P5 Camp

I have recently finished the action-packed P5 camp. I enjoyed the camp very much. The food there was very good, the activities were fun and my group leader was funny. Some of my friends did not like the food as they either did not like vegetables or did not like the way the food was cooked. As for me, I liked eating vegetables since I was very young and I did not expect the food to be as nice as expensive restaurants or even as nice as the normal foods that I ate in my home. That must be the reason why I enjoyed the food at the camp.

On the first day, we were given mostly briefings about the camp and how to behave in the camp. It was quite a boring day. (I also found out that the toilets were dirty.) However, on the second day, we did many activities. My favourite activity was abseiling. I had already abseiled before in New Zealand and I found out that abseiling was fun. (Refer to My First Time Abseiling). However, the wall that I was about to abseil down was higher than the one I did in New Zealand. I managed to abseil down safely.

Another fun activity was the CRC (Challenge Rope Course). Some tyres and logs were suspended and we were supposed to cross from one end to the other. Unfortunately, I did not manage to do it because there was not enough time.

The campfire was the best. All the groups took turns to sing their own cheers. I shouted very loudly and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Hike In MacRitchie

All the scouts, including me, were lining up in the Kidzone. We were just about to leave for a hike organized by the scouts. The hike was going to begin at Rifle Range and end at MacRitchie (Venus Road Carpark). The distance that we were going to hike for was about 5.5 kilometres.

At about 7:30 a.m., we got onto our respective buses and off we went!!!

At Rifle Range, we were given six assignments to do- write down 10 animals and 3 flowers that we saw, 3 sounds we heard, draw the Jelutong tower (a tower that we were going to see during our hike)and describe the Malayan Monitor Lizard, the biggest species of lizards ever found in the world.

The hike was quite a breeze for me but a newcomer in my group did not. (This was because he was not very fit.)He was therefore at the back most of the time. As we trod on, I looked at the ground and tried to observe how I could complete my assignments.

After hiking for one and a half hours, we reached a resting station- Rangers Station. That was where we sat down to eat our snacks and do our assignments.

After a while, we continued our hike for another 2.9 kilometres. At about 11:50 p.m., we finally reached our destination and took the bus back to school. Personally, I enjoyed the hike and wish to hike more.

A Proud Moment

My teeth chattered with excitement. I was just about to get back our math tests from my math teacher.

Being a person that enjoyed solving math questions, I aimed to get full marks when I was doing my paper. My math teacher called out our names and told the class our marks if we scored more than 35 marks (The total marks in the test was 40). My palms turned clammy as the teacher continued to read out the names.

“Alex Cheong, 40 marks!” I proudly stood up and took back my paper as the class cheered. My efforts had finally born “fruit”! At that point in time, I could remember how I checked my paper for careless mistakes…

I felt ecstatic and thought of how pleased my parents would be when they saw my paper.

I thought I shouldn’t be proud; if I want to do well in the future, I have to practise my math even more. Thinking about it, it also applied to other subjects. If I want to excel in something, I have to work hard.

I hope that I can do well in my studies this year and get into the best class next year.

Badminton

My hobby is playing badminton. I started playing badminton when I was about 6 years old, just like my brother. Until now, I still enjoy playing badminton.

When I first started playing badminton, I could not play very well. My coach trained us on our servings and strokes. This, she said, was the most important things to remember when playing badminton.

I enjoy playing badminton matches the most during training. I try my best when I am playing a match. Winning makes me happy. Sometimes, my opponents are very strong, but I do not get angry even when I lose.

I am trying to improve my smash now. In my training session today, I won a few balls against the Assistant Coach. I felt very excited and I look forward to my next training next Saturday.

The New Year Holiday

The long New Year holidays passed in a flash. I enjoyed my holiday, especially on the New Year Day. My family and I woke up early as we had planned to cycle at the East Coast Park. My heart tingled with excitement. I had not cycled for many months already.

After eating a delicious breakfast, we set off for the East Coast Park. Much to our surprise, we saw many people camping in tents. Most of them were Malay families. They were sitting on groundsheets, enjoying the cool, beach breeze. Some of them were even eating picnic breakfasts.

We strolled over to the bicycle rental shop, which was quite a distance away from the carpark. We rented four bicycles and started to cycle. I was surprised that I could not start off. My bicycle kept wobbling. I tried to balance, but instead, I nearly crashed into a dark blue tent which was very near the cycling lane.

I did not give up and continued trying. I finally got my bicycle going and managed to catch up with my family!

Through my cycling experience, I realized the importance of practice (I could not start because I had not practiced cycling for a long period of time). I also learnt the importance of perseverance.

An Eclipse

“We are going to the Science Centre to watch a partial eclipse today,” my mother said. “It’s from 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. You are definitely going to enjoy your time there!”

Cool, I was going to watch an eclipse for the very first time! I thought. That afternoon, before we left, I went on the internet to research on all kinds of eclipses. I found out that there were two different kinds of eclipses- annular eclipses and total eclipses.
In an annular eclipse, the moon cannot cover the whole sun whereas in a total eclipse, the whole sun is covered by the moon.

Soon enough, the time to go to the Science Centre arrived. My father drove my family and I there and we entered the Science Centre. My spine tingled with excitement as we queued up to enter the Observatory. The queue was so long that it nearly snaked to the entrance! Luckily, we brought a few books to read just in case we had to wait. We whipped out our books and started reading.

We were also given solar glasses to protect our eyes from the sun rays. If we looked directly at the sun, we would get serious eye injuries.
I later found out that the fullest part of the eclipse could be seen at 5:49p.m.

When I first wore the glasses, it seemed like wearing a blindfold. At first, I thought that my glasses were spoilt but later discovered that everyone’s solar glasses were like mine!

When I looked at the sun unintentionally, I saw a red dot the size of a 5-cent coin. No wonder! It will only work when the user looks at the sun!
My family and I sat down on a nice patch of grass and looked at the sun occasionally using our glasses. We could see the moon slowly covering the sun starting at the 7 o’ clock position.

Just as the eclipse was going to be at its fullest, at around 5:30 p.m., the clouds started blocking the eclipse. We hoped that the clouds would clear soon so we decided to wait for a while.

After we waited for approximately another 10 minutes, the clouds had not yet clear. We decided to leave as we were all feeling very tired.

I enjoyed watching my first eclipse even though the eclipse was blocked by the clouds. My father said that there was going to be an eclipse again during July this year, so my family and I decided to keep the glasses to use the next time we watched an eclipse. What my mother said was right – I had enjoyed my time watching the eclipse.

My First Time Abseiling

My heart felt both fearful and excited. I was on an adventure “holiday” to New Zealand which was organized by the scout leaders in my school. It was almost my turn to abseil down a seven storey structure. I felt excited to abseil for the first time, but I was afraid of the height of the structure that I was about to abseil down.

My turn to abseil came in a blink of an eye. The guide fastened my rope and taught me how to stop and how to release the rope in my hand. My heart pounded against my heart like a sledgehammer as I gathered all my courage and started my way down. The first part was the hardest part of the climb and I almost wanted to climb back up.

After I had passed the difficult part, I felt relieved and completed the rest of my climb easily. When I reached the bottom, I felt very proud of myself- I had overcome my fear!

The P5 camp is coming soon. I think that I can abseil then without any problems.

My Favourite Food

Everyone in this world has something that they like to eat. As for me, I like to eat chicken rice. Whenever I go to a hawker centre to eat, I would always eat chicken rice unless I have already eaten chicken rice during that day.

Occasionally, my family and I would go to the chicken rice stall at the Maxwell Hawker Centre to eat. There is always a very long queue outside the stall, so my parents usually have to queue for about 15 minutes before they can order the meal. The good thing about that chicken rice stall is that they rarely increase the price of their food even when there is inflation! The quality of the food is also very good. Some chicken rice stalls sell very expensive chicken rice but the food quality is bad.

The chilli and ginger sauce there is also delicious. I recommend you to go and try out this stall’s food.

People in poor countries like Africa and China cannot afford to eat as scrumptious food as we Singaporeans do. There are also very few poor people in Singapore. I pity them and I try do my best to support charity organizations that help those children that do not have food to eat.

If you are commenting on this blog, please share with me your OWN favourite food Thank you!

My Melbourne Trip

My mother woke me up from my deep slumber. I still felt tired as I was not adjusted to Melbourne time yet. I rolled on my bed and yawned. My family and I were in Melbourne for a holiday and the first three days had been really fun.
Just then, my father announced,"We are going to Sovereign Hill to find gold today!" I excitedly jumped out of bed and ate a scrumptious breakfast before leaving the hotel.

We climbed into our rented light blue Camry and my father drove us to Sovereign Hill. The ride there was a long two hours. When we reached Sovereign Hill, we took two brochures and studied them carefully. As usual, we planned our itinerary.
Our first stop was the underground Red Hill Mine.It was a mock-up mine but it felt very real. Certain parts were dark and scary and others smelt like damp earth. The highlight of the tour was a show. It was about a man named Richard Jeffrey and his discovery of the "Welcome Nugget", the second largest gold nugget ever found.It weighed a massive 69 kilograms!

Life in the mine was harzardous- there was a lot of dust in the air and there was a danger of the mine collapsing.

We finally came to the surface and I gasped for fresh air. Next stop- the gold panning creek. We saw many little school children already at work. We grabbed some shovels and scooped dirt into our pans. We then mimicked the swirling action made by my father.

Much to our disappointment, we did not find any gold nuggets. We tried again but to no avail. Just then, we approached a park guide to ask for advice. The guide showed us the correct way to pan for gold. He dugged deep into the dirt and put it into a wooden box to sieve out the heavier gold. Next, he panned the leftover dirt expertly and found 3 specks of gold. Oh, so we were looking for the wrong thing - gold specks, not gold nuggets !

Since it looked easy enough, I decided to follow his method. With renewed energy, I picked up my shovel once again. This time, I managed to find 2 gold specks ! I jump up with utmost glee and carefully wrapped up my "treasures" in a piece of tissue paper.

So much for now. I will write again soon!

Newspaper article

I read a newspaper article which was written by a teenager. She scored excellent results during her O-levels---- 10 A1's! The teenager wrote that there were three main elements to sucess. The first is intelligence, the second is hard work and the last one is luck. Out of the three elements, I think that intelligence makes up 20%, hard work 60%, and luck makes up 20%.

Stress

I feel that the workload in school has increased by a bit but I can still handle it. Everyone in my class in school is so competitive. They all do vey well in thier studies.