all over again

i'm missing out alot of info that people have because they went to arts camp. so just because those people were free enough to attend arts camp, they get more opportunities in fass, and i'm just a wandering soul with (too big?) dreams.

this is reminiscent of jc. never attend line camp=destined to not be a jj leader.

i really hope this time it'll be different.

i want to be more than myself.

beyond gold: the yog documentary

ADVERTORIAL (though i'm not earning money from it)

it started from this:




and then this:
and so on my last day of work, i went MIA for a few hours.


the preview theatre at cine's hidden, so mysterious. had to ask a staff there for directions.


the ticket says "bloggers"! and we were each entitled to a small combo hence the drink and popcorn.

screening of the documentary started half an hour late, after the COO arrived and gave his speech.

beyond gold follows the lives of three athletes, A (cycling), C (judo) and R (fencing), people inside lyo and merly (most of them are guys), and syogoc members.

i think A is quite good looking (and was sitting just below sebas, whom i gave the other ticket to), so i shall start with him. he started competitive cycling after his dad advised him to concentrate on one of his many hobbies, and after competing for a few months, he had already earned himself three medals. his family is constantly behind him, especially his dad, who was all supportive and excited in the show. he was at the preview with A too.

C is a rj student. switched primary schools due to gep. was quite fat. started judo in sec 1 just because he thought it was a fun sport. coach thought he was an ordinary kid, but realised he's really hardworking. the documentary showed clips of C competing and training, and his expression always shows one thing i find common among many rj students: the hunger to win. not a bad thing, i must say. it's prolly what brought all of them so far. the most memorable part of the documentary (not just the parts that featured C), is where after he lost a match to the south africa representative, the guy actually came to him and asked, "are you okay?", because it was a really rough match.

R is a hc girl. she took up fencing in sec 2 after watching parent trap, where lindsay lohan did a fencing scene. she thought the sport was just for leisure, but her coach saw the talent in this left-handed fencer, and groomed her to the youth olympian she will be. R got the chance to train with a left-handed olympian, and you can totally see the bond between the two lefties. like the olympian said, "a left-hander understands another better than a right-hander."

beyond gold also gives us an insight into how the mascots were chosen and made (spray painting of the eyes was quite cool). little post-it strips represented the votes given to the submissions, but i was a little disappointed that no credit was given to the designer(s). it was really interesting though, to see how moves were choreographed for lyo and merly. the hair-flicking action by merly seems normal, but wait till you see the behind-the-scenes. it got the whole theatre laughing.

CEP (culture and education programme) was featured too, and andy was on screen for like two seconds! and sadly they only filmed at marina barrage, no hortpark scenes.

the friendship camp last year was in the video as well, and like all camps, it's really touching when you see previously-strangers supporting and encouraging each other.

oh yes, i couldn't help but feel a little proud when they played the bid-awarding video and showed jj students jumping around after knowing we got the rights. and i was kinda touched that they brought the torch to northlight.

little bite of unimportant but interesting info: vivian blalakrishnan brought his son to both the mascot launch and the 1 year countdown, and his son was wearing the same shirt at both events. and the head of yog has a unibrow. look out for that!(:

leaving you with a quote from an olympian present at the friendship camp, "there are three kinds of feelings. the silver feeling, the bronze feeling, and the gold feeling. and the feeling i like best, of course, is the gold feeling."

watch beyond gold on channel 5, 7 aug, 5.30-6.30pm, or 14 aug 6.45-7.45pm. (just before the opening ceremony) and read the media release of beyond gold here!

beyond gold

seriously. this yog has presented me with so many priceless opportunities. my experience as a volunteer, like the aptly named yog documentary, will be "beyond gold".

i'm one of the 3 selected volunteer bloggers for the media preview of the documentary tomorrow, so stay tuned for the very exciting update coming up!

oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah, HEY!

voices

Polytechnics have planned holidays for students during the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) period. While this may be good for students volunteering at the YOG, Polytechnic students are not the ideal audience of YOG matches since most of them have passed the competing age group of 14 to 18 years old.

On the other hand, Primary and Secondary school students aged between 7 and 16, especially those in school or national teams and hence might still have a go in future installments of YOG, are not given the opportunity to participate in the YOG as live audience. Friends of Singapore representatives might also have to forgo the chance of supporting local talent due to school.

My brother is in the school shooting team. I wish to bring him to the air pistol preliminaries and finals, and he has also expressed great interest in watching the competition in person. However, his interest was dampened after I revealed that the competition will be held on a Tuesday morning. Even though I have contacted his teacher about this issue, he is still hesitant about attending this once-in-a-lifetime event as he will have to miss out on schoolwork should he be granted official leave.

Since Singapore is playing host to the first YOG, shouldn't the Ministry of Education (MOE) create some leeway so that students are able to optimise their experience of this event happening right at their doorstep?

Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has delayed its date of term commencement to September as its compounds will be used as the Youth Olympic Village (YOV) to house athletes and team officials during games time. However, as far as I understand, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Singapore Management University (SMU) have not made such arrangements to accomodate the significant amount of students who will be volunteering for various aspects of the YOG. Though help has been promised for student volunteers, there is a limit to how far this help can go, and it would still be best that no lessons have to be missed.

The Singapore education system has educated students to contribute to society and participate in Community Involvement Programmes (CIP). Volunteering for the YOG with the Singapore Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee (SYOGOC), as I know, does not award students with CIP hours. This indicates that students who are willing to commit their time and effort this August have wholly embraced the volunteering spirit. To reward these outstanding students, and to practise what it has been preaching since the implementation of CIP, MOE and universities should consider doing more for the students of Singapore this coming YOG.

HAHAHAHA totally praising myself in the last sentence, but whatever!

one week

hate how my smses are selectively replied.

hate how patronising the received messages sound.

hate how the dream is recurring.

hate how i don't know if it might happen.

hate how i actually believe it's happening.

hate how i'm losing faith.

when i was fifteen

my classmate committed suicide

my pri school chinese teacher died of pneumonia

i had people seriously hating me in class

i was trying too hard to get into dance exco

i studied chinese lit. one of my biggest academic mistakes, but one of the best experiences.

i went through a rough patch, but it brought me closer to mr foo, made me a stronger girl, and opened my eyes to the world.



back then i swore i was gonna marry him someday
but i realized some bigger dreams of mine
and abigail gave everything she had to a boy
who changed his mind
and we both cried

'cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you
you're gonna believe them
and when you're fifteen
don't forget to look before you fall
i've found time can heal most anything
and you just might find who you're supposed to be
i didn't know who I was supposed to be at fifteen

dependance

lunch at work is provided. but today it's cooked from a different kitchen, further away.

it's half an hour into lunch break, yet it's not delivered yet. like, left the kitchen but haven't reach the office.

and many many aunties and uncles are downstairs waiting (and complaining).

but the person in charge insists that the truck has left an hour ago and should have reached. and he doesn't have the driver's contact number.

so we're all stuck here with hungry souls.

that's so true of the globalised word, no? we're all outsourcing our stuff to be so interdependent that once an arm fails, the whole body's paralysed.

like how my company's depending on company K to get workers, yet K employees do a sucky job at it, and our hr miscommunicates with the managers, and the managers who have planned work for the people hired by K have to do the planning all over again.

this yog won't end pretty. but of course it will look nice in front of the laymen. and the gahmen.

i haven't seen my boyfriend for a week, yet i've met up with his brother twice. the world is crazy.

song for singapore

i want to sing
sing a song for singapore
with every generation
there's more to be grateful for
so come and sing
sing a song for singapore
you're my brother
you're my sister
i'm thankful for my singapore

not a song you would want to hear a whole padang of people singing together (imagine just 10% of the audience to be tone-deaf) but it has done a great job in getting stuck in my head.

not just the lyrics. the choreographed actions too. and that's very dangerous because i might just wave my hands around like an insane girl in the office.

"you're my history you're my beginning..."

argh.

this will happen again, with the yog theme song. "raise your hands for our generation, fly the flags of every nation, reaching out, to the moment in our lives....."

ah shit.

complete essays while playing farmville

see anything funny?

yeah i know it's quite small, but zoom in on the ads margin, and the second one on the list is:


wth right! i always knew the supply of essays is out there (for a nominal fee) but no need to advertise on fb right!

students are educated time and time again on the importance of integrity. but with satan looming around with such temptations, it's really hard to keep our education system pure.

hormones took over me today.

mood turned really bad this morning/afternoon, made me pissed off at everybody and everything. but what made it worse was that the only person who could set things right didn't even make an attempt to.

but all turned out okay nearer to the end of yog training.

funvee ride was fun because we were all damn high, waving and screaming at random pedestrians and chanting "yog! yog! yog!" 75% of the time. the other 25% was spent camwhoring.

didn't get to see diyana and the other faci babes though. and andy had to forsake the funvee ride so he could clear the mess we created. he has my admiration for being calm and composed all the time even when his job scope's shitty (imo).