Friday, May 29, 2009

sg vs china

tuesday, after my fire safety talk, all four of us went to je sports complex to support the jj badminton team. it was a first in jj's history to have both guys and girls make it to the finals.

the cheering was a compulsory event for the j1s, but that's not my point. quite a number of j2s went too, teachers as well.

both the teams got second in the end. more cheering for the team when the medals were presented during morning assembly on wednesday.

and on thursday morning, mr koh mentioned something about a biased article regarding tuesday's match. thanks to red sports, i found the article. and knew why mr koh had to bring it up.

The Electric New Paper :
Badminton finals between junior colleges turn into...
S'pore vs China
SINGAPORE 2 Foreign Talent 0.

28 May 2009


SINGAPORE 2 Foreign Talent 0.

That was the 'score' in the National Inter-School 'A' Division badminton finals at the Jurong East Sports Hall yesterday.

The all-Singapore boys and girls teams from Raffles Institution (RJC) beat the all-foreign girls team and almost all foreign boys team from Jurong Junior College (JJC).

Of the seven members in the boys team, four were from China, one from South Korea, and only two were locals.

The score for both matches: 3-1 in favour of Raffles.

For Jurong, it turned out to be a double whammy. Not only did they lose, but critics also questioned their foreign talent scheme.

Jurong was on a record-breaking spree in the tournament after their boys and girls team entered the badminton final for the first time in its history.

But critics were quick to slam the girls' team line-up as all of them were from China - enrolled through the Direct School Admission scheme.

The make-up of the squads had people talking. The vice-captain of the Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC) badminton team, John Low, 18, said of the foreign line-up: 'It's unfair and we do feel a little resentful.'

Anglo-Chinese lost to Jurong 0-5 in the semi-finals.

Raffles coach Hamid Khan, 44, too, felt it was unfair.

He said: 'Foreign talent is okay, but there must be a cap in their numbers, say two or three every school.

'How are we going to raise the standard of badminton here if we have so many foreigners playing for one school?'

Sheena Tan, 18, who played in the first doubles match for Raffles, agreed.

She said: 'They do help raise the standard of schools' badminton. But there should be a cap.'

Raffles' reserve player, Lim Boon Tiong, 17, said: 'It's unfair. A lot of us feel like we're playing for Singapore, not just Raffles.'

But Jurong principal Steven Koh defended his school's position.

He said: 'We can't get good local players because they all go to the top junior colleges. For neighbourhood junior colleges like us to have a fighting chance, we need foreign talent.

'It's a problem faced by all except the top junior colleges.'

Raffles has so far won 19 sports titles this year, including yesterday's haul. Its tally includes major sports like track and field, cross-country, table-tennis and swimming.

Jurong girls got off to a good start when Zhang Xiao Dan beat Raffles' Melissa Leong 2-0.

But then Raffles went on to win the next three games to win the title.

How the boys did

In the boys, Jurong lost the first two sets. For a while, it seemed that they would fight back after Chen Yi Ming from Sichuan, China, beat Raffles' Aloysius Tan.

Then came the crucial second doubles game. Raffles needed one more win to take the gold.

Jurong's Francis Rathinam Charles and Jiang Hong Bo were pitted against Law Jia Hao and Daryl Wong.

The supporters of each team were on their feet, wildly applauding every point their team scored.

Even as the tension rose, one could see even Anglo-Chinese boys, perennial rivals to Raffles, cheering them on.

When Raffles won the final rubber set of the closely fought doubles 28-26, the ACJC boys were seen cheering their rivals.

To many, 'Singapore' had won.

Han Yongming, newsroom intern

as i was telling W this morning, the reporter thinks jjcians dunno how to read newspaper arh!

it would be useful to note that there are acutally more singaporeans in the badminton team, only they (really) didn't do well enough for them to be able to represent the school for nationals. and of course the foreigners who came over by dsa were good, that's why they were accepted in the first place.

if there was any party in the fault in this saga, it would be the team behind the dsa system. did they not realise it would rob singaporeans of their opportunities? but then again, as my secondary school principal put it, foreigners are here to motivate singaporeans to do better.

at the end of the story, it's really about how you want to see it. singapore indeed has a large proportion of foreigners. having kind of the same proportion in jj, is it better for all of us to be able to gauge how well we can succeed when we step into society in the nearing years?

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

nuffnang: the things i want to do with my family!

so you know sg is largely pro-family, esp after the aware saga, and, perfect timing, sg's having national family celebrations!

i'm really thankful that i still have a complete family, as in, parents still intact, though i've got no more grandparents to be thankful for. but of course, i'm still glad for the times i shared with my mom's mom and my dad's dad.

and the world looks like it's ending soon. so we should all treasure our families more, in case we die tmr!

hopefully we won't, then we'll all be able to make use of may 30 to have a "family day out". it's an event from the national family council, and basically you can plan your own day out, or join the celebrations at the sg river!

but i'd really prefer to plan my own.

things i want to do with my family:
-go to the underwater world. there's this cc-organised event that allows families to camp overnight at the underwater world (cool right!) but it's damn expensive. my whole family of four would be set back by like, $200+? but it really is a nice idea. and i haven't been to underwater world for a long time. cuz it's always "too ex".

-go to the beach again! we went to ecp last year, but it seemed like we were only there for awhile. we should go apply for a permit to pitch tents and camp there overnight. and when we're bored with the beach, we can go to sentosa and go to the underwater world.

-eat sambal stingray. i think it's very amusing when my dad perspires ALOT when he eats spicy stuff. he's the only usually absent when we go out, cuz his work ends late. so most of the time it's just my mom, my bro and i. and my bro doesn't eat stingray. he should, huh. so we can camp at ecp, visit underwater world, then since sentosa food is expensive, we can go to some ulu kopitiam and have stingray.

-have a picnic! since young i've been reading enid blyton's books and somehow the kids always go for picnics. i've never been to a real picnic before. real as in bring a basket of pre-prepared food like sandwiches and egg salad, lay a picnic mat (red and white checkers!) on a huge grass patch, eat, and enjoy the sun and the wind. oh wait. there's a huge grass patch just downstairs. but no atmosphere, got mrt and alot of cars. should be done when we're camping at ecp.

-watch tv together. well. i haven't had tv for one month. at home, at least. cuz there's tv mobile when i'm on my way to school. i thought it was really nice when our whole family were sitting in front of the tv (which now has its wire snipped off) watching little nyonya and voicing our opinions about certain scenes. my mom can always guess what happens at the next minute. like she's the director.

-visit that restaurant that my parents used to bring me to before my brother was born. i rmb they have very nice dou miao, and it was where i first tried fried ice-cream. it was sort of a delicacy then, when i was five years old or younger, my mom told me before that then, our bill had to be of a minimum value before we could order fried ice-cream. but then as i grew up, fried ice-cream could be found for around a dollar for one at pasar-malams?!

-go swimming together! my family used to go to je's swimming complex tgt once in a while, but we stopped going there after the jw sports complex opened near my house. so we can go almost as and when we wanted, and it so happens that most of these times my dad's unavailable.

-i just thought it'll be cool for all of us to visit my dad's worksite one day.

-experience winter together! when i first saw snow in germany last year, i was exhilarated. though it's just frozen rain luh. but still. i grew up in sg okay! but of course it'll be a million times better if i experienced it with my real family instead of my german host family. because they haven't seen snow too. and my dad's nearing 50!

-but if i only have one day. i guess it won't matter what we do, just as long as my brother doesn't get scolded. he arh, always do stupid things to make me/my parents annoyed so we scream at him. and it really spoils the mood of whatever we're doing. so, be it a picnic somewhere/underwater world visit/going swimming/eating/watching tv/playing in the snow, i just hope it's a peaceful activity.

hmmm. start planning for your own Family Day Out on 30 May 2009! visit www.nfc.sg!

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

kfc porridge

the dudes and dudins (panz!) at kfc are finally sane enough to bring porridge back for breakfast(:

Sunday, May 10, 2009

vesak hol

the sg women's everest team will reach summit tomorrow or tues!

this long weekend. was supposed to be spent on loads of stuff. but just trying to get math right took me till today and it's not done. and periodicity's not on litespeed!

don't like the pace at which time's travelling now. but then again, i can't wait for this phase to be over. need a major life overhaul.

in light of influenza a/h1n1/swine flu, check out this game: http://www.miniclip.com/games/sneeze/en/

haha.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

termite.

thanks for the memories.

Monday, May 04, 2009

thought.

luck favours the prepared.

but how prepared am i?