Yesterday was pretty fun (:

I woke up really early to go for ORA. Rach, Kester and I had arranged to meet at the RJ 7-11 at 7am beforehand, but I still ended up late by 10 minutes. But it was okay, because Rach was even later; she (like nearly all the RGS girls who hardly go to RI) was lost between RI(Sec) and RI(JC). On the way there I actually saw most of the RGS girls entering RI(Sec) instead of the JC section, which either means there was a shortcut or that nobody knew where the heck the event was and just decided to walk in and figure out along the way.

We stoned for quite a while before the actual event started, but before that we saw Ed, Josie and Russell Wong lol. Ed's practically unrecognizable now la :O He's so tall we kept mistaking him for a random JC guy, because his face was way above eye level. Josie seems to have developed a slouch reminiscent of Vic's slight hunch (as opposed to, I don't know, street-cool punks slouching on fences? He wishes).

Flagoff was pretty lame. The RGS contingent moved as one...

to take a leisurely stroll around the school. Some people started jogging, but most just took their time to explore and look around.

After that we descended into the total craziness of the RI(JC) canteen. It was damn crowded k. We didn't visit a lot of stalls because we were basically just trying to find Kester in the crowd then to get out as fast as possible. Rach and I ended up watching people playing Ultimate Frisbee with Kester for the next 1 1/2 hours, because even that was preferable to squeezing around with the crowd. Bryanlee tried to sell us lovers' keychains, but since we were all single (and poor) we didn't buy any. (:

Then when we got bored we went back into the canteen, and I braved the crowd to buy a pencilcase from the RIPB booth. There were two prefects who wanted to buy stuff too, so we combined and got a discount heh. Unfortunately, the RGSPB booth selling Rafflesian, uh, clothing (for lack of a better word; they were selling pullovers and caps) was getting all its business stolen by RIPB. I also got gelato from the OSL booth, which Denise now says later went for $2 for 2 scoops ARGHHHHH. I bought it for like $3 a scoop?!

--

After that I left Rach and Kester to their own devices and went home. I didn't have enough money in my EZlink card to pay for the LRT connection home after I took the bus, so I walked all the way home from Sengkang MRT sigh.

But since I was already walking, I decided to take a trip down memory lane, so I made a slight detour and passed D---- Student Care Centre.

I spent 4 months in P3 there learning that teachers aren't always benevolent and nice, and a lot of them there were really only working at the student care centre for the money - the fees weren't cheap, but we got lousy teachers and bad food. I remember asking for second helpings quite a few times and having them tell me that if I wanted seconds that day, I'd have to get second helpings everyday. Their rationale? That they didn't want kids getting more food only when they liked the fare that day. Of course that was total crap; can't people be hungry some days and have no appetite on others? But kids are easy to tyrannise, so we suffered in silence. D:

Then there was the Math Grades saga. I had a best friend, V, in the same class as I was. We normally averaged 90+ marks for Math, but once I only got 88 marks for a CA. You wouldn't believe what the supervisor of the centre did about it - she told V to stay away from me because I would be a 'bad influence' on her grades. (What a bitch.) I was damn pissed when V told me about it, but she didn't stay away from me either and I was grateful for that.

(Bloody bitch was wrong about me, because I later topped my standard AND qualified for GEP. She couldn't take credit for both either, because by then I'd transferred to another student care centre (see below).)

I complained everyday to my mum about it, but she told me to bear with it until we found an alternative.

That was, until I decided to do something about it by first doing a little survey of my peers to find out their feelings about the treatment we were getting. Once I confirmed that everyone was as against it as I was, I tried to organise a mass walkout and switch to a new Muslim student care centre that was being set up around 1.5km away.

...Needless to say, it didn't work. I ended up leaving by myself for the new student care centre 2 months later.

It was actually cheaper to put me there, because Rivervale Student Care Centre was a joint venture by Jamiyah and Northeast CDC and charged lower fees. I was the second student to enrol there 2 weeks after it opened; the first was a boy one year older than me named Hadi. I didn't like him at first because he kept staring at me suspiciously and we were the only two there so it was fairly awkward, but he turned out to be a really nice person (: The centre soon filled up with both Malay and Chinese students. I think I had my best times there, because the teachers actually truly cared about us though they were mostly in their late teens or early 20s. Most of them were fresh out of JC/Poly and either waiting to get a better job or for their 'A' level results. The food was great too, and they weren't stingy with it (I once had 4 helpings of an excellent fish curry); in fact they encouraged us to eat more more more more more! This being a joint setup by a Muslim social services centre and a CDC, they accepted students from lower-income families who paid half the usual fees, but they treated us all fairly.

Maybe memory colours things positively, but when I went there yesterday, I saw that it had evolved in a good way - they'd updated the computers to flatscreens and come up with incentives to improve the kids' grades. The menu was up on the noticeboard outside, and the food seems just as good now as it was 5 years ago (:

D----, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have improved much. Screw them. I hope all their business gets stolen by student cares which deserve it better.

But more than that, I hope my friends - those who didn't want to leave even though they knew they weren't being treated fairly - did something about it in the end. After I left, some did transfer from D---- to my new student care centre, though I won't go so far as to claim credit for it.

Omg that was a long rant :O

I also stood outside Rivervale Primary for a while, but the guards were staring at me so I didn't go in. I miss Mr Yeo Ah Tee ): He was the one who believed in me enough to put me in the best class when technically I wasn't supposed to be there, being a transfer student and all. I love Rosyth for all the friends I made there, but I love Rivervale because they honestly did the best they could for the students they got.

...Sigh I need to mug for BioSPA now. Sian. I want to go back to P3; it was loads slacker than Sec3.