Short update: Exco Retreat = Best Time Of My Life

Crab-catching, star-gazing, laughing ourselves crazy;
Worries cast beyond where the sky meets the sea;
What more to life could there be -
than laughter, love and a family

Best three days ever. We went to this resort place - huts on stilts on the sea - Telunas, Batam (Indonesia). It was the most amazing time of my life. The endless sea we called the 'infinity pool', awesome crabs on the beach, dancing Dynamite in the water, lying on the deck just admiring the awesome starry sky, getting squid-inked...

sitting at the deck with our feet dangling, the sound of waves below, sunnies on, listening to Alex play the guitar, singing random worship songs -

the time of our lives.

A longer Exco Retreat update and pictures some other time! Anyway there are a whole lot on Facebook - check out Abigail Nyam's awesome albumsssssssssssss

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(thoselovesongs.tumblr.com)

O R I E N T A T I O N : D'ACLAND 2011

It's pretty awesome to look back at it all, at the fun everyone had and all the random people - even J1s from other JCs - who crashed our Orientation because it was so awesome. Because everyone knows it's awesome. We lived up to that, went ahead with a crazy theme inspired by Disneyland - with OG names like Cheshire, Frozone, Pumbaa, Zurg - and.... made it work.

Awesomeness from 2.10-2.36, Josh's Like A G6 legacy 2.37-around 5.20. Quality of the video's not very good; more stuff on Youtube!

Pretty awesome to know I contributed quite a bit to this awesome Orientation that all the JC1s will remember. Didn't do as much as I felt I should have as vice-head and the jobs of our Program I/Cs with all the crazy admin involved were so tough, and the Log I/Cs too, and we all put in so much, the Orientation adhoc and the OGLs, but it's pretty cool to know we each contributed something that made Orientation what it became. Including Shuzhen, Laura and Amelia who choreographed the dances.

The dances. Justin's alarm ringtone is Dynamite. It actually got us in such a good mood during June Camp when it jerked us awake from our nap. It's hard to find a ringtone that allows you to wake up, heart pumping and excited and happy. That's what dance does to you.

I wonder how many people actually read every page of the Orientation booklet, by the way. Probably a handful out of the batch of 800, but I like knowing I have the soft copy in my computer. And perhaps the magic I wrote of in the write-ups helped stir up someone's excitement and passion for d'ACland 2011 and the school, helped inspire a bit of love.

OTAH.

June Camp 2011 completed the cycle

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself.

When you become a leader, success is all about growing others."

- Jack Wel

I grew a lot in leadership in Council over the past year, and being a TRIC this time round was a privilege to me: to be able to pass on all that I had gained, the most important being the strong passion. From receiving to giving. What the juniors will come to realise is that being a leader is not all about leading per se; rather, it's about helping others grow in leadership.

Back at the start of this Council journey

...because, thanks to the fit I got into when I couldn't access all my Council-related posts, I spent 6 hours figuring out what was wrong and changing my HTML entirely just for this:

I CAN NOW VIEW THEM ALL!!!!!!!!! :DDDDDD

So, now that I can view all my Council-related posts,

I was looking back at the beginning - Council interview, one-liners, the beginning of my Exco journey.

Back to the beginning.

The day the 8 of us attended the 34ths' Annual GM, their last meeting, I wrote:

After the 34th Council's general meeting, Andrew Fok talked to the eight of us 35ths about it and as he talked I sensed his strong love for the Councillors and I felt really bad about the fact that they'd be stepping down from Council to make way for us new kids. I felt like it wasn't right. Who are we to be responsible for continuing the legacy the fantastic 34th Students' Council left behind? To let their strong bond and loud laughter and strong dedication be replaced by... newbies. I guess, like Andrew said, we'll grow to become like them someday - hopefully.

Letting go's always a risk the seniors have to take, a parting the seniors wish would never come. Somehow, during the GM, while watching the farewell videos and watching the seniors do the Council cheer, I actually felt... guilty to be one of those who were going to take their place.

I remember how I felt. Seeing how cheerful and bonded the 34ths were and looking at the videos of their times together made me feel guilty about taking their place. They didn't want to step down, they had created such a great legacy and it was left to us new ones to continue. I didn't feel as stressed as I felt apologetic. Weirdly apologetic, that these great bunch of seniors were going to leave, and they had no choice but to leave the rest to us.

Now we've risen up. We've made our own mistakes and grown, we've worked hard to make our seniors proud - and perhaps to tell ourselves (or myself) that the seniors' stepping down, their giving way to us, would be worth something. That replacing their laughter and their love would be our laughter, our love. It would carry on.

(ccaab!)

And it's time for our amazing bond, molded by tough times and celebrations and crazy dinners, to be replaced yet again. The seats in the LT where we have our General Meetings now, they'll be taken by another group of young, eager Councillors.

And the cycle of passion repeats itself.

It's good to know we've passed on the love for Council. Now it's almost time to let go, set a new batch free. They'll struggle, but if they keep their heads above the water, they'll survive - and they'll grow stronger.

On our 35th last day of the 35th Council's reign,

we elected the 36th Exco.

(but we'll always be the 35ths)

Yup, now we have a mini-abi, baby smurf, princes wannabe, brownie, scratch, gangster, spider and chinaman III.

The 35th Exco had dinner at Burger Shack followed by dessert at Island Creamery, which held some sentimental significance for us because Burger Shack and Island Creamery were where we had our first dinner together after being elected (not counting the hawker centre dinner we had on our elections day itself) almost a year ago.

14 June 2011:

17 June 2010, the then-newly-formed 35th Exco (without Alex):

It's always beautiful to look back at your journey and how far you've come. A year ago back at Burger Shack and Island Creamery, I was closest to Geraldine and Wei Liang, a teeny bit awkward around the four SC1 Exco members, still very fearful of Kat and full of passion and excitement for the Council term that lay ahead of us. Not knowing what to expect and very unprepared with no prior Council experience, but very willing to learn, to make mistakes and grow. All I had was passion, really, and it was all I needed.

I look back on how much I've changed, how differently I see things now, and it's heartwarming really. Sometimes I notice a poster for a random event that has passed long ago and think to myself, "ah, they forgot to follow-up after their event. There are always three parts to an event, the last one being the follow-through. They forgot to look after the little things."

These little things, they get me smiling to myself when I realise how much I've learnt and grown. I don't remember anything from my Exco interview, other than how I kept repeating one of the only strengths I knew I had: that when I wanted something to get done, I would make sure it got done well, and be passionate and meticulous about it.

I started out with little more than passion and have gained a lot as a leader. I've gained a lot of very useful lessons and skills, taught with the help of invaluable experiences, coupled with all the love and care of my fellow Councillors, all the love anyone could ever ask for.

Now it's time to pass on the baton to someone else whom I hope will gain as much as I have. It hasn't been an easy journey but that's what made it so beautiful.

It's good to know that through June camp and all, I've managed to pass on my love and passion for Council. It's been the most amazing experience ever for me - and the other 35ths - and I can only pray for future batches of ACJC Councillors to experience and gain all that we have.

Now, we'll treasure our last few days in Council. It's all happening too soon, too soon. As Kat once said, your Council term is long enough for you to only fully learn how to be a good Councillor when it has ended. But that's the beauty of it. The entire journey is a learning experience, and I must say that the last leg of my Council term - June Camp 2011 - has been the highlight of it.

There's still Exco Retreat, of course, and that will be amazing.

Like we're approaching a drought, and we've got these last few drops of water: we'll treasure the last 34 days like that.

Exco

I remember sitting at the coffee table in the quiet living room one afternoon with the Exco form in front of me. Blank. Wondering what to say.

I remember texting Lianne and asking her what exactly Public Relations was about, and then she suggested I give her a call. I panicked. Twenty minutes later, I was pretty much in shock - I never could have imagined that this TRic could be so cheerful and friendly. She sounded, in fact, like a...normal person.

Now, I look back and deciding to run for the Exco was the best decision I had ever made. I talked to Sebby about it because I knew I'd have to give up AC Dance for Council Exco, and he told me that I was of more use to Council than to Dance. That was the reason for my decision, and what I told my fellow 35ths after the many rounds of voting for the position of PR head, that helped make up their minds as well.

I look back at my initial huge fear of Lianne and hesitation of dialing her number. Then on voting day, she walked out of the (then) blazer room to happily announce that I had succeeded her as PR head. After that the Exco seniors and juniors sat in a circle, me beside her, and from then on, I started to know her as an amazing, caring, nurturing senior, and not as a TRic.

And now I look back at my TRicing days that have just passed, its evidence in my still-hoarse voice, and it really was the highlight of my Council term. Passing down the passion, with the help of the infinite love and care and support of my fellow TRics and the adhoc.

It's a cycle, a beautiful cycle of tough passion that will only repeat itself,

again

and again

through the years.

the dehydrated plant

I hadn't thought of my plant analogy from that angle.

And reuwlsmurf, they get me grinning insanely again. Individually, separately, one after another. Grinning, keeping myself from laughing at the computer.

I'm not dehydrated. Thirsty, yes, kinda, lacking, but life's still bright. Found a rope to cling on to.

reuwlsmurf:

these three have seen me in all my vulnerability. My nonsense that makes sense only to me. They're probably the only three that I've shown the full crazy fragile insanely dependent maddeningly vulnerable side to. It's not a pretty side. (then why're they all boys? I'm killing myself really, hahaha)

What would I do without them, without Council. It's amazing sometimes, the love of friends. Emme, Chloe, Pauline and all the rest...all forty-one of the rest. it's quite amazing to see how much they've brightened my life. If not for Council and the amazing friends I've made there, I'd be a very emo loner.

My life's been coloured. Bright crayons and beautiful rainbow sashes and glitter.

With friends like these who needs lovers?

Council requires sacrifice

I was never a good dancer. When I was contemplating trying out for the Council Exco, I was in a dilemma because I knew I'd have to quit Dance sooner or later, but when Sebby said "but you are of more use to Council than to Dance" I knew I had made up my mind. I knew it was going to be a tough sacrifice - lousy and relatively lonely as I was in Dance, I knew it was something I still really liked to do anyway, and it was really fun and all. Since quitting Dance I've become horribly flabby and unfit. I remember the hour-long warm-ups that left me feeling like I was on my way to becoming a bodybuilder.

There are a lot of things I've given up for Council - the biggest one being my fringe, I hate pinning it up. I wouldn't consider time that painful and huge a sacrifice - although I know Council has taken up a lot, A LOT of my time, I give that up very willingly.

But I know my Council journey and the friendships I've formed and experiences I've gained are worth a thousand times more than everything I've given up for it. It's been an amazing journey.

Haven't posted in quite a while

In love with the music video for Cry Me Out (Pixie Lott)!

Council drains me of my energy, but it's also what keeps me going. When it occurred to me that I wouldn't be with the 35ths for the next two days, I suddenly felt like I couldn't wait for the school week to begin again.

SIAO

K I'm not in the mood to write I should stop trying.

Wrecking havoc at the much-talked-about, very beautiful Hou's Hous(e) has been fun.

This is Matthew Hou on the drums...

Hou on the guitar (he's amazing - gotta take a video of him playing!)...

Hou on the piano...

and Hou on the bass guitar (FOR THE FIRST TIME!).

And that's hou he'll get all the girls.

bzbzbzbzbz

Will blog about SYF and other random things when I can. Sorry folks.

Getting three hours' sleep or less every weekday for the past two weeks hasn't been easy. Plus writing an essay with emotion takes a lot of time to get into the mood, and that totally ate up the two consecutive days I had come home before the sun had set (miracle, two days in a row!).

Every time I open my college planner to write down my homework, I'm in a total sian mood because I know there's one more thing I have to do. And then I see "Council" appearing four times out of the five days of the school week, and I get all excited again, knowing I'll be spending time with people I love on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Gives me something to look forward to.

When I was in Dance and loving it (although I was a horrible dancer), I could say something like "I look forward to Mondays and Thursdays - that's when I come alive. Dance is a revival of spirits. It's not often that you hear someone saying they can't wait for Sunday to pass."

(IT JUST OCCURRED TO ME THAT MONDAYS AND THURSDAYS ARE WHEN CRESCENT DANCE HAS PRACTICE TOO!)

Now the Council is... a true family of friends I previously had never experienced. Even though it's tiring and very demanding, I wouldn't give it up for the world. If not for these people, I'd be feeling considerably out of place in AC, and very dissatisfied with myself too, knowing I'd have liked to make significant contributions to the school.

Now I see an ACJC sticker pasted on the table - or a fellow student flipping open his college planner - and my heart is warmed, knowing I've given something useful to the school.

There's this inexplicable satisfaction you get from knowing that all you slogged for really made people in the school happy, added a little excitement into their JC lives and enhanced their college experience, or helped to raise the name of ACJC.

In the context of sports and the performing arts, there's this satisfaction you get from knowing that all you slogged for has brought glory to the school and upheld the name of ACJC. Showed the nation what we're capable of.

Your heart soars when you know you've contributed to something far greater than yourself. Thirty years on, the random ACSian wouldn't remember your name, but they'd remember the legacy you left behind.

The Media I/C who did the amazing Sports Update slides four years ago. The painted Void Deck pillars - can you imagine them grey, I can't imagine how dreary the void deck used to look. Smiley.

The little booths in the library where you can watch movies, and the board games. Things like that.

And the poem Mr T. W. Hinch, principal of ACS from 1929-1947, came up with whose last line still resounds within the walls of every single ACS school and the hearts of every ACS student today - "The Best Is Yet To Be".

While the smurf sleeps

Nov 13-16: CCAAB camp

Nov 17: Nov Adventure planning with the Exco

Nov 18-20: Nov Adventure with Council

Nov 22-26: ELL internship at the library

Dec 1-7: Taiwan trip

Dec 7-17: Admin job at Health Promotion Board

Dec 20-30: Malaysia - SPENT ALMOST ALL MY TIME CHIONGING HPB AND COLLEGE PLANNER WORK. COLLEGE PLANNER MADNESS

Jan 3-7: OGL preparation stuff

Jan's school term: Orientation meetings & walk-in rehearsals & morning dance practices blah blah blah hardcore Orientation prep - AND ORIENTATION ITSELF WHOOOO

Feb 1: End of Orientation

Feb 2: Blue-slip day (Sentosa with the OGLs yay!)

Feb 3-6: CNY

Feb 9: Orientation post-mortem

Feb 10: MUTS

Feb 11: WUTS ushering

Feb 12: FIRST ELECTIONS AD-HOC MEETING OMG

Feb 13: De-thorning of roses for Vday (Y), reunion dinner (shucks I just realised I don't have time to buy Vday gifts!!!!!)

...Where's the study time?

.............I love Council. It really should be considered a full-time job. I ought to get paid. With a schedule like that, you can't blame me for neglecting my studies a little, really. I do try. I do try.

It's when you look into my eyes

But a friendship that's been tainted by infatuation right from the start isn't really friendship, is it?


Had a 3G dinner with the 33rd, 34th and 35th Councils yesterday, after an entire afternoon of Abi cleaning up the Council room (it's so spacious and clean now) while WL, Alex, Justin and I "slept like rocks". The 33rds are awesome. Sameer is hilarious. Roi is hilarious. Weiliang did the Orientation couple dance with Alex (Sameer was screaming about needing therapy after watching it). I also found out that the PR head of the 8th Council was called Karen Fong - like me and my PR vice-head Rachel Fong! (and Adrian Pang was in PR!).

Pumped up and ready for Orientation again tomorrow. I think the mud hole's closed for good so we won't be able to dunk Lee and Ching Sheng, unfortunately, but there's still the myriad of funky wet awesome games that await us. Our walk-ins are on YouTube; this awesome guy called Shawn Lee recorded, like, the entire awesome thing. The 33rd Councillors were impressed. Some kids from other JCs expressed their envy. It was, in Sarah Pang's words, "si bei awesome sia".

This is AC.

Someone said my complexity makes me beautiful.

Sometimes when deep down, you're very needy of something, and someone comes along and happens to give you what you need - unknowingly, maybe - you can't help but cling on to it in desperation. And then you cling on to the person. And if you aren't careful, the clinging becomes more emotionally involved than you'd ever intended.

My feelings have been in a colourful violent whirly mess these few days, but I don't want to think about it anymore. I'm thinking I'm pretty screwed up inside where it counts. I don't have the energy to decipher my feelings, and I don't want to. I don't want to know and I don't want to care.

Just don't.

I don't really like the feeling of liking someone. I like being able to be completely comfortable with a friend and be genuine, open and truthful for the sake of nothing more than a great friendship. It's a little weird that the two or three people I'm closest to in Council (in the sense that we htht the most) happen to be guys - I usually stick to girls more - but I love the feeling of being able to develop a genuine, deep friendship without worrying at all about any emotional lines blurring with them somehow.

Like Reu, WL, what would I do without you two.

I was thinking about it today - we all have these little flings with love, and sometimes with these little bouts of infatuation, everything seems really intense, but then you realise you two actually don't know each other all that well, or haven't been around for each other enough to develop that strong mutual understanding of close friends, almost telepathic.

We've seen one another through our most unglam moments.

Remember: All I see is the red floor of the track - a blurry image thanks to sweat mixed with tears; my hair's in a mess and my arms are shaking, there's the occasional painful whimper, and all I hear is a mess of shouts - of tenacity and of encouragement, and of scolding above us. Justin's in his white specs, also drenched with sweat, occasionally shouting out cries of endurance; despite all his own pain, he reaches out to support me. Allowing me to rest my shin on his calf in an attempt to hold me up. Our legs are too slippery with sweat for it to do any good; it's useless, and I'm only causing a greater burden on him - but he struggles to hang on just as I do, and I know we're in it together.

Another time, I ask for permission to hold WL up. He's crumbling; I'm in the crunches position, trying to hold him up with my shins. It isn't easy, but I know that if I do a little more, he can push himself a little less. Little frequent cries - everyone's on the verge of breaking, but if we can do a little more for the sake of someone else and not ourselves, we'll survive. Hang in there, we shout, just a bit more to go.

They've seen me stand before them, drenched in sweat, hair in a mess, wiping away tears.

These people - we've been there as one during tough, tough times, both physically and emotionally. We've been there to tell one another to stay strong. We've shown one another such genuine love and care. We're willing to do a little more to make them happy. We're so comfortable around each other, knowing the rest in the group love us as much as we do. We've developed such a strong mutual understanding - irreplaceable.

Sweet, sweet friends, who I rant to all the time but are still always there to give me the love I need, just because. How I, the annoying once-perpetually heartbroken victim of non-reciprocal feelings, kept ranting to WL about the same thing for months because of how much it affected me, and how one day he gave me the link to Heart Vacancy by The Wanted.

With friends like that... without knowing it, I've gotten more love than I could ever ask for. Stupid me, I once kept clinging onto someone who didn't see all that pain, while those around me who did kept trying to make me see that they would always be there for me, lovingly, unreservedly.

Irreplaceable. And with these friendships, I'm reminded of how small infatuation seems, although the heart-warmth can seem like a dizzyingly, overpoweringly big thing. The love of friends like that transcends all.

I now know more about yogurt than I'd ever wanted.

I don't know what made me agree to take on an admin job with Geraldine that started the day we returned from Taiwan, but all that searching for and keying in of information is mental suicide. At least Wei Liang gave me a pleasant almost-surprise visit yesterday!

Hooray for great friends who brighten up your day with unplanned, unexpected visits.

AND the Council Exco met up at Plaza Sing to celebrate Justin's and Geraldine's birthday at Aston's, and made a last-minute decision to watch Narnia. YAY!

I think this was the only time I went out to have fun this holiday, excluding the Taiwan trip. The rest of my holiday was taken up by camps and the internship and this job I took up and the college planner.

MY LIFE IS PATHETIC. We're halfway through December, and then 2011 is going to be a crazy hectic year! NOOOO

Bringing Justin's 30-inch Pluto soft toy to work was a joke, but laughing at the way he held the dead-looking soft toy throughout our meetup was worth it.

Geraldine and I got pouches for the Exco - we initially wanted to get Mario and Luigi for Alex and Justin, but then we found Piyo the duck and decided Justin had to have it.

We convinced him that it's a chick magnet. He still refuses to use it though. He doesn't know what he's going to be missing out on if he doesn't use it. Then again, the 12-year-old British girls were apparently "all over" him when he went on the school trip to UK.

Wei Liang got us Disney stuff when he went on the school trip to the US! I love the notebook and pen. Best, most thoughtful present he could give to Karen the perpetually-writing emokid. Except that I already have a diary - it's pretty thin and I'm barely halfway through - and I recently bought another overpriced notebook from Artbox for my random writings. I'll probably use this as a diary after I'm done with my current one - the pages are too pretty to be used as a notebook that I won't refer to again when I'm done with it, so I won't use it for notes etc.

Even 'family' doesn't describe it well enough

Having a PR outing right after the release of results mightn't have been the best of options, but six people out of ten turned up anyway and had a lot of lame fun. We decided we were all too cowardly to go to Scape's Museum of Horrors like we had planned to, so we watched a comedy instead - A Wonderful Afterlife.

(35, MAGIC NUMBER!!!!)

Had a fun time playing Uno with High School Musical cards with the Exco. I was the Ultimate Loser. Tomorrow's going to be eggciting - running with the awesome seven others!

We never do anything extraordinary when we're together, really - it's usually just dinner or something - but it's about the crazy fun we have just joking around; how the fun is in being in each other's company, and knowing we'd rather be here with one another than anywhere else.

Knowing we'll be fully committed to coming for any gathering or meeting (whether for fun stuff or not), because the time we spend together is always special. How we'd much rather be doing not-so-interesting-work-related-stuff together than having fun somewhere else.

It's a really special bond. I'm sure everyone's experienced it, really. I'm just not one who's had closely-knit cliques (or cliques at all), and it's just great to know that everyone is just as committed to and passionate for the group as you are.

More often than not, I love a group of people and am more committed to it than the others, or they feel for each other more than they do for me, and it just results in a lot of disappointment. To know your love and effort is reciprocated is beautiful.

I wonder how emo my life would've been if I hadn't joined Council. And the Exco. What even pushed me to sign up, after my seniors told me it was complete saikang?

I think it was my desire to make the best of my last two years in a school. University will be really different from the past twelve schooling years, and I'm glad I'm not in a Poly - I haven't had enough of this schooling life. School spirit and even the uniform and all.

I think I wanted to push myself to do what I never did previously, to realise my true potential and to leave with no regrets. Thanks to Guin and Crescent Dance, I realised that perhaps I could lead, or contribute in a bigger purpose than I had thought. So I became the OG and Class reps and then I guess I decided to try out for something a little greater, to contribute to a larger purpose. To make a difference and feel that I could help in a bigger way, that I was worth more.

No regrets.

Suddenly I need you now

The past few days were great. Since the exams I've been busy - going out with PRians and the Exco, and with AC games. I love the Exco and the fantastic times we have together, just laughing and laughing and having an awesome time, with Weiliang's gayness and Gerou's lameness and Alex pretending to be angry. Of course I love the PRians too, but I already blogged about that.

AC Games was hectic but quite a success overall I'd say. I was just thinking, on Friday there was nothing in school apart from AC Games which was managed entirely by the Councillors, so the entire school would be in chaos if the forty-three of us happened to skip school. (It'd never happen, duh, it'd just be very interesting to witness). There were screw-ups and injuries and it was mad hectic at the score tabulating area so there were some problems, but I'd still say we did have fun overall. I refereed for Dodgeball, the only ball game I guess I'm relatively good at, because I instinctively avoid balls (that's why I'm horrible at Captain's Ball). Refereeing was fun but tiring. After two full days in the sweltering heat, we've all got horrible tans and sunburns and disgusting T-shirt collar tanlines, ugh.

Anyway, the past few days were good. Busy. And I felt relatively alright around you ,which is good. And being caught up with other fun things takes my mind off the painful stuff. Life's been fast-moving and exciting these past few days but suddenly it's possible to just..plunge into blackness and strong emotions.

Um okay because I have nothing better to do at 2am,

I'm not going to wait for Emme to upload her pictures. I think my blog's too wordy.

1st Sept: Emme's birthday gathering with the Exco! Raindrops Cafe at *Scape.

Today (or, um, yesterday) was Council's Senior-Junior Interaction woohoohoo.

dunking.

The fashion show thing was epic. Ian and Mingtow were epic. They weren't even a gay couple anymore - they were a lesbian couple. Zongren gave them boobs. When the people with the good photos of them put them on Facebook I'll put them on my blog. It was fantastic.

AnywayyesitwasfunmorephotosonFacebookyadayadayadakthanksbye.

My first nap in the Council room :D :D :D

(but it was so awesome that I ended up hardly studying for the ELL test. I actually remembered all my stuff, it's just that I totally overestimated time and spent half an hour planning my essay, so I wrote really little.)

Finally, I've confirmed my I/Cs for my subcomm! I do hope everything works out for PR. I'll do all I can to make sure things go insanely awesomely. On Wednesday there's the student dialogue session - not as fun as I'd thought because the teachers are facilitating this time round - and our Council Voice will be up by next Monday (: FINALLY!

This is such a random post. I'm just happy!

Council

I feel the workload piling up now - as Wei Liang says, "PR finally has something to do" - and it's all rushing at me at once, but I'll take it in my stride.

Inter-house Games!

Subcomm Allocs was awesome fun (for us exco members anyway), hahahaha. Hope Andrew Fok uploads the photos soon.

MY NEW SUBCOMM (:

Post-Investiture

I was on Facebook just now and happened to take note of Yao De's status: "Invest your time in what's eternal and not what's temporary." And I thought, how true. How true. What do we hope to achieve by being in something like the Students' Council? If it's for our portfolio or for the glory or the prestige of being in it or even wanting to be the best Council ever so that we'll be remembered for our great contributions, I'm pretty sure we'll all burn out really soon. Because that's not what Council's about.

Council isn't about competition or what we gain out of it personally. To me, it isn't even about leaving a legacy as the 35ths. We want each batch of Councillors to outdo the previous batch because we want the best for the school. I genuinely want to do as much as I can for the school to help the students make their ACJC experience a fantastic one. I want ACJC to be able to change people's lives. That is eternal. And, of course, I ultimately want to give everything back to the One who gave so much to me. I want to change people's lives in ACJC, whether they find Him or find love or find true friendship and school spirit here.

If we keep working for ourselves - to build up our portfolio and all - things start to seem really pointless eventually. I've thought about it. I've got quite a lot of things going for me - awesome CCAs, relatively good O level results, a small scholarship (that doesn't grant me much but maybe it'll get me somewhere) - and all this, what for? For a good record? To heighten my chances of getting a scholarship for a university overseas, maybe, but what for? To work in print journalism and slog my guts out for an unsatisfactory pay? Or to become an English teacher and have to deal with uncooperative students and authorities' rigidness? When I think about this, if everything I've been doing so far had been for the wrong reasons - for personal gain - I'd have lost meaning in everything a long time ago.

But it's not about all that. I want to give back as much as I've been blessed with. Each skill or lesson I've learnt, or each experience I've gained, has a much greater purpose. It's not about myself, not about leaving a personal legacy. I want to change people's lives. I want someone's life to have been changed for the better, to be able to heal and spread love - and spread the word of the greatest Love of all, that which comes from the perfect One.

That's eternal.