression, she’s still there anyway, and her son and daughter are taking over, still same foul expression.

23.Fell in love with SQ Yeo, however lost to Dr Han, honorary Chairman of G League.

24.We had this Science Teacher, Miss Alice Toh ( She was an old miss). Never teach properly in class, instead teach us how to make salad. Best part was we scored above 80 in the finals, including “you ge”, because she made a mess out of the markings.

25.OoPs, We had an ET as our Art Teache…Miss Soh…

26.Sec 3 in 1997, posted to class 3B. Best the class where all top students are! Certainly not 3A, because nobody wanted biology.

27.Had the best teacher of all time, Mrs Chiu in class!

28.Started to know JP and her gang of friends, she even dedicated that song “Bad Boy” by A mei to me…Oh she’s such a spontaneous gal!

29.Fell in love with her shortly after…

30.Titanic was the rage! In the dedication program, the song “My heart will go on” was played over and over again in the canteen…

31.Watch Armageddon with JP & gang…through a chance meeting. Though the “chance meeting” was elaborately thought out by SK n Swee Leng during the Winning 11 sessions

32.WOW!!! JP finished 2nd in the Talent Quest with her Song 聽海. However the real news is that the winner was an obese guy whom we thought he can’t sing. We even jeered loudly before he even open his mouth. In the end, he’s really 張學友 in disguise and won with the song 愛是永恆.

33.Who would ever forget that Dr Han went to watch the Talent Quest with his “famous” yellow SHORTS n T Shirt complete with slippers where everybody was so nicely dressed.

34.Finished Sec 3 as the Top Student in History. A moment of pride.

35.Got caught playing soccer in the void deck. Marched back to Ngee Ann by the Police. The Penalty was to weed out the weeds in the school field with our bare hands. Managed to get a pair of scissors from the canteen uncle. There was 12 – 13 of us.

36.Caught gambling in the basketball camp. Putting a premature end to my G League Career…Ms Yue was disappointed, so was my parents.

37.Oh yah…Jiajie was in love with Yingqian, though yingqian n Clement was a couple, and that Jiajie even sang William’s So 我為你傷心.

38.I sat in a corner of the class together with brilliant YYL, Kenny and Ridzuan who didn’t even know our own class mates like the 4 pretty ladies.

39.Borrowed a lot of homework from SQ, Guowei andYYL for copying. Yup and Bee fun too.

40.Finished 3rd in Basketball interclass. We could had finished 2nd, if not for my missed shot. Dramatic stuff, 2 overtimes and the ejection of derek

41.Watch Tiger Futsal with G League. So Siao on that we even bought Season Tickets. Who would forget the heroics of Yazid Yassin???

42.Combined Sports day was a huge success. The 1st time I ever REALLY cheered with my heart. Bottles as Drum sticks. Singing of School song unprompted. Running around the National stadium with NASS Flags. The Dunman high n Chung Cheung high people look at us as if we are from another planet…We even sang 阿牛’s 对面的女孩看过来 in the streets of Kallang

43.Racial Harmony Day turns into a Nipple Twisting Day in NASS…Inspired by Mr Peter Tan and SK.

44.Mr Andy Cole aka Alvin Ng broke the Art room’s window during soccer. The Chinese Orchestra notice board was also broken by some of us.

45.Ngee Ann has a Huge Clock Tower that never ever shows the correct time.

46.I was always teased about my colour blindness in sch. They even said that my laughter was disgusting but infectious. People who hear it tends to laugh too.

47.Interclass soccer: After being knocked out by the Malays, the Chinese of the G League and 4B had to settle for 3rd and 4th. I, from 4B was finally beaten in extra time by a golden goal from Jing Yuan.

48.O level Preparations was great. Study in school from 8am to 10am. Played a bit of soccer, go to tampines mall for lunch and finally end the day with more soccer. Good Preparations indeed.

49.But the Technical people all no guts. Run away from the quadrangle whenever Mrs Yap comes out of the technical room to chase them for their home work.

50.Finally the greatest derby of all: The Ngee Ann Derby, aka 2E vs the Rest of the World. Dr Han snatched the winning goal in the final derby match in the quadrangle in a thrilling 8 – 7 match after our geography paper, even though A maths was just 4 days away.

What's in a birthday??

What's in a birthday???
2 years had passed since i attend the whole lot of 21 birthdays, but seriously nothing beats Chenghao's birthday party...

Let's see what you would do in a 21st birthday party...
First, you normally would not want to arrive early, unless you know the person very well. Even when you arrive there, you would normally find yourself lost in a wave of people you dun normally know... Thus the whole place will be full of cliques and factions. So you normally thus stick around a particular clique, and try to interact while waiting for the cake to be cut. Then when the cake is cut, you would wish the boy/gal a happy birthday before you make your move...

Now let's see what did the people do in Chenghao's ( a 14 yr old) birthday. 1st the whole people started arriving at 2 to 3pm, then they started to be very rowdy and started to talk and play among themselves. All holed up in his house, talking nonsense or playing playstation...Interaction was GREAT...Fast forward to 4pm, and everybody was all ready for socccer or basketball, before going back to his house for BBQ...Strangely, all were more interested to play rather than having their food and polite mingling...The whole bunch of kids then manage to quieten down for the cutting of the cake and the birthday song...Surprise surprise if you think people are making their way out of the place after the cutting of the cake...Water bombs then started flying around and all of the kids were wet in no time, and this continued for the next 45 mins...WAH!!! That's what i really call a burthday celebration...Everybody had a rollin good time...

Morale of the story: Think again...What's really meaningful in a birthday party???

thursday!!!!!!!!

I got my silver back!!!! FInally!!!! This gives me great comfort to aim for gold once more!!!
Anyway, caught the Singapore Team's oerformance on Sunday...No doubt they are Greece in Disguise really, But what really was enjoyable that day was the fact that i watch the game with the Ngee Ann pple, had so much fun post game at 85 market, even the game was boring!!!

Anyway i am compiling my 50 best memories of NASS soon!!! Just another way to make sure i don't forget what happened before in NASS

1cm = 50 dollars

I can only pass my IPPT.
It’s really unexpected and unforeseen, after spending the entire 2 weeks practicing on pull ups and running, the station that causes me to pass unexpectedly turn up to be the Standing Broad Jump exercise! As a once proud gold holder, I once jumped above 240cm. But today, I’ve only managed 221cm, can’t believe it, I’m going to book another date as soon as possible. For those who know the standard, I am actually 4cm away from the silver award. Bad, that 4cm means a loss of 100 bucks, which translates to $25/cm. *Sobs Sobs*…

Yesterday was a wonderful day, had a very late lunch in Jurong Point after mentoring. Guess who I saw??? Mr YYL…One of my best friends in Ngee Ann. Or should I say good friend? (Since there are no such things as best friend, according to Mr YYL) Wow, I was very surprised and happy ( We even sworn as god brothers some 7 years ago!), this is what I call fate seriously, or yuan fen in Chinese…Power man…Talk a bit on school and basketball…We are still the same!!! Hahah… Though we see each other weekly, yesterday was one of the rare occasions that we had time talking among the ourselves…How I miss those days….

Next stop was glutton square with the Yuan Ching Mentors…Quite fun, but expectedly sad, when I found out that the “interact club” is going to lose 4 of its members…;YC and Jas going for SEP, JJ and Linda graduating this semester. That leaves only the 4 of us left, (hahha can still play mahjong when the chips are down) Anyway, the program for next week’s mentoring seems great and hopefully we can pull it off!

End of a miraculous Journey

The thing about Double Happinese in its final episode is that everything just fell into place after almost a drama of 100 episodes...

However in reality, that doesn't happens, and i wonder why must the scriptwriter put everything onto place in the final episode...It simply doesn't reflects reality, thus the whole show can really be deemed truely as an end to the whole miraculous journey, indeed miraculous. I do like the part before Jiaqi collapses in the final part though

School starts finally this week...

1st day of Sch

Hasn’t been blogging for a week or so…
Life’s been pretty smooth sailing so far, that I’ve been wondering about what exciting things that could happen to me now and then. Basketball, hanging out with friends and sometimes in the coffeeshops had been a regular fixture…
However though, the start of school was nevertheless tiring. Went to lesson at 4pm and finishing at 6pm at in my point of view a waste of time. I couldn’t do anything much either anyway…Oh by the way, I already found out who is Hxiang’s girlfriend is already. Finally.
Though it sounds contradicting, I do hope life’s continues to be like this…Peaceful and calm. I need a part time job too!!!

The Slaughtering of the Myanmese…

Pre Season Begins…

Absolutely ridiculous…This is the 1st time that I’ve ever experience something close to a riot, while watching soccer in Kallang. Malay skinheads, about the age of 17 to 18, were rounding up and battering Myanmese soccer fans.

It was madness. No doubt, security was slack, but who would expect such things to happen in the peaceful streets of Singapore? But then again, the Myanmese weren’t saints either on or off the pitch. Ridiculous crotch thrusting actions by the Myanmar reserve goalkeeper after being sent off for throwing a water bottle at Mani was simply unpardonable and provocative. And did I mention Myanmar player kicking mud at the referee??? Did anybody thought about the effects on the minds to our young sons of Singapore? It was such a bad influence that if I were a parent, I’d probably not want my child to be in the stadium. Not only because of fears of being hit, but also fears of being led astray by the extremely lawless crowd.

It was a disaster…No matter who won…

1 Jan

New Year's day

Watch Channel U's tribute program the night before. I felt very touched. Despite the fact that the station's personnel going seperate ways in 2005, they decided not to feel sad for each other, but instead put in a last ditch effort to create something special and meaningful...I can really feel it...All their efforts and hardwork all going to the hands of mediacorp. But alas, all good things had to come to an end, and using an analogy, it's like graduating from your beloved school, and leaving all your mates behind...Seriously, mediacorp can never beat them, so they decided to take over them...here are the tell tale signs...

1. Channel U was the 1st channel to use dialect, Mediacorp copied them

2. Channel U's variety show was a success, POM PI PI, Media corp again tried to come up with similar things...Remember the petrol station game n the recent chinese language game??

3. Channel U came up with a terrorist show, Channel 8 came up with 1 soon after...

4. Channel U was the 1st channel that come up with the charity show that gives no prizes...

5. Even the documentaries are better, with the exception of "jiao Dian " from channel 8

Channel U DARE to be different and that's what differentiates it from the monotonous 8...However all good things had to come to an end...Hope the creative and the adventurous spirits remains and most importantly, the camaderie...