Innovation Programme (IvP)

I participated in an Innovation Programme (IvP), organised by Gifted Education Branch, this year. The programme lasted almost the whole year, and during the programme, we learnt about inventions and how to invent things. My group mates were my two good friends, Lauren and Liesel, and we named our group "Clockwork Mice", as it was the first thing that came to our minds when the teacher asked us for a group name.

We were supposed to invent something and the item that we invented have to pass two judging rounds before a few of the teams would be selected to display their inventions at a Science fair for pupils in other schools to admire.

After having a few lessons about different inventions (vacuum cleaner and Velcro etc.), we started working on our invention. After a lot of planning, we decided to make a Dustband. The Dustband is a duster with a band attached to it. As teachers usually don't have a lot of time to erase what they have written on the board when they are teaching, they will just use their hands or wrists to erase what they have written. With the Dustband, teachers don't need to use their hands or wrists to erase what they had written. They only need to use the Dustband, which is just attached to their wrists, to clean the board. It is very efficient and saves a lot of time.

We had to make a poster for our invention, and I think that was one of the best parts of the whole programme! Other than the poster, we also had to make a prototype (of course!). Surprisingly though, making the prototype was much easier than making the poster.

Our first meeting for the project was at my house. Before Lauren and Liesel came, Mummy and I bought loads of scrapbooking materials for the poster. Lauren and Liesel came to my house after school and we started on the prototype first. It was quite easy as we only had to take the Velcro strips and stick them onto a duster. Lauren had already volunteered to sew on the cloth on the Velcro at her house, so that was all we had to do with the prototype.

We took quite a long time writing the report, as well as making and decorating the poster. We played Taylor Swift music while doing all our work, so it was really enjoyable. I wrote the report, Lauren decorated the board and Liesel stuck everything onto the board. In about 2 hours' time, we finally finished making the board and it was so glittery.

When we showed the teacher our board and prototype the next day in school, she told us that it was really nice and that we put in a lot of effort. However, she also said that it was a little too overly decorated, but she still selected our team and another 2 teams to go for the first round of the judging. That following Friday, we were going to NUS for the second round of judging - this time by the organizers of the IvP programme.

None of my friends were able to make it for the second round of the judging so I was to go alone. Thankfully, two other close friends of mine from two other teams were also going for the second round of the judging.

When we were there, the judges came to our table and asked us about our project and we just had to explain what it was all about. It was really quite easy.

Our teacher received the results of the second round of the judging really soon and our team passed through! That meant that our inventions were going to be put up in the Science fair! Sadly, one of the groups did not pass the second round of the test.

The day of the fair came really quickly. Before we went for the actual fair, we had a workshop with 3M. We were supposed to make an eco-friendly, rubber band powered car out of chopsticks, some paper and rubber bands. We made our car really quickly and it was the fastest car in the whole room (where we were in), so we got a little goodie bag from 3M! Yay! :D

We had a very tiny little area to put up our poster and display our invention, but the fair was still a very fun experience. The Science fair lasted for about 2 hours and pupils from many different schools participated in it. Lauren, Liesel and I manned the booth and talked to the students who had any inquiries about our invention. We also met a lot of our other friends from other schools so the fair was really memorable for me.

About Taylor Swift...!

Oh my gosh her eyes are like so nice... AHHHHHHH. OMG OMG OMG. She is like the best singer EVER!!! And she is like so so so so so nice and her face is like AHHHHSHS. OMG... sigh TEEHEE Her hair is like..... SO AWESOMELY CURLY. And she is sooo pretty. 

She's soosoosoosoosoosososososoosoosoososo talented and her voice is TO DIE FOR. And she won so so so so many awards already because she is the best singer who has ever lived. OMG AHHHH!!! Whenever I hear her songs I sort of become insane and START SCREAMING!!! If I don't listen to her songs at least 5 times a day, I can't sit still and I'll go hyperactive!!!! If I get to meet her I'll be like..... AHHHHH !!! I wish sooooo much that i can see her RED concert, as it is the best concert EVER! If she just says HI to me.... I'LL FAINT :) !!! 

Oh my gosh.... Her guitar is sooo sparkly and silver... IT'S THE BEST GUITAR EVER. Her cat looks so fluffy, small, cute and adorable. It looks like a soft toy... OMG!!! AHAHHAHHH!!! I already have 3 of her 4 albums. YAY, but I really, really cannot find her first album, which is like the BEST ALBUM EVER!!!!!! There's Tim McGraw in that album and Teardrops on my Guitar!!! OMGGGGG!!!! Our Song is also in that album... It's like music to your ears if you hear her voice!!! AHHHHHHHH!!! 

Maybe Taylor Swift ( the album ) isn't the best album ever. The best album is definitely Speak Now... I COULD LISTEN TO IT ALL DAY!!! Let me name all the tracks which i already memorized...

Track 1: Mine... THAT SONG IS SO NICE YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO IT

Track 2: Sparks Fly.... LYRICS ARE SOSO MEANINGFUL

Track 3: Back to December... SAD SONG BUT SOOOO CATCHY AWESOME!

Track 4: Speak Now.... MY FAVOURITE SONG IN THE WHOLE ALBUM

Etc.... I'm too lazy to type out everything

Fearless and Red are SO SUPERBLY AWESOME TOO!!!!! 

A Fun Experience

On the 14th of May, I went to the Maritime Experiential Museum & Aquarium for my class field trip after school. We were supposed to do a reflection about our experience there on the iPods that we rented the next day. I think that our field trip there was very fun and we also learnt how to work as a team. It was a good thing that my group members are all good-natured and no one quarreled at all. The people in my group were all very tall as we were all grouped according to height. My group members were Anne, Nadia and Jun Ray. 


My whole class was full of the joys of spring as we boarded the bus to the Maritime Museum. As almost the whole class had never went there before, we were all like a dog with two tails. In the bus, we chatted nineteen-to-the-dozen very loudly till the bus driver got frustrated and drove to the Maritime Museum recklessly. When we reached our destination, we immediately ran into the museum as fast as our legs could carry us as it was sweltering hot that afternoon. After our instructors taught us how to use the iPods,  we began to tour around the enormous museum. My group's instructor told us everything from shipwrecks long, long time ago to stuff that people in the past traded, sold and bought. I thought that it was a little long-winded.


Soon, it was time to go to one of my favourite places in the museum, the Typhoon Theatre! We were going to experience a typhoon. Little did I know that we were going to get wet.... We sat down on a fake, wooden boat and watched the little show on the screen. The whole thing is exactly like a 4D movie. The seats vibrated, there was thunder and lightning and it rained! After the show, my hair was soaked and I was very wet!


The instructor finished talking and we went back to school, ready to go back home, tired but delighted at what we ad learnt today.

My First School Camp Part 3

15th of March 2012 at night:
I hardly got a night's sleep. I slept at 2 a.m. and woke up at six in the morning, so that was only about four hours of sleep unlike my usual eight to nine hours. It was so uncomfortable in my sleeping bag and someone who slept next to me kept snoring. I went the toilet like about four times at night with my friends.We could actually wake up at seven, but some people who came back from the toilet woke me up just to ask who we were as they needed to find out which was their  sleeping bag.
16th of March 2012:
 In the morning, after we washed up and all, we went to eat breakfast at the canteen. Our breakfast was bee hoon noodles and a yam cake. I basically did not eat anything at all except the bee hoon (I did not eat any of the vegetables). After our breakfast, our group was assigned to clean the toilets! It was so very disgusting and gross and other groups kept making fun of us as they only needed to clean nice places like the lecture theater, the AVA room and the quadrangle. We did not clean the toilets at all as we got chased out of the toilets by the cleaners. One of the cleaners called us stupid and another one just said we were messing up the toilets. >_<
Then, we went for our leadership training lessons. It was for about three and a half hours. Most of us in the class just practically slept because the lesson was so boring and we did not sleep well last night. It was soon time for prize-giving and all the groups got a prize. Our group achieved the Snow White prize that means that we were the most hardworking group of all. 
At 12 o'clock noon, it was time for us to go back home. We said goodbye to the teachers and our new friends that we made there. We then all went home for a good, long rest. :)

My First School Camp Part 2

I spent the whole night packing for just that two days of my camp. Mummy helped me pack loads and loads of stuff into my camping bag that night. She must be anxious whether I would be able to sleep well, eat well, be safe.....  (I can't finish my list of examples or I would use up half of this page) She and Papa even drove past my school during my dinner time hoping to get a peep at me!! ;)
15th of March 2012

I went to school at eight forty-five in the morning, carrying an enormous camping bag. I dropped my bag off at a nearby classroom and went to join my friends at where we are supposed to go. We played some rather babyish games there like Splat and Murderer. My group was named Mermaid( I didn't choose the name). I had no idea why suddenly, my group was named Mermaid by our group leader who was eleven years old. We even got made fun of by some of the other groups like Yogi Bear though their group's name is much worse than ours. :(
We then proceeded to one of the classrooms and spent one and a half hours on boring leadership training and after that we finally got to eat our lunch. I don't think I should say eat. I only nibbled at some of the rice and sweet and sour pork! The rest of the food was just all unusual vegetables that I had never seen before. After lunch, we needed to tidy up the canteen and pick up little disgusting bits of food from the floor with our bare hands. I didn't want to do it nor my friends, but we were forced to do it by the teachers. Yuck! Anyway, there are even more gross things to come!
My group then came out with a group cheer. It was like this: 
Mermaid, mermaid we will decide your fate. 
We will win and you will lose, it is not for you to choose.
After that, we started our fun games! The first game that my group played was called Hula-hoop Walk. We had to hula-hoop and walk all the way to another place. It was very easy and we finished the whole game in four minutes. The second game was called Make-up Madness. There was a plate of flour and each of us had to put our face into that plate of flour. We also had to smudge a bit of green paint onto our noses! That was the worst game of all. >_<
We went for many more exciting games but the last game that my group went for was the best! There was a leaking pipe that was full of holes and most of us had to cover them. The rest of us carried styrofoam cups that were already broken on our heads so we were all very wet after the game.
After all the activities, we started our water bombing! Each group had a limited amount of water bombs that we could use to hit the other groups. It was extremely fun but soon, we had to all clean up. :(  Some of the groups( not my group ) got to bathe first and didn't need to help us to clean up our school.
After that, I went to bathe ( very cold water! ) in the toilet cubicles that people use to poop and pee! We  ate delicious fish and chips for dinner. That was the best meal of the whole camp!
At around eleven at night,we were all still all awake doing another activity that was called Water Source. The primary three and four students were supposed to find a water source and where it would end while the primary five students were to find pipes that were hidden all over the school and connect them together. The primary six students needed to write a poem about how precious water is.
Finally, at twelve midnight, we snuggled into our sleeping bags and tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't sleep so I fell asleep at two o'clock and woke up at six in the morning.
Wait for my next blog entry and I will tell you about my next day at the camp and my horrible night!

My First School Camp Part 1

On the 14th to 16th of March, I went for my school's leadership training camp. It was three days and one night. We went to East Coast Park on the 14th of March and on the 15th and 16th, we stayed overnight in school. The camp was very fun, exciting and interesting, though at some parts, it was tiring. We learnt to work together as a team, speak confidently in public and develop leadership skills. 


14th of March 2012
We were going to build sandcastles at East Coast Park Castle Beach! :) I was immensely ecstatic when I heard that we were going to one of my favourite places - the beach! Unfortunately, I wasn't in the same team as one of my good friends, L. :( 
The weather was quite bad that day. The sky was brewing with dark, gloomy clouds threatening to rain. At twelve thirty when I reached school, it was already drizzling a little. We could still make the sandcastles but we must wear ponchos though. My group, White zone, was going to build how my school was going to look like thirty years later. We were in charge of creating our school's imaginary future boarding school and chapel. The boarding school was shaped like a rocket and the chapel was shaped like a moon. Our sandcastles also needed to be taller than 1 and a half metres, compared to my  usual tiny, 30 cm sandcastles. In fact, the sandcastles turned out better than I expected. :o
We started building our sandcastles at two o'clock sharp after being introduced to many different kinds of tools used to build them. We dug here and there, smoothened out the sand and built our sandcastles higher and higher. After three hours of hard work, we finally finished making our sandcastles. The sandcastles were brilliant, superb and wonderful. I think my group's rocket boarding school was over 2 metres tall! 
At five thirty, we went back to our school, tired but elated. That was the best sandcastle in my entire life that I ever made!

My School Carnival

 I went to my school carnival on the 29th of October. Mummy was going to sell mouth-watering fishballs and delicious fried bee hoon in the canteen. The carnival was called "A Rainbow of Colours". After reporting at my class at 8.45am, we started the fantasic carnival! Rachael, my best friend, went with me as usual. We were both apparently in seventh heaven. Alethea, another one of my best friends, was having her violin exam so she could not come with us for a few hours :(

My sister taking a train ride with my parents.

Rachael and I rattled on like a machine gun while our arms gestured wildly. We then went to ride on the slow ferris wheel and a very boring spinning ride that even my sister dared to take. At 11 o'clock, we went to the canteen to help Mummy sell fishballs around our gigantic school. I held the small tray of yummy fishballs, while Rachael was in charge of collecting the tokens from people who bought our big fishballs. After one hour of hard work selling fishballs, we went to meet Alethea at the huge canteen. After eating lunch, Alethea, Rachael and I then went to ride some more rides.
Timid Rachael did not even dare to ride a single ride that we took! Alethea and I took 3 rides - a "sky-spinner", some sort of car ride and a teacup ride. We also played little games to earn tokens. If we had enough tokens, we could also redeem prizes like stuffed toys.

The bears we won!!

I won a humongous brown bear. Very soon, I needed to go home. This school carnival was one of my happiest days in the year.