3NGLES

3ANGLES, pronounced ‘triangles’. 3 New Genera of Loquacious English Speakers. A collaboration between Singapore Chinese Girls’ School, Nanyang Girls’ High School and Hwa Chong Institution. This is an oratorical competition for lower secondary students. And why ‘3′ new genera? Because of the 3 years of ANGLES. This competition was held on the 25th of April 2007 in the Hwa Chong Institution high school auditorium. I had signed up to be a member of the audience in the SMB message posted by Mr. Kevin Cheng.

So, right after the ICAS for Science from 1.00 pm to 2.00 pm, I proceeded to the library to while away the 15 minutes of spare time. I didn’t feel like going alone, so I asked Aaron and Chern Yuen to go with me. Chern Yuen has got math quiz training, so he can’t go. Aaron agreed to go because this can be used as an excuse to skip badminton training for him, and there’s always the added benefits of ACE points.

We were surprised to find our classmate, Mr. Ho Lit Xian to be standing at the entrance of the auditorium giving out the programme list for the day. He had signed up to be a trainer for ANGLES 2007 and was told to help out today. Anyway, Aaron and I each took a leaflet and entered the auditorium and settled down in front of a group of Secondary 1 students. By sitting there, we had planted the seed for a session of disturbance by young voices chattering away.

The MCs were two ladies each from NYGH and SCGS and a gentleman from HCI. Basically, there was equal representation of the three co-organisers of this event. In my opinion, the MCs were good at creating atmosphere, but they could improve on the aspect of using different words to refer to the same thing. For instance, instead of telling the audience that “the competition is really tight”, they could use “steep” or “fierce” competition. This would reduce the monotony of the event as a whole and make the audience more interested in listening. In addition, they could be more firm at not expense to politeness and formality while requesting silence from the audience. After all, its the audience who are showing disrespect by not according the speakers the due respect.

The participants were mostly petite and small, although there were a few exceptions that may even or equal my size. However, judging from the state of the voices of the male participants, they were likely Secondary Ones. The young age at which the participants were able to muster the courage to speak in front of such a large audience impressed me. Yes, there were many shaking hands on exhibition, but the speakers generally managed to deliver their speech with not much trouble from nervousness. Granted, there were a few instances of freezing in mid-sentence and hesitation to speak, but these were not experienced speakers calloused by their many experiences; These were students who may have been speaking to such an audience for the first time! And the key to effective presentation is not eliminating the nervousness and fear, it is to disregard it to such an extend that it is not noticeable by others. They did not succeed totally, but it is good for an inexperienced speaker.

Like what the MCs said, the competition was really steep. But I was instantly drawn to Speaker Group 2 by their rock solid argument on whether non-conformists are attention seekers. They were the opposition. They said that Galileo wasn’t an attention seeker just because he did not conform to the mainstream scientific principals of his day. He was one of the first to propose that Earth orbited the sun. There was nothing really special about their initial presentation. But when their opponents said that people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rose Park were attention seekers because they “want their ideas to be known by many people”. Speakers from Group 2 immediately fired back that they were not attention seekers because what they sought was publicity of their ideals. And yes, they were non-conformists by standing up against the racial discrimination of the blacks by the whites. In my opinion, that was extremely true. The anti-racist activists were indeed seeking attention, but not to themselves. Instead, to their ideals. When we say someone is an attention seeker, we are saying that they want attention for themselves. Seeking attention to ideas they advocate do not cause the person to qualify as an attention-seeker. Therefore, Martin Luther King Jr. and Rose Park are not attention seekers because of their non-conformism. However, we cannot say beyond reasonable doubt that they are not attention seekers because they may be just that. What we have just proven is that they, while definitely non-conformists, may not be attention seekers. The speakers masterfully turned their opponent’s point to their benefit. The fact that they successfully brought their argument back to their initial argument only adds to the beauty of the glorious fight they put up. Their condemning of their opponent’s main point effectively broke the backbone of the opponent’s argument. Most expectedly, Defending Group 2 were not appreciated much by the judges.

One thing I appreciate very much is the addition of performances by ladies from NYGH and SCGS. A two hour session sitting in auditorium can take quite a toll on one’s attention span. It was a truly enjoyable performance, regardless of what many gentlemen from HCI thought and expressed with loud huffs. The SCGS girls presented a mime performance that incorporated aspects from both dance and drama. On the other hand, the story-telling by Nanyang Girls High was stale entertainment presented in a not so stale way. There was actually an exhibition of the performer’s vocal prowess when she effortlessly struck some very high chords without breaking, although there were no sustaining that extreme of the vocal range for long periods of time. Bravo, ladies!

Spectacular debates, eye-opening performances. Wasn’t it an enjoyable session? Well, rather but not exactly. Thanks to the noise that originated from the group of unruly Secondary One students behind me. It was bad enough that they chatted through the whole session. But what made it unbearable for me was the fact that the contents of their conversation were immature, rude and irrelevant topics such as the physique of the speakers and the voice of some of the male speakers. When one rather big-sized SCGS speaker walked up the stage, the bunch of irritating members of the floor started to mime thumping sounds of impact. Then they commented loudly about the name of one of the contestants. Loud as in shouting it out loud so that everyone within the confines of the auditorium can hear it.

As I had mentioned above, the voices of some of the male speakers had yet to break and were rather high-pitched. As instances of these young gentlemen stood up there on the stage in front of a few hundred strong audience and spoke, I hear lengthy speeches being made about the high-pitched voices of the speaker. Whats worse, the very person who said that the unbroken voices are “gay” was squeaking in a mouse-like manner. How masculine indeed… How bad can they get? Come on guys, voices do not dictate whether you are manly. It is what you do that counts. For one, a person disrespecting another person can hardly be considered manly. You are just a gossiping housewife.

Once, I had to turn around and request politely for silence from the Secondary Ones. And what did they do in reply? They asked me “You Sec what?” in a hooligan-like manner. This is possibly the result of excessive glorification of Mafia or other secret societies’ members in mass media. One of the rowdy boys (I refuse to give him the privilege of being addressed as ‘gentleman’) even resorted to pulling on my shirt roughly. I had to restrain myself from retaliating by causing him severe bodily harm. It would not reflect well on me as a person and do both parties not good if I behaved in the same manner as him, I told myself. Forgive and forget… (Incidentally, this turned out to be one of the debate topics later on in the competition)

Now, my dear juniors involved. If you are reading this post, which I doubt you are, I appeal to you to reflect on your behaviour at the session and change for the better. For others that do not behave like these young persons, it would be good to take this as an example of something to never do. I think our teachers who have took so much trouble to speak to us during PCME lessons have to include function etiquette (including but not limited to seminars, talks, concerts and plays). A group of would-be “Leaders in Research, Industry and Government” should not be seen behaving in such an unbecoming behaviour. Especially in the eyes of the public.

Now, after a long string of complains about the behaviour of my dear juniors. It is only fair for me to reinstate that the session would have been very enjoyable if not for the substandard audience. Kudos to the organising team and all others involved in this event for striving to do a perfect job to the best of your abilities. The audience was outside the control of the organisers. Thus, they were not to be blamed for the discomfort the noisy persons caused me.

Kompang Perfomance at West Spring Secondary School

Friday 20th April 2007. The day we had trained for. We have trained for 8 sessions for this event. And our task were to accompany the guest-of-honour from the school entrance to the lift which will bring them upstairs to the hall. What an anti-climax.

Mr Joseph Sim bought sets of ‘baju kurung’ for all of us. White in colour with golden stripes. Looked like pyjamas to me, though… Anyway, we were supposed to iron it in the boarding school yesterday night and bring it today. But seems like I am the only one to have done it. All the others’ clothes resembled newspaper that have been used to wrap vegetables. The teacher in charge of the kompang CCA in West Spring Secondary School was quite displeased and told them to go to some room with many household appliances to iron their clothes (I think the room is for some “home-econs” or some other kind of lesson according the the West Spring people. We ended up with a lot of accesories. There was this hat made out of velvet called the Songkok and this tube of cloth called the Samping. The Samping was supposed to be worn around the waist, over the pants. Rather cumbersome, I would say, considering the fact that mine fell out around three times…

At around 2.45, we were led downstairs from the dance studio to the school entrance. The time has come. We got into position without much trouble and executed the drill we have been through so many times without much problems. According to the feedback we got from the teacher-in-charge after the perfomance, we were quite good… At least for beginners. We finished what we had to do at about 3.40 or someplace around there. From now on, it was time for us to wait. We were hesitant to go back because we weren’t sure what to do with the baju kurung that had to be returned to the school.

We were at last told to pass it to Mr. Louis Lim and we were free to go. Nicholas a.k.a Ammonia, Lit Xian and I went back together on a taxi. Nicholas and I went for dinner at Coronation Plaza. We reached the boarding school at around 5.10 and I saw Theron, Xue Zheng and Foong Wai in the office. We chatted while waiting there for dinner to be served. A pleasant surprise was when we were treated to fruits by the boarding staff. It was dragon fruit, something that has looked dubious as a food for me since long ago. In the end, I did not touch it.

I was having dinner afterwards when Mr. Louis Lim walked in to the dining hall. I waved and said ‘Hi’ to him. He was holding on to the bag of baju kurungs that Lit Xian had just gave him. he gestured to me and asked me whether I knew how to operate a washing machine. I said yes. So he wanted me to help him wash the baju kurungs. I agreed reluctantly. But I agreed to help him “make sure they are washed and clean”. Then when I was starting to grab hold of the bag, he suddenly asked me “Can I trust you?”. I decided to joke a little and replied with a smile, “Maybe…”. He looked very pissed off and straight away grabbed the bag and went off. I think that was not really neccessary… In my opinion, I made it rather clear that I was joking with the tone of the word and the smile on my face.

Maybe he was in a bad mood. Or he had some other reasons to do that. I shall learn to forgive.

StockWhiz Training at SGX and an extremely long walk after that

I have signed up for a StockWhiz training session on the EMB a few days back. And there had been a rather frustrating mix-up, but somehow my name ended up in the list of people who are going. So, thats good. Time was rather tight when I needed to rush to lunch after school on Friday, then rush back to the boarding school to deposit my bag, and then rush back to the multi-story car park in the school. All through the rain. When Xue Zheng and I arrived at the multi-story car park, it turned out that they are at the entrance to the music room block. So Xue Zheng and I decided to run through the not-very-heavy rain instead of backtracking through half the school. Ended up partially wet. Only partially wet, that is. Now, this is the best part, after waiting at the covered place for around 15 minutes, I saw Ms Siew waving to us in the multi-story car park. We were supposed to meet there after all. Since we were already wet, Xue Zheng and I decided to rush through the rain once again. This time, we were very very wet, drenched should be a better word.
After having our attendance taken, we need to once again run through the rain to the bus we were supposed to board. After three times of running through the rain, I am already dripping water. Haha. Nevertheless, we managed to get to the SGX building at Shenton Way, although we were a bit late.
Raffles Girls School, Raffles Institution and ACS(I) students were already there. So we sat down to the lecture which had already commenced a while back. It was downright boring with advise on how to manage funds and the sorts. But one thing I would like to say is that boredom is not an excuse to generate so much noise by clicking the free pen from SGX, which many members of the audience did (most of the noise came from the part of the auditorium where the ACS people were sitting, or maybe it was some other school). But that is not to say that HCI did not have its share of people who kept at clicking the pen throughout the whole session.
Two hours later, we finally made it through the mind-numbing session without falling asleep like some girls from NYGH did. Justin, Aaron and I was walking towards the Sunctec City area and found that all of the Malaysian scholars were following us. But the problem is we can’t seem to find Suntec City, so we walked through Esplanade and ended up eating at the food court at Marina Square, which serves not-so-nice food. Aaron, Justin and I were thinking about not going back so early when many people said that they need to go back. Fine. Then Justin decided to go back early too. So that left Aaron and I, which walked from Marina Square to Raffles, to Clarke Quay, to Bugis and ended up in Harbourfront. Aaron reckoned we passed many more stations but just didn’t see them. So I guess I broke my previous record of walking 5 stations with Xue Zheng. Haha. That is really a weird record to break…
So, that sums up what happened to me last Friday. Hope I will have fun in the StockWhiz inter-school challenge. Hehe.

Hwa Chong quality… A myth?

Just read an account of an unflattering issue that involved 3 secondary 4 boys from HCI. This reflects the moral quotient of the boys involved. And sad to say, I don’t think many people will oppose to my saying that it is rather low…

Hwa Chong Institution has since became a prestigious school. Both in Singapore and worldwide. We are reputed to nurture leaders strong in academics and possess a good character. After all, education is not merely teaching students knowledge from the textbook. It is the process of shaping a person, and has substantial impact on the student’s character and other aspects of a person.

To not be able to dismiss this issue as nonsense is painful. However, I would rather trust the teachers than the students allegedly involved in this. Especially because I have seen quite some instances of unbecoming behaviour among Hwa Chong students. For example, cutting-queues in the canteen is something that can be see almost everyday during recess and lunch time.

The reputation of HCI as an institution that nurtures good students hinges on the behaviour of the students. I am currently inclined towards thinking that it is just an ideal that has not been accomplished rather than an accomplished. I wish to be able to regard this incident as an isolated case, but I don’t think I can or should, just by judging the situation in the canteen everyday.

The least these 3 students can do is own up and apologise. I would be one of the many applauding you for your courage to admit the mistake. Yes, sorry is the hardest word. But not saying it is defying your conscience. You may not be forgiven, nor should you ask for it. But just do the least you can to atone for your sins.