Sooooo World Education Games has ended more than a month ago. However today, on 11 April 2012, I got a pleasant surprise. When I was following my Biology lesson, suddenly my friend came to the laboratory and asked my teacher to excuse me from the lesson for a while as I need to go down to the parade square for prize presentation. I was actually thinking. “What could I have won? I didn’t join any competitions recently” So, it turns out to be…

Yes, today I got 3 medals <3

The left medal is the medal for World Maths Day, an event that I’ve been joining since 2 years ago. Last year, I managed to get the third position in Singapore for the 14-18 years old category. This year, I have successfully improved myself (a little bit) and got myself a second place in Singapore^^ The first place was attained by a Meridian Junior College student. I ‘met’ him during one of the games in the competition and witnessed his speedy answers. It was much faster than me :/ I guess I need to use number pad more often AND memorizing those cubic numbers. I really made an effort to remember the cubic number; my friends witnessed me reciting and rewriting the cubic numbers tables all over a piece of paper until they think that I am crazy and have nothing better to do.

Whereas for the second medal or the medal in the middle was awarded to me for getting myself again, second place in Singapore for World Science Day This competition is new and I had a horrible time waiting for the games to load. I was actually panicking if I could not finish all the games within 2 days time. The waiting time was REALLY long and though the technicians were said that they are fixing the waiting time, it did not improve. I hope this will be fixed by next year ^^ But the competition itself is cool and I gained lots of new knowledge from it, including things that had not been taught at school.

Lastly, the third medal is the medal I achieved for getting the first place for World Spelling Day in Singapore ^^ In World Spelling Day I also managed to get into top 80 in the world, meaning that my name would be recorded in the Hall of Fame :> For this competition, my trick was to record down the difficult words that I could not get them right. This is crucial so that I could learn from my mistakes. After taking down the words, I tried to memorize them so that I could spell them fluently. Seriously, I have never thought that I could afford to get such a good result, considering that English is only my third language

Funny things during the prize presentation was that actually it was already being postponed because I did not come to school My health is kind of getting worse nowadays and I kept getting gastric flu, causing me to feel nauseous (OMG this is one of the words I had to spell during World Spelling Day! :O). Another one would be the fact that I was receiving all three medals in one go, and I guessed I looked really weird wearing three medals at once. I was dying not to laugh when Mr David Liu from the organization 3P Learning Singapore gave me the medals. I would never forget how people cheered after the last medal was given to me :’) It was a really beautiful moment. The last unusual thing would be the farewell message from Mr Liu: “See you next year!” Yeah I really hope that I would be able to clench some medals again next year :>

With this achievement, I have proven to my friends that it IS possible to enter such competition aside from the pile of homework given to us. If I could manage to balance schoolwork and competition, why couldn’t you?

Oh anyway there is also the FIRST Asian Maths Challenge which would commence on 2 and 3 May 2012 and although Mr Liu intends to let the whole school know about it, I think the school is not willing to do so because it would be during the exam period JUST LIKE LAST YEAR’S WORLD MATHS’ DAY. However, I guess this is worse because it would be during the Mid Year Examination period and not only a simple common test I really wanted to join so yeah most probably I’ll TRY to join and at least get some experience from it :>

SEE YA AT ASIAN MATHS CHALLENGE 2012!!!!

(Long post ahead!)
(I apologise in advance as this posting may contain some unpleasant comments from me)

This year is my third year joining the World Education Games. It was a pleasing, fun, and exciting experience that I would only get once a year. Now that it is over, I realised how I missed the tense and competitive rounds, the nice tone that you get whenever you get strike out from the game, and the nervousness while waiting for the hall of fame to update. Yes, I enjoyed every single moment of World Education Games 2012 and I would love to participate again next year.

This year is also my first year playing as an ‘ambassador’ from my school. Yes, ‘ambassador’, with the inverted commas. The reason is that my school registered for all of us to participate, a fact that I really appreciate as last year the school did not do so. However, unfortunately my teacher (or the school, I have no idea) only told us about our registration details on 5 March, which is also the day when the World Spelling Day starts.

So now, the burning question in my mind is: Why did they tell us so late?

Yes, I know we just had our Common Test 1 and maybe the school wanted us to study really hard for our tests and therefore they do not want us to neglect our studies only for this event. Another possible reason would be late registration from the school.

Secondly, the school does not really encourage their students to participate actively apart from registering them. They did not even tell us the website address — or maybe only in my class.

Thirdly, even if we, students, as participants are able to juggle studies and practice, yet the teachers still give us loads of homework to finish on the event days. Yes, I fully aware and accept the fact that homework is also a form of self-study which is also for our own good. Now kindly tell me how to concentrate and play the ‘games’ conveniently when you know you have loads of homework to finish? Some people, excluding myself, are not able to throw away that feeling of uneasiness and thus they will choose to do homework first before the event. The problem is that by the time we finish our homework, we will be tired out mentally and physically and most of us will just sleep as we had school on the following day. Thus they will just forget about this event just for the homework. I have to admit that I managed to complete my homework successfully despite of this event because I did not pile them up this time round; special exception for this event.

Yes, I know that schoolwork is our main priority as students but then my final question is this: why bother to register all of us in the first place? Is it for students to try and anyhow attempt? Yes, it would be okay for those who only want to play for fun, but how about those who like competitions? It would be unfair for them as they have a very less time to practice even though the registration and practice has been opened since 1 February. Practising really plays a very big role in scoring in these games.

Frankly speaking, I would rather register on the website myself which is exactly what I did, but since I knew I had a school account so I used it for the actual competition.

One more: if the school really wants us to participate actively and wholeheartedly, beside registering us, the school should have arranged some special time for students to play together as a class. There is actually inter-class competition but since most of my friends had better things to do, the result was not the best result that we could achieve. I do know some schools, though they may not be in Singapore, but they do conduct a ‘playing together as a class’ session in their schools.

A lot of my friends also have the mindset that this event is a waste of time, which I strongly disagree. First of all, this year it will only take you around 50 minutes to complete each of the spelling and mathematics games. Two years ago it may take you 500 minutes and I dared to ask permission not to attend school just for it. And yes, I got a surprising, unexpected result This year I ‘wasted’ at least 200 minutes of my life to complete the series of World Education Games and though I did not do very well, I am still happy that I could complete the games in between my busy schedule.

My friends also say that this event is boring as the questions are repeated. No, seriously I do not want that to be my friend’s mindset. Some of my friends actually tried –I don’t know if it is because of me keep talking about it non-stop out of excitement and they got irritated of it– and they said that it is actually quite fun.

Another common thought is that this event is useless. This is false as I felt that I had many benefits from it. I learned to use number pad in order to type my answer faster for World Maths Day and I had fun learning lots of new words from World Spelling Day. I also found out that most of the things questioned in World Science Day are things that are currently being covered by our teachers in school. It can also boost our general knowledge. Hence, I do not see this event as a ‘useless event and waste of time’ like what my friend said.

What I would like to suggest to the school is to change the students’ wrong mindsets and also to be more supportive next year.

Nevertheless, winning is secondary and taking part is the main priority. See you guys at World Education Games 2013!

(Thanks for reading a total of 1010 words!)

(Me at Juanda International Airport, Surabaya, Indonesia while waiting for the plane to come…)

It was the first time I left my mother, my homeland, and the things I liked for a long time. After two years of waiting, I was finally going to continue my studies overseas. There was neither fear nor regret as it was my choice and not my parents’, unlike most of my international friends.

After two hours with rumbling sounds of the aeroplane engine, I landed in Singapore, which was not just a little red dot anymore. Being in Singapore for the sixth time, the unfamiliarity no longer struck me. The cold air greeted me as soon as I stepped in the Changi Airport. Excitement and nervousness were taking over my body as I was about to meet my soon-to-be-guardian’s son. Though my father was accompanying me throughout that time, I could still feel the cold sinking into my palms. When I clasped my hands, they were as cold as an ice block. I asked myself again, why must I be so nervous? After all, studying in Singapore was part of my dreams.

When I met my guardian and her house for the first time, I felt somehow relieved as I knew that at least I had somewhere to stay. Before that, I had no idea where to live during my study in Singapore. I nodded in agreement when asked whether I wanted to stay there.

My father, a very busy man, would leave me three days after I officially moved to Singapore. I kept on convincing myself that my father would keep following me from behind whenever I walked alone or took the train alone. I kept lying to myself in order to feel secure. Eventually, I realised that my strategy actually worked so well that I could overcome the feeling of insecurity within my first few days in Singapore. To me, it symbolised an approval to me to stay in Singapore as I believed not everybody can overcome the homesick feeling in a short time.

New friends, new school, and new culture were mainly the new things that I needed to adapt to. For friends, I had difficulties in communicating with them as I rarely spoke in English before and I had a heavy accent which I still have it till now. New school meant that I needed to take public transport by myself and then walk to school, unlike in Indonesia where my father would drive me to school. For new culture, there was a really big jump. I remember how I got lost at school on my first day. I totally had no idea that students are supposed to assemble at the parade square after recess and therefore I loitered near the classroom. Luckily, no teachers came and scolded me.

Another new problem came up when it came to language. I could not speak English, but I could write quite well. Surprised were my friends when they found out how chatty I can be through social media but on the other hand so quiet in class. Strangely, I did not find any major difficulties in following lessons conducted in English even though I was not from an English-speaking school, back in Indonesia.

I kept on convincing myself to survive and work hard because I want to prove to my parents that I did not make the wrong decision to come to Singapore and study here. I do not want them to think that I have wasted their money. How I managed to survive all the thunderstorms that I encountered thus far is still a mystery. Perhaps a quote from a book that I once read is the main reason. The quote is: “There is no way of turning back, it is a one-way ticket. Live your life when you still can!” It is somehow true because I only bought a one-way ticket.

Reflection: I had some grammatical and sentence structure errors, which is most probably due to the fact that I was half awake when I typed this essay as my English assignment. I could have done better by checking and choosing my tenses carefully.

(Cute design of the banner right? :3)

Yesterday, I went to the Land Transport Authority building, for the second time in a month. Yes, it was another prize presentation and I was so happy to win the first prize!

As it is indicated in the picture above, it was a word search contest on-line at safejourney.sg. I knew about the contest because I signed up there — actually I had never thought why I signed up in the first place — and thus received a newsletter saying that there was a word search contest there. So, I went to the site straight away (since I had nothing better to do when my phone was broken) and did the word search. The word search itself was quite easy. We would need to find 15 words related to the things that would make our journey safer. After trying for a few times, I finally managed to locate all 15 words, memorized each of the word’s position, and tried to make the shortest possible time. Eventually I managed to hit 17 seconds and could not go any faster than that.

Honestly, I did not think I could win the first place. I did the word search just for fun purposes only. So, like I said before, I was so surprised when I received an e-mail saying:

Dear Theresia,  
Congratulations!        
You are the 1st prize winner of the Safejourney Contest.                                                
You have won an iPod shuffle in our Word Search October 2011 Contest.

Gosh, I totally did not expect that. However I was still keen for the prize >:) On 29th November, which was yesterday, I went to the LTA building after making an appointment with the officer-in-charge of the contest. Their ‘LTA Academy’ is such a nice building and a clean office. The head of Public Transport Security was the one who presented the present to me, too bad I did not have the picture with me

The iPod shuffle was a really great companion whenever I had to go to several far libraries for volunteering work. It was also my first and only Apple product

Thanks, Public Transport Security! Make more contests this year :3 -so more people can get the prizes

(Me: Front row, third from left)

EDIT: I found a so-called official announcement here http://www.publictransport.sg/content/publictransport/en/homepage/graciousness_programme1.html

Yesterday, I went for a prize presentation ceremony at Land Transport Authority building. It was for the Graciousness Contest “Make it Right, for a Better Ride” that I knew from the In News The Straits Times that were given from school.

It all started when I was bored and felt like trying to attempt to make some slogans. I sent quite a number of entries… which somehow, a little bit weird. However, somehow one of my entries won the Merit Prize, which shocked me as I did not expect to win anything ==’.

Thru e-mail, the LTA people  invited my parents and I to the prize presentation ceremony. Unfortunately, my parents are still in Indonesia, so I have no choice but to go alone there. At the end of the day, I was the only one there who came without parents nor school accompaniment

The prize presentation ceremony was great. First of all, we watched a video dedicated for Friends of LTA. After that, the prize presentation took place. There were first prize, second prize, and 10 merit prizes for each category, which is for Primary and Secondary school students. The first prize was a brand new iPad2, the second prize was an iPod touch, whereas the merit prize is a 100 SGD book vouchers. Next, there was a Q and A session (which turned into a great debate at some points of time XD).

For dinner, we had a garden party, including a mini barbeque. I had no one to chat with so I just eat alone and take a stroll at the garden. The food was delicious and it was free .

Next, we had a guided tour at the LTA gallery. The LTA gallery is amazing! There are lots of display and we can play quite a lot of things there. Too bad I had no camera with me as I had no phone .

It was such a delightful experience there. I hope I could visit the gallery again someday The next time I will make sure that I took a lot of pictures

(Picture is taken from The Straits Times In Newspaper 12/09/2011)

In recent days, quite a number of students have lost their fighting spirits. To gain students’ fighting spirits back, numerous companies would likely to partner with Ministry of Education to carry out competitions for students to participate in. The people and the activity shown in the picture is a good example. This picture shows some students who are making school newspapers. I say so because there is a page of newspaper on the table at the bottom middle at the foreground of the picture. I can tell that this event is most probably a newspapers-making competition and not a session of because I can see students wearing different uniforms which indicates that they come from different schools. I can also tell that this activity is a competition and not workshop because there are no teachers or trainees at all.

On the bottom middle at the foreground of the picture, there is a Chinese male student who is wearing a red T-shirt, who is most prominent in this picture. He is the only one who does not wear uniform in this picture. He looks serious yet calm in doing his work. He may feel anxious if he could not finish his work on time. He would feel relieved if at last he could finish all his work on time and up to the standard that he wants it to be. He would think, “Will we have enough time to finish all of this? We have so less time!” On the top left corner at the background of the picture, there is an Indian female student from a convent school who wears jacket. There is also another student from the same school who wears jacket too. This indicates that the room they are in are most probably an air-conditioned room.

The competition has probably just started not too long ago. Before it started, the students might be discussing of the division of work that they are going to do. They would then listen to the rules and regulations that are most probably read by the judges.  After the competition is over, most probably they will rest while waiting for the result as I believe that they would not have enough sleep during the competition due to time restriction. I feel that this kind of competition should be conducted quite often as this could raise and help the students gain their fighting spirits.

(Picture is taken from The Straits Times In Newspaper 29/08/2011)

Nowadays, privacy is a privilege. With the presence of sophisticated technology such as Internet and camera, it is hard to control our privacy anymore. The people and the activity shown in the picture is an example. This picture shows a lot of photographers which are most likely paparazzi crowding and taking picture of a man who is walking down a red carpet. I can tell that this event involves a well-known man who is most likely a celebrity as there are a lot of photographers there until the authority had to put barriers to separate the man from the photographers. I can also tell that this activity takes place in the evening as I can see the dark background at the picture and that the photographers are using blitz.

On the left at the foreground of the picture, there is a man who is wearing a grey tuxedo who is the most prominent in this picture. This man also wears a sunglasses which is most likely worn to avoid the blitz. This man is most likely a well-known celebrity as there are quite a number of photographers taking his picture in one time. He seems to be clapping his hands. He might feel tired after his concert or fans meeting, yet he still required to pose in front of hundreds of camera. At the bottom right corner at the foreground of the picture, there is a photographer who is wearing a green shirt. He would think, “I need to take a good photograph of him! Luckily I’m in the first row and that makes my job thousand times easier.” Judging by his facial expression, it seems that he has captured a good photo of the celebrity.

The activity has probably just started not too long ago. Before it started, the photographers find the spot where they would get good photos of the celebrity that would come in a few minutes time. Some of them may feel disappointed too if they found that another photographer has already taken their chosen spot. After that, they would take the photos of the celebrity rapidly as he most probably only walk in front of them for a while. The photographers’ photos of the celebrity would most probably posted in magazines, internet or newspapers. I feel that this kind of informal photograph taking of celebrity must be banished because the celebrities might not want the public to disturb their own private life as they are also humans, like us.

(Picture is taken from The Straits Times In Newspaper 15/08/2011)

In recent days, aluminum soda pop cans can be found everywhere in Singapore. The number of aluminum cans has exceeded the limit and it may cause pollution if they are left to stand alone. People must crack their brains to find a solution to this problem. One of the solutions is to recycle them. The people and the activity shown in the picture is a good example. This picture shows a lot of students assembling in an open area which is most probably part of the school building with at least one aluminum can in front of them. I can tell that the students are from the same school as they are wearing the same uniform. I can also tell that this activity takes place in the morning or afternoon as I can see the sun rays at the top of the picture.

On the left at the foreground of the picture, there is an Indian boy who is wearing uniform with red sleeves who is most prominent in this picture. The Malay teenager who wears uniform with purple sleeves who is standing on his left hand side seems to be his friend. The Indian boy may feel so excited that he could not wait to crush the aluminum can. Whereas for his friend he might feel a little bit uncomfortable as he is most probably feel that the instruction to crush the can have not given yet. He would think, “Should I crush this can now? Or should I wait for the instruction to come first?” Judging by his facial expression, he seems to be laughing at what his friend is doing

The event has probably just started not too long ago. Before it started, the organizing committee which is most probably the Green Club teachers instructed every student to bring an aluminum can. Most probably, the students then instructed to gather at a certain area in the school and ordered to wait for the next instruction to come. After that, the students will be allowed to step on their cans as part of active contribution in recycling aluminum cans. Most likely, their school principal would then give a speech or short talk about the event and state why it is important to recycle aluminum cans. I feel that this kind of event should be conducted quite often as a lot of students do not even know how to take parts in saving our environment, but through the events that are guided by the school, they will learn how to do it and finally can contribute actively in saving the Earth.

(Picture is taken from The Straits Times In Newspaper 15/08/2011)

Nowadays, there are a lot of students start joining government or non-governmental organization campaigns. This is because the teenagers are concerned about things that actually happened around them, for example drugs addict. The people and the activity shown in the picture is a good example. This picture shows two female students holding the stop signs which says ‘Say no to drugs!!!’ I can tell that this event is initiated by an organization as I can see a logo at the bottom of the signs that they are holding. I can also tell that this activity takes place in the morning or afternoon as I can see the sun rays at the top left corner of the picture.

On the right foreground of the picture, there is an Indian girl who is wearing a white blouse is most prominent in this picture. The girl wears a black and white bandana and her face is painted so that it looks like a white skull. She also wears a watch on her left hand and a bracelet on the other hand. The Indian teenager who is standing next to her seems to be her friend. They may feel nervous as it might be their first time campaigning about drug abuse to the public. They would be very happy if people appreciate their effort and ask them questions about drug abuse, which shows that they are concerned with things that they are campaigning. They would think, “We are so tired after standing here for some time, but this is a noble thing to do so we must persevere and stand here for the next few hours.” Judging by their facial expression, it seems that they are happy with their job, which is to campaign about drug abuse.

The two girls’ campaign has probably just started not too long ago. Before it started, the organizing committee most probably briefed the two girls together with the other activists. The activists then would go to their designated campaign places. After that, the campaigners would rest and share their experience of campaigning. I feel that this kind of campaign should be conducted more often as there are more and more teenagers falling into the trap that leads them into drug abuse. This is also to raise awareness among the teenagers about bad things that actually happen to their fellow friends.

Basically, I learned three important lessons after this long day: I asked for donations, attended piano lesson, and bought dinner for myself.

1. Use a tin or jar made up of metal or plastic when asking for donations. Do NOT use glass.

- Starting from yesterday, I and my friends used glass jar as the media to keep all of the money that was donated by the passers-by. The reason why we used glass jar was that we were not provided any donation tin that usually used for asking donations. So, we went to a hypermarket and bought a jar.

-At first we thought that the jar was made of plastic, as when my friend dropped the cover of the jar, it did not break. However, after the asking-for-donations session, my friend dropped the whole jar and it just broke down and the glass shattered in all direction. Luckily my friend was alright although she dropped the jar near her legs.

-Here the bad news come, I did almost the same thing today. I was looking for a particular flyer that is supposed to be used to help us look for donations. I forgot that I kept the cover of the jar inside my bag and inside the same pocket where I put the flyer. So, when I took out the flyer, the jar did not want to be left out and it also come out from my bag. Yes, it hit the ground and the glass shattered. I swept the shards with my file holder to the side. (At least I still sweep it myself… if I chose to call the cleaning service woman, I am seriously afraid that she would say something like: “Yesterday you all broke the jar. Today you all also broke the jar. Tomorrow are you going to break another jar and ask me to clean for you?”)

-In conclusion, just choose the safe way. Use plastic or metal or cardboard to make the media to keep all your money before similar disaster happened to you.

2. Do not do your homework when you are tired (unless it will not be marked or graded).

-I did my piano theory homework at the train. I did not even bring any erasers with me when I was doing the work. Furthermore, I was still tired after yesterday’s asking-for-donations session. At the end, I just do it anyhow and somehow.

-So, when my teacher marked it on the same day as when I did the homework, I got only around 50% correct answers . Luckily when she saw me come to the piano studio in uniform, she asked me why I wore uniform as today is supposedly a public holiday in Singapore after the Presidential Election last Saturday. Of course I answered the truth that I was asking for donations before coming to her lesson. After that she say something in Chinese, and I do not know whether this is good or bad: I only get half of what she said.

-Conclusion: never ever do your homework when you are tired. If you are tired, get a rest first, and then do your work, or your work would be horrible or the quality is not like usual.

3. Study hard, get a good job, get good money, and pay the Goods and Service Tax for Singapore

-After the piano lesson, I went down to the food court to buy dinner for me. After ordering my food, I moved to the other queue to wait for my food to come. Behind me, there was a senior citizen waiting for his food too.

-This man suddenly just talk (most likely to me) about Goods and Service Tax (GST). He said that we need to pay GST for the future of Singapore. He also told me (actually I do not really know who he really talked to…) that we have to remember how was Singapore in the past and how did it have come so far.

-He also told me that he is a Singaporean and that he paid GST without moaning, unlike young people nowadays who always talk rubbish when the GST increases. (He was the one who said it, not me). He advised me to study and study hard, so that I can earn good money, and pay GST for Singapore’s future. In addition, he also told me that he debates with anyone and anywhere.

-The funniest part was: “Now you study and study hard, get a good job, earn good money; DON’T ROB FROM THE BANK, and pay the GST. Girl like you can be a doctor lah, (it) should be okay liao.” (I am so sorry for the Sing-lish part. I think this is the first time I include Singlish in my blog post. If you do not understand the Singlish part, you may want to ignore it , because it is actually not really important.)

-Actually I am so touched that he still have the spirit and courage to tell the young generation about the GST and why it is important. The senior citizens pay the GST whereas most of the young people get money from their parents and yet the young people still complain and complain.

(-By the way, I do not want to be a doctor.)

Those are the lessons that I got today. Three meaningful (especially the last one ) lessons for lifetime in one day. How about you?