Where History comes alive...

Came to school today with a greatly excited ZRong coming to me and demanding me to play Chess with him today. The original plan was tomorrow, but I was fine with playing today.

If ZRong could find the time to play it in the first place.

There's no recess today as today's field trip day for the GEP camp, and I've got to go for Training straight after school. He recomended that we played during the bus trip to our destination, and after a while of concideration (Hmm...) I agreed. That's settled. Then I had a small chat with Tim, until Michael stole me away and we both slacked off at the Prefectorial Boardroom (Air-con! Reversi! Sofa Cushions! Woah!) until Assembly started, when we both had to go for our Morning Duties.

Then after Assembly, the many GEP classes that were going for their respective Field Trip destinations (Year 1=Battle Box, Singapore Archives and Stamp Museum, Year 2=National Museum of Singapore, Year 3=Whole of Singapore City) settled down at the Amphi Theatre to assemble in their classes. Somehow, from where I was sitting, the Majority of the class was on my left, while the Minority was sitting on my right, if you know what I mean. God must had really made me so sociable to accomplish that formation.

Onceonboard our buses, we drove off to our respective locations. ZRong then got out his Chess set and displayed the pieces onto the board in a flash. Well, he had a few missing pieces, so we had to handicap each other to makeit fair. As everyone should predict, ZRong won. (He was Vice-Chairman in the Chess club y'know! Correct me if I'm wrong, ZRong...) Then Justin wanted to play against me, so I had him on and as everyone should also predict, I won. But soon enough, we were finally at the Museum.

Once there, we split up into our groups that we were assigned in - I was in with Arjun, Jaira, Ting Wei and Joel - and sat down to discuss our strategy to gain a good design. Oh, I haven't told you 'bout the competition? Well, then. You see, each level had to go to a different destination, and thus had different tasks to forfill. For year 2s, our task was to design a museum, using a guideline area provided and different artifects which we'd be 'bidding' for once we come back to school.

So now, while we're waiting for the teachers to settle stuff with the Museum staff, we're discussing our theme. And after concidering Warfare, World War II and Traditional Past, we decided to give our museum a Post-War theme. But during our discussion session, Mr. Tay asked us if the class wanted to work together as a full Museum against the other classes, or we stick to the original plan to design against all the different teams in the year 2 level. Majority agreed to stay as independent groups, and so we continued with the competitor spirit.

When we finally got into the Museum, we first assembled outside the History Gallery. We were then given these Companion devices, which looked like oversized iPods complete with earphones. We were instructed to 'dial' into these thingys numbers that we see on the floor. They were going to be our guides for now, and so we were going to be amazed. Once the tickets were distributed, we entered the gallery through this circular rotunda. I saw a 2 on the floor, and so I typed in '2' and pressed 'GO'. Suddenly, a man's voice starts playing and he starts telling me an introduction to the gallery. I was so concentrated on his conversation that I wasn't at all bothered to decipher whatever ZRong was trying to tell me through my earphones. I was just nodding my head, which made him a little frustrated according to his movements, and soon he walked ahead of me. And I was still listening peacefully to the guy in my 'iPod'.

Soon after a few exhibits, we were lead into this small circular room with a wide screen surrounding the area. The screen was on stand-by and was displaying a full moon while we made our way to available seats in the center of the room. Shortly after being seated, a show about Singapura History started to play. It was about the different tales of Singaporean history while it was still a Kampong-ised Fishing Island. It showed of the many countries that were present in this land like Malaya and Indonesia and also showed wars that came here also during the century of that time, like the Portugese and the British.

But the summary of the different powers that influenced Ancient Singapura at the end of the show was somewhat outstanding to me. It was a dark screen with light outlines of different groups of soldiers, then as the narrator was introducing the powers, lights were turned on to reveil the different groups one by one in an attacking pose, something like what you'd see on the cover of every Risk board set. I could easily imagine my class divided into different clusters for the same short film. You'd here something like;

"There were many powerful clusters of students that arrived into the doors of Dan. Firstly, we have the Henry Park Boys,...

(Light turns on to reveil Jaira, Toj and Michael, Toj posing in center and Mike holding HPPS flag)

"...then there were the ACPS Comrades,...

(Light turns on to reveil Tim, Kirby and Joel, Tim posing in center and Kirby holding ACS flag)

"...and there also were the Tamils,...

(Light turns on to reveil Shil, Raam and Sanjev, Raam posing in center and Shil holding Flag of India)

"...and lastly the China-Affiliated."

(Light turns on to reveil ZRong, Mig and Justin, ZRong posing in center and Mig holding Flag of China)

Then after the show, we went on to see more of Singapore Past, from Colonialisim to World War II to Independence, and soon got out of the gallery safe and sound. But there was a little time constrain with our schedule, so we were literally rushing through the exhibits. The numbers on the floor were flashing before me so fast I could only hear a few seconds of each introduction. And Eugene typed into my Companion a 3-digit number, which activated another playback that was about Piracy, and in the later part of the recording, it said something like,

"...he was strangled by his own shoulder cloth. Then his penis was cut off, and shoved into his mouth..."

Eugene.

Anyway, once everyone was out of the History Gallery, we went up to the Living Galleries to fill in the questions that were in our Assignment papers. You see, every question in these papers are worth a certain value of 'money' which we can use to 'bid' for our artifacts later. So the more correct questions we answer, the more 'money' we gain. Thus my group was solely depending on each other to search for the answers to the questions around the exibits in these galleries.

I first followed my group into the Fashion Gallery, where the different fashion trends of Singapore in the 20th Century were shown. After answering a few questions, we moved on to the Film Gallery, where I was starting to slow down a little and was with Ting Wei only. Next was the Food Gallery, where I soon in due time lost my group and started to panic as I didn't know we were only going to hand up Arjun's paper.

I felt real ditched and slowly (and sadly) walked around the almost-empty gallery, not knowing that Ms. Kavita was at the other side. Will not elaborate on what happened later, but then I tried my luck on catching up with my group later on by entering the Photography Gallery. In failure of findings, I quickly dashed out after being informed by teachers and Year 4s that we were leaving very soon. Once out of the Gallery, I was facing a straight pathway that headed towards my class, which was signalling me to quickly settle down there once they saw me. I started jogging my way through when I looked up to the ceiling to find that the lamps were actually swinging! They were being swung on purpose by motors, I assume, and it was a rather interesting sight. Ah, well.

I finally arrived at the back of the class row and met up with Kirby, Tim, Ting Wei, JKit, Matt and a few others, of which I played Mime Wars with. Basically, the game is just to mime out different scenes of distruction, gore, blood-shed and the like. We continued playing on the bus (Mr. Tay said, "There must be no noise on the bus!" wat!) until we reached school, and boy, I've never seen anyone in that group so expressive! I mean, Kirby was already very accurate in his miming, and Ting Wei knws how to play dead well, and Matt loves weaon foul play, and even Tim can show great emotions in his silence! I was amazed, just like Mdm Kavita with my Drama skills, and my mindset of people have now been re-formatted. (Hee hee)

We then met back in class to do the 'bidding' for our 'artifacts'. And to save someone shame, let's just say someone in my group held back bids so far till we had limitted items left in our museum. (A rather transparent truth, don't you say?) Once done, we were given time to design our layout till Dismissal. Once then, I went down hurriedly and making sure that I wasn't late for today's training.

Search lunch,
bought lunch,
get lunch,
ate lunch,
loved lunch,
change.

Wait for bus,
search for bus,
found the bus,
tell on bus,
run for bus,
board the bus,
noisy bus,
Sir board bus,
drive.

Sir is saying
much to saving
me and Hao Qing
angle seating
bus arriving
Sir is singing,
"Earn you living!"
RUN!

We all ran for the sheds and unloaded our bags and shoes for Ryan to keep. Then went to the Lower Shed to get our Life-Jacks and Paddles. Quickly got Hao Qing, and so we ran up to Upper Shed to collect New Tiger and changed her seats to the Angle Seat (Uh, oh...). We brought her down to the water and gave her a spin. And frankly speaking, it's either I'm not use to the boat, or there wasn't that much difference between a normal seat and the Angle seat, based on speed. True, it improved reach, but at the same time the suction cups on the seat held me back down onto the seat and I couldn't twist properly without feeling my underwear straps mark against my bum, and the balance was really unstable. So benifits were cancled off by disbenifits to create, well, the same equation. But we were just making our own theories - Mr. See said we should be taking our timings, even if we're doing Frontlap (If that's how you spell it). Ah, well.

The pain in the butt.

Mark 16:17-18! God bless y'all!

The angle seat...