The Lotus That Blossomed...

Finally, after much anticipation, I present my secondary school life, which I will for once, feature in a 2-part special due to the enormous amount of experiences, both good and bad, that I wish to record down. After getting my PSLE result of 242(which I was extremely disappointed with cos it couldn't land me in any SAP school), I decided to go to a neighbourhood school to continue my secondary education for my convenience and as a result I chose Ang Mo Kio Secondary due to the close proximity to my home. It turned out that my results were considered to be among the top few in school and therefore was allocated to class 1A. The strange thing, or should I say sad, was that it was an ALL BOYS class! I have no inkling at all why the school decided to do that but I believe it was for our own good.

Due to the nature of our class, it is little wonder what the teachers were experiencing...almost all the teachers complained about our class as being the "noisiest and least attentive". We always liked to think of ways to outsmart the teacher and embarass them. I still remember one particular incident when I somehow managed to prove a mathematical theory about logarithm right when my teacher claimed that it cannot be possible. Seems like she must have vomitted blood and swallowed it back then. Furthermore, most of the boys disliked homework and we would copy from each other during break time. As a result, we would often get lectured for our misdeeds, in particular from our science teacher, Mrs Tan. She would even spend 2 entire periods of practical to scold us! But, I am very grateful for that because without her, most of us would had become more rebellious.

In class, I would always be with this guy, which I once considered to be a friend. It turned out I was seriously being made use of all the time by him, to the extent that I was being pushed around by him. In the end, it almost broke up into a fight in the claasroom during break time between the two of us. As he was taller and bigger in size compared to me, I was bound to lose. However, a classmate came to my rescue. He was apparently disastified at how the guy was treating me and pushed the guy until the guy landed on all fours and lying on the floor stunned. I would like to say thanks to you, Dongliang, for helping me out. Well, at least I found out what kinda of person the guy really was before I was manipulated.

Back then in my secondary school days, there would be this card game which was extremely popular among guys called MAGIC. I would spend the majority of my pocket money to purchase new cards and strengthen my deck, all for the sake of the ecstacy of winning! For a period of time, I was considered so strong that I could take on two people at the same time with my "ultimate" deck of cards and win! I figured I must have spend a fortune on it cos I remembered I didn't even had enough money for canteen break sometimes!

Unlike the majority of the guys in my school who chose NCC or NPCC as their ECA, I chose a "super-cold" ECA in my school: SCOUTS. But, I did not regret one bit for joining cos it trained me up both physically and mentally into the guy I am today. The primary reason why I chose Scouts was because I thought to myself that NCC was always doing physical training all day, NPCC doing marching drills all day and choir practicing their instruments all day. I wanted something where I could acquire a variety of skills without being bored of the monotony. SCOUTS was what I was looking for. Like other ECAs, there was physical training and marching drills, which pushed my physical limits. Pioneering was something SCOUTS was the expert at. Basically, pioneering was the skill of making structures using wooden poles. We would use long wooden poles to build makeshift platforms and flying foxes. I really enjoyed the days of comradeship and bonding between all the guys, even though there weren't many inside. We were all very outdoors as well and went hiking occasionally at reservoirs or forests. That really perked my interest in Mother Nature and outdoor living, which I felt was seriously lacking in other ECAs. Best of all, it trained my leadership ability and made me a more responsible person. I represented my school to particpate in a Leadership Training Camp for SCOUTS during my Sec 2 holidays where I got to take charge of a team of Primary Six scout cubs for a week outdoors. During the training period, I was also elected to be the leader for the whole team of trainees of around fifty something people. In the end, I was even assessed to be the 3rd in terms of my result, out of 300 plus peole in the training camp! But, the best part was staying in tents with the Primary Six kids and living with them. The first few nights were terrible as I had to comfort most of them to sleep. I even remember a particular incident when I was supposed to safeguard a kid when sliding down the Flying Fox and he was so scared that he peed all the way down from the top of the structure while uttering some foul language, and the worst was there were people below. I think they believed it was raining slightly that morning. All in all, the experience made a more complete person in me and made me feel confident of myself. Due to the lack of manpower, the road to higher leadership for me was obvious and I was selected to be the Patrol Leader for a team during my upper secondary school days.

Frankly speaking, I never really studied and only mugged for exams last minute and still managed to squeeze out a decent result to pass. During the Sec 2 screening exams, I made the right choice as I was aware of my own capabilities and landed myself in the Pure Sciences Stream fortunately. In the second part, I will continue to relate my life in upper secondary school days and look forward to hearing about the camp during my Sec 3 holidays that really made me question the very existence of life and changed my perspective!