Scrapbook: 24th August CIP at Bt Batok

thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty....

forty.

forty on the bus to Bt Batok. Plus a few who 'missed the bus' from 3B1.

We collected from a few HDB blocks - four to be exact.

This is the upgraded life at one of them.



Some of our boys really went all out for this CIP attempt, knowing that it would positively impact the community.





At the end of the collection, while we waited for the bus to come and pick us up back to school, some decided to take pictures with their camera-phones as a keepsake.



Back in school, we had an ice-cream treat. Six tubs of ice-cream (still very good) and even had enough to share with our friends and teachers in the canteen. Four of us even stayed behind to wash up the ice-cream freezer. I guess everyone had fun that day.... boy, we sure did a lot of hard work for the community this year. XD





D'ya'suppose that will get us our 3 + 3 hours for both the BT Mission collections?!? Better ask the teacher!!!

CIP on 24th August for BT Mission at Bt Batok

CLASS, THERE'S A LOT OF WORK TO DO!

THE YELLOW RIBBON WALK & FAIR 2007

Just some publicity for this upcoming CIP event.

DEADLINE for registration through the school co-ordinator (so you can automatically get CIP hours added): 8 AM Friday 17th August

THE YELLOW RIBBON WALK & FAIR 2007

Walk an extra mile and express your support and encouragement for ex-offenders and their families! Come join us for a fun-filled Sunday @ Pasir Ris Town Park.


Date 2nd Sep 2007 (Sunday)

Reporting Time Starts at 0730hrs

Walk Start Time 0900hrs

Starting Point Pasir Ris Town Park

(opposite Pasir Ris MRT Station)

Ending Point Prison Link Centre Changi

Distance 3.5km

Guest of Honour Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong


Registration is Free. Fill up the enclosed Registration Form and fax in to us at 65460871. Alternatively, please call our hotline at 65133597 / 62142816. The closing date for group registration is 17th August 2007. Individual registration closes on 29th August 2007.




Event Highlights:

Go Yellow! Express your support for the Yellow Ribbon Project by wearing yellow.
Join The Yellow Ribbon Cheerleading Competition and win attractive prizes.
Receive a Yellow Ribbon Cap with every registration (while stocks last) and wear it at the walk. Registered participants have a chance to win Lucky Draw Prizes.
Look forward to a carnival-like atmosphere with great fun.
Collect your Goodie Bag at the end of the Walk and participate in the fun-filled and educational Yellow Ribbon Fair held at Prison Link Centre Changi, where you can catch performances by our talented inmates.
The Yellow Ribbon Walk Cheerleading Competition


Help us to create a carnival like atmosphere at the Yellow Ribbon Walk! Form a team and express your creativity and support for the offenders and their families, through cheerleading. The most creative and inspiring teams will stand a chance to win:


1st Prize S$1,000 worth of Adidas vouchers

2nd Prize S$700 worth of Adidas vouchers

3rd Prize S$500 worth of Adidas vouchers


Cheers must reflect messages of encouragement, inspiration and support for our inmates, ex-offenders and/or their families.
Each team must not exceed 15 members.
Express your creativity through costumes, tee shirts, banners and other forms of creativity
Groups would be requested to attend a rehearsal prior to the Walk.


For further enquiries on The Yellow Ribbon Walk Cheerleading Competition, please contact Ms Ada Wong at Ada_Wong@pris.gov.sg or at Tel: 6362 9663.


Yellow Ribbon Walk Route

Physics is Phun

Who would have thought that Physics SPA is different from Physics?

That thought certainly never occured to me before. I've always regarded the two as quite the same - Physics essentially. All the materials are the same, it's just that in SPA, you get to do a bit more hands-on. But it's by no means a minds-off exercise. You should still apply and recall all your theoretical information, everything available at your fingertips.

That being the case, then, what if you really needed to recall a particular piece of information from your textbook to apply to do your SPA, for example, the lens equation 1/f = 1/u + 1/v ? I'm sure the textbook would come in handy. Forgot to bring? Nevermind. Bookstore sells. Just go and pick up one. If you get caught by any DMs, you have evidence to show that you are on a bona fide mission. XD

Newsflash: NEXT WEEK'S SPA is electrical circuits. Do read up in advance about the potentiometer, that's found in Chapter 18 of your text. You might need to speed up in doing the experiment, because it does take some time to draw the graph and write the report, conclusions etc etc...

Well, back to the original topic... Perhaps if the dearth of textbooks is such a big perennial a problem, I suggest we could start a Class Fund. Rather than buying photocopied chapters from the office (takes much too long), why not contribute to a more worthwhile cause -- the "3A2 Textbook Fund"? Plain and simple, no more worries. Always a book guaranteed for you (that means time saved instead of waiting outside of class for people to come back from the office), available in the lab or in the homeroom. And better yet, since some of you guys are so good at leaving your books behind, this will ensure that there is a book always there for you, even when you leave it behind. :P

Lets assume that there is at least 2 blur sotong who forget their books every thursday and friday (not counting the Tuesdays at the lab). That's 10 more weeks of school, so twenty new Physics textbooks. Twenty. That's half a class of students.

It will greatly help next year's Sec 3 pure science students too. They will then probably only need to spend a fraction for their textbooks. That's social responsibility too lol... to ensure that it's sustainable and the next generation benefits from it.

BTW: Friday's Electrostatics test will be an easy one. 3B1 told me so. Many of them did exceptionally well this time. I'm sure it will be a welcome change for many of you. Just breeze through.... Life's great. ") Physics is Phun. XD

two days of NO school

Wow. No school for you guys. Ain't that something. ;)

More time to do all the stuff you wanted, catch the latest movies, you could even meet up old friends...

Most importantly. No school for you guys. I really envy that.

For me, I was in school both Wednesday and Thursday at the usual time. Usually I get there around 6.45 am. Today I was even earlier. Thought I could get a lot done. Guess I was wrong. Everyone seems more relaxed cos it's e-learning - that's everyone except me. Saw 4B1, 4C2, 5E1, 5E2, 4C1, 5E2 (again) and 4B1 (again). I know next week I don't see much of them. They have a lot of revision to do.

Connection in school was super slow. Everybody was online. The lab staff complained today that i gave them a out-dated diagram. Now they have to waste time undoing the work for about 180 boys to have their practical exam in 2 Thursdays' time. I felt quite lousy, to say the least.

FYI. Regarding CIP: There's a new opening: 2nd September (Sunday) at Yishun Town Centre, for the Yellow Ribbon Project. I believe the highest CIP hours this year goes to Cumara (200+ hours). Unbelievable.

Hmmm...what went well: I managed to get tatoos for the rest of the boys who got $200 of carnival coupons sold. I've sent in most of the p.d. money (more than half the class has paid, but still quite a few owe). I've finished marking your tests and keying in the marks to NTrix. Guess we can't have everything done in 2 days, can we?

Oh yes. What do we do with the 6 tubs of ice-cream? I suggest having an ice-cream treat on the 24th of AUGUST (this month) when we finish our CIP activity (BT Mission collection) that afternoon. We should have enough ice-cream to go around.

Hopefully this time we won't see 2 karang-guni men bickering over their collections again, and hopefully you will all be more vigilant this time!

welcome to 3A2 of 2007!

I quit blogging sometime back. Honestly, it takes time. Some of you have rather interesting pics to post in yours, that i suppose make mine look quite ermm...modest. Perhaps you'd like to give comments on how I could improve - anything. Lessons, blog entries, you name it. I read it.

Will do what i can, lah!

My Reflections on today’s CIP

In my opinion, in a nutshell, what we did today for CIP doesn’t make economic sense –but the lessons we have learnt today are truly priceless.

Why do I say that?

Think about it, the bus fare (air-con coach) to and from school easily costs $80. That’s to bring 27 students out of a class of 41 to collect old clothes and newspapers from 7 blocks of HDB flats. Economically that isn’t sound. Based on my previous recycling projects, the return for 10 kg of newspapers is usually SGD$1. Old clothes fetch a slightly higher price, but depending on their condition, maybe $10 per kg?

So thinking out loud, today did we succeed in collecting 80 kg of newspapers, some bags of old clothes notwithstanding (yes, yes, including the red Levi’s briefs ZT’s group got from block 172)? How many kilos of that went into the wrong guy’s truck? Did we ‘break even’ ? I have my reservations.

But to be sure, it’s taught us a few lessons. We have seen two grown-up men quarrel with each other for stuff that you guys would consider as ‘junk’ – which makes you wonder, doesn’t it? As the saying goes, “There’s money in muck”.

We’ve seen how the ‘rogue’ driver was so afraid of opening up his truck, and just returning us our fair share of the collection - for fear of losing his job perhaps? His boss would certainly have not been pleased. How would he feed his family? How many of us aspire to well-paying jobs that would ensure us financial security and job stability?

Assuredly, we’ve also witnessed first-hand the avaricious and opportunistic nature of Man. How, knowing fully well (‘cos it says so on the flyer we sent out) that our school would be making a collection from 1-5 pm today, they (the bad guys) deliberately got their people to lie in wait for us and basically ‘harvest’ the lot that our boys put their time and hard work into collecting.

We’ve also witnessed the guy’s reaction: to deny everything and say that we INTENDED to give him the stuff. Such is human nature. [Mr Eio: how much IS the stuff worth anyway?? – but if they can get away with it, they certainly will resort to all the lying and cheating just to achieve their ends and to make the profit from unsuspecting victims such as schoolchildren]

And worse still, the guy had the nerve to try to cheat me, by showing me Teacher Q’s handphone number. How he got that is simple. Teacher Q had smelt a rat. Had instructed students to snap pictures of the vehicle and its contents. The guy wasn’t happy. Forced him to give his handphone no. (very clever). Fortunately I called Teacher Q and asked him about this guy. My suspicions were confirmed. It’s clearly a case of willful misrepresentation (with an intention to mislead others), fraud and even – as the Principal and my colleague call it - theft. The stuff was rightfully ours, but by unjust and unscrupulous means they had deceived us into giving it to them.

Nevertheless, as the ‘resident’ collection contractor, they do operate there, so technically it’s their ‘turf’. But we had a special arrangement with a non-profit institution of public character (IPC), I believe – and what’s more, this is meant to be a school project. Armed with full knowledge of our activities, this ‘resident’ collection contractor called in his reserves, swooped in and basically ‘cashed-in’ on us to supply them the labour without them paying us a cent for it – getting our students to do the work for them. It’s revolting, to say the least.

BUT it does happen. It happened in the past too, when I was involved with another collection at Clementi for an NUS group to raise funds for our Youth Expedition Project.

Hopefully, your comments and your reflections, together with whatever footage you guys have captured of the ugly scene, will prevent future occurrences of this episode again. In your responses, please, as the memory of the scene is freshly imprinted on your minds, write down the location, the words/dialogue, the gestures and/or any mannerism this guy made to cause you to believe that he was the ‘rightful’ collector of the stuff meant for BT.

The truth will out. You hold the key to its unlocking.

We shall not be conveniently made use of by others and we shall not go quietly.