CNY Celebrations

Owing to the fact that my whole family is in the festive mood, I have decided to write about the CNY celebration in school.

Well, in my opinion, it was rather exciting (not too sure about you guys, though). The "Xiang Sheng" performance, the lion dance and, of course, the unforgettable orange-peeling contest were all amazing.

However, I missed out on the first one hour or so of the celebration because I was helping out at the distribution of oranges to the teachers (some insider information). On Friday, councillors had to report at 6.40p.m. to make final preparations. Early, eh? For your info, the whole of the celebration, including the decorations (or should I say, especially the decorations, because in one instance, we had to stay back until 8.00p.m. just to put them up), was planned by the student council, so you had better be appreciative of our efforts, or else. Just joking.

Anyway, we were given a short briefing on what we had to do. Each councillor was assigned to an area to present oranges politely to the teachers, and had to ensure that every teacher gets a bag of oranges, no more or no less. In the past, there were cases of certain teachers getting as many as 4 bags of oranges, while a few others (probably the ones less liked) went home empty-handed. This embarrassing episode generated quite a bit of unhappiness and complaints were made to the student council, who promised that it won't happen again, hopefully.

CJ and I were allocated the SALT centre area and 3 bags of oranges each. The HSC president then went up and told the councillors assigned to the terraces to wait for his cue, which was the second last sentence of his speech (more insider info), before giving out oranges.

To keep a long story short, we went to flag-raising with the rest of the school, then proceeded to our respective venues. After the oranges were distributed, we went to the staffroom to chase the remaining teachers into KKH.

I came back just in time to catch the lion dance but because KKH was so packed I couldn't rejoin the class. I stayed at the back for the rest of the celebrations, and thankfully so, as I could get a much better view of the stage.

I won't be elaborating on the rest of the celebration any further as I believe everyone has seen it for himself, and hope that you enjoyed the celebration (or at least paid attention :P) as much as I did.

-Shilin

Council Investiture

In accordance with my new rule of blogging to make my blog more personalised, I will be writing about last Wednesday's council investiture. The investiture was essentially a ceremony during which councillors are badged. Personally, I am not sure why student leaders have to be officially badged, but since every other school does it, it might as well be a necessary part of council life.

Anyway, before the actual investiture, we had several rehearsals. During the rehearsals, we had to familiarise ourselves with the seating arrangement and also practice the way we went up on stage. The seniors were particularly fussy about how we stand when our consortium was announced. We also had a dress rehearsal on the day before the investiture, where everyone had to turn up in full council uniform. Cheng Yao and I had only one set of uniform, so we attended the rehearsal in school shirts and pants, which didn't exactly please the iCouncil ExCo members.

On the day of the investiture itself, councillors were excused from lessons from 12 noon onwards and we were given only half an hour to prepare ourselves (which includes eating lunch and changing) for a final rehearsal. The event then began proper. However, funny things happened during the investiture and afterwards. When it was time to sing the council song, mediatech apparently ran into some technical difficulty and councillors had to do mass cheering. Naturally, to create an impression on other schools, we did "Rock You" which made Dr. Hon wince. The VIP was also left unattended during the reception until Dr. Hon and the VPs noticed, which was quite embarrassing.

Other than that, the investiture was generally a success, I think. It was enjoyable in a sense that I got to know other councillors better during the investiture. I guess I should be proud to know that I serve the school and am completely deprived of my personal rights (as Nick Chuan put it). Just joking, of course. On a more serious note, this investiture serves to remind me of my duty as a councillor and that being a student leader, I should be exemplary in word and in deed to live up to the expectations of my teachers. As a councillor, I should uphold the spirit of self-sacrifice and put the interests of others before those of mine so as to be able to serve the school with excellence.

All this reflection is getting a bit cliche and tiring :P, so I'll end off here.

-Shilin