0109'12

The last week of August has been an amazing amazing experience. 

Apologies for not being able to blog as the events happened - I was perhaps too caught up in the moment. So here's to predicting this post being a nice long one! 

On Tuesday, it was IHG Closing Ceremony'12 - to those who don't know what that is, it's basically the closing ceremony of our school's Inter House Games where House compete in various competitions and it also officially marks the end of the House Year of 2012. Most importantly, it's when the Best Organized House (BOH) is announced the the coveted Champion House trophy is given out. To be honest, since I stepped into the school, Waddle has constantly won BOH and never won Champion House so it was something I never did expect Waddle to. Not that I ever doubted this House of mine, but it's just that I always expected Tarbet to win it - it's sort of a stereotypical mindset I really shouldn't have due to the fact that Tarbet has been winning it ever since I knew of such a trophy. 

When they announced that Waddle was the best organized House, I was most definitely elated, but I wasn't that surprised that we did because our House Comm this year has done a wonderful job in organizing everything. As for Champion House, when they released that Richardson was second runners up and Tarbet was first runners up, House Comm was majorly freaking out because we realized we stood an absolutely high chance in winning. Then it came. Waddle was announced as double champs - winning not only BOH but the Champion House trophy as well. It felt so gratifying as CELL went up to receive the trophy, to know that all the hard work of the entire House has paid off. If it's not obvious enough, I AM REALLY REALLY HAPPY (': Don't mean to sound proud or anything, but I really think Waddle deserves it, our House this year has been so supportive of all the initiatives and I think Louisa has been an amazing captain. 

Afterwards, I started thinking about how pressurizing it would be for myself and the rest of JELLO for next year. But then I realized how juvenile my thinking was. As long as I do my best for House, I'm sure I won't have any regrets in the end (: 

On Wednesday, I skipped school for Moot Parliament Presentation and Debates! My group (Sam, Mel, Jac, Chris) was not selected to debate because we have already won Third Best Bill and didn't have to prepare anything much. I was really looking forward to that day because I love my MPP group - we're all really weird people full of nonsense. It was definitely a day worth being excited for!

Reached the MOE Gifted Education Branch pretty in the morning and didn't fall for the trick the crazy trolls tried to play on Sam and myself! I must admit it was rather tough trying to stay awake during all the presentation sharing by every school - there was so much to sit through. Especially appreciated those groups who injected humour into their presentation - made everything so much more interesting! 

After all of that, we headed to the Parliament House. It's my second time there (the first due to MPP too) and I love going there! It makes me feel so important and everything there's so grand. Walking (actually I think our group was running) down the aisles of the Parliament House in our court shoes felt so... wow (': for the lack of a better word. The programme was behind time by a lot, and we were all pretty worried that the organizers would decide to cut down on our lunch time but after the first debate between NUS High and Dunman, it was a 2-hour lunch break for us! Ms Lim insisted that RGS teams had to eat at Funan Mall as a "tradition", so we went to Pizza Hut!

All of us except Mel got Meat Galore pan pizzas which was pretty good (: 

To be honest, the lunch break was probably the part I was most looking forward to throughout the entire day! I love food with good company!

HAPPY TUMMIES (': 

After that, we headed back to the Parliament House, not without taking lots of photographs along the way! We're probably the group who camwhores the most among all the MPP participants and were constantly being judged. It's alright, at least we have visual memories throughout our entire MPP journey! Here's another one: 

Doesn't the background look rather fake? It's like Singapore's skyline at the back. Well, it's real! (': 

When we went back, it was time for the debate between RGS Team11 and NUS High! It was probably the most entertaining debate of the day, with all the humor infused food analogies. I thought our RGS speakers did really well speaking from the Government's perspective, especially Simran and Prithipal with their calm composures. Finally, we had RI debate against Hwa Chong - I was initially looking forward to this debate as I thought both teams would be quite hard towards each other so it would be entertaining but it turned out to be extremely info and evidence-centred. 

The debates rounded up the entire Moot Parliament Programme. Honestly, I wondered how they chose Bills to be debated - I would have wanted to see ACS (I) debate, it would have been an entertaining experience indeed. 

Debates

Best Government Team - RI

Best Opposition Team - NUS High

Challenge Shield Winners - NUS High

Bill Writing

1st - RGS

2nd - Hwa Chong

3rd - RGS (MY TEAM! :D) 

Challenge Shield - RGS 

In past years, RGS never really won major prizes for MPP, our seniors from last year attained the Best Speaker Award, but this year I think our batch did really well, with us clinching 1st and 3rd for Bill Writing! 

Thank you for the amazing journey guys, getting 3rd for Bill Writing was something all of us never expected! I love you guys so much! Oh yes and not forgetting our lovely student mentors, Jefferson and Zhong Ning! This is for you (: 

p/s: to our expert mentor, thank you for making us more independent than we already are! 

On Friday (yesterday!), after the Teachers' Day celebrations in school, I went back to Holy Innocents' with my RGS juniors. I never realized that there were so many Year 1s this year who came to RGS instead of Nanyang - a grand total of 3! Compared to myself and Jessa (Year 2) who were the lone warriors, three is considered a pretty large number. The five of us - Jessa, Julia, Ashley, Isis and myself - squeezed into a taxi and reached HIPS pretty early. I was so afraid that none, or rather few, of my ex classmates would come back but I'm so glad there were so many who turned up! 

Ms Yeo was so entertaining, sitting us down at the recycling corner and talking to us about life... in general. There were two other batches of 6R7 kiddos waiting for her but we got priority cos we were the oldest of the lot (x After visiting other teachers, a few of us headed to Hougang Mall and afterwards Nex just to talk. It was really good catching up with all of them and playing truth or dare, which got really boring after a while because we didn't really see each other a lot and didn't have much to ask about each other. 

Nevertheless, thank you for yesterday, 6R7'09! (:

Amazing amazing week!

Please be kind, September.