‘Girls’ Generation make you feel the heat..’

Well even if you don’t,let me introduce Off The Radio:KPOP Edition!

SONEs don’t be too disappointed though,because I’ll be introducing T-ara’s new song Lovey Dovey! After retro Roly Poly and dramatic Cry Cry,here comes the shuffling song!

Lovey Dovey was composed by Shinsa Dong Tiger and Choi Gyu-Sung. It is a club style music with electronic sounds and strong beats.

Here’s the live performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cFJ1LTUTs7E

Check out the official MV below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_sa1GWrN6eQ#!

It reminds me of the Korean movie Hindsight.

Be warned,it’s 15 minutes long!

The song is a little less catchy than Roly Poly but has an interesting chorus with surprisingly sad lyrics as it sounds like an upbeat song.

You may not think much of this song at first but I guarantee that the addictive chorus will be stuck in your head after listening to the song !My favourite part is the starting part of the song.There is  actually no climax in this song but it uses a repetitive hook to catch the attention of listeners.

That’s all for now,enjoy the song!

 With that, I would like to express the following:

This  goes out netizens who scold the fans of various popular media on online forums and youtube comments.

Sometimes, I do watch trashy reality programmes.

I think Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga have real talent, and I do truly like an artist as “mainstream” as Katy Perry.

But people like us aren’t necessarily “brain-washed” minions of modern society!

Please do not treat us like the plague. Put simply, different people have different preferences. This fact is not worth getting your underwear all up in a bunch!

Britney songs make me happy on a boring bus ride home, darn it. Sue me.

Now, turn your attention to more important activities.

A Subjectif-Compiled Summary Of Events:

December 14: Trains on the Circle Line were delayed during morning morning rush hour after technical glitches arose.

December 15: Singapore gets its worst MRT breakdown in 24 years. It causes four thousand people to become trapped in trains on the North-South Line. This is worsened by a message displayed in SMRT cabs informing taxi drivers of an “income opportunity” arising from the aforementioned event. Further exacerbating this situation, commuters involved later complained of a lack of ventilation in stalled trains, and detailed seeing women go faint from receiving too little fresh air.  Minister for Transport Lui Tuck Yew has described this train disruption as an “extremely serious” one

December 16 The deputy chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport, Seng Han Thong, highlights SMRT’s need to improve its technical operations as well as its public communications.

December 17: MRT disruptions are seen again in the North South Line, ending travel between a third ot its 27 stations for seven hours. This is attributed to problems with the power rail system running trains.

December 18: The abrupt braking by one bus driver on an SMRT bus causes a 54-year-old woman, Madam Ding ,to fall and slip into a coma. Her condition is since reported to have deteriorated, due to the development of lung complications. The bus driver concerned has been suspended and further investigations are currently ongoing. Additionally, there were two-hour train delays on both the North-South and East-West Line.

Because of these events, SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa has received a flood of flak, with citizens and emotive netizens expressing their desire for her resignation. This Monday, she responded to these calls by emphasizing the need for her to remain with the organization so as to deal with SMRT’s recent issues.

Will the SMRT saga continue?  If it does…please, not on Christmas.

Now, lets just wait for Mr Brown’s take on this issue. 

Wanna read more?

Still want more?

And there’s a photo gallery too!

A thesaurus had to be used in the writing of this article as there weren’t enough ways to say “breakdown”.

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of Project Work for the J1s and A level preparation for the J2s there are many among us who are grieving.

Grieving for the murders of our grades that is. :O

I have noticed a strange phenomenon that occurs during this time.

The grief soon exacerbates and results in reflections of failures in all aspects of one life such as:

1.  Exaggerated notions about the lack of achievement in one’s life

2. Declarations of ‘I want to pon lectures’ in an attempt to be rebellious

3. Deep regret for choosing the JC route and having to subscribe to its rigorous curriculum

4. Great fear of upsetting parents

and a variety of other symptoms associated with grave disappointment.

In my personal opinion, dealing with failure and its effects are largely underrated in the context of school. The impact it leaves on sensitive teenagers is often downplayed.

I often feel I have failed acadamically, in my relationships with people and even as a leader. But as I’m nearing the end of of three out of four years in college, I am learning to embrace my failures.

You see, a funny thing happened to me recently. After a few cycles of disappointment and grief, I started to see myself in a new light.

I began to feel proud of myself for how much I’ve grown instead of  focusing on how much growing up I still have left to do.

I recognised that it is impossible to learn anything of worth without failing a few times.

And most importantly I think I’m finally understanding that there is great truth in the saying that all that truly matters is that we don’t give up.

I know that I will continue to struggle with picking myself up from failure, in the same way many other Victorians will too.

But today I’d like to challenge my peers to wear the scars of your disappointment and hurt with pride as they are symbols of strength rather than weakness. So stop being fearful of what has happened and what is to come.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that you gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face.

Do YOU dare to be brave today?

(SGD= Security Guard Dude)

To The Tune Of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”:

(verse 1)I’m aint no Lit student, I dont know oh oh

How to say goodbye to SGD, in good pro-oh-ohse.

But,

I ain’t got the time

and if my econsstudentbrain thinks its fi-ne

i’ll just type my SGD tribute in google chro-oh-ome

(verse 2)I’d rather be at the school gate

To see the guard post, chief-of-state

For there’s no courtesy, Civics cant teach me

That i cant learn from Mr. SGD

(Verse 3)Didn’t get a lot of friends..

But with SGD, looks like i can make amends……..

(Repeat Verse 1)

I’m aint no Lit student, I dont know oh oh

How to say goodbye to SGD, in good pro-oh-ohse.

But,

I ain’t got the time

and if my econsstudentbrain thinks its fi-ne

i’ll just type my SGD tribute in google chro-oh-ome

Aside from the (lame) sentiments exhibited above, this writer would really like to extend her appreciation to SGD for the following:

1) Being there, rain or shine, weekdays or weekends, giving students a sense of familiarity as they trudge into school

2) For chatting with students. This student remembers her chat with SGD regarding places of residence.

3) For turning a blind eye to students who walked into school in slippers on Saturdays

We hope that you are in some really cool SGD place now! Or a really happy and fulfilling Other Profession Dude (OFD) place.

The last lap, is a pretty amazing one in my opinion. The easiest laps are obviously, the first few. In 2.4 terms, that would be the first 100m (when the muscle/chest/hand/ear/eye aches are still in check) In school life terms, that would probably be the first few weeks of school where everyone is so motivated to do even better than they already have.

And then we hit what i would like to call, the iWannagiveup laps. In 2.4 terms, that would be when a little voice in your head keeps telling you to stop, or to pretend to faint, or to give in and resign because 6 rounds are frankly just too much. You convince yourself that you don’t need to run 2.4 well to excel in life. You want to give up. In school life terms, that would be when everything starts coming together, in a really bad way. When the teachers decide the 8 essays would be the best entertainment for the weekend, when promos are in 3 weeks and you have barely touched your revision and all you think of is. I wanna give up.

Then the phase passes. You start running the last lap. Amazingly, you are able to muster some form of energy from some obscure place in your legs to run a little faster because, the finishing line is just *this* faraway. All thoughts of iwannagiveup gives way for i-worked-this-hard-i’m-NOT-going-to-give-up-now. You get an adrenaline that helps you stay up at night revising all the crazy handouts that pile up like a mini Everest on your table. The last lap is very much like the volta in a sonnet, (please check this up) where there is a “shift” of some sorts in the poem. When you get to the last lap, the little voice in your head that pestered you to give up is usurped by another that tells you despite how tired, how totally breathless you are, you’re nearly there.

So. Congratulations to all of you who have finished running the race that is exams. And for those who are struggling or who have entered the last lap, you’re nearly there.

We expected much, because we put in so much.

So when the results today were released, many were visibly disappointed. I saw my friends’ expressions morph into disappointment when they saw their grades. I saw the shattering of confidence that broke some of the strongest people I knew. Hardworking, diligent students who would no doubt get their 4 or 5 As next year. By then, the PW grade would have shrunk in significance- just as H1 Mother Tongue or Higher MT has for some of us.

Of course, there were plenty of people whose As sparked a gleeful smile for the rest of the day. They sought to comfort those who did not attain their expected grades, but remained sensitive and thoughtful. After all, barely half the battle has been won in our A-level journey. There’s more to come, and life goes on.

Victorians are resilient people. I still recall the scores of seniors who had ranted to me about their PW-induced woes- both in the process and the release of results. Subsequently, they’ve moved on and attained outstanding grades. PW is just one of many challenges we face, and I am confident that when Friday comes around again, we’ll be shouting Full Day like our old selves.

I’d just like to take this chance to thank Subjectif and everyone who made the night possible, as well as everyone who came down to support and actually purchased tickets. It was truly a new and enriching experience to perform in front of an audience. It was my first time singing in front of a formal audience publicly and I was definitely enthralled by the chance to. I enjoyed every minute of it So thank you Subjectif members and all who were there!!

Regards,

Josiah

Quick Intro

First off, for those who don’t know (which is probably every single person reading this right now), I was the Chairperson/President/whatever-you-wanna-call-it of Subjectif from 08/09. Back then, there was a period of time when Subjectif had exactly one member: myself. If you read the recent post by carousels, you’d know that Cosiety (as Subjectif was known as back in the day) died out in 2007, shortly after the server which hosted the school blog went down. It was almost as if Subjectif ceased to exist when 2008 began, meaning that everyone who entered VJC in 2008 had no idea that there was even a school blog. It was only through sheer luck that I knew a senior who was part of the withering CCA and thus joined it with 2 other friends. Not long after that, both of them decided to quit and there were even talks of closing down the CCA.

Breakoff rant… and a little history

Now here, let me just say I personally feel that Subjectif is unique to every other CCA in VJC as no other CCA gives its members the ability to reach out to every single Victorian with such ease. Probably no one who’s currently attending VJC knows what the old Cosiety blog was like back before the server crashed in 2007. I too wasn’t around (was from 08S56) when Cosiety was still alive and kicking, but all the seniors whom I talked to about the old VJC blog had nothing but glowing praise for it. It had been the main source of information for anything and everything going on around VJ, chocked full of blog posts, pictures and videos. In fact, Cosiety’s old Youtube account is still very much in existence. Though it hasn’t been updated in quite awhile, you can get a sense of what it used to be like.

Click here for Cosiety’s Youtube page. And here’s a good video to start with:

Needless to say, I believed that Subjectif as a CCA had limitless potential in that it could really make a huge difference to the lives of Victorians. Thus, I decided that I would try my best to resuscitate the CCA and bring it back to its former glory.

Memories… memories…

Anyway this post isn’t just about Subjectif, though I just realised I’ve been going on a really long rant about it. Rather, revisiting this blog just earlier tonight seemed to open up the floodgates in my mind as tons of memories I had of my time in VJ came flooding back to me.

Attending the seemingly mundane tutorials and lectures in VJ were probably the most fun I’ve ever had throughout my schooling life.

Then there were the outings to Parkway for lunch during 3-period long breaks, a luxury I had only during my first year.

Attending orientation as a freshman once, and getting to be an OGL not just once, but twice (we had double intakes, and J1s who entered the school during the first intake were OGLs for the second intake students), and the immense amount of fun I had during those precious few days.

Attending CLIC, our annual leadership camp, as a camper in my first year. Furthermore, I had the privilege of being a facilitator of the camp in my second year. The experiences I had while attending, planning and executing the camp are invaluable and have thought me plenty of lessons that will last me for life.

Then there were the A levels… well, I don’t have anything good to say about that part…

My point is this, treasure your time as a Victorian. Many people have probably told you this already, but I’m going to reiterate it here again: the 2 years are going to whiz by in no time at all. The experiences and interactions you have with the friends and teachers around you on a daily basis might seem to be nothing out of the ordinary now, but soon they’re just going to become mere wisps of memories as you trudge on through life. For many of you, your time in VJ might be filled with some of the most memorable and fun experiences you’ll ever have.

One shot!

With regards to CCAs, 2 years is going to seem even shorter than it already is. Think about it:

Many of our athletes will only get one shot at the national championship as most of them only compete at the national level in their second year.

For our performing arts groups, there’s only going to be one SYF every 2 years. Which means some J1s who enter VJ in the year when SYF is going to be held might never get a chance to compete in SYF during their time in JC.

For leaders of clubs and societies, they effectively only get one year to fulfill the visions they have for their CCAs. Take it from me, if you really want to mould your CCA into what you have in mind for it, you have to put in extra effort to ensure it happens. When you take office in late Term 2 of your first year, it seems like you have plenty of time to do what you want. However, before you know it, all CCA activities will halt in late term 3 for Promotional Exams as well as Prelims. Before you know it Term 2 of your second year is going to come and you’re going to have to step down.

Boy do I miss VJ

I miss VJ. Practically everyone I know does as well. It’s hard not to, especially when we watch the above video and remember how whacky, crazy and carefree we all were just months ago. Even though we graduated from VJ just a couple of months ago, it feels like ages ago when we could run around, screaming cheers and in general doing silly stuff without people giving us a weird look. In fact, VJ is probably the only JC where we could walk around the school with badges pinned all over our shirts and people would laugh instead of scoff when they saw us. It’s for reasons like this that I can truly say I’m proud to be a Victorian.

(If anyone actually suffered read through this entire rant post, please leave a comment below!)

In conclusion…

I shall now end of this really really long rant with those fateful 3 words that you hear at the end of almost every single speech our Principal gives. The 3 words that you hear all the time but never really ever get tired of. The 3 words that some might even call our college’s motto…

FULL DAY!

Oh wait that’s 2 words……….Oh well

Where is my OPAC?

I’d been disappointed outraged by the absence of this coveted shoebag (with contents included) during JCO, until the rumour that the entire shipment had been held up during transportation in China. The mental picture of authorities barring a box of harmless water bottles and bandanas from moving through the gantry was laughable to say the least. Nevertheless, I begrudgingly accepted the SPEARCA shirt in all it’s duo-coloured glory which served to pacify my cries of ‘I want my jotterbook to write this down in!’ for about a minute.

Somehow, the sizes of the shirts managed to get messed up so badly that some got shirts disproportionate to their body size. Tunics were the fashion statement in SPEARCA.

When Victorians are disgruntled, they take to the virtual world.

Facebook groups sprouted like saplings from seeds: ‘I WANT MY OPAC!’ and ‘MY SPEARCA TEE CAN FIT AN ELEPHANT’…
They had members chorusing their assent as numbers increased drastically with each ‘join group’ click.

And eventually, we all got our OPACs. Yay! (I’d like to say that it was the fruit of our complaints, but nah.)

What’s next? How about a group for your favourite drink mix from the fruit stall in the canteen? Nothing’s too ridiculous, and I’d join the one that says ‘apple-orange-grape jelly ftw!’