Saturday, May 31, 2014

Form 6

Many said it’s a tough road, some considered it as their last option, others never had that as part of their plan after spm.

Then, who are the ones who came here? Some were obliged by our parents, some chose to stay on after secondary school, some didn’t have better alternatives or had nowhere else to go, some didn’t know where to go or what to pursue next after finishing spm, some came here because of the inexpensive education, some seek for the recognition leading to various opportunities that may follow, some saw it as a challenge in oppose to the general stigma of its pre-university education standards. All of the above I think, is undeniably in general, true.

So we were the guinea pigs under the new tri-semester system. The first batch. The pioneers! Ahems.

The truth is, it took me quite some time to adjust to everything. The new school, the new environment, the demanding syllabus, the new people and so on. In Lower 6, there were times when I felt small, lost, uncertain, butterflies in my stomach and just plain blur about many things. I was just one of those students adapting ‘here and there’. It was upper 6 that open my eyes to the  fact that I am actually happy to be here and indeed very thankful that I chose to do my pre-U here, in ACS. (Actually it was my very own choice to come here from the start. Hehee).

I know its quite late to post about Form 6. But I still wana blog about it. nyehehe. :) So a summary of what my Form 6 life was like :

Prefects. I think I was almost always a prefect. In ACS, I think the best lessons I've learnt from were during the probationary period. It was the time when I was busiest, enjoyed myself tremendously but also felt very stressed up about my priorities. Many times, I felt a sense of regret for being so actively involve in this board that I wondered why I joined prefects in the first place. Huhu. Also because we were called in for the compulsory committee interview, I opted for a behind-the-scene post aka as a secretary but BAM! Was given the post to deal with people upfront everyday. Zzz.

Unlike MGS, being a prefect here is different. Many teachers disregard the prefects here as an ineffective student disciplinary board and also pinpoint that among us, there were many black sheeps. And that's the difference. The board here was less rigid and open doors to many students giving them an opportunity to be a prefect. Its not better nor worse but different. It was in the end a good place to learn. :) The short stint that I had with Ms Josephine who was the assembly teacher-in-charge in Lower 6 was a great guidance for me throughout the following year as a LHP. I really thank her for that. :) I guess in the end, joining this board had its pros and cons. Furthermore, a few of my quite close buddies belonged to the board too so that's a Pro. YAY! :)

Time. Time was a very precious commodity. There's really not much time during the weekdays once there's classes, tuitions, weekly compulsory labwork, semester assignments, staybacks after school hours and homework to juggle everyday. It’s like Form 5 lor. So I had this habit of counting the number of hours I get to sleep every night before I go to bed back then. Haha. If I’m lucky, I get 6 hours of sleep. If not, I get 4 to 5 hours daily. Maybe its considered a lot already for a student. I don’t know. Huhu. But I spent lots of time outside going back and forth to tuitions; attending tuitions. If I have the chance, I took really quick naps in between. Naps are like a school-day luxury. :)

When I’m at home, I work on my endless pile of MUET homework – The major source of homework. Aahs. During holidays, we usually have assignments and lots of MUET homework too. Sokleng’s class no MUET homework at all under her teacher so can you imagine! So holidays aren’t really ever holidays for my class. Hmfs hmfs. The only reason why I was always so determined to finish MUET in particular was because Ms. Mindy, my Muet teacher, will erupt into volcanoes if we don’t hand them up on time. One big problem of all about time though lies with me. I have really poor poor time management skills. :( I really have to try to buck up on this area.

I joined afew stuffs for co-curriculum but I think overall, I was actually quite passive in ACS except carrying out my assigned prefect duties. I enjoyed being part of the badminton club. All we usually do is play for awhile and get free ‘Sauna’ later since no fans there plus its indoors. I joined the mix-doubles badminton compe with my deputy too, Aron, and we were so ‘lucky’ to get a draw in our first round against the mix-doubles pair who emerge as champions for that category. My Maths teacher and a student. So embarrassing. Hahaha.

I also joined scouts. My favourite scouting moment was probably helping out the juniors during their annual year camp. Helping to tie knots, going for mamak for breakfast and sitting under the scorching sun in the middle of the field surrounded by bamboos having a heart-to-heart talk. It was a memorable dayy. :D The rest, we mostly sat indoors during our meetings. Ohh, it was through scouts that I passed my first-aid test course too. Yipees! However, the certificate is valid for three years only. I was also part of GBP which represents the Student Body but we didn’t do much in this society.

I was in the Bio class. I took General Paper, Bio, Chem and Maths T. Every subject was difficult during different sems. The syllabus covers quite a lot, so it can be tough. However, it was interesting and challenging also though. For General Paper, we studied anything for our core topics and anything extra to improve our general knowledge ler. Some of the things we learnt are about the GE process, how our nation is governed, national policies and leading global movements. Since we cover the fundamentals, all this things that we come across in the news daily finally makes a lot of sense to me. Yehh! :D For bio, chem and maths, there are times when I really liked it and times when I don't feel like touching the book at all. Depending on my mood and whether I understand or not. Heheha.

For the two science subjects as well, we get the chance to do a lot of labwork. We have to share certain apparatuses but we still get to do them individually. It was fun testing and identifying the properties of chemicals for chemistry. Bio was not so fun for me somehow. Huhu. We have assignments on a semester basis too but we still survived nonetheless. I liked my Muet group very much too cos we have lots of irrelevant things to talk about when we got together as a group. It consisted of me, Kiir, Xiang and Anthony. I think all in all, we really work together well as a team despite our differences. We're also the only group that were grouped together by teacher herself and we had this motto, “Just freestylee”. Haha. We all did okay at last and the day we finished MUET exam, we lepak-ed at old town for breakfast happily. Wkaka. :)

Teachers. I had a dedicated Maths T teacher, Pn Kwan, someone I’d look up to in Form 6 and feel sorry to disappoint when I did badly for maths. Really. Huhu. Then there’s a stricter teacher but has a soft spot for us all the same like Ms Mindy, my Muet teacher. She's the one who knows us best. There are teachers who didn’t care much as to what we do in class too and those are the classes where we created a lot of chatter noise. Regardless, all the teachers who have taught me in form 6 are all of whom I’m grateful to have. Arigatoo. :)

Friends. In lower 6, I had one or two friends that I often stick too, others I just knew here and there. It was upper 6 that took a drastic U-turn. I got to know almost all of my classmates in person and knew them much better by the end of the year that I wish I didn’t have to leave Form 6 so soon. 6AE’s cool and unique cos we have all kinds of people in it actually. Kaka. Studious, weird, shy, talkative, loud, strange, noisy, crazy and a bit of everything altogether. Just like rojak lo. :D I met some really nice friends around in ACS whom I felt totally comfortable to speak out my thoughts at ease, went on several gang outings when we were free, had spontaneous yumchas especially on Fridays, played card games like Uno and the ‘piggy’ game during our free periods after Muet exam, lepakss, ‘played’ during chemistry lessons and so on.

I think with different clique of friends, I did different things with them. :) In ACS, I totally learn the meaning of Lepak! Hahah. I had a few really bitter experiences too that made me learned about people, my own beliefs and to stand on my own feet. I also want to say this, I’ve change my perspective of guys a little. Actually, I always have this negative impression on them (excluding within my family circle. I also dunno why), but after getting to know some of them in Form 6, although I still feel awkward if I had to deal with guys personally, I think actually they can be really weird but surprisingly really nice and soft at heart too sometimes. :) All in all, I think the my friends in Form 6 are a friendly, happy, nice bunch. :)

In the end, how tough Form 6 is depends on the person. For me, it was like two to three levels up higher from spm. It was a tough ride but in the end, I still learnt quite a fair bit. I'm not sure as to how much Form 6 impacted me or if it mold a significant change in me, but deep down, I know the answer to an extent, it does.