Subjectif…

You know what’s amazing?

In only four short days, strangers who had nothing to say each other before now dance together; cheer together and sing the same school song loud and proud. 

Victoria thy sons are we, and we will not forget

In only four short days, strangers who preferred to stick with those they already knew now cheer each other on in a brilliant display of camaraderie. 

Victoria thy triumphs see, and victories we share yet

In only four short days, strangers become strangers no longer and we witness the transformation of freshmen to true blue Victorians. 

For others came before and went, and carried to the world 

Victorians, who will undoubtedly bring forth the legacy of our junior college to the future and beyond. 

Victoria’s fame, and our intent, to keep her flag unfurled.

JCO 2012: The Imaginarium, that’s what’s amazing.

So the four day Victorian Affair kicked off with a pretty interesting day surrounding the topic, “Leadership”.

And yes, it isn’t easy trying to stay awake when it’s eight friggin a.m in the morning and I really rather just snooze for another five minutes, but I must say, the talk by Rina (correct my spelling?), a very inspiring woman who is visually challenged, brought across a meaningful message. While the talk was a tad like a Christian sermon (not that I have anything against it, in fact i enjoyed it that way!), the message was clear: we can ALL be leaders. What’s so cool about the speaker is that she’s blind, but she leads groups on community trips to Vietnam, meets the Prime Minister, argues for traffic concessions for the disabled and the “list-of-wonders-Rina-can-do” goes on. (On an totally unrelated note, she looks like she is probably 30-40 years old, but she shocked us by telling us she is really 53.)

WOAH.

While some of us weren’t taking the talk too seriously, I think the majority of us were truly impressed and definitely inspired. So, here’s to any of you who are down and out and feel like you would never be a
“somebody” or a “leader”: if someone with circumstances like Rina’s is able to beat the odds, then so can you!

Speaking about beating the odds, I have a major klutzy gene and today, I’m proud to say I managed to master the running man move from the flash mob dance (though i probably still look like a crazed woman having some space-time problems) Don’t you guys just wonder how those dancers make those “superman, superman” moves look so absolutely energetic and cool, while the rest of us less-talented individuals struggle to look less alike that orang utan stretching out to get a banana from the tree to-the-left? Nonetheless, I think the flash mob is going to be one of a kind.

Who else is looking forward to DAY 4?

Tell us how excited you guys are about The Victorian Affair by leaving a comment below!

I love this job. Really! Its naise.

But alas, like everything else, there are occupational hazards associated with doing this too.

(1) We’re Ordinary People

The average Subjectif Writer (SW) has a small to mid-size circle of friends that he or she is close to. This makes it a little difficult to write articles sometimes, because it is imperative that the subject matter is something that the larger school population can relate to.

(2) We have short attention spans

SWs think of ideas for many articles, only to scrape them midway through composition due to writer’s block. Its kind of like writing many screwed GP essays, or like writing notes to people that you never get the gumption to send.

This writer feels like that last line just revealed some going-ons in this writer’s personal life. Btw, this is another occupational hazard.

(3) The “speed-of-transmission” problem

We try not to have them. But sometimes, factual errors show up in our articles, and if not rectified quickly enough, many lay eyes on them.

Ultimately, dear reader, we must tell you that it is intimidating writing for the massive school population. However, we believe in the power of words and we hope that our life experiences, observations and insight coupled with our words will give you some personal joy and value out of our articles.

- A Subjectif Writer

According to our dearest wikipedia, “Agape” the Greek word, translated into English is known as “Love”. Yes, us the IP1s had a fun-filled and lovely week last week.

On Monday, we went to East Coast Park where we kickstarted the events of Agape week. The theme was “Know Thyself” and we sat along the beach reading stories in our Agape booklet. The story “Realer than You” by Christopher Barzak really touched my heart. It was about this boy, Elijah from America having to migrate to Japan and how he was unable to adapt. A series of events actually happened and in order not to spoil the story I shall not tell you the ending!!

From the story, I learnt that people put on masks to protect themselves or to make themselves more popular or for other reasons. This makes them very “fake” and the person would most likely be uncomfortable, not being able to be his/her true self. One should always be comfortable with the image/personality you present to others or there may be dire consequences like suicide. This session allowed us to reflect on ourselves, whether we put on masks and whether we are comfortable with ourselves.

Then we had a talk by Ms Dilys from Eka training on “Beauty WithIn and WithOut” where she told us about inner and external beauty. People can be easily made beautiful externally, through means like make-up, digital imaging and plastic surgery. External beauty may be important but isn’t internal beauty of greater significance? What we see may not be the truth and it is most important to be happy.

Following that,  we went to Plaza Sing for our <<1911>> movie. The whole theatre was filled with IP1s and IP2s. The movie was about the revolution in China in 1911, and Dr Sun Yat Sen’s contributions. It was quite a good movie and those who are interested in China history should go catch it!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had workshops on “Blood Ties”, “5 Love Languages” and Agape forum. For the “Blood Ties” workshop, we learnt that minor arguments can strain relationships and different parents have different ways of controlling and nurturing their children. The “I” message is useful when you want to express your emotions without using “you” which can be quite accusing.

Do you know about the 5 love languages? If yes good for you, if no the 5 love languages are ways that we show our love or feel loved. The 5 love languages are 1. Quality time 2. Words of Affirmation 3. Acts of service 4. Gifts 5. Touch (non-intimate). It is good to find out your love language and others’, so you will know how to show your love for others.

We also had a talk on image mastery by Ms Jill Lowe. She taught us about the three stages of beauty: lusting beauty, lingering beauty and lasting beauty. Of course lasting beauty is the best stage of all and we also learnt how our hair, footwork, clothes style and colour affect our image and how people see us. It was a really interesting session as we got to know more about fashion trends and listen to the experienced Ms Lowe and her life events.

Thursday must have been everyone’s favourite day. We all went to Cedar Girls’ School to cook! The dishes cooked were seafood pasta with marinara sauce, tomato and mozarella lasagne, corn and yellow pepper bisque and chocolate fondant! Sounds very delicious doesn’t it? I bet everyone loved the chocolate fondants the most! Of course there was learning through the process too! We had to work in sixes to prepare the dishes. This allowed us to experience teamwork with people from different classes with it not in the project work context. After the cooking session in Cedar, we had a “movie with friends” session where we went to watch movies with our friends!

Finally came the last day and we were all quite sad that Agape week was ending and next would be the return of scripts. Oh the horror! The girls and guys each had a session on growing up, into women and men.

Mrs Chua used various artistes’ examples like Selena Gomez and Lindsay Lohan etc to show us the transition of a girl to a woman and how the metamorphosis may go wrong somewhere and instead of a butterfly, a moth is created. She also let us listen to a very very very old song by Britney Spears “I’m not a girl, not yet a woman”. Ms Chua gave us useful advice and I especially found the survey through sms at the end of the session very cool.

Agape week may have ended but I’m sure most of us have benefited from the various talks and workshops. It has been a really enriching week and now it is time to prepare for VIP Symposium 2011!

Here is the video I\’m not a girl, not yet a woman (click on the link) Enjoy!

With the launch of the new iPhone 4s, you should have heard of the revolutionary, game changing software that is Siri.

And what exactly is Siri?

According to Apple, Siri is an intelligent personal assistant that helps you get things done. It’s revolutionary, and no one has done it before.

ORLY?

Really Apple?

Now where have I seen Siri before…..?

It all seems so familiar!

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VS

Oh damn, Google did that with Voice Search huh…

And have I mentioned the Notification Centre?

Such a piece of work! Such innovation! You’ve really outdone yourself Apple!

Oh wait.

Oh. Oh right they didn’t invent that either.

But hey, who cares right? Apple totally revolutionized the camera on the iPhone 4s!

IT’S 8 FREAKING MEGAPIXELS! IMAGINE THAT!

vs

(Yeah right you can totally tell the difference between the two pictures. See if you can guess which one is the 8 megapixel one, and which is the 5 megapixel one!)

But wait what about that phone that came out not long ago…. That Korean phone…

Right, the Samsung Galaxy S2. 8.1 megapixel camera.

(In case you were wondering, here’s how a photo taken with the SGS2 looks like.)

You still can’t tell the difference can you?

*Okay I’m running out of options to justify my purchase of an iPhone 4S.

Whatever man, Apple could sell anything with and I in front of it and millions would still buy it.

Case closed.

Yesterday’s  JC2 farewell assembly was by far the most interesting one due to some EPIC moments from both the teachers and students. Here are some of my personal favourites that truly showcased the fun and perseverance of the Victorian Spirit!

5. Mr. Chan and his supercoolandfunny farewell speech to the J2s! Here’s a big thumbs UP for effort to relate to the student body! there’s no other JC with such a cool principal in my opinion!:)

4. House Comm’s skit! Epecially the part where “Leticia’s” efforts to memorise the ‘Period table’ for boy-boy’s exams were in vain!:O

3. Dancers who kept their cool to provide us with yet another outstanding performance even though the sound system was faulty and stopped a few times during the dance! Keep up the persevering spirit guys!:D

2. The stuff-your-face-into-the-watermelon-and-gobble-up-as-much-of-it-as-you-can game.

And the #1  most epic moment of the 2011 J2 farewell assembly is…

*DRUMROLL PLEASE*

1.  VJC teachers running on stage and in front of it to surprise us all by breaking out in one of the coolest dances ever to grace the VJC campus.

For the first time ever, several teachers, even those who seem strict and quiet in lectures and tutorials, let their hair down and entertained the students with a wacky dance routine:D

Now, that’s what I call a send-off with style.

Dear Victorians

Ever wondered why most announcements start with Dear Victorians, ever wondered? Yeah, me neither.

Anyway, here are links to the two videos played yesterday during the really #epic farewell assembly which didn’t come off so well on the screens.

J1 Sharing [farewell]

J2 Sharing [farewell]

Special thanks to our unsung heroes, the PA crew for uploading the videos. Be sure to look out for more posts regarding the farewell! To our dearest J2s, all the best and we advise the use of tissues to accompany the viewing of the videos.

Nil Sine Labore.

The week that just passed was the IP1′s IndiEventure Week! The week before, we were given three problems to bid for, namely LUV IT, LUSCIOUS and UNTITLED. On late start monday we were told which category we were in and who were the people we were working with. We also found out the various subjects the problems were based on, LUV IT was biology and language arts, LUSCIOUS was chemistry and mathematics and UNTITLED was physics and literature. We all then went to start on our problems, which was supposed to be presented on the coming thursday.

For LUV IT, the groups had to choose a food product each, present on the biological molecules of the product and evaluate the truthfulness of the marketing campaign. They then had to design an alternative marketing which showed the truths of the product. We started on our research and some even went to GIANT and Cold Storage at Parkway Parade to buy their food product for analysis. During the course of the week, we researched on the claims of the product as seen on the packaging or advertisements, met up with our mentors (biology and language arts teachers) for consultation and even spent time making the alternative marketing campaigns which came in the form of videos, posters etc.

For LUSCIOUS, the groups were suppose to make a lipstick using natural ingredients and the lipstick must be able to last for three days. The mathematics part of the project was about symmetry of the lips, ratio of the upper lip to the lower lip, or even the golden ratio. The various groups went around getting the materials and they even had laboratory work where they made the lipstick using the materials gathered. Even though it was tough and complicated and they failed countless times during the experiment, they managed to succeed in making something in the end.

For UNTITLED, the groups had to solve a case in which a driver named Sylvia died along a road. She had a journal with her with one diary entry in which the poem ‘Ariel’ by Sylvia Plath was written. They had to find out information of the famous poet Sylvia Plath, and analyse the poem and link it to her death. They also had to use the physics aspect to find out the velocity-time graph using various information and link it to her death.

After three days of tough work, thursday came and the groups presented to the other groups within the same project. As I was part of LUV IT, I only know about the details of LUV IT. The various products the different groups presented consisted of Vitagen with collagen, Milo, Vitamin water, Anlene and GNC, Special K cereal, Coke Zero, Skippy peanut butter and Red Bull. The presentations provided us with a lot of biological information and truths about the product. The advertisements were also interesting and humorous which targeted different groups of target audience. The judges’ (biology and language arts teachers) comments were that the biological information was good, but the component on the language arts was lacking and it had sort of turned into a biology project. However, they were quite satisfied with the amount of effort we had put in and the work we had done and among eight groups they chose two, the Skippy peanut butter and the Special K cereal group to proceed to the finals.

The finals was on the next day, Friday. This time, the two groups who had emerged were to compete against two other groups each from the other projects and present their work to the whole cohort. One of the groups of LUSCIOUS presented their lipstick which they named leapstick and showed how even though some lips are not in the form of the golden ratio, if you apply lipstick out of the form of your lips just to make it look like the golden ratio, you will not look good and simplicity is the best. The other group of LUSCIOUS  presented on their lipstick which was a lipstone as they had failed to make one that could stand in a mould. However, it still served its functions as a lipstick. Instead of using the golden ratio, they had chosen to compare the ratio of the upper lip to the lower lip using the top five models who had the best lips as said on the internet. One of the groups of UNTITLED presented their findings on the murder case and stated that it was an accident as the driver Sylvia who was deep in her thoughts, upon seeing an oncoming car had swerved into a siding and crashed into a pole, causing her death. However, the other group of UNTITLED said that she was planning her suicide when she accidentally crashed into a pole and died.

The presentations have been over but the results have not yet been released. It had been a tough and enriching week having to do so much work and research in three days, especially when you have to work with people from different classes and you may not know them that well. However, everyone has successfully managed to complete their work on time and built friendships through this form of teamwork. I’m sure the IP1′s had a great time working on their projects and communicating with their teammates.

Here are some photos on the final presentation, held on Friday. Enjoy!

Photos by Andris Lee 11v11

Today the day started off with IP assembly. Bing Lin from 10v14 shared about collaborative learning for personal voice sharing. The IPSCs has come up with an initiative on making a VIP T-shirt and are calling out to those who wish to design! Then the results for last week’s IndiEventure week was announced.

1st: LUSCIOUS Group 4 (Leapstick)

2nd: UNTITLED Group 5 (suicide turned accident)

3rd: UNTITLED Group 4 ( accident)

There was an award given out to the most enthusiastic or should i say, “on” class and it was awarded to 11v11! The class received lollipops. Recently, a New Zealand girl has joined the class of 11v11. She has come to Singapore for a holiday visit and has decided to experience school life here in our sunny island. She will be here until thursday so say hi to her if you see her!

The IP1s had their language arts comprehension and summary test today. On the other hand, the JC students were having their career talks in various venues of the school for Edvantage! 2011.

The Lynx house organised a Lynx house walk in the afternoon from school to East Coast Park and then to Parkway.

Nike’s Sole Ambition event is ending on friday, so if you have not clocked 15km per person in your class (at least 85%) hurry do so!