Posted by Bobby Ong on Mar 2, 2008 in
Diary How shall I start? By saying Hello again?
This is another update after nearly 3 weeks. I feel so bad for not updating here. But I’ve got no choice. I’m very busy. Really really sibuk.
The teaching pace is extremely fast. Just as I finish doing one tutorial, the next tutorial will come in. And then the next tutorial will come in again. Sometimes, I’m 2 tutorials behind the current lecture. I’m lagging behind in my homeworks already. Really trying my best to complete things before teacher goes through them in classes. But whenever I’m done with one work, another one will come in immediately. It’s been like that for such a long time that I can’t remember the time when I can laze around one weekend knowing fully well that I’ve completed every homework that I have.
If tutorials are not enough, teachers are also piling us with revision questions. I’ve many revision worksheets on JC1 stuff, but because they are not collected nor discussed, I chose to procrastinate them to a later date. It’s the last week of the term. I’m getting a 1 week breather from school. Phew. Time to catch up on all my homework. And I pray really hard that teachers don’t add to my workload, though that seems like a far-fetched dream.
The last few weeks had been filled with tests also. We had our Econs, Maths and GP tests already. Chemistry test is on this Wednesday and luckily Physics is after the holidays.
Well, it’s not always this case for me in Singapore. When I was in JC1 things are also quite taxing but at least it’s more manageable. I don’t stay back in school that late nor do I stay back that often. These days I go to school before the sun rises and I reach home when the sun had set. It’s dark when I get to school and also dark when I get back.
To see the sun when I get back is a huge privilege these days.
There isn’t much time for me to do anything when I leave school so late (around 7 plus). By the time I reach home, it’s already 8plus. Factor in dinner and bathing time and it’s nearly 9 already. That leaves me with at most 2 hours plus to finish up whatever work that I have.
To sum it up in a few words. I’VE GOT NOT ENOUGH TIME! Well, what can I say? I’ve got no choice except to endure….Everyone’s feeling the busyness and the hecticness too. Just live with it…..Till then, see ya!
Posted by Bobby Ong on Feb 13, 2008 in
Diary It was great counting down the days leading to CNY. It was great anticipating the time CNY is about to come. But when the time comes, it just simply zooms past so quickly that I felt the time spent back in Malaysia was just a short period only.
During the CNY break, I practically traveled the whole of the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. I covered like 90% of the North-South highway? I came from Singapore, travelled all the way north to KL to get home. Slept one night in Puchong before spending the eve of CNY at my dad’s place in Seremban. Spent 1st day of CNY in Seremban before coming back to Puchong to sleep. At 4 am, Dad travelled north all the way to Penang to get to Mom’s place. Again, spent another night in Penang before we head home for Puchong the following night at 9pm. Slept at Puchong again before I head down south to Singapore the following afternoon.
So I was like travelling from South to Central to North to Central and to the South again during the few days CNY break.
Crazy? But it’s enjoyable. Lots of travelling, but kinda tiring for the person who did all the driving - Dad….
Anyway, it’s back to HecticLand once again - Singapore…..My blog posting will be less and less frequent from now on. And my guess is there will be lesser pixs…Not much time to do all the necessary editing (resizing etc) to put pixs up here. This is A-level year. Gotta study hard. No choice…Lots of homework…Lots of things to study….
Anyway, just to brighten up the blog post, I decided that I’ll put up a pix here….I was playing through Photoshop a few days back to kill off some boredom and edited one of my pixs. Just to put it up here. Am thinking of using this pix for my display pix or for my future customised blog template design….
Posted by Bobby Ong on Feb 3, 2008 in
Diary I think this will be the earliest blog post wishing everyone a very very happy chinese new year. I’m just plain excited even though it’s still a good 3++ days to go. I’m going home, going home, going home. To visit relatives living outstation, meeting with overseas aunts, uncles and cousins. The thought of eating scrumptious cookies and cny delicacies…..the prospect of getting ang paos…..
Ah….i just love chinese new year like crazy even after 18 years of existence here….the spirit has not died off yet. i’m leaving singapore on tuesday night, and only coming back on sunday afternoon. not a very long break, but at least it’s better than last year…..
anyway, shall stop here now. gong xi fa cai to all my readers here! may the year of the rat bring you good health, success and lots of prosperity!!!
Posted by Bobby Ong on Jan 29, 2008 in
Diary Because of the hectic schedule that I have down here in Singapore, I didn’t realise how fast one week has just zoomed past. Without much realisation, I just noticed that my last update on this blog was last Tuesday.
1 week per update. That’s quite bad right? Not that I have a lot of time now to update my blog, but suddenly felt guilty of not updating my blog. And looking at how my plans for the next few days will be, I know very well that if I don’t write some stuff here today, it’s gonna be another 1 week (or Sunday) before I blog here again.
Life’s been hectic. Saturday was a very very fun day. Do not have any time to laze around and be with myself, but the camaraderie and activities that I have the whole day is really fun and worth every single minute of it. OK, at least not the school stuff in the morning but the hostel’s activities in the afternoon and at night was uber fun.
Saturday morning, I was in school to attend a Values Workshop. The school revised its values and we as student leaders are getting a preview of the new values. Well at least the 5 new values that the school places makes a lot more sense and meaning to the students. It’s pragmatic with just 5 words, making it so-not onerous to remember them like the old values.
It’s so easy to remember, we even created an acronym for it. I Can Learn School Song. Integrity, Commitment, Learning, Social Conscience, Synergy.
Anyway, in the afternoon, my hostel had Orientation Games. I’m the House Captain for the Green House and it was indeed great leading a house of 70 people playing games, doing cheers and most excitingly smashing water bombs! This is so different from school’s orientation. We could smash water bombs at our Assistant House Masters, House Masters, and some even bold ones threw water bombs at the Executive Director.
We didn’t win the Best House for Orientation Games but nevertheless I enjoyed myself tremendously being the House Captain. I feel like I have so much freedom doing the things that I like with the house. And more importantly having the budget to implement it. We might be having some other Movie Outings soon. Soon after Chinese New Year…..Oh btw I’m going back soon! So happy!
Anyway, kinda length here….I’m gonna try obtain some photos for the Orientation Games and I’ll update with some other pictures on my handphone that I have taken recently….When’s my next update gonna be? This Sunday? Hopefully….coz if it’s not it might just be after CNY alr!
Posted by Bobby Ong on Jan 22, 2008 in
Diary How shall I start? By saying sorry? Or by saying that I’m back at last?
It’s been a loooong while since I last updated my blog. The last update as you can see was when I was so excited that I’m leaving Singapore for
my 2 weeks break in mid-December. And now, one month down the road, in mid-January, here I am writing my next post. What happened in the one month hiatus from blogging that I self-declared?
The reason I did not blog was because I was busy. OK. Maybe while in KL in December I wasn’t too busy but was just too lazy. But the fact remains that the moment I set foot in Singapore-land again, I was just too occupied with school work that I hardly had time to post an entry here.
Here’s the chain of events that I went through:
14 Nov – 27 Dec: Back in KL
28 Dec: In school for Orientation Group Leaders Workshop
29-30 Dec: Had some outing with friends
31 Dec: Was in school preparing for Orientation & New Year celebration
2-4 Jan: Orientation in School for JC1s
5 Jan: Clean-up
5-6 Jan: Finish schoolwork
7-12 Jan: 2nd week of school
13-14 Jan: Catch up time after missing 1st week of school
15-19 Jan: 3rd week of school (Stayed back every single day after school)
Doesn’t seem that bad right? The schedule does not depict reality. That is because I have a lot of other commitments that is hard to put into a concise schedule. This is especially so when I’m a Student Councillor in school.
Well, I’m involved in the planning of the upcoming SC Elections and Paradigma, some high-level forum where ministers are invited to speak. Both are long running Ad-Hocs that will keep me occupied all the way till the end of July!
People always ask me how’s life in Singapore. I would only have one word to tell them. HECTIC. Now I’m sure by now you would believe me right?
Posted by Bobby Ong on Dec 14, 2007 in
Diary It’s the last day I’m reporting in Data Storage Institute for my year end research. It’s been a fruitful? month….Or so I chose to take it. Learned some new stuff especially coding in C++. I still have lots to learn in C++ but I’ve got the basics right.
Tomorrow morning I’ll take my First Coach bus back to Bangsar. I’m so HAPPY that my holidays is finally starting. Finally I can watch Astro again…..EPL, StarWorld…..ahhh…can’t wait for tv…lol
Posted by Bobby Ong on Dec 10, 2007 in
Diary,
Education,
Others I’ve noticed lately that I received quite a number of incoming links from search engines regarding the keywords, Asean, [tag]Asean scholarships[/tag], [tag]Oldham Hall[/tag], Victoria JC etc…..hmmmm….I wonder why….I guess it’s because the new batch of Asean scholars are coming soon to Singapore. If I’m not wrong the new 2008 Malaysians Asean scholars will be coming in on 18th December 2007? Haha….just like me last year, no time to enjoy after SPM…Only 2 weeks at most.
Anyway, when the scholarship letter arrives, it doesn’t state which hostel one is posted to. It simply mentions the hostel name and asks one to report there at so and so date and time. I was Googling around last year also to find out which college I had been posted to. I ended up doing a search at streetdirectory.com to look for colleges near my hostel.
Just to make things simpler, here’s a list of hostels and the JCs one will be posted to.
Oldham Hall – [tag]Anderson JC[/tag]
Victoria Hall – Victoria JC
Raffles Boarding – Raffles JC
Hwa Chong Boarding – National JC
NUS High School Residence – Anglo Chinese JC
Dunman High Boarding – Temasek JC
McNair Lodge – Saint Andrews JC
So which is the best hostel? Can’t really say much. But let me talk from my 1 year experience.
Just in case you are wondering, I’m staying in Oldham Hall, and goes to Anderson JC. I’m a direct scholar, meaning I came to Singapore only during JC level. I’ve just completed JC1 and will be in JC2 next year.
From experience and hearsay from other scholars, it seems like Oldham Hall is the best (ok dun kill me, I shall change to one of the best) place to live in. It has all the facilities one can dream of, except a running track (Near town la, no land!). It has air-cond in rooms (I’m surprised too when I first came last year, lol!), gym, indoor basketball courts, swimming pool, futsal court, music room, laundry service (free & unlimited number of clothes!).
The only drawback is it’s kinda expensive to stay in Oldham Hall and Anderson JC is a little far from hostel (35-45 minutes travelling time via public transport). We gotta pay around S$10 per month for aircond, S$1 per hour for internet and gym membership (not compulsory) is S$40 per year. Next year there will be wireless access but it’s not free. There’s some special plan from some private company and the price range from S$5 to S$22 depending on speed. And also since school is far from hostel, we have a chartered bus in the mornings which charges us around S$15 per month. It’s simpler and faster this way.
I don’t think I wanna babble much here about my hostel. I guess many of you are also hunting for information on which is the best JC in Singapore right?
Well, the Government has stopped releasing the rankings a few years back. But one can basically gauge the rankings of the schools from the cut-off points required by Singapore O-level students to enter these colleges.
This is an unofficial list but based on historical data and cut-off points the [tag]rankings[/tag] are somewhere like this.
1. Raffles JC
2. Hwa Chong JC
3. Victoria JC
4. National JC
5. Temasek JC
These are basically the Top 5 JCs in Singapore. I prefer to call them the Tier 1 JCs.
6. Anderson JC
7. Saint Andrews JC
8. Anglo-Chinese JC
The above 3 JCs I would prefer to call the Tier 2 JCs. Now don’t come killing me saying AC is better than SA or better than AJ. This is an unofficial list and the schools shuffle among themselves for better rankings every year.
From experience, the MOE usually places new direct Malaysian scholars in the above JCs. The only exception is Hwa Chong JC. I have no idea why direct scholars don’t go there….
Posted by Bobby Ong on Dec 10, 2007 in
Diary I’m coming home! Yes! The time that I had been waiting for….for such a loooooooong time….4 more days to go in my research institute here in DSI and I’m done! Wednesday and Friday will be presentation day. After that Saturday morning will be my departure date! I’m so happy, i’m so happy, i’m so happy…..
lol…i’ve never been this eager to get back home before this….dunno why now so so so eager….perhaps coz it’s holidays and it’s damn bored whenever i’m in hostel…coz most ppl went home alr….
but the sad thing is my holidays only less than 2 weeks….gotta get back to singapore on 27dec….got OGL workshop….but nevermind….1 1/2 week can do a lot a lot of things….gonna catch up wit all my friends….gotta go jalan-jalan in sucky buses again….hahaha….4 more days! yea! hahaha
