Hostel Life Mid-Term Report

Ok I actually planned to blog about my hostel life everyday but my plans were hindered by either limited connectivity or time.

Hostel life has been interesting so far. Most parts of it are negative. The best thing about Hostel life is you can go enjoy a bath with heated water anytime you wish to do so. I totally didn't expect the BS to have heated water, so I got quite a pleasant surprise :)

Day 1 was spent checking into the unoccupied space in Wen Han's room and tidying the room up. I arrived at the hostel at around 740am to clean up the room. The room was amazingly dirty. There were thick dust layers and cobwebs I suspect. I thought Wen Han would have bothered cleaning it up abit...I mean dust particles floats in air right. At 2pm, the SISC comm. members were supposed to collect the boarding passes for their respective rooms. My teacher directed me to the Hostel Manager as I made special arrangements to stay in WH's room and that's when all the screwing starts to begin. The Conversation between the Hostel Manager and I went something like this:

...
HM: I think Wen Han's room is pretty dirty
Me: Yea it's. But I went to clean up the room in the morning already.
HM: How did you get up to WH's room without a boarding pass?
Me: I took a visitor's pass from the guard post and got WH to fetch me up to his room (and I totally forgotten the visitor's pass doesn't allow me to access the dorms.)
HM: Do you know you're not supposed to enter the dorms with a visitor's pass? I want you to write a report to me.

And that's how I got screwed. I had to write a report even before I managed to lay my bedsheets. Sigh.

I came back to the Hostel at around 6.30pm after CCA. The bath was good as usual. Managed to mug abit after that. But when night falls, I started to notice an interesting trend. You know...in hostel...almost everyone is equipped with a laptop (or even desktop!). So what happens almost every night is the boarders will start shifting themselves into each other's rooms and start gaming parties. And so the hostel rooms get transformed into mini lan shops, which can be pretty distracting for people who wants to study (like me :) ).

Another interesting thing is these people love to sleep late and wake up late. Even at 3-5am you will still notice people walking around, making cup noodles and what not. I managed to notice this because I couldn't really sleep on the first night because it was damn humid (and I was paranoid about bed fleas). The boarders usually skip breakfast and wake up at like 10-1130am so the corridors are always pretty quiet in the morning. :)

I woke up to the circulating heat in the room the next day. Day 2 was a mugging-failed day. I went for GP consultation in the afternoon and got damn demoralized by AK. I decided to do something I like before embarking on my next GP assignment by chatting with ML on the net. But the internet at the dining hall was so limited I got lagged out of MSN messenger. Terrible. The rest of the afternoon was spent sleeping because I was damn pissed.
As usual, interesting things happens at night. I found myself on the second floor of the BS trying to figure out how to use the coin operated washing machines for almost 15mins before WH's friend came to my rescue. I initially placed so little washing powder I bet everyone thought I was just washing one underwear. Thank god for him, I managed to get my clothes clean and dry by today.

Ok. So I shall continue when I've time. Surprisingly, it's pretty enjoyable to sit on the big red sofas and blog early in the morning. :D

40th Anniversary College Day Pics

Some pics from 40th Anniversary. Inspired by ed-t. :)

Welcoming of GOH at the Atrium


Speech by GOH


Couple of performances from:
Choir


Western Dance. This is easily my favourite dance from NJWD. All the hip-hop stuff they've been doing were never to my preferences.


Guitar Ensemble


Candid shot caught while Jack the school-hired photographer was trying to get the kids to hype things up abit


My favourite shot of the day. The little boy infront is only JH1 (or Secondary 1 equivalent). He was super nervous about meeting the minister that day but luckily everyone around him was nice enough to give him encouragement. He got a little more confident after that. I like this shot because it shows him at his fullest confidence :D


Opening of Boarding School

Candid moment of the Minister having a chat with some students from NJ

Welcoming ceremony during Gala Dinner. Alumni of different batches from NJ were invited back to have a meal together.

Symphonic Band performance. The conductor is someone important. I forgotten who is he.

Cutting of the NJ Birthday Cake

Candid shot 1 of: Damn I forgotten another person

Candid shot 2 of the Minister

Thoughts

It's rather late into the night and I should be sleeping by now but I'm still blogging anw. Because I've a whole mountain full of thoughts in my mind and I need to clear them. I would jolly well appreciate a Pensieve if anyone has one but too bad I'm not Harry Potter. Today Darkroom session was rather rewarding - for the members and me. I guess it felt really good that the members were enjoying themselves alot while learning something new. I finally started to see members chatting up with other members they don't really know. It was rather clique-ish previously and I didn't really like that. I think grouping them up and giving them work to do in groups really helps. :D Today's strength was excellent too. 28 people came for lessons when I was expecting just 20. Hence, I ran out of notes and equipment for them to try out. I finally see majority of the juniors turning up (and with repeated attendence), which is a good sign. :)

Well the reason why I'm typing all these is because I suddenly had a whole lump of thoughts about NJPS while I was trying to read my Normal Distribution math notes. Images of the next Exco-handover suddenly surfaced in my mind. I visualized myself tearing and giving a real emo speech to the entire NJPS. Well...sadly but surely, I'm nearing the end of my Exco term. Exactly 1 month later, after the SNAP Seminar, the juniors will be officially taking over the operation of NJPS. Sometimes, I try to imagine myself being not an Exco but it's just pure impossible. I believe almost all of the current Exco has put in their heart and soul into NJPS and it's just too difficult to imagine ourselves not having weekly meetings and planning any photoshoots/lessons. To be honest, I don't really feel like stepping down at all. I totally love my current position in the Exco. The role of CIP (Chief Photog and Instructor) really gave me alot of freedom & opportunities to improve my photography and gave me a chance to derive pleasure from teaching the juniors (Trust me, I really love the current bunch of juniors we have). It's really unthinkable that in 1 month time, I have to stop all photography related activities and pick up my mugging pen instead. It's insane. I would probably end up popping into the darkroom everyday and sign up for events to cover because it has already been in-built in me.

The reason why I'm not willing to part with NJPS is because the current Exco has really done alot this year to give a total revamp to NJPS and I can't bear to leave all the things we've done behind. Firstly, SNAP! Photography Competition cum Exhibition and Seminar. I bet our immediate seniors wouldn't even have dreamt of getting Nikon as sponsors. I admit that initially (during the early stages of planning) I thought the idea of a Competition+Exhibition+Seminar sounded abit overly ambitious but it's really great to see it coming along really well. Reponse for the Competition was excellent and abit unexpected. Preparation work for the Exhibition is smooth & everything's on schedule (Coincidentally, the school even repainted the I&E hub for our exhibition area...how lucky can we get). Seminar will be a tough logistic challenge but the entire club is working together to make this happen. Secondly, we finally changed our instructor after a draggy last year. The members are learning alot more now and everyone's becoming more committed because of the frequent outings/lessons. Thirdly, I can finally see unity in the club. From a club that has a maximum strength of (what!) 10 per lesson, we can now proudly boast that we have at least 28 out of 37 members attending club activities. Members are interacting with each other so much more and becoming increasingly committed NJPS. And the list goes on...

What I'm trying to say from all these points is that I'm really proud of what we've done so far (and will do in the future) and I'm really thankful to the current Exco for making all these happen. Believe it or not, I wear the NJ Photographic Society family tee with huge amount of pride whenever I cover duties because I know our club is really good and is really committed in doing better. I'm proud that I'm from NJPS because I know we're doing so much more than the other JCs' photog clubs. And we, as members of NJPS, can be proud of ourselves because we know that we put in our best everytime we're set on something.

Although every start has an end, every end has a new beginning. I really hope our juniors can really live up to the legacy the current NJPS has created. You guys must remember never to give up once you all have set your sights on something. Even if it takes up a hell lot of your mugging time or private time. Only through pure commitment to our CCA can our club be better the next year (and many more years to come!). Create a new legacy and, trust me, your future juniors will continue to create many more. Wear your NJPS shirt with pride and be proud of our achievements. Set ambitious aims and work towards them relentlessly. Unite your members and work together as an entire NJPS. Only then will you be able to leave the club at the end of next year with pride, knowing that you've done your best. All the best Exco 09/10.