Yi-an

Day 7:
On the last day, we visited the Volkswagen factory in Anting. There were a lot of cars in there but most of it was just green and red Colour, with a few orange ones pitching in here and there. After that, we went to lunch at 海底捞. The hot pot there was amazing and they even provide Ziplock bags for phones so that it doesn't get wen when you are using it. The best thing was that I could still use my fingerprint through the layer of plastic, though I have no idea how that worked, I was still happy that we could use our phones while eating delicious food.




Days 5 & 6:
In the morning, we headed out of the city of Nanjing and to Suzhou. The trip itself took around two hours and in order to keep us occupied, we had a karaoke on board the bus. The experience greatly bonded our class and and provided great distraction from the Long and daunting two hour journey that we had to go through. In the silk factory, we were introduced to the process of the making of silk items and I was shocked to find out that a silk blanket would take at least 80 layers of silk and that a good silk blanket would take more than a hundred layers! I wonder how Long it takes to make one, sounds like a Super Long time to me. After that, we embarked on our trip to Shanghai. Due to the rain and traffic congestion, the usual one and a half hour bus trip turned into an agonising 3 hours instead. This caused a funny situation as many of us needed to use the bathroom. The lesson I learnt: always use the toilet befor bus trips no matter how Long they SHOULD be since anything could happen on the way.




Days 3 & 4:
We left our buddies along with Nanjing Bole Middle School after participating in a 45 minutes long lesson each. For my buddy's class, it was Chinese lesson. The lesson was very different from what I thought it would be like since I expected it to be very different from Singapore's lessons. But I realised that that it is actually rather similar to our normal lessons and instead of everyone speaking up in class, it is actually only that few who raise their hands without the teacher having to call upon them.




Days 1 & 2:
Due to out excitement for the one week trip, we were not well behaved. A few of us left our OELP files on the plane. Even if we were excited, we should have looked out for one another and made sure that none of us left anything on the plane since it would be impossible to retrieve. On the second day, we visited Nanjing Bole Middle School. The students and staff there were very welcoming and hospitable towards us. The class I was even put aside an entire lesson just to welcome us into their class. During the hour, there were performances such as dances and singing and we were asked to participate by drawing out a song name for the students there to guess. Fortunately, the songs were in English. Although we did not learn any academic things during that lesson, we got to understand more about each other (us and the students there), which is always good.




Reflection of Chingay Parade:
Even though it was only a rehearsal of the actual Chingay Parade, everyone was buzzing with excitement. Even though it was pretty awkward to show our enthusiasm at first, everyone quickly warmed up to the idea and screamed their heads off. The variety of flashing colours matched the theme of "Lights of Legacy, Brighter Singapore". My personal favourite was the many "dragons". They came in many shapes and sizes, and also a huge variety of different colours. This parade caused us to bond more as a class, and I think it would also bond all of the Singaporeans as a nation.






Reflections about happiness and poverty:

Being a relatively prosperous country with few cases of poverty, I feel that Singapore is not a very happy country as compared to the other countries of the world. To me, Singaporeans are quite serious about the things that they do and do not laugh at themselves. For instance, we do not have a good national cartoonist. Malaysia's national cartoonist has given Malaysia brilliant insights into its society through his lovingly drawn cartoons. Tun Mahathir Mohamad was and is still one of the toughest leaders that Malaysia has produced but his stature was in no way diminished by the cartoons Lat drew of him. It might have even been enhanced by the cartoons!  I think that Singaporeans need to learn how to laugh at themselves and their friends. Indeed, we are one of the most densely populated countries in the world, with minimum space to live in, but all of us have a choice whether to be happy or not. If we complain about life every single day, we will obviously not be happy.





RV60:
RV60 was held on 16 January 2016, but we already started practising during November 2015. Although some people could not make it to some particular practices, we made up for it with the effort we put into the practices. All performers and backstage crew put in their best efforts for RV60 and I'm sure we made a very deep impression on all the audience. I feel that the marching contingent formed by all the Uniformed Group was the coolest part of the whole performance. Their coordination within their strides were plainly amazing and I think that their uniform is damn cool. I think that to prepare such a grand performance within three months is a very hard task and all RVians have done well for it.





Photo about school:
To me, the school Science Garden is the most extraordinary aspect in the school. This is due to the fact that the Science Garden is a area that everyone in the school is free to walk in, the various pathways in the Science Garden are also shortcuts to many places in the school. It is also a very nice place to relax and walk in after lessons. The Science Garden has many types of plants and flowers, adding life to the blocks next to it. Students visiting the Science Garden would be able to learn the names and characteristics of the plants and flowers while relaxing. This way, it makes it possible to study and relax at the same time for many students, something that may not be possible for many of them at other places in the school. The pond in the Science Garden contains various types of plants and fishes. Standing by the pond and watching the various fishes swim gracefully in the water is a rather relaxing experience to me. The Science Garden is a close to perfect combination of Mother Nature and the school's studying atmosphere. This concludes my presentation of how the Science Garden is the most extraordinary aspect in my school life.




My name is Yi-An and I am from 2J '16. My CCA is NPCC. I enjoy listening to music and watching anime. My favourite anime of all time is the one and only......'Tokyo Ghoul'!!!!!!! If you were wondering why I am not in a CCA related to music, I would honestly tell you that I passed none of the trials. However, I am still very happy with my CCA now. I shall go and finish watching my anime now, bye!