chingay ♡

hi guys! its us again! ☻

how are you guys doing? sorry for this late post ☹ 

however, have you all seen this year's chingay? it was awesome!!!!!!

our school brought our whole entire level to the parade!!!!! ((the rehearsal, that is))

but still, you know, the Chingay is something that is unique to us singaporeans. Through every chingay parade, different people are brought together, bonds were formed, although they might not have known each other before hand. It’s where we celebrate the new year through beautiful floats and wonderful dance performances, the confetti thrown at the very last of the performance, the fireworks, the LED lights, capturing our hearts and minds. 

and definitely a lot of hardwork and effort has been put in for the success of the Chingay, for example, there were thousands of people participating in the Chingay, with a few hundreds of them doing the same moves for each item. It must have been a tough job, teaching everyone the same dance moves, and ensuring that the least amount of mistakes were made during the parade. It must have also been tedious, taking care of their transport, rest area, dinner etc. Also, there were many different items, one after another, with every item detailed, and close to perfection. It made us admire the tenacity and perseverance of the organiser. 

the last performance had left the deepest impression on us as it reflected the theme of the Chingay, Colours of Fabric, One People. There were many colourful cloths hung on cranes with beautiful designs and architecture sewn on them. Furthermore, it was special to River Valley, as one of the cloths were sewn by us. we am thankful to the performers who had put in their time and hard work during the holidays to bring out their best for the celebration. we feel that every individual makes a difference and the chingay can only be a success by uniting and working together. It shows team spirit and every performer would have build friendships over the holidays as they work hard to rehearse for the performance. 

there is also another person that's forgotten, and we would like to also give credit to him, who made this concert a success, the emcee. He is responsible for introducing the segments of the parade and has to talk throughout, raising his voice due to the noise from the crowd, which is tough work as the parade lasted for around 2 hours, yet not everyone remembers him as we are too engrossed in the performances and floats. He keeps the atmosphere in the air with his intonation in his speech, his loud voice reverberates around the parade square, allowing us to be informed of what will be coming next. As the parade square is divided into different segments, he has to repeat his speech for the next three or four times as the performers and floats move from one segment to another. He gives his undivided attention to allow the success of this performance, without him, the parade will lack the cherry, bubbly voice that brings the performances to the audience, and that hyped up atmosphere and encouragement that is brought from the audience to the performers. 

this chingay experience has given us memories never to be forgotten. The school spirit shown through the cheering of our fellow batchmates and the vigorous shaking of the pompoms brought the audiences together, as we cheered along, giving support to the performers. All in all, we feel that the parade was fantastic and would like to thank the school for giving us the opportunity to have fun and learn to be full of spirit just like all the performers. we are greatly inspired and would like to go again if given a chance.

don't you think it was amazing!!!!!

well, thats all for today, see you soon!

xoxo ♡ 

Our Chingay presentation afterthoughts^^

Hey guys! we're back again with many more things!!!!
So...... finally we got to present!!!

Phew I guess it was kind of a relief for me(?)

Well let's hear what Jinn said:
"SUPP PPL!! This lesson, we were...half fortunate, half unfortunate enough to be the first to present our presentation about the Chingay. Well, the girls of Bittersweet had agreed on doing a skit, in order to present our ideas and thoughts about the Chingay. Here's the unfortunate point. Sigh...we did not have enough time to practise saying our skit, matching our lines to the slides being presented on the screen. However, other groups that did not present this week, were given an extra week to prepare for their presentation. In contrast, its fortunate that we had went first, for Mr Chua had agreed to be more lenient on the first few groups that presented. I learnt that a lot of teamwork and practise is needed to perfect our skit, and we must work together, knowing when to press the slide or when to change roles. Also, Mr Chua had given the class feedback on details such as the lack of eye contact, the need of a smile, or the necessity of having a loud voice! Through this experience, i have felt for myself the atmosphere and feelings while presenting an actual presentation, and exercised the details that i need to carry out while presenting. "

waseh ((just saying our skit was a w e s o m e))

now we'll have kel!

"Last Monday, our group have finally present in class! Sigh....like finally. I was so nervous for the presentation! But first, I want to tell you all some skills I have learnt. Ready? Firstly, confidence is definitely the key. It makes you more prepared and more aware of your audience. It gives you the courage to talk and establish eye contact. You must be thinking, really? Well, I guess so. But of course you must also have inotation in your voice, humor and some harmless joke. To let you into a little tiny secret, always plan well before your presentation such as tell your audience to answer when you asked a specific question.Also, be loud and clear to let your audience know that you are speaking and they should be listening just like a student is listening to his teacher. Lastly, SMILE. I cannot emphasize how important it is to show off your pearly white teeth. It totally make a big difference. When you are nervous or scared, just smile and no one will ever know....I mean how great is that?Ok, I think I have let you all into a little too much in this secret. I shall end and hope this will help you in one way of another. See you next time, my little readers<3 "

 

 

 

"the shortest distance between two people".... deep.

 

we'll have qing now!

 

"Last Monday, our group presented our reflections on chingay. I prepared hard for the presentation and even memorised almost my whole script. However, due to nervousness, I stuttered and kept referring to my script and was literally reading off it even though I knew what to say. I was looking at the script so that I could avoid contact with the audience which caused me to have little eye contact. My comments were: nice smile and little eye contact. I think that I didn't really prepare how I was going to present. I had only memorised the script without practicing in front of a crowd and thus causing me to feel nervous when I speak in front of a crowd. Usually, in front of my friends or teachers in class, I'm able to speak without stuttering but when it comes to something formal, I'm unable to speak naturally and have an awkward smile on my face (my friend told me) so I think that I need to practice more in front of a crowd. Practicing speaking alone is not enough. After this experience, I learnt that I also need to practice the way to present. All in all, I think that I didn't do as well as I've excepted for the presentation but I've gain a new experience and would work harder for my next presentation ! Be prepared! Confident! Eye contact! I'll definitely remember these tips for my next presentation :)"

 

once again we have qing and she practically said everything that I could.... cries

 

well but we'll still have me!

 

"Last Monday, we finally presented. Like finally. Just like qing, I memorised my script (it comes naturally to me) but I still wrote out cue cards in case my memory fails me, which is like 90% of the time. I could have smiled more but don't you think smiling and talking is slightly, SLIGHTLY awkward????? As in for me, its either smile or talk. Choose one. Okay I didn't mean to sound that serious but i'll try to smile while talking the nest time! My confidence level was moderate I guess, so I think I spoke fine, although I tripped over a few words ((oops)). To me, this didn't seem like a formal presentation, because I wasn't really nervous??? Maybe it's because I was more comfortable with Mr. Chua than the other teachers(?) please also don't take it the wrong way because no no no. Anyways my voice projection was good, I lacked smiles (sad) and i'll work on it!!!! ((WOULDN'T U LIKE TO SEE ME SMILE))

 

YEAH THATS ABOUT IT!!!!

 

I guess I'm just a little high after presentations, you know.

 

well we've gotta go, so see you next week!!!

have fun my flowers,

 

B

Y

E

 

xoxo

 

 

Hmm...what have we learnt...🙈 (One thing we have learnt)

Hello guys! It's monday again ♡

I guess you guys had a great weekend? Well, we had one too, but still, the monday blues ☹ 

Well anyway, we are back today with something new(?) 

You see! ((cues jinn))

"1 thing i have learnt throughout the whole CID lesson, is that we should be grateful of what we have. We should not think that what we have now will always be there and should continue working hard to improve or maintain it. For things that are beyond our control, we should learn to be grateful for the things that we have and learn to appreciate them when we have them. Let our luxury of food choice be an example. Every meal time, we would always have food to eat to fill our empty tummys without ever having to go hungry."

Yes, if you haven't guess it, we are gonna talk about our favourite cid lesson!!!!!!!

Well, let's hear from juen now! ☻ 

"After so many fun-filled lessons, I've learn so much more! CID is like a subject that focuses on aspects other than studies, so we can learn how to observe, present. It is especially useful for my as I aspire to be a journalist in the future. A journalist has to be sensitive to others feelings, thoughts and be able to observe their actions well enough, and the skills we learnt either via listening to Mr Chua (ect observing, how to observe,) or practical (presenting) are linked to my dream job, so I get a great headstart! I love it when we get to present, to let your thoughts and feelings be known, and it's a great way for everyone to share their views too! Also, learning to observe others and deduce who they are is a very cool thing (I'm a ninja!) and also to be more caring for their feelings. Once you sense that someone is not feeling so good, instead of staying ignorant, you can always help cheer the person up and make them feel good! That way, you'd have more friends before you know it!"

Juen's always the one with the wise words but we have......

 

Kelly's one right up!

"From all the Cid lessons, we have learn many useful values and one of them is to not taking things from granted. I find that it is very important to know this as nowadays, we tend to take everything for granted as we are very lucky to be bless with everything. From that lesson, I learn that not everyone is as lucky as most of the Singaporeans children and we should not waste our food and we should study hard as many people in the other parts of the world do not have a chance to study."

Is it just me or there's this guilt overwhelming me now

Well, i shall distract you guys from your guilt with qing's!

"So far, one of the lesson I've learnt is that we should be fair and not judgemental. Through that lesson, I learn that because  I'm judgemental, i might have really helped the lady with the baby instead of the guy on the street and after knowing the background information, I would regret my decision. I feel that if I don't want to regret my decision of judging a situation wrongly, I should just not judge and be fair. I have to understand the whole picture before I make a decision and thus I find this lesson the most meaningful. Also, from this lesson, I learnt that being judgemental might actually affect someone's life forever, like the guy who just need money to stand up on his feet. If I were there I would've helped the women and the guy would lose a chance to stand up. So after this lesson, I would always remind myself to not be judgemental lest I judge wrongly. "

Yes, being judgemental is wrong.... Or is it?

Please stay with me, because mine's next!

"So far, one of the lesson that i have learnt would probably be the same as qing's about judging. Maybe we should all look at the big picture. I've mentioned it before, but i would like to say it again. Whenever we are met with situations like the man begging on the streets and the lady with the baby, we would always give the man after knowing their backstories. Have we ever stopped to think about the lady's situation? Maybe that's how our brains work; we see the word con-man and we won't spare a thought for that person anymore. We were told that she won't be given a large cut of her "earnings", and she is still poor. Don't you think they deserve another chance?"

Luckily i stopped or i'll start getting emotional

Well, that's all for today!

Stay pretty and healthy!!

xoxo ♡ 

4th SHARING TIME!!! (Lesson 5 reflection)

HEY GUYS!

yesyes, today's the day where we.......

sold off jinn!!!!!

Kelly said,
"For this lesson, we continue from where we end off last lesson. We were called group by group to go to the front of the class to prevent the item that we are selling. Every group went up and after they have present, mr Chua will call us to give feed backs to them so as to allow them to improve so that they can do it better in the real presentation. After that, mr Chua will them give his opinion on the group so as to speak louder etc. When our group present, we were all laughing but mr Chua told us that while presenting, we should be more focus. For this lesson, I have learn some important key elements. Such as we should maintain eye contact with the audience so as to keep them entertained. We should also be confident and not hiding ourselves behind our group mates. I also hope that we will do great in our actual presentation and not mess up anything."

Qing said,
"This lesson, the remaining groups were to present the item or person they wanted to sell. And we would comment on each other's presentation to learn from one another. I feel that this lesson should be taken seriously as it is the last practice before our actual presentation on chingay. However, the class was laughing and it was very informal so I don't really know what to expect from the presentation next week. My feedback was that I was loud and convincing and I hope that next week, I'll be able to speak well with such confidence and not be too nervous so that I won't stutter. I often stutter when it comes to the more formal or actual presentation so even though this lesson's presentation was rather good, I should not be overly satisfied with myself after all this week is only a practice what matters is the presentation on chingay next week."

jinn said,

"This lesson, we presented and auctioned MOI 'me'. We were one of the last few group to present and before us, we observed the good points and bad points of the presentation of the other groups and strived to improve ours'. Some good points we noticed were speaking loud and clear, being humourous and having eye contact with the audience. Some bad points were laughing at your own jokes, facing your back to the audience, and speaking softly or mumbling to yourself. I think that this informal presentation gave us a good chance to practise for next week's formal presentation, so that we know very clearly why we are not to do certain mistakes. If i were to give an example, we are not to laugh at our own jokes as when we laugh, our speech would mumbled and the audience would not be able to hear what we are saying. Furthermore, if the audience does not understand your joke and yet you yourself are laughing at it, the atmosphere would be very awkward. Thus, even though we did not do any worksheets or have Mr Chua talking for the whole lesson, i feel that the lesson was equally important and would aid us in our presentation next week."

Juen said,

"Ahhh and finally today, we get to sell off dear Jinhui! [She was a good person :,)] i eyed someone creepily, knowing the 'relationship' between our flower and *cough cough*. So we waited and waited, waiting for the time, the time, to present! (aka become real sales(wo)men) we decided to start by stating how her eyes are pretty (in which she batted her eyelashes). Then came the rather messy-yet-funny part; her being seductive and all while Qing and I were laughing and prompting her to 'be seductive'. Obviously our shy flower refused to and glared at us. Finally we ended up abruptly, listening to Mr Chua's comments. He did say I was too informal when presenting (well sure I am I'd try not too the ) and I shouldn't laugh too much. He re-emphasized the point of not laughing at you own jokes (it slurssssyourwords and makes the atmosphere realllly awkward). This small practice presentation serves as a practice for the *dumdumdummm* real presentation next week! Next week's presentation will be a surprise, so stay tuned and it'll be fun!"

xinn said,

"MR CHUA SIAD my voice was okay for the presentation, maybe because of my cca i can do voice projection better (: but really, i think i'm not very confident in presentation, and my performance will depend on what i am presenting. sometimes when i have different targeted audience i tend to get nervous easily, and my hands and legs will shake. when it comes to something i really value ((in presenting)) or i really feel the speech i'm saying, i will worry if i'll be able to convey the point well. not saying that if i don't get nervouse i don't like what i'm saying or i don't value it, it's just different..... ((I DONT KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN)) maybe i'll do well next week..... PRAYS EVERYWHERE"

xoxo flowers ♡ 

3th SHARING TIME!!! (Lesson 4 reflection)

hello guys! its us again!

today, we did something very cute. we sold off our dear JIN hahahahah xD

Kelly said,
"During the lesson, we were called to sell something to our classmates.My group decided to sell the wonderful and only 'Ang Jin Hui'. We all thought she was the best item to sell as she is definitely a seller and we were sure she was going to have a buyer.firstly, she can with homework which is every student dream. She can also accompany them when they are bored. Not to say that she is 'hot'.While doing all these, we were all laughing and having much fun. We also learn that when we are presenting, the content of it must be interesting and entertaining. Almost to the end of the lesson, Mr Chua also call some groups to present. Surprisingly, some of the groups also chose their classmates to be sold off. We all had fun during that lesson."

of course we did, we were laughing our heads off thinking about taglines for jinn's qualities ;)

Qing said,

"This lesson, we learnt what is considered a good presentation and we discussed it as a class. Afterwards, we were tasked to sell something and present the purpose and function of that object/person. Our group chose to sell our friend, jin hui, so that there will be humour in our presentation but I think we didn't really achieve the objective of this lesson because I felt that it was abit overboard to write about such nonsense instead of presenting about a normal object and writing it's function and purpose. After all, this lesson is supposed to allow us to prepare for our chingay presentation and I suppose that that presentation had to be much more formal than the one we did this lesson. Next lesson, when we have to present about 'Jin hui' we would try to not to laugh and be serious."

yeah, we were a little overboard, with lines like "seductive eyes" or "beautiful voice" etc.....

Jinn said,

"this lesson, Mr Chua taught us on how to produce a good presentation, and what is expected from one. This includes being prepared for the presentation, speaking clearly and confidently, at a comfortable pace etc. I think this lesson was useful as it prepares us for the many presentations that we would have to do throughout our whole schooling life. Of course, this lesson was mainly to prepare us for our upcoming Chingay 2014 presentation to the whole class next monday. To ensure that we carried out these pointers correctly, Mr Chua has assigned us a group activity, where we were to sell an item to our class, explaining its physical appearance, purpose, functions, where it can be found etc. As we learnt that a good presentation also includes the ability to make our audience laugh and be engaged in our presentation, my group decided to sell, me. My group listed points of me which caught their attention, and added a few jokes that the class had made about me. I think that it was downright bullying but all in all it was a fun lesson. Through a fun and interesting way, we did fulfil our aim, of promoting an item to the class, stating my functions and purposes."

no we didn't bully jinn!!!!!!

okay maybe we did, but it was fun and harmless, right? xD

Juen said,
"were were tasked to sell something, anything out of our imagination. We became little salesman (or saleswomen) for our products. It was to be informal, so we decided to make our dear Jin Hui as our project-to-sell. Well we had to much fun, applying the skills we learnt such as observing Jin Hui's features and the way she moves and speaks tells us a lot about her personality. We threw in a lot of other imaginary things she would do, exaggerating her skills (half-true) and making things more fun. We got weird stares from other groups too. The serious part came when we discussed on how to present on the product. (Details in next lesson!) see you!"

yes, you see dear beautiful jinn up there ^^^^^^

 

well, its my turn,

"after all the points about MrChua and us discussing about a good presentation, we had an activity, ((which I'm sure y'all would have known by now)). Jinn actually wanted to sell me off, but you know, being the popular girl that she is, we all voted to sell her off! ((phew such close calls for me)) we threw in loads of stuff about jinn on our mah-jong paper, it was 50% nonsensical stuff, or exaggerated. we said we was a cook, a model, a story teller, and an entertainer. she can cook well ((TRUE)), she has beautiful eyes and a face which is extremely pleasing to the eye. she could tell stories animatedly before you sleep or when you need a break, she can make you laugh easily with her jokes and personality. we included the fact that all you need was to get her heart and you can have her ((which btw, wasn't as simple as abc)) after all this we had fun, but of course, we over-did it a tiny little bit. sadly, we couldn't present her today, so we'll have to wait till next week. I hope it goes really well!!"

 

yeap, who would like to buy jinn?

 

going once, twice.....

 

sold!!!!!

 

just kidding \o/

 

xoxo