not your average NUS freshie life

i’ve been learning many things lately from school itself, from talking to lots of gr8 friends, and from reading books…

update on school then!
it’s an everyday affair (meaning i have no short weeks) but with amazzzing classmates who never fail to bring more than a little sunshine to lectures. like our colour coded week ! (: we all came in different shades of green today prof ang thought we were campaigning for some sort of go green thingy.

and i’m glad to have a community in NUS too… seeing people like kim, liting, zhiwei, limin and jerel around school .. and having random lunches with’em ! a godly community is awesome, i’m really thankful i have these friends to depend on. like my ahlian sista is there with me to laugh at the lecturer during cl2280 lectures, and kim is there to help me print notes when i get absolutely bimbotic over the computers at thinklab (eh, a new switch? someone is NOT bimbo at it, surprise surprise). today liting asked me what i was doing after lecture, and i when i told her “shepherding my sheep” she proceeded to ask me how’s it and stuff. simple things like that made me realise… i’m so privileged to have people around me working hard, being concerned for the same things too! plus they are sooo understanding towards my struggles. a godly community rocks! (:  so friends if you have a caregroup in your school, treasure it, it’s precious…

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currently reading Drawing Near by John Bevere. God’s been speaking to me LOADS from it it’s mindblowing. i have a whole stack of other books to read, from my tecman and brisbane shopping. but not gonna slacken off in my readings just cos school has started! aja aja fighting!

season of training

discipline, focus, diligence, priority, persistence, consistency, strength, perseverance… out of the many, many.

this serves as a personal reminder for new sem.

 

anyway,
did i say, thank God for a nice timetable!! God knows what kind of timetable i need … so despite having to go school everyday, even for a measly 2 hour lecture on wednesday, i am thankful.

PLUS,
today i was looking through the class list for my CH mod. (yah who so stupid right go and take CH mod blablabla) and then i saw this : YU LITING. sounds familiar… so i excitedly sms-ed liting to confirm. and that lian of a sista confirmed she’s gotten that mod too…… FINALLY RIGHT!!! i think we’re both super happy to find each other, we’ve even named ourselves TRANSLATION QUEENS (think working for dvd companies next time and doing translation LOL) and we even have plans to SOW on the prcs together…. spiritual not btw liting if you see this, i took it seriously K? hahaha

see, i’m so excited. NUS, please be kind to me.

 

btw, i went for 0.5 out of 4 days of orientation. yay me, right o.O

dYour faithfulness never fails

today has been an ultra long day. at clm shirls said she hoped it wasnt the 4th meeting for anyone in the day.. but it was for me T.T (and went on for my 5th one after that) but i was still very refreshed by the meeting, and although i’m really tired, i really love my saturdays…… started the day with the dancers (great job jiali!) and ended the day with a bunch of people i really love. and a shoutout to my dearest cl caregroup, i really really really enjoy spending time with you guys, whether is it discussing about serious issues, or just laughing at some people (we know who..) because i know all of us live for one purpose, one God ! it’s really a privilege to serve with you guys, and to do life with ya’ll. thank You Lord for blessing me with such awesome people who will never judge me, who accept me for who i am, and who will be there to halve my sorrows and double my joy – jasmine, apinun, dabian, nicole, kim, louis hor, james (kangli and cat, you girls too!!)

i think as people living in this hectic climate, so many many things need our attention (quote christine hehe) at every point in time. having a little catch up with my friend jason ang ming qis and i think it’s really important to time and time again, remind ourselves of God’s faithfulness and goodness in our lives. God has been so good to us, behind the scenes, that sometimes we totally take Him for granted. everytime i look back at how God so lovingly, patiently picked up the pieces and erases all my mistakes and brings me up on my feet to try again, expressing His belief in me through people around me, it renders me speechless with thanksgiving. and i need to keep myself reminded of this time and time again, because i will forget when other things demand my attention.

i realised i’ve been grumbling (secretly) about my results because of the reality of Bs and not As. haha. well basically i got A for econs (and this is the biggest shock of my life – i have NEVER passed econs ever in my whole entire 2 years in vj) and B for everything else. and come to think of it, i’ve been allowing myself to grumble but not thank God. i looked at the piece of note i jotted during j2s meeting last year after prelims, and i wrote “God, i expect my grades to be AAB – BBB for best case scenario. if i get it, i know it’s You”. why? cos since the beginning of J2 i have been straight E-ing all my subjects. sometimes S even. and God is faithful. He answered my prayer, gave me right in between the grades i asked for – ABB. i don’t think i deserve these grades, but God obviously thinks otherwise and yes God, i thank You i thank You i thank You for Your everlasting faithfulness.

karen taught me something very important: to find joy in the little things in life. i think God has placed many beautiful things in my life that i fail to recognise. but next week, i wanna make it a point to rejoice in God everyday, to wake up and go to bed with a spirit of thanksgiving, because it is a choice to remind myself. no one can do that for me (:

onwards and ahead we go!! next week is a very important week. ESS, J2s having common tests (joel, cheng, celeste, althea, praying for you all!!) and i pray, it will be a fulfilling and fruitful week.

wanna live at life at the edge. whoohoo! let’s go!

trusting God…

“Hey guys. Just wanna encourage you guys to take time to really seek God tonight. Have faith that God will keep you in good plans, not have faith that you’ll get good results. I dunno about you guys, but i rather go nowhere with God, than to go somewhere without God. Jiayou! (:”
-bao hui

hehe i agree so much my sista!! good or bad, still in God’s good plans. and whatever it is, God will close bad doors and open good ones, and He’ll never lead me to a place where His grace can’t reach me.

i promise whatever it is, i will only brood over my results for a day (or less). time to move on with life after that.

keep me accountable all you.

completely personal opinions

was surfing thru the net to check up on some stuff and i realised the debate about scrapping Alevels in the UK has been going on for a while (a couple of years?) hmmm interesting. saw somewhere that they’re not scrapping Alevels, but just introducing new diplomas and let the market decide which one it wants. JC intake in singapore has reduced quite abit… and it’s really obvious why people think poly would be more relevant. i don’t really think singapore would be able or should scrape Alevels completely (afterall our biggest resource is our people. and the brains that come with it. we are just TOO small to let everyone do what they want. not like european countries). but i definitely think the subjects can be made more relevant, or even include additional hands-on modules on top of our current subjects, provided the difficulty level stops shooting up. i have no idea why the papers are getting more difficult year by year when we are already struggling with mugging for four big subjects through two pathetic years. how much do you actually bring with you to uni, from jc?

students are so tuned to mugging all they do is mug and mug and mug and mug AND MUG for the exams on the final day. believe me, i think most of us throw away 80% of the stuff we learn after our last paper ends. the only reason i came jc was to get my As to go uni. not sure about the rest though. so at the end of the day, all i was geared towards was just to memorise and mug and store everything in my head, puke it on my Alevel exam paper, walk out of the exam hall and forget about everything i studied the past 2 years. im pretty sure alot of people are like me too.

anyway, i wouldn’t doubt singapore’s quality of education. the goverment is really pumping alot of resources into the education sector and i think that’s wonderful. but probably i really wonder if we’re all heading in the right directions? look at how students mug nowadays and you know how no life it is. yes… there may be alot of other activities and opportunities for students… attachments, internships, fieldtrips, but are these only reserved for the JCs in the higher end? i’m not really sure about the other end. and i agree all these extra stuff are really beneficial, but ultimately, people still look at the grades more than the process. that said, the grades definitely offer an indication of standards so we can’t do away with the grades completely, but is there some other way to shift a little more attention to the other things that matter? what for get super grades and the person leaves school learning the art of mugging only. sadly, i think we singaporean students are totally study smart but pathetically not street smart at all. if one of the aims of education today is to prepare our students for future jobs that don’t exist yet, to unlock the creativity and set their minds to critical thinking, i think JC doesn’t hit this requirement (yet?).

i am not criticising the system here, neither am i telling all you readers to boycott jc (haha). and i am not thinking that i’m above the system in any way. i enjoyed my 2 years in jc, minus the mindless mugging parts. (human) geography was totally awesome, and still applicable in my life at this very moment.  but….. i can’t really tell you about math (which they annoyingly make it compulsory for everybody. how will knowing DE or vectors or – what else?! i can’t even remb the topics – make your life better??). literature was fun but not really relevant, and econs.. is quite relevant but i’ve forgotten almost everything because i mugged without understanding – sometimes you don’t really have time to look over your notes over a cup of kopi and ponder about the concepts when you have a million other things to study. no systems are perfect, but i think they can be improved. and should improve. what was irrelevant then may not be so now, or in the future.

well you may say it depends on the students, maybe we all need a paradigm shift towards our education and blah, but first ask, what kind of mindsets and values are drilled into us (by the system). ultimately, we’re all really made to think that results are ALL that matter. i heard alot of psle candidates from last year crying over their psle grades cos they didn’t do as well…… seriously. i don’t remb ppl crying over psle grades in the past. it’s really sad. time to review how we’re building students maybe?

…oh and btw, what happened to TLLM (teach less learn more)?

whoohooo. results are coming on friday – reason for this long rant maybe. by then hopefully i still maintain my cheerful spirit. hahaha.