Just Jie Yang now.

I’m just back from an RC meeting, which is just a level lower than a CCC meeting (where all the RC’s chairmen meet), and to be honest, I’m not impressed at all with how an RC work, perhaps it’s because I’m only there for the first time or perhaps their meeting was just far too informal.

But discounting the lack of decorum, I observed that

1. The age group of people present at an RC meeting are younger; especially the representatives from Town Council.
2. There is very little concrete evaluation of policies on a grassroots level.
3. Issues dealt with are mostly day-to-day issues like how to prune trees, how cleaners should wash the floor, etc., which does not really reflect well on what an RC does.
4. Events organized are not well-thought of, concept-wise, and there is very little discussion on ways to improve events that have been done before.
5. Certain RC members were ostracised.
6. Language is a barrier.

I dare say that given the little opportunities I have, I can gather that the lack of decorum has led to a major decrease in efficiency, and does not enhance the level of closeness among the members. It was very obvious at the meeting that only about at most 3 members at the meeting knew what they needed to say, what they need to do, and know it well. The Vice chairperson did provide much insightful comments too, making me more skeptical of how these people are chosen. In fact, I was quite stunned that there was a PR, because I am rather disillusioned about the point of joining, whether one can really contribute to the community through ensuring that they get cheap outings and proper cleaning of the blocks.

Besides, I also question the true value of such outings to say, Discovery Centre, Singapore Flyer, etc. Are we to say that we are encouraging social cohesion through the provision of subsidies to places of attraction, and that the community will be thoroughly fragmented without the presence of such activities? I feel the same towards the gracing of events by MPs.

I think this programme has made me more skeptical. Sharks.

I swear that by pure luck showered upon me lovingly by someone out there, I actually managed to crap out an incredulous 6th position with “a girl’s timing” (quote Penny), but for long jump I didn’t qualify, which is mega retarded because I was actually more confident in jumping than running. Then again horizontal and vertical jumping are two different games altogether. Thank you for your advice Chaiping I think it allowed me to be less of an embarrassment though still an embarrassment, too bad no more next year to try again.

Nevertheless I think I was the most laughed at, or to put it nicely, cheered on runner for heats today! After all who doesn’t laugh at a guy who runs down the lane in PE shorts and his khaki shirt.

Quotes of the day:
Interact President nominee: “Love ain’t love if you don’t give it a way.”
Jordan: “I want to be a friendly guy” (or something like that)
William: “But even if I don’t, others will.”
Victor: “I’ve been thinking about it. Really hard.”

Happy birthday Dominic and Zijie!

This was taken at the studio couple of days ago. Mommy suggested that I should have printed at Coro so that I could give Dominic the photo today, only after I reached West Mall and printed it out. My (real) mom says that it was stupid to print a photo without Dominic inside.

“Eh the lighting not good!”

“WAHLAU I not fast enough…”

And I was just far too lazy to hold the paper up so I taped it to myself.

I really need to practise smiling, god I can never smile properly.

I realised that I haven’t updated since the weekend. Well, on Saturday I wasted my night away going for MP Attachment, went for those block parties organized by RC, only to sit in for 35 minutes to watch a magic show and observe what the MP did. I learnt that it requires great courage to shake everyone’s hands and a great deal of patience to not point a middle finger at lame magicians.

Sunday night was spent on Huang Cheng. Jiaying was director for one of the plays, so as classmates, have to be supportive isn’t it? Her play was the best overall I guess. The second was touching but not thought-provoking and the acting wasn’t like brilliant. The third was far too abstract. So it went to the first one for great actors (for acting gay and spouting dialects naturally), as well as a relatively better plot I guess. Went home after the play. Yeah.

So my weekend ended, with fatigue lasting till today, but I still went to the gym. I swear the place is screwed up, there are like so many boundaries that restrict movement and they’re not even in place, I’ll take photos of the state of place next time.

But I think my body has grown and I feel quite happy about it (because I haven’t been to gym for 2 months already eheh).

Reading back on the long post yesterday, and what Dominic say, I would say that yes it may have been harsh, as well as without much constructive suggestions that would make it more substantial. But… somehow those are my very foremost thoughts, and I think many people share similar views right?

One more additional point I forgot to add in yesterday that is very important is that I believe that, well, most councillors, on an individual scale, do want the best, which is good, but are just simply restricted by what is placed around them, by the thing they joined to make school more than just school in the first place.

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Returning back to my mundane life, my heel is like injured. On the other foot this time, I seriously am trying out to figure why I get randomly injured. I think dear god is trying to slow my life down physically. I was seriously quite a mopey loser today, going around asking people to go eat lunch with me rather desperately, but Wei Sheng Martin all just… rejected me. I guess 77 guys are still the most spontaneous when it comes to lunch.

And today’s observation of Jingxiang kinda showed me that… well, courage is only half of the equation.

Or perhaps 3/4.

Then again, it doesn’t matter much now to me already. I’ve learnt to take more stuff in my stride. After all, things that are out of reach will not come back simply because you desire for it so badly I guess.

I just wanted to jot down the thoughts I had on my way home on the bus. After today’s Question and Answer session, some asked us if we (HP) asked those questions for the “thrill” and to get a “wicked sense of satisfaction” et cetera… Personally, I think we genuinely believed that our concerns and queries stemmed from a genuine concern (not love) for the school, and how the administration has been portraying the Council as some sort of an altar (i.e. a pretext to train and develop our “leaders of tomorrow”) that the general school population has to respect it somehow.

From my point of view, I think the biggest problem Council faces now is that the school administration does not accord a degree of respect to it. In this sense, whenever Council proposes changes, the administration treats it as a mere recommendation, rather than a serious attempt at challenging existing rules and concerns. Council has grown too comfortable organising events after events (too events and management oriented), and in some ways it has failed to accomplish what a Student Government should – enacting policy changes. In general, Council needs to do more to assert its authority as a representation of the student population; where it is on equal standing with the administration, not subservient to its demands. Remember: students are stakeholders in Hwa Chong, and we definitely have equal say as the teachers and administration do. Council must reach a stage where the administration finds it a need, not option, to consult Council in every new change or implementation.

What can Council do in the short term. These are some recommendations (not exhaustive).

1. Greater Transparency
- Council should let every student know about all the meetings they have with the administration. It is not good enough to say “we’ve tried our best, but … “. We need to know what happens.
- As a progression, the administration should consult all students (or if the Council is reliable, accountable and representative enough) before any decisions or changes are made. Getting a small group of students for a Focus Group Discussion is not sufficient – consult us.
- Use more online mediums to do the aforementioned. Repackage and revamp the PSB – make it current, usable and more active.
- Offering quarterly reports is a good tracker for students, and for Council itself.
- Release Meeting Minutes and available documents.

2. A Better Consultation Process
- Do away with the Students Forum – honestly, we don’t care about superficial attempts to “engage” us. We want real consultation.
- How? Have monthly dialogues with Council, the administration and the students, which are optional. In this way, genuinely-concerned students can propose bills (guidelines can be set on format, endorsements) for policy changes / challenging rules.
- As with the above point, make use of the Internet. The current Council website looks pretty, but beyond that it’s not really functional. Have forums (moderated accordingly, if needed), and sustain them. Make them appealing – make students feel that they have a stake.

3. Work more closely with High School and Nanyang
- This is something I don’t understand: if we are all connected under the IP, then why don’t we work together and synergise some activities or programmes.
- Working together does not equate to compromising sovereignty or scope of duties – a collaboration on events (High School works with Nanyang for CSM) would make school like so much more interesting for everyone, including the councillors.
- The potential for change is incredible. The network is multiplied also.
- There were so many opportunities (stop being so safe and self-satisfied, please)! For Hwa Chong’s 90th anniversary, we could have broken a world record, done a mega-fun fair on the entire campus, had many interesting lead-up activities and events.
- Meet up more often! Since the College is the eldest in seniority, then take the lead!

4. Genuine Welfare Initiatives
- Things like Welfare Week, while minor, was a good temporary relief from stuff as well.
- Initiatives like HCUnite are great; my only grouse? Why did it take so long for Council to set it up (might be my mistake – competitions only started recently).
- The CCA board is like, useless.
- What happened to WelfAir? Council must start showing a keen interest in accepting feedback from students, and acknowledging the there are many areas for change in Hwa Chong. While it is impossible to address every single one, do as much as possible. Start engaging the administration and the students!

5. Re-thinking the Election Process
- Cheronne made a great point – make elections attendance an optional one. If Council proves to be relevant and respected, then people will naturally turn up.
- It really doesn’t matter if you’re doing it for your portfolio / CV / whatever not.

My expectations: if you take up this responsibility, you’d better make sure you live up to it. Your motivations are not of my concern; your term and actions reveal everything.
- The election process should be one of proportional representation, rather than having fixed seats for each faculty. Administrative concerns? But there’s the Faculty Committees! It is the Students’ Council, not Faculty Council. If the current batch feels its faculty is under-represented, then canvass for people to run. Besides, the composition of Council should be of no real concern, if they are supposed to represent the students as a whole, not as blocks.
- Do away with the boring set questions please. Seriously. I can do without students telling me, and giving me the same politically correct answers (commitment, passion, optimism – Council bingo, anyone)?
- Keep the gimmicks, but have the nominees think about real change.
- How? Get each campaign group to prepare a one-page, summarised manifesto to describe what they will do if they were elected. This gets them to think about real policy changes, and do a little research and preparation as well. You see, this makes them different – different plans, different visions of what the school should be. I don’t want to hear answers that lead nowhere.
- For Presidential nominees, get them to prepare a 3-paged manifesto, and have it made public.

With all these being said, we should nevertheless thank Council for what they have done thus far. It’s been a long journey for all, and it is impossible to structure something to be perfect. Still, we have faith that Hwa Chong has the potential and capability to rise way beyond what has been accomplished, and soar to greater heights.

— Kwan Jin Yao

To be honest, yesterday’s presidential elections was simply pointless.

The point of having such a session, essentially, is to justify (1) why we should vote, (2) why we should vote for you, as a candidate.

That being said, I would have to agree with many of the HP students, and the few random and rather dry questioners from other classes that there is, in fact, no point in making a decision on who is to lead the next batch of council. Last year, Rhea, Jolyn, Qihan and Jeremy Ang stood in front of us, proclaiming the same passion for the school, the exact same reasons why we should vote for them, which many have done before them and others would after, just like today. I am not saying that I doubt their passion. I am not saying that they’re not qualified.

But hey. Let’s work out the baseline together.

You talk about passion to serve the school, love for Hwa Chong. I think I am comparable, many others may be even more.

You talk about ability to work alongside the student body, to mingle with them, at the class benches. Do you dare pit size of social networks with say, just me, for example?

You talk about your very own unique High School Council experience that helped you grow as a person. I was from consortium council. I am qualified, I guess, to organize events too.

So if we boil it all down and subjected it to strong oxidation, am I to say that the only difference that sets me apart from you, the sole difference that requires me to vote for you, is the fact that I did not run for council?

After a year of experiencing school events, supporting them rather ardently with the sole exception of Hwa Chong Idol, for the very reason that I know probably >40 of the councillors, and that it’s not very nice to decline when they ask you if you’re turning up for so and so. I can safely say that if we were to evaluate council as an events organising commitee, they are still lacking in terms of efficiency, creativity, and other areas. I would applaud the Pubco though, their ideas were fresh.

While it is hard to maneouver around the red tape and restriction of ideas placed upon them, I must point out, at this point in time that it is very hard to accept that given most rules have been there since a good buffer of 5 years ago, why is it that changes to certain school rules have been so… slow? Take the blouse shoelace issue, for example, and the point is quite concrete, at least from my perspective.

Referring to Jin Yao’s note now, it is pretty obvious that the inherent flaw in the operation of Council is the way they convey their intentions. Council may have our good intentions at heart (their sole existence lies upon it), but they haven’t told us what they have done for us, behind the scenes, all those (supposed) discussions to help us fight for more welfare. And since we don’t know, we complain. When we complain, they defend. When they defend, we hear denials. We doubt.

Council’s role as an events organising body is simply due to obligations. MAF, CNY, O1 and (not) many others. Discounting small welfare initiatives, we can see that all that’s left that justifies the existence of a councillor is not a great deal. While they have done them with well, efficiency and to their best each time, I must say that welfare, is not just solely about celebrating festivals and such, but rather, through constant renewal of the definition of a good school life, have distinct milestones in student policy making that can make future batches enjoy their times at Hwa Chong. It is what we all seek, it was what we voted for. But the fact that the canteen sticks out like a sore thumb everyday shows that previous batches have not worked the magic that they promised so enthusiastically.

It is not so much that we are politically apathetic, or simply an issue of faith. As pointed out astutely by many, the council body has became more of a circumvention for policies to pass through. I’m not exactly sure if this phrase is pin-point of my intentions, but it seems that the council is consulted after an issue is more or less decided on, a body that provides feedback. My ideal council is a body that can identify and deal with potential areas of contention. It is only through pre-emption that the council can effectively deal with problems even before they start to coagulate. And it is through exploring new unfielded areas that they can truly find niche areas of welfare to develop. A good example wouldbe HCunite. There was a problem with dissemination of results; no one listens much during morning assemblies, no one cares whose match is when. But with HCunite, people can now view at their own sweet time. They can check out hot bods of our athletes and cheer them on at the same moment.

This brings me to the next point which William has contributed. New ideas from council dilute each other. HCunite, as brilliant as I just phrased it to be, has just became a new competitor for MOCH. How many people have read MOCH from head to tail? A litmus test would be to ask the average student which schoolmate of his was recently interviewed in the magazine. I have been reading MOCH for nearly 5 years now, since my brothers started going to JC. Every MOCH has a centrepiece celebrating the glorious and happy moments of Hwa Chong. Everytime, I check if my face occupies a thumbprint-sized corner of that page, or the faculty page. The truth is, MOCH’s content is turning stale. I don’t need to read about how brilliant our ex-students are, nor where I should go eat after school. Neither do I need pick-up lines because I don’t have anyone I like. I don’t need 34 things the 34th has done to make our lives better too simply because people who have supported it don’t need to be reminded, and people who didn’t support don’t need justification of Council’s existence. MOCH is a good start point for change to begin with.

On the point of the election process, I truly believe in whoever brought that up (up till the point it started to digress). It is indeed an assumption that people would like an equal number of councillors in each faculty. A fallacy, in fact, because if councillors are all grassroots of the student community and judged by their ability to connect, it would not be a problem to depend on the student population to know who is deserving of the seats and who are not. Are we to say, by dividing the population by faculties, that those in, say Artemis, are not comparable to those in Apollo? Fair competition breeds novelty, it feeds the need to prove one’s worth. And as the voting system functions on the amount of connections one has in the student body and how many votes one is able to squeeze out of his friends and others, isn’t it fair to say that no matter which faculty one is from, there will be no advantage or disadvantage gained from campaigning to the whole school?

Of course, freebies are mere gimmicks that kill the earth or raise our chances of high blood pressure and diabetes.

I disagree with Jin Yao over the combined activities with NYGH and High School. Being from High School myself, I can say that I had enough of boys in khaki shorts for say, another 10 years, and I am definitely, most definitely uninterested in mixing with boys and girls who most definitely would only mix within themselves. It is simply cruel to laugh at high school boys and nanyang girls being awkward around each other, and I do not wish to increase my level of bad karma.

To end this severely long and painful critique of council, all I’m saying is that keeping Martin in council would be, as much of a difference as casting a vote for the Presidential elects, or supporting council events; it is neither needed for they will just continue trudging on this path, unless Liu Hao calls for his communist revolution like how he campaigned last year.

I promise never ever to do stupid stuff again. Especially with others’ stuff. I promise.

There was once a(n analogous) family, consisting of two parents and one child. It was a weird family, and I have to tell you more (that’s the point of writing this fictional story, isn’t it?) So let’s start with the mother. The mother, was a very hesitant, or more commonly-termed, slow, person. She had a tendency to do what was right for her child, which was a good thing, but often didn’t do what was proper. A very good example (once again fictional), will be dinner. She would go round the house asking “are you gonna cook dinner with me?”, “are you gonna be eating tonight?”, but when it came down to cooking the actual meal, she only bought the ingredients. And obviously that isn’t a very good thing because everyone can buy ingredients, and the crux lies in carrying out the task of cooking.

The daughter was… different. She never did grow up, preferring to stick to fairytales where a handsome prince would save her (from her enormously boring life), and that she would naturally bloom into a flower by curious circumstances. Such is the beauty of the girl that the guys in the cottage which the family lived in avoided day-to-day contact with her.

The father. Oh the father was different in many ways. Clad in nothing but his leather skins and hunting down the most difficult of game in the forest, he often had nothing to fear. Such immense power he wielded that all simply bounced off him, which was little, for all was in awe of him and nobody wished to offend him, even if he insulted everybody, living by his principle of “I fear nothing.”

One day the father decided to insult his daughter’s way of life. He inquired with most delicacy needed to handle a poor girl’s heart on why her mirror was coated with a layer of dust and lying at the back of the closet in decrepitude. The daugher, most obviously, was hurt, hurt beyond measure and wounded beyond words. The mother, seemingly the most rational, called for a family meeting but true to her personality, nothing was carried out except the fact that she got a few meagre snacks ready for the lengthy discussions that might have happened (but never did).

Okay I have no idea how to continue this shitty story.

Went down for free cones’ day after a rather brisk, yet in fact lengthy Biology revision session which was just doing the assignment. Couldn’t go down to Singapore Assoc. for the Deaf, sorry guys. Laughed loads with Martin the alligator, cut queue thanks to KATHERINE from Chingay, and had coffee flaroured Ben and Jerry’s.

Oh and I got gold for NAPFA too! AAAAAC. Needless to say, the C belongs to 2.4. My back hurts like f though, it’s like this permanent dull ache, oh god I hate it, but the two eggs my mom boiled for me would supply all necessary proteins to fix my body back to shape.

OH BY THE WAY:
here at the Sidelined Student, I salute all who are brave and true to their word, as well as compassionate and sensitivity.

Hmmm yesterday was my eldest brother’s birthday! We had this immensely huge chocolate cake that was filled with dark chocolate, so sinful.

The one on the right is the eldest one, by the way. He’s flying off to Switzerland for 3 weeks this thursday but I can’t send him off ’cause his flight’s in the middle of the night. Leroy take a look at his unflexed body.

Today we had javelin practice at the balcony. Iype was being a faggot, he threw the stick so darn far, how I wish I had same technique and strength.

Spastic Randy the birthday boy hit himself with the javelin while trying to throw it.

And you can watch our athletic endeavour here:

I AM GOING TO SLEEP NOW, not gonna ramble on in my drunk state any longer.

Birthday shoutout to Randy, Alfred, Atiqa. Bless you people everyday!

Today’s MP attachment was very much a big waste of time and energy, my group went to airport to stone; I ate three chicken breasts at Popeye’s chicken and biscuits, then took MRT to City Hall while the rest of the group went to Tampines to check out Uniqlo. Couldn’t get anything for my eldest bro (his birthday is tomorrow already what the hell), Randy nor Ling En (super belated whoops). I’m such a lousy friend and brother.

I think the trip to Changi Boardwalk should have been made more worthwhile and I should have stayed longer. Weather was super hot and sunny though.

I make Singapore look good as a tourist attraction. I know.

Went to eat lunch with Mommy after that at Thai Noodle, FINALLY BOUGHT HAIR WAX AFTER TWO WEEKS, then went home and worked out, perspired like a dog. Just did bit genetic variation, reading up on minitransposons for H3 ILP now. There’s still the GP handout to work on tomorrow, alongside many other tutorials.

Please gimme the strength, focus and some cool weather to last through the weekend.