Thursday, 1 April 2010

Maundy Thursday was started off with service. During the service, they were talking about Servant Leadership and how Jesus was a leader who came to serve and not be served, which he evidently displayed when he washed the feet of his disciples. That particular incident aroused his disciples and caused them to think that Jesus was wrong to be serving them in a way. They went through "Stations" when Jesus made his way with the cross to the place to die. In each "Station", they described the events that happened such as the fact that he fell 3 times and Simon helped him carry the cross. In them, they represented the values of Jesus, of his love and perseverance, his willingness to die for the people and other inspiring qualities of Jesus. They followed it up with Marists who exemplified Servant Leaders, and apparently my form teacher felt that I was one of them, after observing my behaviour for a while, so she had nominated me. There were about 7 people whom they mentioned, and in the 30 seconds where my name, class (put wrongly) and picture (A 2009 picture, they couldn't find any other photos of me) was revealed to every single student in the hall, I became more famous than I ever had been. Random people whom I had never met recognized me even after the Service, I don't know how they did it, I would not even be able to identify who the other 6 Servant Leaders were in a group of 10. Well, I had one day of "fame", if you could call it that.

For Geography lesson after that, we learnt about Biomass. My teacher told us that everything that we ate could be traced back to plants as plants are the core units of an ecosystem and if we lacked them, the whole population of animals would be affected as they are the start of almost every single food chain. So my teacher came up to me, asked me what I ate for Breakfast and I told him I did not eat Breakfast. He then told me I had eaten air, which was what I did say previously, then he asked me why I did not eat, was it because I was too poor, I could not afford food for breakfast and in the midst of all that he was saying rapidly without waiting for an answer, he withdrew a $10 note and put it into my pocket and walked off. My classmates started shouting that they had not taken breakfast either, in hopes of free money. Naturally, I returned it to him, but if I did not, it would really have been mine. When he asked me again why I did not eat and gave me a chance to answer, I told him that I barely took Breakfast.

After lessons, I went to make up for a couple of Biology Lab Experiments that I had missed when I had attended the Table Tennis Competitions. Kai Xun came as well, since he had missed them too. The very first two food tests... Mr Teo gave us the answer sheets to save time. Experiment 1 was ok, but when we were doing Experiment 2, we found that we were short of Dry Test Tubes. So Kai Xun asked for extra Test Tubes and returned with 4, which we split evenly. After doing the first part of the Experiment, we found that 2 was not enough, we needed 6 each. I still had 1 dry one since I reused 1 of the Test Tubes in the first Experiment, so I went to ask for 3. I told the lady that I needed 3 Test Tubes, and she took out a book, flipped it to the last page where any entries were made, and asked me to fill up the slots. It appeared that I had to write my details when I borrowed test tubes, so I did that. Date, Name, Item, Quantity, Signature. When I wrote my name, I looked at the slot above mine and wondered why Kai Xun's name was not there when he had borrowed 4 test tubes 15 minutes ago. Nevertheless, I filled up the rest of the required blanks. While writing the quantity, she asked me how many, to which I answered 3 and she looked shocked. I supposed no one had borrowed that many from her simultaneously before. When I was done, the lady told me "不用现在赔钱“. I looked at her, thinking "Why do you think I would pay money to borrow 3 Test Tubes?" Then when she made no effort to get 3 Test Tubes and repeated her words, I suddenly knew why. The book had been to record down the details of Broken Laboratory Apparatus. That's why I needed to write my name, which item I had broken, how many of them I had damaged and my signature to confirm that. It would then make sense for her to say what she had said about paying for the Test Tubes and the reason why Kai Xun had not filled up the blanks. It would also then explain why she had been shocked when I told her 3 Test Tubes. Hence, I told her again that I was there to borrow 3 test tubes and she looked at me for a second before taking over the pen, striking off what I had written and then going to get the Test Tubes. I was right, she had misunderstood me, or maybe I did not make my point clearly. She told me that she thought I had broken 3 Test Tubes, and I corrected that.

Now with an adequate number of Test Tubes, we conducted the 2nd Experiment and finished it up. It was 3.40pm then. Yan Tian had told me earlier before my lesson that he would wait for me before going for the Competition. He had skipped his Chinese Lesson. Walking out to the Porch where I had told Yan Tian to wait for me, I found Jia Ming and he too was about to make his way to PLMGS. We went to find the missing Yan Tian who was supposedly at the Library while I was doing my experiment, but failed to do so. Returning to the Porch, I felt my Phone vibrate and found that it was Yan Tian calling me. He told us to go to the Rock Wall. So he had decided to take a step further and leave us misinformed.

Making our way to Serangoon, I realized the mistake to go with Yan Tian and Jia Ming. They both jaywalked like before. Again, I disregarded them and took the long way with a run. Upon reaching PLMGS, we saw Dong Shuai starting his Final Set. After watching him lose that, our China Doubles went up. Losing 2 - 1, it seemed like they could not make the win, but they were the Miracle pair that made a 10 - 7 become 10 - 12 in the match against RI, and that was what they did again. With a comeback, we won that Match 3 - 2, and at that point Daryl was telling me again about how they were wasting time by playing all 5 sets. Of course it was not on purpose, each side wanted to win ASAP, but too bad it was true and it really consumed a lot of our time. You Hao gave us the 2nd point in yet another 3 - 2. Looking over at the Sports School vs St. Gabriel, we saw Pang Xue Jie lose to one of them 3 - 1, but there were incredible rallies which involved remarkable reaction time and speed as well as skill, which both players had. Anyway, Edwin and Benedict assured our win and Yan Feng just cleaned up to make it 4 - 1. We're now in the Semi-Finals, although with relatively low chances of winning, but then again, I expected a loss today, and it was a reverse outcome.