Anderson JC Class Photo Kiss

Plucked this photo from I.Z. Reloaded. We just took our class photo last week. I told some of my classmates about this photo but they don’t believe. Nah, look at this pix. Now do you believe?

Anyway, some background to this photo, also from I.Z.’s blog:

The photo is not from a school in Japan but Singapore’s very own Anderson Junior College! It was taken in 2004 and it even made the local news back then. I found the following story by The New Paper on a forum. From talkgeek2me.com forums:

In a rash moment, these two girls from Anderson Junior College (AJC) locked lips for the camera - all for a wacky class photo.
They pulled off the joke under the noses of their form tutor and their classmates, when posing for an informal memento at the annual photo-taking session.

Now, the former Year One Science students say they did not mean it and are sorry for what they did.
However, it has caused unnecessary embarrassment to the college, their tutor and their parents…
AJC’s principal of five years, Mr Tan Tiek Kwee, told The Y Scene that the photo of the kiss was not a result of some fancy digital trick, as some suspected at first.
It was just a result of a ’silly prank’, he said.

The ‘fun’ pose, captured by a photographer from AJC’s Photographic Society, was for the class to keep.
As the photographer said ‘One, two, three’, the girls kissed on the count of three.

Woman = Problems?

I found this in one of my fren’s pix in Friendster while surfing around a few days back. Kinda funny I guess. But is it true?

If only we learn this kinda Mathematical equations in class….maths will be so much simpler…..

My Newspaper Article

The pix above is a write-up of my classmate, Murphy that appeared on The Straits Times last Friday, 20th July 2007. It’s my first write-up/article that see the light of publication here in Singapore…

Really didn’t expect this chance at all here. It was quite a lucky thing because my orientation group mate, Ronald asked my help on writing a write-up on one of our school’s athletes. Apparently Ronald’s brother works for The Straits Times and they need some student contributions. I only knew about this on Tuesday night. Wrote the article on Wednesday night and emailed them on Thursday morning and by Thursday afternoon I know it’s up for publication the very next day!

Hopefully this will be the start of a few other newspaper publications of mine that will appear in the future. Perhaps I can start writing to the Letter pages on newspapers….

RoomsDB.net rOcks On!

My dear friends,

One fine day, say if you decide to suddenly take the plunge down to Singapore to further your education (like me :)), what are the things that will make you spend time to worry on?

Choosing an educational institution like colleges, universities or polytechnics? Certainly. But what other things that you will have to factor in before relocating, the very thing that you have taken for granted all these years?

Is it a room and a bed to sleep in at the end of the day? Most definitely. But coming to a foreign location where you don’t even have much information on [tag]room rentals[/tag], how do you expect to get a value-for-money deal?

Or in other scenarios, if you are a local Singaporean/PR/foreign student/foreign worker looking for a new place to stay, at a bargain price by cutting out the middleman aka agents, where’s the best place to find good deals?

*jingles*

Introducing roomsDB.net - rent a room in Singapore

Whether you are hunting for a master room, a common room, a big [tag]condo[/tag] or a [tag]HDB[/tag] apartment, you can find it all at this website. [tag]RoomsDB[/tag] provides free listing for room rentals in an easy manner. It’s so simple to use, any primary school student can navigate this site.

Clicking on the Read Offers button brings me to this page where there is a whole long list of rooms listing. And what’s even cooler is that when I hover my mouse on a particular listing, all the important particulars will come out without me needing to do any clicking.

I find this feature extremely useful and saved me a lot of time. Great rite?

Ok, what if I’m totally clueless about the market price of rooms in Singapore? Well, well, well. Our good webmaster/founder Sebastian had came out with this new average price feature where if I hover my mouse on the price tag, it’ll show me the average prices of similar rooms that had been posted on the website. At least with this feature I have a better safety net of not being conned into an expensive room rental agreement.

Now, for those who want to rent out their property, roomsDB also allows you a simple and easy way to list your property without any registration. Just click on the Post Offer button and you will be instantaneously transferred to a form where you’ll just have to fill in the particulars of the room that you want to rent out. It’s that easy and the best part is everything is complete FREE OF CHARGE!

I like roomsDB. Sebastian, being a foreign student like me really knows what foreign students really need. Well, currently I’m still staying in a hostel, but once I’m done with hostel in a year’s time, I might need a room to stay here and roomsDB will be my #1 resource/research place.

Sebastian is great. He has the brains to realise that there is a huge demand for a user-friendly rooms rental portal and he has the guts and marketing technique to go all out to succeed. How I wish I can come out with some big idea like his and implement it…..

And he seems to be doing great. His site now lists Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong as microsites. And news is out that in a short time, Malaysia’s own version will be coming out soon too!

Sunday Come, Sunday Go

If you read my previous post, I wrote about all my grandiose plans on all my studies that I’m so gonna catch up today.

But those plans just simply remained as plans. I did not accomplish any of them today. I have another few more hours for today to make amends, and that so I believe is to at least finish reading the Spectator magazine that I borrowed from school library. It’s due tomorrow.

I have read half the magazine and it’s really insightful on the [tag]Just War[/tag] theory. It explains to me the proportionality measurement that works as a measuring tool to determine whether a war is justifiable or not.

There are two main parts of the theory. First, it states that if the possible harm created from the war is more than the possible good which will result, then the war is not justifiable. Secondly, it also states that if the collateral damage it creates from an attach on the opponent is more than the military value of the target, then it is also not justifiable.

Most countries subscribe to the Just War theory in determining whether or not a war should be waged or not.

But this theory of measurement has several drawbacks. First, how do you give a measurement of proportionality on losses substantiated from the warring parties i.e. own and enemy? Secondly, it is also hard to determine the possible harm because there are many damages that are unintentional.

****

Anyway, that’s some short snipped on the Just War theory…Cool stuff….

Well, if you are wondering what happened today that made me abandoned all my grandiose plans, here’s the reason. I went out with my aunt and family who came down to Singapore.

They took a one month break from China and are now spending a few days in JB.

I met them at Queensway Shopping Centre and we had lunch there. Then we made our way to the Haw Par Villa….What’s that? More update + pixs in the next post…. =)

My Sunday…

It’s already nearing midnight as I type this, and it means it’s gonna be Sunday soon. And before long it’s gonna be Monday and that means schools starting again! Argh! I need a longer break to catch up on my work.

I’ve got a whole long list of work to be done….Let me list them down here based on the work that must really be done and those that I want to do….

Must Do List

1 – Do tutorials
a) Maths - Transformation (2nd Part)
b) Maths – Integration
c) Physic – Waves
d) Chemistry – Chemical Bonding II
e) Chemistry – Ionic Equilibrium (First Part)

2 – Understand lecture notes
a) Maths – Integration
b) Chemistry – Chemical Bonding II
c) Chemistry – Ionic Equilibrium
d) Physics – Gravitational Field

3 – Review previous tutorials
a) Maths – Curve Sketching
b) Chemistry – Chemical Bonding II

4 – REVIEW EXAM PAPERS (IMPORTANT)
*It’s been more than 1 week but I still have not looked at my mistakes!*    

Want To Do List

1 – Finish reading the book - Good to Great by Jim Collins
2 – Start collecting statistics, words of wisdoms and vocabulary for GP essay
3 – Finish reading 3 magazines that I have – The Spectator (borrowed from school library), .Net magazine - some computer techie magazine (borrowed from national library) and my new edition of Time magazine
4 – Finish up the PHP tutorial book that I borrowed from national library and master the PHP language
5 – Practise Economics essay

****

Haiz….Saturday is over and it’s gone for me. Morning had been spent building the float while the evening till night I went for Singapore’s National Day Parade (NDP) rehearsal at Marina Bay.

Before I go catch up on my beauty sleep, here’s an overview on my next few posts in the next few days.

1 – My experience at the NDP rehearsal
2 – My latest newspaper article! Yes, one of my writings appeared in The Straits Times on Friday….
3 – Review on Roomsdb.net courtesy of Advertlets.com
4 – Most like some update on my Class Birthday – It’s class 23/07 and the class birthday is this Monday..Lol….

I have a long list of work to be done tomorrow. I better go Zzzzzz now….I miss the time when I can get 8 hours of wonder sleep everyday….

Update on My Past Busy Week

This is an unusually long update from my previous post. As I checked on my previous post, it is dated 9th July while today is the 20th July. A good 11 days has passed by since my last day. Really sorry for the long delay.

I had been extremely busy in school (aka junior college) lately. I’m in a rush to complete my float for submission on August 4th. Ok, if you are wondering what that is, here’s a pix of the half completed float.

It’s basically some competition a group of friends and I signed up for early this year for SPARKS carnival this August 4th at NTU. The theme of the float is FuzAsia - ie Fusion Asia. And as you can see from the pix, we have the Petronas Twin Towers. The other structures are the Great Wall of China - on the ground, the Globe at the background representing Asia in a globalised world while the building on the middle and left is the half-completed Taj Mahal and Burj al-Arab.

We have less than 3 weeks to go and we have to complete the float, prepare a performance complete with music and costumes.

Long busy week….And FYI, for this week, I’ve not reached hostel early at all. The earliest I’ve reached hostel is during study time at 8.30pm while on one of the days I came back as late as 10.20pm. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve not been able to update my blog. Too busy in school, finishing urgent homework then hitting the bed straight after that.

I have been struggling to complete all my tutorials (aka homework)….There’s just simply many to do….And things that I learn are really getting harder by the day.

I’ve been so busy that up till now I still have not even had the time to review my exam papers. It’s all stacked up on my table waiting for me to find some time to look at my mistakes.

Anyway, if you are wondering how I fared for my exams? I would just describe it as not too good, nor too bad; just average.

Here’s the breakdown:

General Paper – 67% B
Physics H2 – 59% C
Chemistry H2 – 56% C
Mathematics H2 – 59% C
Economics H2 – 53% D

I did not fail any subjects. That’s one good thing to shout about. But I did not get any As either. And my core subjects – Physics, Chem, Maths brought me a C….

Still a long way to chasing the elusive A……

“Good to Great” by Jim Collins

This book is my current reading material - Good to Great by Jim Collins. I bought it from a second-hand bookstore at Bras Basah for S$18.

I’m less than halfway through the book but I find it exceptionally insightful reading it. Anyway, if you are wondering what kind of book this is, it’s a business-management-leadership book. Basically it speaks about the qualities that cause the companies to transform from being good to great.

“Good is the enemy of Great”

That’s the first sentence of the book; a statement with maximum impact.

So far by reading the book I learned a few things that make me question myself.

1 – Good is never enough. I look back at myself and I’d realised that for a very long time I’ve settled for just being good. What must I do to transform myself to be great? Have I settled for the mediocrity notion?
2 – Disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action. Am I a person with discipline in my thoughts and actions?
3 – Humility + Will = Level 5 Leadership – Humility. My parents always advised me to be humble, but up till this point I find it extremely hard to practise that. How?
4 – Good-to-great leaders don’t talk about themselves and are not I-centric - How? What is my real purpose in life? What am I really gunning for? I’m a big talker and one secret desire that I always have is to desire to brag. This correlates with number 3.
5 – “Good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes” – These Level 5 leaders don’t chase stardom. What am I up to? I always tell people do something for the right reasons. But am I practising what I preach?

I’d just realised, I’m very far away from being a Level 5 leader. What constitutes a Level 5 Leader? Level 5 leaders “build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”

Not being self-centred and being humble. Perhaps I gotta learn more through AJ’s servant leadership programme. And put into practise for real. Coz it won’t hurt being humble.