That's the final whistle Part III

So here I am in this foreign country and the year is 2005.

Room 3.2 had the best people as far as I could remember. The forever helpful and kind hearted Ming Fatt, quirky but fun Phan Shei and Hong Hu who is as ahu as always. And so first day at Catholic High, I was posted into 3-1. Realised Singaporeans have this weird habit of reciting the pledge every morning and they have to put their fists to their heart. Kinda superficial. In Catholic High, its the school pledge every morning too. Something about being gentlemanly etc etc. I realised school facilities in Cat High is absolutely awesome. High School could never compare to this. It would never have enough money to buy a saxophone or tuba or Da Gu or electone for its students. I'm amazing by all the infrastructure with the full field, 400m 6 lane track, basketball courts, school hall, band room, chinese orchestra room, dance room etc etc.

I was happy I was in 3-1 together with Hong Hu until I chose Music as my humanities and had to change to 3-5. I was initially very reluctant but it was a decision I never regretted. I remember suddenly opening the door to the music room on the first day of school and 21 pairs of eyes including the teacher's staring at me. The teaching immediately asked me, What are you doing here? I was like, erm... I want to take music. At that point of time, the music auditions had already passed and the 20 students were already selected, but Mrs Chaillan never gave up on me and took me in without any questions. So thus began my true introduction into the world of music as I found my first love.

I found the locals rather unreceptive to me. Refusing to talk to me when I called them and being unresponsive to me. But no matter caused I made friends with the Malaysian scholars in my class, Chia Weei, Chong Siang, Ming Yao and Moppeng. Later in the year, I started to know more Malaysian scholars in Cat High such as Jun Lam, Ming Jie, Ji Teng, Ze Yi, Johnson, Cheng Hung, Hong Liang as we soon formed the Brotherhood of Jar Jar Binks. A totally random name. Sec 3 passed quickly. I fondly recall the first English essay I wrote, I practically used up all my power and the essay came back with a fail. Totally shocking me. I remember the first Chemistry lesson, where the teacher started discussing the periodic table and all the bonds which I didn't understand a single word. I never even heard of a Periodic Table. During Maths lesson, I was totally confounded by the complexity of the algebra. During Physics, the formulas overwhelmed me. During music, I was like what's a concerto? Whats a symphony? What's a fugue? What the hell are you talking about? Who's Show Pan (which I later realised was Chopin) Who's Bach? (I always thought it was Batch). Basically, the first week of lessons left me extremely demoralised and totally at lost for words and overwhelmed by everything. I really was struggling. I was some smart scholar from Malaysian Independent Chinese School, I was some Malay school dude. But anyway, things naturally straightened out and soon I was on par with most of the locals anyway. As such, when I think back, I realised how far I've come and how much I've improved and this is where I get the inspiration from when I find myself in a similar situation in JC.

I was also exposed to this whole lot of violin music in Sec 3. Ming Yao showing all these insane violinist and he played all these insane pieces which left me totally demoralised and realizing how lousy and small fry I was and that all those years of violin lessons and left me now where. So it really was a whole new learning experience starting from Sec 3 and yes, I guess my violin playing has come a long way too.

I first walked into Esplanade Concert Hall in Sec 3 because Mrs Chaillan highly encouraged us to go for concerts. I remember it was Vladimir Feltsman playing Beethovan's Emperor's Concerto with Okko Kamu conducting. The first scene of walking into Esplanade made my hair stand. The bright stage and the rows and rows of seats. I achieved my dreams of performing there later in the year in the Catholic High Esplanade Concert.

I also joined the CO in Catholic High, being in the percussion section. And that was a whole new learning curve for me too. A different genre of music and a whole new instrument to start from scratch.

I also started doing crazy things such as this one weekend where Hong Hu and Phan Shei and I decided to go to Escape Theme Park to explore and play. I begun doing a lot of urban walking. Walking all over Singapore and exploring different places.

Everything passed in a blur and I found myself in Sec 4 soon. We of course moved to Dunman Hostel and the hostel's mistake of placing all sec 4 Malaysian scholars on the same level was our gain. It was the craziest year every as all our mischief combined equaled total chaos. We went out to eat every now and day. Played basketball or soccer everyday. Even the day before prelims and O Levels when all the Singaporeans were mugging, we were playing soccer and we didn't do that badly either. I remember the durian sawing sessions and most importantly the mass cooking session. I always contributed the bowl because I had the biggest bowl and we would like cook 3 packets of noodles which would be whalloped in minutes. We had luncheon meat and fishball and fishcakes and peanuts and meat and otah and all sort of other rubbish all in the middle of the night with school the next day.

We also had insane buffet sessions. I swear any shop we targeted for buffet made a loss on that day. It was like hungry prisoners being realised into food haven. We went and whalloped the whole shop upside down.

Sec 4 was also when I had some personal moments and proved the saying that having it means you will get distracted and not do well for exams WRONG. It is on the contrary actually.

I wanted to post more about JC1 and JC2 but realised that JC life hasn't ended yet and I might end up creating some uncomfortable moments by revealing all my feelings so I will just put that thought on hold until November 26.

Meanwhile, this two videos are dedicated to all my friends. Thank you very very much for everything and if I ever get into SDD, I'm definitely going to perform one of these songs.

Cheers to life and enjoy the following songs. That's What Friends Are For and Thank God I Found You.