Basket.

I have been compelled, by popular demand, to do a continuation of the previous post, the main difference being the focus will now be on this entire, past year, which as I earlier mentioned, has been a tumultous one indeed.

My first memories of being an RJC student involve sitting in the hall in the early morning of 2nd January 2003, looking casually upon fellow OG mates, and still possessed by the wonder that it was another whole new year and a whole new school and syllabus. The slew of different uniforms and resultant riot of colours marked one contrast from RI; where one sweeping gaze over the hall revealed only whiteness.

I have a tendency to be laconic on occasions like these, and I was so then. Never an extremely forthcoming person, except to people I feel I can make good aquaintance of, I sat there quietly, only answering and expounding slightly if prodded by a fellow schoolmate. Then assembly started, and the first memorable address I heard was from Mr Leong, who warned crashers and strangers of the proximity of the Ulu Pandan Police Post to RJC, and also asked to see a few pupils (later discovered to be those with odd combinations). I distinctly remember Zihao's name being called and my slight reaction to it; who was to know then what would transpire later? Fate works in strange ways.

After that it was the usual ice-breakers and stuff.

Actually I do not have much to talk about Orientation. It was nowhere as memorable as either Secondary 1 or Secondary 3. Not that much happened at all, and I never really did gel with my OG. Usually I stoned in silence while the conversations ebbed and flowed around me. I was simply not very comfortable with these people at all, could not communicate, could not fit in, so to speak.

Missed the first Monday of the year, which I later found out was the time we went to our classes. Later I was told of what occured by Zihao, which I soon enough found to be in the same class once more, after a two-year absence. Apparently Mr Loh was late (something we would get used to soon enough) and I got mistaken for some girl (the way many people pronounce the last syllable of my name, it is easy to see why). Jieqi also found out we were back again in the same class, this time after a four-year absence. Fate is really strange here; just a week or so before we had met at a class reunion, and found out we were both going to RJ. We met again during Orientation, yet in the end never in our wildest expected to once again find ourselves classmates.

Also met several primary school classmates who had gone to RJ as well, seeing them around the school during Orientation and all.

After this unremarkable and uneventful Orientation, it was time for lessons to begin. And that was where the fun started.

As a consequence of me missing that Orientation Monday, the first I saw of 1A01C 2003 was the morning of 9th January. There wasn't anyone I particularly noticed when I stepped into class (although I knew Roger by face from RI, and Jonathan too, and Yi San was my OG mate). Zihao and Jieqi of course I knew, but no one else really caught my eye then.

I distinctly remember Mr Loh telling us to share with each other and the class one interesting thing about ourselves, and I was within a group that included Sean, Nikki, Justin and Jieqi. Again I mostly stayed silent during the conversation, being naturally rather a shy and laconic person. As for Mr Loh, I liked him right from when he began talking about his personal experiences as a student. Surely here was a teacher that would be able to understand, be able to put himself into our shoes, be able to show genuine concern and empathy. He had been through it all, and he knew how hard it was.

Not a lot happened then, as Zihao revealed that he and I had been long engaged in a bridge syndicate during our upper secondary days, and Jieqi revealed that we had been primary school classmates. The rest of the miscellaneous tidbits I am unable to recall.

After that was Econs lecture, which was unremarkable except for the fact that the RJ LT looked so different from the RI one. Not to mention the tutor (all of whom you know who is), which had the habit of drawing large breaths whenever pausing in speech. She told us what economics was all about etc etc and there really wasn't anything interesting at all about it. Or the Maths lecture the next day either, during which I remember counting down the seconds until the bell would ring and signify the end of it.

After two days of lectures that ended in O Night on a Friday (not much to say there either), it was time for the tutorials to begin. During the past two days I had stuck rather closely to Zihao, but soon began to warm to the class as this week of so-called normal lessons began. We met all our teachers, and this is definitely not the place to post individual first impressions I had of them, but suffice to say that they seemed a rather interesting bunch.

So the first week was interesting, but not much to really say about it. I had my first History lessons in more than two years, and we got to know each other and the teachers much better. I think this was the time we all began to bond, to enjoy each others' company and to really become "a class". And although previously I had simply not really minded going to school, only looking forward to it with slight enthusiasm, I began this time to look forward to going to school.

Certainly, my classmates were an interesting bunch. Literally people from all over Singapore (their schools, that is) where practices and experiences were so very different. We came from nine different secondary schools, with the girls' side showing a far more distinct diversity than the guys, where, predictably, six of the eight present were from RI. As the weeks passed and we swapped experiences and anecdotes and found out more about each others' various pasts in the different schools, my eyes were truly opened. RI in actual fact provided such narrow diversity, because everyone was basically the same creature: white-clad, studious (differing only in extent) and holding "fun" as a nebulous concept that came in second always to academics.

Indeed, the diversity of uniforms was a representation of the diversity of thought that all of us undoubtedly experienced. We were discovering new things right up to the end of the year ("What? You study only one week before exams?!": pre-promos period; "What? You guys have FIVE 9-subject classes?!": sparked by Mr Loh's casual question about RI one day during Civics).

And it was fun, exhilarating, to swap and compare experiences, climates, environments and people we had met and gone through. The greatest fun of the first three months in RJ stemmed from this, to learn, and learn about others around you.

Of course, it helped greatly that the class turned out to be very warm and friendly in general. Everyone was forthcoming after the initial period of still be strangers to each other, and we got on great with each other.

Indeed, from those first three months came many memories I will forever cherish. Happy, sad, poignant moments shared with my then-new classmates (and even some former and present ones =p); they are unforgettable. After an insipid Orientation this was exactly what I was looking for.

Which made the unexpected at the end of the first three months all the more painful.

So finally came the time when we would get our O Level results and determine whether we were really going to stay in this school for 2 years, or only 3 months (I confess being rather afraid of screwing up, but that is another story). In the end there was confidence the vast majority of us would be able to remain.

Then came the shock, and it was that the Arts cut-off for this year was an astonishing 4.5 points for RJ. For those not in the know, this is an amazingly low number. For past years, it had always been around six to seven (note: all these are with bonus deductive points counted in. So if you get 10 points and can minus 4 bonus, your final L1R5 and the one they use is six points). We were stunned. Not just us, but many of the other Arts and Humanities classes as well saw many of the new friends they had made in the first 3 months booted out because of this completely unexpected development. In fact we were fairly lucky to (initially) "only" lose one-third of the class to other JCs.

Fortunately, many (and for us, most) managed to come back on appeal, although despite our best efforts, some could not stay. The low Arts cut-off is something I still cannot fathom now; it was something that had never before happened.

Whatever the case, life had to go on, and it did, soon settling into a relatively mundane pattern of lectures, tutorials, breaks and CCA, albeit with the days livened up by the constant jokes, crap and funny tricks we pulled on each other.

Then came IPW, and I am waiting to see when MOE is going to top themselves on this one. Here is not the place to criticise it; suffice to say it was a bad idea and only served to give both the students and teachers a lot more work to do on top of the already-heavy academic syllabus. The whole thing reeked of wanting the best of many, many worlds, as if students are now expected to be all-rounded automatons who can literally do everything. But no, sorry, we are still human, in case you failed to remember or realise.

There is much more to speak on IPW but here is not the place. Moving on, it was June before I realised it, with the abridged 3-week holidays to make up for that week-and-a-half lost to SARS school closure. Speaking of that, it was rather funny. I mean, we had just come back from one week of March break, and gone through 3 days of Orientation 2 (which I mostly spent slacking around with no interest in the activities), when it got forced upon us. There literally was almost nothing to do during that break! I read everything there was to read in the house and then mostly amused myself on the computer, including using MSN Messenger. Long before the ten days were up I was yearning to get back to school if only because of the sheer enforced boredom, but also because I wanted to see everyone again.

Fortunately none of us succumbed to the deadly plague, nor was anyone quarantined. We all made it back safely and nothing more than the irritation of having to take temperatures twice a day remained to remind us of the epidemic.

June went by without much incident or colour, as did much of the rest of the year. I had fun doing and presenting the occasional History tutorial with Zihao, continued to suck at Maths and generally went about the usual boring academic requirements of assignments and tests. This kind of a life, which would otherwise have been dull, was livened up as always by the people around, be it simply sitting and talking crap, or going out to lunches at Ghim Moh, or studying together... there were some memorable moments within too.

Finally, now, everything is at end. The promotional examinations are over and done with (glad I can do my History S paper), IPW is gone from our lives forever, SAT is over and I have a decent score and even my school CCAs have concluded. The end of the academic year meant nothing; for me, only after I checked my SAT results one noght on the 21st and found I had a good enough score then could I truly sit back, relax and reflect on this eventful and truly memorable year.

Then again, it won't be long before I have to get started on all that holiday homework... bah.