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Thursday, August 17, 2006
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Today, the P gave the J1s a talk about everything she was unhappy with. Like, everything. It took over an hour and by the end of her speech, more than 50% of the cohort was obviously asleep. Ohkay, I do understand why she's so pissed. A female student allegedly insulted a pregnant teacher & threatened her with physical harm. Yeah, so understandably the P got mad. And in turn, I got pissed at the P too.
She can't speak properly. She speaks in broken sentences, often making grammatical or tense errors & committing the most common fallacy 'Hasty Generalisation'. I kept on waiting for her to finish one particular sentence at one point, and after awhile in the deep & oh-so-thoughtful silence that followed her awe-inspiring speech, I realised that, well, it was all she had to say. So what did she say? I dunno, but it was so illogical that it was imprinted in my brain til break.
Haha, in writing KI essays, the previous paragraph would have been termed 'Poisoning the Well'. :P Heck care la.
Here are some points she covered overextensively & stupidly, what she did & my response.
1) Student's Appearance
Yeah yeah, no drawstrings & all that. But dya have to be so anal about it all? Look around, the neater students have either (a) drawstrings in their shirts/blouses; or (b) tops tucked all the way in & bottoms pulled up high. While JC life is certainly no fashion parade, I don't see why we can't bend the rules & use a drawstring. It's not expensive at all & you end up looking much neater! We're teenagers, for godssake, we want to look good. And tucking in the shirt/blouse a little doesn't work, it'll just fall out minutes later and THEN we look untidy and THEN the higher-ups complain.
Oh, talking about appearance? Who is SHE to talk about appearance to us? Who was the one who got mistaken for the fricking JANITOR on the first day of school, an absolutely real from last year & got repeated AGAIN this year? Who's the one looking like a way over menopause auntie 90% of the time; hair, clothes, manner of speaking? She looks like the average nanny & not in the good way. There is no good way. It's easy to preach, but please practice what you preach aye? Or else are we ever going to give you any respect?
Which brings me to my next point.
2) Respect & Discipline
Yes, I do know that there are some TPJC students who are unruly & in general, rude to the teachers. But lecturing us isn't going to be any help, nor will detention after school. To gain our respect, please do something that will earn our respect. Attempting to buy the student populace over with a simple white cotton tee won't work. Although it can get us happy for that short while, you can't use money to win our affections. [Lol, sounds like a stupid cheesy drama]
Why do people keep on coming late for school? Why do people insist on going out of school before 12.50pm, the official leaving time? And even though students are in school, why do we pon lectures & tutorials?
Something must be wrong. Where's the sought-after passion for learning, the thirst for knowledge? The onus is on the student to push himself forward, but with many incapable teachers & a slack environment [something you CANNOT deny TPJC has], part of it is also on the admin & the staff. There are a few truly dedicated teachers around in TPJC, but without equally dedicated students, excellent results are merely a dream.
Oh, this is a bit random & she didn't mention this at all, but what's the use of posting one or two security guards at one gate? I'm not suggesting that another guardhouse is placed at the other gate, oh no. Cos I, like many other TPJCians, like to leave school during a long break to get Mac's or waffles or something from the 7-Eleven opposite the school. Though it's illegal. What's the use of having them at that particular gate when they don't even do the job properly? Security guards are there to protect the students and weed out the suspicious looking people, ie those who aren't teachers & students or people working in the school.
So why am I able to, on numerous occasions, able to stroll into the school wearing casual clothes on a weekend? Cos I always end up wearing home clothes to go for Saturday debate trainings & the guard just sits there whenever I walk through the open gates. After the many terrorist attacks, more prominent ones are the 911, London bombings & the Madrid train incident, shouldn't we have realised that the new age terrorists do not wear all-black, carry a huge bulky backpack & wear ski masks? That's such a stereotype of terrorists, but it's what the layman thinks they look like. I know that having guards there is just a precautionary measure, but if Singapore is ever threatened, I don't think I'll feel safe in TPJC.
And it's not like the terrorists can't enter by the other gate right? It's like, open to one and all 24/7. But sometimes, a teacher "guard" stands under the boiling hot sun & catches the wannabe-ponners.
3) Punctuality
When she sorta mentioned this word [I think, my brain was too stoned to process anymore stuff she was saying], I immediately had a flashback.
"Today, we have 25 latecomers!" - Gums, 2005
Back in SAC, Gums used to announce the number of latecomers during the daily morning assembly & give a full analysis of the 'situation' once a fortnight or so. SAC has one bus service, 17, which is unreliable & notoriously slow, coming at infrequent times. Which results in many people coming to school late.
In comparison, TPJC has a whole range of bus services, including 17 [haha]. It also includes bus services 12 and 34, which come, as the saying goes, "once in a blue moon". It truly sucks, okay. For some students, it's either you wake up at 5.30am & reach school at 7.00am, [cos the buses are still relatively empty at that hour] or wake up at 6am and reach school at 7.40am [cos it's the peak hour]. It's very unfair to the student body to condemn us when you don't even take the public transport to get to school. Please do a survey or even contact SBS to inquire about the frequency of the buses & the average number of sardines, I mean, PEOPLE packed into the bus daily [during the peak hours]. So far, 293 is the only bus which comes every 1 minute. LOL.
And sometimes when people arrive really late? Take a look at their timetables. Is it SPE or PE or something equally horrible for the first two periods? Or is it free periods [esp for the J2s, who don't have MTL or PW anymore]?
4) Results
Yes, by now all the J1s should know very well that a huge, shocking percentage of people taking H2 Chemistry got 'U', aka Ungraded [<40%], style="font-style: italic;">x<45%] and the rest? Ungraded. Yep, shocking hor? I bet we're like, the worst cohort ever.
See what I mean when I spoke about the Slackness? But to be fair, many "chemists" [yes, even the China scholars & we all know they're the smartest] admitted that it was a killer paper. If the College wanted to show the students what a new H2 syllabus looks like & thrash their egos, I can say that they've succeeded. And if any teacher says that the paper's easy, then good for them. Maybe that's why they're the teachers & we're not. I know I'm being unfair to the teachers & everything, but I'm just feeling indignant on their behalf.
Anyway, it wasn't as if the other subs were better. [shrugs] Why ar?
(a) Didn't study
(b) Rehearsals for Panorama
AND! She also mentioned that if leaders in this school can do well for CTs, why not the rest who are less involved? Well, something along these lines anyway.
Can you name me at least 3 prominent leaders in TPJC who did well for CTs? Well, those who were involved in organising & performing for Panorama, anyway. Or any Council thing. And please, we all know how some [not all] councillors are in it just for the testimonial and don't attend meetings. Anyone?
5) Rehearsals
I think the most ironic line uttered during the entire Panorama thingy is:
"We'd also like to thank out Principal, for her unwavering support, blah blah."
Her unwavering support during the 3, or 5 maximum, rehearsals she went for. Okay la, she might have gone for more, but for a few minutes. And she wanted some stupid things, like for all the conductors just to walk onstage, conduct & then leave. All without taking a bow. Isn't it just rude? But she waned it that way. And she wanted two songs for the "calm" segment to be played at a super fast tempo. It sounded horrible, even to the non-musically inclined people, and the P said it was fantastic. Gone case ar, that one.
And we had combined Panorama rehearsals every other day during the hols. There were even extra pracs for those involved in playing the finale item, like one memorable at 6pm.
When we're stressed out, tired from the intensive rehearsals & the many changes here and there, how can you expect us to concentrate studying well?
Apart from combined pracs, CCAs held their own pracs too. Some people take an hour to travel to school, and if anyone dares to suggest that these unfortunate people study while on their way, I'd say they're crazy. Study on the way's A-OK, unless you get dizzy. After rehearsals you can't even keep your eyes open, much less absorb info.
So when you say that rehearsals for Panorama weren't all that bad, please attend all the practices the CCAs went through in May & June before making such stupid comments. Because it was truly bad in terms of sucking out your energy.
6) Posters for Concerts [something she didn't cover]
No one puts up posters advertising school concerts in that same school, nor do they put it up 4 days before the event itself.
There.
7) DSA Applications [something she didn't cover]
On the 1st day, TPJC had quite a number of scared looking Sec School students in the school, wielding their various instruments.
On subsequent days, the number of people coming for DSA dropped to the single digits. Some days, no one came. Some days, if business was good, one person came.
C'MON. Wake up to reality, however cold & disgusting it may be. TPJC ain't as good as, say, TJC, VJC, or MCJ. To name some JCs in the East. Let's not even go into RJC or HCI. So if you only put up a banner outside TPJC proclaiming to one & all going past the school that TPJC's open for DSA, who dya expect to come? How many people? Unlike those schools I mentioned earlier, TP has to do some aggressive marketing stuff. We're not exactly known for the positive things, y'know? [cough-scandal-cough]
8) CCA Schedules
All CCAs stopped from the time August took a breath, and will begin when Promos are over. Pracs during the December holidays are also cancelled. So that means, 2 weeks of practice left this year! Wow. And the moment 2007 begins, it's only about 15 weeks or thereabouts left til SYF. Does she still expect Golds, or even GWHs, when she took away our practice times? And during those 2 weeks left in 2006, it's the 2 weeks before PW OPs right? How many people will actually turn up for CCA?
This is especially for Guitar, where all of us are beginners. Walahoo, Gold from us next year when we have SO many practices? Clever.
This is what Amantha, the pres of GE, said in her blog.I am quite annoyed with the usage of CCA rooms in school these days.
First and foremost, at JC level, we are not allowed to draw keys when we are already doing that back in secondary school days. This shows how little faith and trust the school has on the students. It also adds on to the responsibility of the teachers-in-charge. Such simple task could and should be done by the student leaders.
Next, CCA has stand down in early August. I know the reason behind perfectly, and i appreciate it. But hey, no practices in December? This is so ridiculous. Though sometimes i don't believe in reaping what i sow, it is still true and applicable to a certain extent. Have you ever heard of schools wanting to achieve good results in the SYF but didn't allow their students to practice during the HOLIDAYS? What is a holiday? I don't believe that the students will be studying the whole day, every single day during the holz. Indeed, both the teachers and students need a break, but hey, what harm will 2-3 hours of practices do to you? It will be better than wasting your time away idling around etc.
Now comes the 'best' part. Although the school said that we are not allow to use the CCA room for self-initiated practices during this CCA break period, there are CCAs that are still using their room, but not us. Okies, maybe once or twice we manage to get the key, but the teacher-in-charge is probably not very happy with it. I don't understand, and can't understand why we are so 'obedient' as compared to other CCAs. Self-initiated practice is only for a small group of us who are taking examination at the end of this year. And it will only take place once a week..each session will take about an hour or less. Will that in some way make your grades dipped by a great extent? Not forgetting the MOST IMPORTANT factor, our CCA has not experienced player. We are ALL BEGINNERS.
We shall give our best with the little amount of practices we are going to have. If we don't achiever what we want/expected, we SHALL HAVE NO REGRETS because the problem does not lie on us anymore. How many J1s will take the initiative to revise during the cancelled CCA pracs timeslots? Or will it be DotA for them? I know CS is quite popular too, at those LAN places.
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