Sunday January 24th

A special moment I enjoyed with my family

In the recent December Holidays, my family and I had a whale of a time in Genting, Malaysia. As it was our first family trip, I was on cloud nine and in anticipation of the trip. It was a blue moon occasion as my parents were often unable to afford the time and money. The trip was extremely memorable but one specific event stood out in my mind and I would like to share this personal anecdote.

On the coach bus to Genting, my parents constantly reminded me to put on my safety belt as many accidents had happened recently. Very soon the bus reached the foot of the mountain and it started climbing up the mountain. I suddenly felt nauseous and started to vomit. Luckily my brother had prepared a plastic bag for me in case I vomit. Hurriedly, he took it out and I puked into the plastic bag. Seeing all the gross remnants of my lunch, I almost to puke again. My parents took out a bottle of ointment and applied it on me they made me drink some water too. I was touched by their act of concern.

My family

On the second day of our trip, we decided to enter the Genting outdoor Theme Park for some of the thrill and family rides. The moment we stepped passed the entrance, we made a mad dash for the ‘space shot’, the signature ride that was the most prominent in the whole of the theme park. Standing at 56m, the space spot is an adrenaline pumping rapid vertical and ascent and descent ride. Falling at 65km/h or about 18m/s, the experience felt like a free fall from the clouds. My mother was the most hilarious during the ride.  We had to repeatedly coax her before she agreed to take the ride and even then, it was a sight to behold. The moment she was strapped onto the seat, she closed her eyes shut throughout the entire trip. I told her that the whole experience would not be complete without seeing she insisted that she would otherwise not have survived the ordeal. The journey upwards was a torture as I imagined myself flying out of the seat as it dropped. The ride reached the top and ‘hanged’ on for 5 sec before descending. The instance it dropped, I could feel the cold wind rushing against my cheeks and I involuntarily closed my eyes (so much for trying to be brave). The name space shot holds testament to the kind of experience I felt. I was pumped with so much epinephrine I felt like I had just taken a dose of marijuana. I would have gone for it again and again if not for the 1h long queue.

The 'Space shot'

Immediately after the ‘Space Shot’, we went for the ‘Flying kite’. As the ‘Flying kite’ picks up speed I started going higher and higher and I could feel the chilling wind blowing onto my face. My family felt the same too. I thought that I heard my mum screaming in the back ground. I didn’t know that she was afraid of something similar to a merry-go-round. I could hear my father laughing along with me.  But the moment we exited the ride, my father was not laughting anymore, turns out that he was dizzy after the ride. Despite being 'old' (my parents said so) and worned out after the rides, they still accompanied us for the rest of the day.

My dad was not in the photo as he was the one taking the photo

Only my brother seemed to be enjoying the ride

There were many other fun games and rides but due to the height restrictions, I was unable to take the Go Kart (1 new item added to my New Year’s resolutions list). My parents were tired after the a few rides but tried their best to accompany us in each of the rides. My siblings and I took many of the rides together and each experience was unique in its own way. We talked and laughed while waiting for our turns and it was a truly memorable experience. For those of you who are interested to know more about the trip, I have uploaded the images on this video clip to give you a glimpse of what happened during the trip.

The trip in malaysia

Anyway, after that unforgettable day at the theme park, we chatted with each other more and communicated with each other better. I felt that the day at the theme park was a good way to strengthen ties and bonds among us.

Tuesday January 17th

Something unusual that happened that day

It was a relief that I was punctual for school. Otherwise, I would have been spending my lovely afternoon with the discipline master, even if it was not my fault.

Yesterday after getting ready for school, I went downstairs and waited for my school bus to arrive. It was a daily routine and I expected nothing out of the ordinary. Shortly after the arrival of the school bus, I boarded it and sat at my favourite location beside the window. I turned to my activity while on the bus – looking out of the windows and admiring the serene morning scene

Just when I was deep in thought, the bus jerked a few times before slowing to a stop. The engine coughed a few times and went dead. I turned to see the bus driver getting off the bus and looking aroud, trying to identify the cause of the breakdown. Moments later, he returned on board and announced that the bus had broken down. Surprisingly, my friend was still sound asleep in this time of crisis. We proceeded down the bus single-file and were told to complete the rest of the journey in the cab. Still rather confused and in shock at what happened, I stepped out to flag a cab with the rest of my friends.

An artist impression of a bus breaking down (sorry but it was really hard to draw using a mouse)

The last time I took the cab was half a year ago when my family went to my grandparents’ home. Usually, we would not have taken a cab but we had too many things to carry home so we had no other choice.

As a cab was about to approach, another group of students got the upper hand and beat us to the cab. I decided to be a ‘kiasu’ Singaporean after what happened and rushed to flag the cab at the next opportunity presented. Very soon, we were on the way to school. The ride was smooth and we encountered no other difficulties.

On arrival in school, I realized that I did not have enough money to foot the bill. I started to conjure images of the driver blowing his top and was relieved when my friend offered to pay in advanced. I heaved a sigh of relief and was glad that I made in to class on time.

Reflecting on this incident, I feel that it was a really close call. Despite the unusual incident of my school bus breakdown, it has left behind a significant memory.

Thursday January 11th

A problem encountered and how I solve or managed it

Couldn't blog yesterday due to a problem that I encountered and that pretty much broke my blogging streak. Yesterday, after getting a hot bowl of soup from the noodle stall, I carefully made my way towards where my classmates were, finding a seat to sit right next to them.

Despite holding a piping hot bowl of soup, all the students who were in the rush to buy food just walked past me swiftly, giving me no space or chance to make my way out of the crowd. One of them nearly bumped into me but luckily I avoided him it was a close call for me at that time, but a few seconds later, I could not avoid the unavoidable and my right hand was knocked by a coming student. The soup in my bowl swayed vigorously as I tried to keep it from splashing onto my hands. I failed to keep things under control and watched in dismay as the piping hot solution splashed on my right hand. I jerked back in pain, dropping the bowl onto my leg. I couldn't dodge the soup and my leg got scalded. (if you have be wondering what happened to my leg, this was what happened)

So that was the problem that I encountered. However, I managed to solve it with the help of many caring people. After the unfortunate encounter with hot soup, many senior students ran forward to offer assistance. But I politely declined as I thought that it was just a minor burn. I immediately went to the general office when I knew that I was badly scalded after taking a quick rest. I must have been looking miserable with all the soup on my shirt dyeing my shirt brown. After they gave me a new, fresh set of shirt to change and applying temporarily medication on my wounds, I felt better and headed back to class to attend lesson.

During lesson time, there was this activity whereby every one had to part their tables from the center of the classroom. It felt awkward as my table was in the center of the class and I was the only one at the center of the class. I was somewhat sad as I could not take part in the activity. After school ended, my English teacher  brought me down stairs to meet my mother and asked me lots of questions on my way down. Because of my leg injury I could not wear my shoes and had to walk barefooted. I had to keep my eyes on the ground to avoid stepping on any unpleasant objects that laid on the ground. I did not want to have two injuries in one day.

Luckily my mother bought me sandals. After eating, we took a bus home. On the journey i felt upset as everyone had to help me whenever I needed to do something. for example, my English teacher had to go back to my classroom just to find my bottle and my mother had to carry my bags for me. Even as i walked home, it was partially raining so i had to be careful in case the dirty puddles of water splashed on my wounded feet. I took a quick nap the moment I reached home and I woke up after about thirty minutes of rest and  unwrapped the gauze round my feet and had a nasty shocked. An almost disfigured feet was the first thing that I saw.

 It was bad, then it got worse 

My mother then immediately bought me to to see the doctor afterwards and he warped my feet and applied medication, he gave me bottles of medicine and told me to consume them on time. He also told me that my wrapped leg should not have any encounter with water. Which means that I had an enjoyable time that night bathing with a plastic bag tied to my leg. I was quite amazed that the smell of soup remained on my leg. After taking medication and I went to sleep and of course I had a hard time sleeping with an injured leg.

How to bandage a burned feet

Today when I went to school I stayed in the library for one hour and spent my time reading books. Well everything wasn't that good for me, but most of my problems were solved with the help of the elevator since by form teacher allowed me to use it.


So what did i think of this whole incident? I can only conclude that although there are lots of nasty and unpleasant people living around us, all of the kind and caring people around us certainly outnumbered them. I should also be more careful in the future to avoid causing so much trouble to the people around me.  

My Bandaged Leg :(

  

Tuesday January 11th

A moment spent alone doing something I enjoyed

I was walking home with a spring in my steps and reflecting on the events of the day. This exceptional joy was not without cause, however and it was because I had no homework.

Upon reaching home, I hurriedly put down my bag and rushed into my room to quickly to plan out what to do with all the free time. I decided to keep this news to myself because if my parents knew about this they would leave me with lots of work to do. After completing my homework I did some revision of today's class lessons before embarking on my hobby.

Besides playing computer games I have other much other more interesting things that I like to do. For example designing typefaces, reading story books and day dreaming (I kid you not). Anyway, there is one activity that i have not done in a long time and that is playing with erasers. I know that erasers are meant for other purposes such as rubbing away your mistakes when you write using a pencil.

So with so much extra time left, I searched the storeroom for a big box of erasers that my parents bought for me when I was young. After that I laid them down and started playing with them. The last time i play with them was about two years ago. The first fun activity that I played with the erasers was what I called 'Throw and knock'. I then formed an eraser fortress with all the erasers that I had with ten of them left behind to throw at the fortress from a distance. Very soon eight erasers were  used. I watched with great delight when the fortress finally toppled after being constantly hit by the flying erasers. I felt temporarily freed from stress after throwing the eraser. I remember doing this as a way to relive stress when I was young. Seriously, I do not think this is childish at least it is better than sitting in front of a computer to play computer games and make yourself look like a nerd. No offence to all those who loves computer games as I play them from time to time.

My box of erasers



The eraser spiral

The second thing you can do with erasers is that you can make a really long miniature rubber slide. After the first game, I gathered all of my erasers and started to make a slide it is not that hard though. I noticed that one of my erasers had gone missing must have been because of the previous game. After building my slide , I found a tiny marble and rolled it down the slope I added a little obstacle once in a while to ensure that the plastic ball would not reach its destination smoothly. 

Having a fun time playing with a fusion of slide and domino!

The really  enjoyable experience in this game was building the slide. It had to be made with precision so as to ensure that nothing goes wrong during the game. I used the erasers as domino bricks and played with them too!

My little slide

Besides forming a slide, you can also make a domino with it!



My overall experience today was superb. I feel that even if you are no longer a little child you were in the past, you can still enjoy what you have done in the past. This does not necessarily make you a childish person. 

  

Monday January 10th

Something that took place in school

Today I woke up with a sense of fatigue. I must have been suffering from Monday blues. If I could remember, there was going to be a class decoration activity today in preparation of the coming Chinese New Year. 

The moment I step into the classroom, my senses told me that I was correct. One of my classmates held a box and went around collecting red packets in a fashion that seemed like he was asking for donations. Everyone seemed really excited about the activity as a faint glow of energy seemed to sparkle within them. The completely filled collection box was the evidence of the enthusiasm and class spirit. Some of my cheeky classmates tried to 'borrow' some of the red packets and failed terribly. I forgot to contribute red packets but I was still very eager about the activity.

The red packets collected were about thrice of this

                                              

After assembly almost everyone walked back to class with a pace that was seemingly faster than usual. Once everyone reached the classroom, we immediately got into action before our teachers even arrived. 'J' (not his real name) who was so called the leader of this event, assigned every one with small tasks to increase efficiency. 'J' assigned me with the task of drawing the school's name on a giant piece of paper with reference to my original art piece as I am a good artist (and yes I know that I bragging a bit but I guess that is fine).

The picture that I drew

Later on when I was doing  my work, 'S' (not his real name) started to bother me he also wanted to do the same task as me and it took him about five minutes to draw one letter as he wanted to draw it 'with precision'. It did not turn out that nice as I though It would be. No offence though, I appreciated his effort a lot. He's got a lot more to learn from me ( yes, learn from the master).

In the end, despite the effort everyone put in, the classroom design still needed some finishing touches, but I am looking forward to the end product. Hopefully it will be regal, or else everyone's effort would have been wasted. Don't even bother asking me what happens if the decoration is terrible because that will not happen (I guess..).


I spent some time reflecting on the events that took place during the decoration and I feel that this activity is very meaningful. This was due to the fact that we were able to do something to contribute to the community (the class) and work together as one to improve our class bonding and dynamics. Well...  if I am not wrong, no one dozed off in class today although usually some 'sleepy-headed' classmates would have. After the activity everybody seemed rejuvenated and ready for the day.