My brother's birthday

Yesterday was my younger brother’s birthday and I really do not know why birthdays are such a big deal as they are celebrated every year. Anyway, I had to miss the class outing for this as I had no choice and I regret not attending the class outing as I heard the class had a great time. However, the birthday was not too bad either.

First thing in the morning, my brother woke up and shouted,’ It’s my birthday!!!’ His voice was so loud, it woke me up, and i nearly went deaf. Then he began bugging me for his birthday present, and i simply gave me something he wanted from me in a game and he was happy with it. How gullible younger siblings are. Then, he went banging on the door of my parent’s room and screamed at the top of his voice for his presents.

My parents woke up eventually and with dreamy eyes, gave him his birthday present and promised him to eat at his favourite restaurant for dinner later that evening. And, his birthday present was a cartridge that cost $79.90 and i have to admit, it was quite fun. I am so envious of him. The younger siblings somehow always get the longer end of the stick, and the oldest (that’s me) always has to give in to them.

In the afternoon, his friends came over to have a birthday party. For the first time, I actually felt tall standing among all the tiny primary two’s. I watched them play some extremely kiddie games like tic tac toe, and they played the game so much interest and fun. I rolled my eyes and headed into my room as i couldn’t stand them laughing hysterically almost every now and then.

Finally, the time came for his friends to leave, and I was finally freed from this torture. My family and I then visited my brother’s favourite restaurant, which was a Japanese restaurant along Siglap Road. My brother sure knows how to enjoy life, doesn’t he? The food there tasted really good and after the meal, I asked my father for the bill and saw that the bill amounted to $157.39! I then looked at my father and told him to sew up the ‘big hole’ in his pocket when we got home and everyone laughed.

Accident!!

As everyone knows, I am thirteen years of age and never in my life have I ever witnessed an accident before. Until half an hour ago, that is. As my family and I were making our way home, as usual I was simply staring out of the window and suddenly, my parents shrieked with surprise,’ An accident!’ I reacted almost instantly and saw in horror that a man was lying in the middle of the road with a bicycle lying awkwardly next to him.

There were a few passer-bys who were standing around and helping the man to get up to allow traffic flow. The man tried but his legs simply gave way whenever he tried to stand up. However, perseverance has its own rewards; he eventually managed to get up and limped slowly towards the side of the road. I looked around the scene and saw a taxi and a car nearby. I supposed that the taxi and knocked into the bike as it was dark and perhaps the taxi driver did not notice the bike and that the car belonged to one of the kind passer-bys who stopped their car and decided to offer a helping hand to the victim of the accident.

I then realised that the taxi driver was putting his hand phone to his ear and I saw that his mouth was moving. I figured that the taxi driver was most probably dialling for an ambulance. What a kind soul! Most drivers would just drive off if they had caused an accident as they did not want to get into the trouble with the police or even go to jail. But, this accident was not a case of a hit and run, the taxi driver actually got out of the vehicle to help the victim and even dial for the ambulance. Now, not many people would do that, as we all know that our future would be destroyed if we went to jail.

Of course, the passer-bys were good Samaritans too. They had sacrificed their precious time with their family, to help this complete stranger. Although family bonding is important so as to avoid family problems, I felt that what they had done was a very kind deed. They might think of it as just as a normal thing to do, but I am sure that the victim of the accident would be very touched by the act.

My father then stepped on the accelerator and the crowd of people slowly disappeared beyond the horizon and couldn’t help praying to god to prevent these kinds of accidents. I am such a nice person, aren’t I?

Happy lunar New Year!

Before I start on this post, happy lunar New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a great lunar New Year with all the red packets, so many goodies to eat and also the 5 day holiday! I surely did enjoy mine.

For the lunar New Year, my family and I made our way to Johor Baru on Saturday for the reunion dinner as my father’s parents were in Malaysia. We changed our usual routine as the new customs in Malaysia was causing a lot of traffic jam making it very difficult for my family to go back and forth between Singapore and Johor Baru. We then decided to stay at a hotel in Johor Baru to avoid all the jam, and I did not like the idea one bit. I did not want to stay in some hotel, I wanted to sleep in my bed and I did not want to be away from home for 3 days. Well, sometimes in life you can’t have what you wish for, and so we put up at a hotel called ‘Grand Paragon Hotel’. Sounds great, right? No. You’re wrong. Yes, I know the name sounds nice, but not the hotel itself.

When we first drove into the car park of the hotel, it already gave me a bad impression of the hotel. First of all, the design of the car park was very poor as the path was so narrow, a car could barely turn around corners, and second, it stank like nothing I ever smelled before. When I was still in the car, I could already smell the stench of the car park due to poor air ventilation. Perhaps it was only the car park that was not very good, but maybe the room looks as good as the pictures on the internet. When we entered the lobby, the same stench still lingered in the air, causing me to hold my nose and breath through my mouth. I really wondered how all the staff of the hotel working in the lobby survived. When we were checking in, we found that our rooms were on the smoking floor! Great. The entire floor smelled of smoke, and I hurriedly rushed into the rooms.

I have to admit the rooms were what we expected it to be, only better. I made a beeline for the window as I had wanted to look at the view as we were on the 24th floor. I really did not know what to say as I reached the window. Unlike Singapore, Johor Baru was made up of tiny houses covering the land, with only one or two ‘tall’ buildings. I was disappointed at the view and went to look at my room. I thought that the rooms were not bad; at least there was no stench and no smoke.

On Sunday night, just when I was about to head for dreamland, I heard some sort of cracking noise and I wondered if this building was safe or not. The noise did not stop, and I began to start worrying about my life. What if the building collapsed? I was on the 24th floor, I would surely die. Then my brother shouted,’ Come and look at the fireworks!’ I stood next to him and admired the scenery of Johor Baru, this was much better when compared to in the day. Almost every house released fireworks as I realised it was midnight and the beginning of the lunar New Year, exploded in the sky, with the dark sky as a background, the scene was spectacular. Some of the houses even had fire crackers and I realised that was what was making the cracking sound.

On Monday, we visited my grandparents and when I saw my grandmother, I felt really sorry for her as she was very ill. She had contracted some liver problems a year or two back and even had to remove one of her eyes. She has been growing weaker and weaker as each day went by and i felt really sad when my eyes set sight on her. After visiting, we were on our way back to Singapore on the causeway when I saw the huge traffic jam on the opposite side caused by the many people going to Johor for the reunion dinner. Fortunately, we had stayed at the hotel, or we would be in that jam. Once again, happy lunar New Year!

Chinese New Year Celebrations rehearsal

Today, Darius and I had to attend the rehearsal for the Chinese New Year celebrations which was to be held tomorrow. It was meant to start at 3pm sharp but due to some delays here and there, we began the rehearsal only at 3:30pm. Darius and I were to be at the backstage helping those that were performing. We were asked to help out because our Chinese teacher had asked for volunteers to help out, and being kind souls, we agreed and there even was a 5 hour CIP reward. I had agreed without hesitation as I did not have many CIP worth of hours.

The Chinese New Year celebrations began with the Chinese Orchestra performing one of the traditional Chinese New Year songs. We had to arrange 53 chairs for them to sit and perform. The job was a very tedious one, as the plan for the arrangement of the chairs we received were all wrong than the actual thing. In the end, we had to ask for help from the Chinese Orchestra guys. Some of my classmates were among them, and they had to wear long pants which were only supposed to be meant for the upper Secondary students. I could not stop myself from laughing like a maniac when I saw how funny they looked, and it also made them look much taller than normal. I can’t wait for the year to past, so I have the privilege of wearing long pants next year, so I would stop looking so short.

I thought that the Chinese Orchestra played really well, with the whole song flowing smoothly, and no mistakes were made throughout the entire song. I hope they would play as well as they did during the rehearsal for tomorrow’s actual performance in front of the school. After they had ended their song, we had to place back all the chairs to the way we found it to get ready for the next performance. The next event was the play put up by the CLDDS, it was hilarious as two Victorians had dressed themselves up to make themselves look as though there were Chinese women. They had put on a ‘cheongsam’, high- heeled shoes, and one of them even wore a beaded necklace! I could not really understand what they were saying as they were speaking in a china accent, but I barely made it out based on their actions.

Next came the performance from our very own Science Buskers! Unfortunately, I had missed their show as I was busy helping them get the Bunsen burner they needed for the show, but in the end, they did the show without the Bunsen burner. I was looking forward to their show as they claimed they had beaten their opponents hands down, hopefully I would be able to catch it tomorrow.

That was the end of the rehearsal and it was already 5:15pm, worse still, there was to be a second rehearsal which was to end at around 6:30. I did not want to stay back till such a late time, so I went off with Darius and we went home. Watch out teachers, you will have to sing tomorrow!

Pasir Ris soccer match

This is a picture of the VS school soccer team when we won the finals last year.

Last Friday, Victoria School played host to Pasir Ris Secondary School for a friendly soccer match. Although the result did not go our way, there are always up and downs in life, right? Well this was one of the downs, and hopefully things would get better in time to come.

It was an exhilarating match of an hour, and I could tell we really tried our best, but even professionals make mistakes once in a while, don’t they? In the first half, neither side could find the net, but everyone could see that our side were the better side of the two. We had most of the possession of the ball and we practically dominated the entire first half. One of the Secondary one Victorians even smashed the ball on the post which was very unfortunate for us of course. When the referee blew the whistle signalling the start of the second half, we thought that were bound to win if we continued to play like in the first half, but we were about to be proved wrong.

Early in the second half, the opposition had scored the opening goal and we were down 1-0. Hopes of winning the match were dashed as everyone on the Victorian team was looking really sad, but we still tried our best to equalise. That’s when the most irritating I had ever heard entered my ears,’ the only reason we are losing is because I am not playing’. I looked around and realised it came from a Secondary one sitting next to me. I was really furious at that and gave him one of my ‘can you shut up?’ looks.

I know u might think that I was a little rude to the poor Secondary one who had just entered the school for barely a month, but this guy was so irritating. We were losing in a match we were supposed to be winning, and all he could say was that? Couldn’t he have at least encouraged the team to not give up or maybe just keep quiet? But no, that was not to be the case. What he said next was probably the second most irritating I every heard,’ Oh my god, look at that Sec 2, he runs so slow! Why does the coach doesn’t substitute him out for me?’He complained to his friend. By now, I was at a total loss for words as I was infuriated but I decided to just keep quiet. The opponent then scored again to make the final score line 2-0.

I felt that we had made many unnecessary mistakes in the match and I think we have some serious reflecting to do. However, like I had mentioned earlier that there are always ups and downs in life, not to mention football. Hopefully, we would do better in the upcoming match against Telok Kurau Secondary.

Beat It - Fall Out Boy (Live Cover)

Hey everyone!

Hi everyone! This is Daniel Chin by the way if you are wondering. Hope this blog is not too boring for you! =D