Post-Worlds Emoing.

right. so worlds has been done for 5 days. 5 solid days to reflect and review(hey just like post-EOYs trauma!) Worlds was fun. The questions were stimulating and the atmosphere was great. I was quite disappointed with 2 major aspects though.

Firstly the debates. The adjudicating could have been MUCH better. There was only 1 adjudicator per room, and they were all voluntary. I'm not being a sore loser here but I think that RGS didn't deserve to win debates. To be honest, in Nationals, I didn't see much of debating skill there. Even if they spammed content, the style section is also quite important. So I'm rather astounded as to how they managed to win it.

Second. I was quite disappointed that I didn't get a medal for lit, especially since I consider my self to be quite good at it. I guess it's down to me not mugging hard enough.

Oh well. I hope i can do it again next year(right, Mr Lim?).

It's Time.

The Art and Literature sections have been covered by Miss Tay and Miss Kuo respectively. The art was fine, but I'm not really sure about how to interpret it. Lit is fine for me, since I have always found myself better in the languages.

I'm nervous. Nationals tomorrow. First taste of competition. Wil it turn out well? i don't know. we'll see.

back in business.

right. I haven't posted on this blog for about a month now. What have I done so far? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I just feel my motivation is being drained away. I need to keep myself on task. FOCUS. okay. so I've finished things fall apart. and guess what? poetry is now senior div! so is the last emperor! which means we kinda wasted those lessons, but it's not OUR fault. it's DemiDec's problem, because they didn't finalise the curriculum guide in time, so too bad for us.

I've been trying to work on my DRA. which is quite tough since there's only about a week left and practically all the good research materials are in the RIJC library. I have absolutely no access to those materials because while the HML allows RIJC students in, the same cannot be said of the Shaw Foundation Library. I really have to start sourcing for materials. NO TIME LEFT!!!

a lighter touch.

on a side note, here's the updated WSC 1-Day Hack cover for the new season.

My WSC journey so far.

After watching The Last Emperor(and the very useful commentary from Mr Lim), I find myself empathising with Pu Yi. It must have felt very bad to be abandoned by the ones you love, not to mention being a prisoner for much of your life. The movie was very informative and offered a great insight into the life of Aisingoro Puyi, the last Emperor of China. The lessons by Mr Lim also were a great help, especially when he spoke about the state of politics in China before, during and after WW2 (Mao went a little crazy when he got to power ). This segment of the project was very interesting. Especially how we saw Mr "Mandate of Heaven" and his horribly-accented Japanese "friends". The introductory history lessons also gave me a good idea of the context that we are studying. The fall of empires not only relates to Qinshihuang-kill-the-scholars empire or the i-want-your-land-so-give-it-to-me-or-i-whack-you empire of the Middle Ages.

I think the syllabus content is quite easy to understand, but there is a lot of content and takes up a lot of time, which is quite hard given our packed schedules and workload and we also have competitions like Schools Nationals and SYF to train for. I think it's quite hard to mug through all the notes. Especially with 345728278252652523 things to remember. And the visual arts (non-film) notes. I really don't know what Realism is, have the slightest impression of what Impressionism is and I have no tommying idea what impasto has to do with the Fall of Empires. Figures. I was never good at art anyway.

I think I need a power drill to drill some sense of art into this thick head of mine. Honestly. I also think that I need to start my DRA about...now. Yeah. I'll go research on how Gorbachev jacked the entire Soviet Union by instituting reforms which the Russians/general Communist population/Lee ShaoWu weren't ready for.

Personal Thoughts on WSC 2009

I confess, siging up for WSC was not my original intention. I had intended to try out for DI. However, after being "too stone" at the DI auditions, I decided to try my luck with WSC hearing about it from Herman. I was a little apprehensive about the demands of the competition at first, but I have grown to love it. I signed up for this competition in part because of my seniors (Joshua Chan and Jeremy Teoh) having talked about how fun it was.

I hope to gain more exposure to worldwide competitions through WSC. One major benefit that I think I will have is the content exposure. I hope to learn much more outside the RI curriculum from this competition and meet fellow WSC paricipants from around the world.

I am quite concerned about what we will be facing at the World Finals. I do not know the quality of the other teams and I am not very sure about the competition we will be facing. I also feel that we are behind time as we have not finished reading our notes.

My team members are Herman and Chng Jin. I think we can work well as a team as we have complementary personalities, as Chng Jin is quiet, but has a lot of mugging power whereas Herman is outspoken and our debate point man. Chng Jin is well-versed in the notes and is very hardworking. Herman is good in debates( I think) and quite knowledgeable as well. However, Chng Jin can be quite quiet at times and thus might affect the debates. Herman also does not have as much mugging power as Chng Jin. For me, even though I can speak fairly well and I have GK, I'm a slacker. I'm sarcastic and work-averse, to be honest. However, I think our team is a very strong team and we can cover each others' weaknesses by helping each other out and I believe that we can OWN this comp.

My ultimate objective for WSC is to win the thing :) I would really like this opportunity to bring glory to the school and match up with other schools from around the world. I firmly believe that winning this competition is perfectly possible and I will strive to achieve it.